My degree field 30 years ago was "a special projects major in early Scandinavian culture". Everyone else was studying their ancestry ("Roots" had just come out), so I wanted to study mine. Having followed many of Tolkien's sources back to the Eddas and family sagas (I love doing research), it was natural to want to learn more. :) Finding professors here in America who could teach me about law and trade and such wasn't that hard, either, so the view I have of the Vikings is indeed well rounded and richly textured. Right now I have the monographs from the finds in the Birka burial grounds (textiles and metal work) but they are in German, and from the earlier digs, not the recent one. However, they do provide images of what they thought was important enough to be buried with. The water level has changed a lot (what actually killed Birka as a trade city was apparently losing the harbors), but I'd still like to visit someday and visualize all those traders from so many lands docking there. I believe that there is also a museum nearby? Did you visit Rosaring when you lived there? That should be near, too? Carolly