Children of Tax and Tea is a forthcoming full-color, heavily illustrated, hardback humorous history book about the vikings written in the charmingly profane tone of a foul-mouthed Bostonian. Basically, imagine an inebriated Mark Wahlberg movie character unloading all sorts of informative and factual knowledge about the Viking Age on a captive audience.
The book achieved “Project We Love” status and successfully funded on Kickstarter in September 2025. The special Kickstarter edition of Children of Tax and Tea includes exclusive chapters and illustrations that will never appear anywhere else, be printed on premium paper, and be signed by both author and artist. Late pledges are being accepted through the end of the year for anyone who is interested.
Children of Tax and Tea stems from “Norse History for Bostonians,” a column written by Rowdy Geirsson for the McSweeney’s humor website since 2010 and illustrated by Matt Smith since 2017. We’ve compiled, revised, and expanded the extensive repository of the original online column for this book. Whereas the column was specifically targeted towards proper Massholes familiar with the regional Boston dialect, Children of Tax and Tea is for everyone. The text thus presents a smooth-flowing, easy-to-read narrative while maintaining the tone of the original online column. So that means if you’ve ever wanted to learn more about Harald Fairhair’s egregious taxation without representation policies or the intense Norse-Irish rivalry with old York, you will finally be able to do so without needing to decipher the incomprehensible accent of a drunken Bostonian.
Children of Tax and Tea consists of approximately 50 chapters with deeply honest and insightful titles about Norse history such as “False Advertising in the Era of Viking Age Exploration,” “Shit Talk at the Law Rock,” and “How to Get Paid to Stop Attacking Paris.” It also includes a foreword by the knowledgeable law-speakers of the Saga Thing podcast, Andy Pfrenger and John Sexton. More information including excerpts and artwork samples are available on the Children of Tax and Tea Kickstarter page.
The special Kickstarter edition is slated for release in February of 2026. A standard retail version (lacking the exclusive extra chapters/illustrations, printed on standard rather than premium paper, and not signed by both author and illustrator) will be released in late spring or early summer 2026.
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