AD 865. The fierce Vikings stormed onto Saxon soil hungry for spoils, conquest, and vengeance for the death of Ragnar Lothbrok. Hundr, a Northman with a dog's name...a crew of battle hardened warriors...and Ivar the Boneless. Amidst the invasion of Saxon England by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, Hundr joins a crew of Viking warriors under the command of Einar the Brawler. Hundr fights to forge a warriors reputation under the glare of Ivar and his equally fearsome brothers, but to do that he must battle the Saxons and treachery from within the Viking army itself...

Tamworth, Mercia AD 825. The once-mighty kingdom of Mercia is in perilous danger. Their king, Beornwulf, lies dead, and years of bitter in-fighting between the nobles and cross-border wars have left Mercia exposed to her enemies. King Ecgberht of Wessex senses now is the time for his warriors to strike and exact his long-awaited bloody revenge on Mercia. King Wiglaf has claimed his right to rule Mercia, but can he unite a disparate kingdom against the might of Wessex who are braying for blood and land?

They sent 300 warriors to kill one man. It wasn’t enough. Mercia lies broken but not beaten, her alliance with Wessex in tatters. Coelwulf, a fierce and bloody warrior, hears whispers that Mercia has been betrayed from his home in the west. He fears no man, especially not the Vikings sent to hunt him down.

Francia AD 853. After a failed Viking raid on the Frankish coast over 20 years ago, Jarl Sven the Boar is forced to leave his only son, Torkel, as a hostage and warned never to raid Francia again or his son will die. In Hügelburg, a small town in East Francia, Torkel and his 9-year-old son Charles are ambushed at home. Before dying, Torkel thrusts a package into young Charles’s hands and tells him to flee Francia for Denmark in search of his grandfather Sven the Boar’s protection.

989 AD. Alfred the Great’s dream of a united England has been forged by his daughter Aethelfaed and grandson, King Aethelstan. The Vikings have been expelled from York following the death of Erik Bloodaxe, and for two generations there has been peace between Saxon and Dane. A new Viking warlord Olaf Tryggvason seeks revenge for Bloodaxe's death and the slaughter that followed, and has set his sights on a fresh assault on England’s shores. With Skarde Wartooth they set sail for Saxon lands, hungry for glory, conquest and vengeance.

AD 916. In the Orkney Isles, a young woman flees her home to save the life of her unborn child. Eighteen years later, a witch foretells that evil from her past is reaching out again to threaten her son. Outlawed from his home in Iceland, Einar Unnsson is thrown on the mercy of his Uncle, the infamous Jarl Thorfinn 'Skull Cleaver' of Orkney. He joins forces with a Norse-Irish princess and a company of wolfskin-clad warriors to become a player in a deadly game for control of the Irish sea.

When Princess Matilda is eighteen years old, tragedy strikes the royal family, and she becomes the only child of the king of England - the de facto heir to the throne. As her dying father persuades the barons to pledge allegiance to her, Matilda returns to England - but the lords and clergy do not like an independent woman. And Matilda is nothing if not headstrong. When the old king dies, the country is plunged into instant chaos. So begins a fierce battle between cousins that will go down in history as a time called 'The Anarchy'.

Lindisfarne, AD 793. There had been portents - famine, whirlwinds, lightning from clear skies, serpents seen flying through the air. But when the raiders came, no one was prepared. They came from the North, their dragon-prowed longships gliding out of the dawn mist as they descended on the kingdom's most sacred site. It is 8th June AD 793, and with the pillage of the monastery on Lindisfarne, the Viking Age has begun. While his fellow monks flee before the Norse onslaught, one young novice stands his ground.

771AD, Northern Europe. Bjarki Bloodhand and Tor Hildarsdottir are journeying south into Saxony. Their destination is the Irminsul, the One Tree that links the Nine Worlds of the Middle-Realm. In this most holy place, they hope to learn how to summon their animal spirits so they can enter the ranks of the legendary berserkir: the elite frenzied fighters of the North.

Beobrand is compelled by his brother's almost-certain murder to embark on a quest for revenge in the war-ravaged kingdoms of Northumbria. The land is rife with danger, as warlords vie for supremacy and dominion. In the battles for control of the region, new oaths are made and broken, and loyalties are tested to the limits. With no patronage and no experience, Beobrand must form his own allegiances and learn to fight with sword and shield. Relentless in pursuit of his enemies, he faces challenges which transform him from a boy to a man.

For centuries, the Vikings have swept out of the Norse countries and fallen on whatever lands they could reach aboard their longships, and few could resist the power of their violent onslaught. They came at first to plunder and then to settle, an encroachment fiercely resisted wherever they went. Such was the case in the southern lands of Ireland. En route to the Viking longphort there, known as Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless stumble across an Irish ship.

This story is set at the end of the 10th century and charts the journey of a young warrior, whose father, Bersi, is killed during a raid on Wessex. Sven Bersisson has to grow up quickly and to follow in his father’s footsteps. Sweyn Skull Taker, his uncle, becomes his foster father and they raid Wessex and Frankia, where the young warrior becomes a man. King Sweyn Forkbeard, the king of Denmark, uses their clan to help in his dream of defeating the Norwegians and then taking the throne of England.

13th Century, Wales and England. To young Gruffyd, life has been unkind. Eking out a meagre living with his father, he has learned very quickly how to look after himself in the hostile borderlands. His father, an archer, has taught him well, and at 17 Gruffyd is a keen and able bowman. Young, loyal and skilled, it’s not long before Gruffyd finds himself following in his father’s footsteps, working as an archer in the bordering castle. But tragedy strikes when his lord commits a devastating deed, and Gruffyd is forced to make a life altering decision.

The Romans invaded Britannia in AD 43 confident of victory. They swept through a divided and ill-equipped enemy, scattered across tough terrain. But one man was not prepared to surrender. Caratacus - quick-witted youngest son of a a tribal king - had been trained from birth to be a warrior of power and grit. Sent to be schooled by the Druids in his boyhood, his training meant that an already strong and cunning prince returned to his father's kingdom as a war machine.

The saga begins in tribal, pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and mighty High Kings at Tara, with the tale of two lovers whose travails cleverly echo the ancient Celtic legend of Cuchulainn. From that stirring beginning, Rutherfurd takes the listener on a powerfully imagined journey through the centuries. Through the interlocking stories of a memorable cast of characters we see Ireland through the lens of its greatest city.