Michael Hirst

I got interested in the Vikings, and then you realize that there isn't much to be read about them because they did not write their history. It was written by hostile witnesses, by Christian monks and so on. From what I could see and understand, I was really excited about it. I loved their culture and loved their gods.

The Vikings certainly didn't write anything about themselves; it was not a literate, but rather a pagan, culture. So what we get was written later by Christian monks. But there were occasional reportings and recordings of people who had traded usually with the Vikings.

I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.