It took only three days for Dayanna Knight’s idea of creating a Viking Coloring Book to reach its funding goal of $3000 on Kickstarter.

Over 60 backers have so far contributed $3,325 to the project, which aims to create a historically accurate images representations of artifacts, plants, places and scenes of early medieval everyday life in Scandinavia. The money being raised will help in the development of the book, with hopes that it will be published next year.


Knight, who has PhD in Archaeology from the University of Nottingham, told Medievalists.net, “I tried looking for a reasonable coloring book that showed more than just a shield wall in battle or well known interlace patterns. Although I’m an independent scholar I hold postgraduate degrees in medieval archaeology focusing specifically on the Norse settlement of the North Atlantic. Since I have had formal illustration training making one of my own coloring book seemed the next obvious step.”

Those offering contributions will receive items ranging from bookmarks and postcards to copies of the coloring book as well as Dayana Knight’s upcoming publication Viking Nations. For those who contribute $500 to the project, they will also receive an original piece of art at least 11″x17″ in the same style as the Viking Coloring Book.

The Kickstarter page was launched earlier this month, and only took three days to reach it goal. “I certainly wasn’t expecting to have reached goal in three days but I take that as a good sign that everyone is interested in medieval material,” says Knight. “Any funds above what I originally set the goal for I’m putting towards more research and equipment to do more medieval research so the illustrations are of the highest quality I can produce. I live quite a ways from a decent medieval library at the moment so sorting that is always a high priority. I also could use a new digital camera as mine still has sand in it from when I dropped it on my last research trip to Greenland.”


Beyond the monetary support, Knight has also received plenty of positive reactions to her project. “I’ve even only gotten a few comments that people will be needing to stock up on red crayons,” she explains. “That one makes me chuckle as I know there will be more longhouses, byres and plants than will need a stocking up on red.”

There is still over three weeks to contribute to the project. You can visit it at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1382432732/the-viking-coloring-book

You can also visit Dayana Knight’s website Viking Specialist at Large, where she writes about her research and her new book, Viking Nations, which will be published this spring.

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