The Viking Way (book)

The Viking Way: Religion and War in Late Iron Age Scandinavia is an archaeological study of old Norse religion in Late Iron Age-Scandinavia. It was written by the English archaeologist Neil Price, then a professor at the University of Aberdeen, and first published by the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University in 2002. A revised second edition was published in 2017 by Oxbow Books.

Price had worked on the subject of Norse paganism for his doctoral thesis, undertaken between 1988 and 2002, first at the University of York, England and then at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Although primarily archaeological, Price took an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, drawing evidence from other disciplines such as history and anthropology.

Divided into seven chapters, Price opened the book with a discussion of his theoretical approach, before providing an overview of what is known of pre-Christian Norse religion and magic from both literary and archaeological studies. He then moved into providing a deeper study of Seiðr, or Norse magical practices, identifying shamanic elements within it.

The book was widely acclaimed by archaeologists working in European archaeology, and praised as a model for both future interdisciplinary research and for understanding past religious beliefs from an archaeological perspective.