The fundamental work of Wilhelm Grönbeck - a Danish historian, cultural scientist, professor at the University of Copenhagen - is more than a study of ancient Germanic culture, it is a heartfelt story about the life and beliefs of the Vikings - the ancestors of modern Europeans who inhabited the Scandinavian Peninsula, Denmark and Iceland in the early Middle Ages. Professor Grönbeck talks about the material and spiritual components of the life of the clan - family heirlooms, the exchange of gifts, the conclusion of marriage and trade deals, the celebration of sacrifice and the transformation of ritual at the turn of the era, when Christianity replaced the beliefs of their ancestors. Analyzing the "Elder" and Snorra's "Eddas", the Icelandic ancestral sagas, as well as the poem "Beowulf", the author thoroughly and comprehensively recreates the picture of the world of a man of the North, whose life was inseparable from the life of the clan, where the greatest evil was the loss of honor, and exile was a terrible thing more than death. The publication includes the essays “An Essay on Ritual Drama” and “Völuspa,” an original interpretation of the main plot of Scandinavian mythology.