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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5463051" data-attributes="member: 42582">A recent Penguin paperback: Robert Ferguson, The Hammer and the Cross: A new history of the Vikings (Penguin, 2010). Chapters 1 and 2 are particularly useful: they give an account of the culture of the Vikings (based on a combination of archaeological and textual evidence) as a background to the history that makes up the bulk of the book. (The book includes a good account of the role of slavery, and of human sacrifice, which is sometimes glossed over in RPG accounts.)From page 39, in reference to the lack of consistency in the textual material concerning religious practices:Ultimately the lack of consistency only confirms the futility of expecting it. . . the Heathen religion was probably never understood systematically even by those who practised it.So any religious consistency that you impose will, of necessity, be at odds with some other way of trying to make sense of the historical record.As to RPG stuff, there is also the <a href="http://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/43670/vikings" target="_blank">Vikings supplement</a> for Rolemaster and HERO which is reasonably thorough.</blockquote>