Valhalla Rising – left –  (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009, DK) shows the experimental, poetic and mythological form of Scandinavian  Viking films, but also an extremely violent film. Norsemen (2016, Norvegian tv-series by Jon Helgakar and Jonas Torgerson) on the other hand mostly deals with everyday life in a comic perspective , merging a modern look and mind set with historic characters. The two productions show the diversity of Scandinavian historic drama,

Vikings are both a historical fact and a powerful modern myth in Scandinavian culture and media – and indeed internationally. Vikings are widely represented in film and tv-series. They fascinate modern viewers, and narratives about Vikings and the Viking age bring us to a premodern world where war and everyday life, was very different to our own times and can yet give us a glimpse of how Scandinavia was born. They were settled in small communities at home, and at the same time they connected Scandinavia with a much wider world. Even though Vikings were brutal warriors they also changed life and society in Scandinavia. They left a legacy which created narratives both in ancient times and became popular across media in modern times. Thanks to the work of archaeologists and historians we know a lot about Vikings at home and their amazing travels to large parts of Europe, Russia, Byzants and even further.

The Vikings were skilled craftsmen, shipbuilders, they understood trade, they built towns and small or larger communities, and they were also warriors which took lives, treasures and land, not least in England. In the eyes of modern historians, the violence of the Vikings is of course very prolific and the modern narratives of Vikings certainly also point to this side of the Vikings and the Viking age. A historian like Stein Ringen describes the life of Vikings as dramatic, as an endless series of fighting, warring, thieving and marauding, steeling and betrayals to gain land and gold (Ringen 2023: 63). At the same time he points out that they were lawmakers, they created social systems to settle disputes, they were skilled craftsmen, and they had a religion and a developed culture, and we know they built rather huge wooden halls which was part of their collective social and cultural traditions (Ringen 2023: 59f).

A historian like Anders Winroth in his book The Age of Vikings (2016) also paints a more nuanced image even though he speaks of “the fury of the Northmen” and see Vikings as performing violence in a violent time. He tends to see the violence of the Vikings as part of a historic period where violence was widespread in all parts of society. In describing the life of Vikings he also goes into both the background for their travels, the trade they were part of, the way their life and home was organized, the social and political structure and the religion and culture they created.

In the opening chapter of his book Winroth illustrates his points by imagining the homecoming of a group of warriors and the social rituals between the chieftain and his men in the giant hall – the centre of much of the social life among Vikings. This involves recitings by the local skald and the celebrating of the building of an even much larger and better ship for the next expedition. He also points to the building of large halls, the one in Lejre in Denmark being one of the biggest and the quite rich interior of such halls. Winroth’s main point is simply that the Viking were violent, but they were so much more, and maybe some of the modern, popular narratives did not catch all aspects of the Viking culture:

We continue to be fascinated by the Viking and stories about their exploits. Ferocious barbarians in hornet helmets with gleaming swords and sharp axes, descending on Lindisfarne, Hamburg, Paris, Seville, Nates – almost everywhere – to slaughter, raid, rape and generally wreak destruction, toppling kingdoms and laying waste to Europe; the Viking pique our imagination. We picture them killing and maiming without regard for age, gender, or status in society. We imagine them as super-masculine heroes, practitioners of frenzied violence for its own sake, devotees of strange pagan religions that required bloody sacrifices necessitating horrendous torture (…) But the Vikings also represent a more unambiguously positive image: we like to think of them a youthful, courageous, and excellent adventurers devoted to travel and exploration (Winroth 2016: 8).

The Viking Age

In 1066 a Viking army led by the Norwegian King Harald Sigurdsson lost a crucial battle at Stamford Bridge near York against an English army led by Harald Godwineson. Although the Viking age did not stop immediately with this battle, it is often seen as the beginning of the end. This viewpoint is not just supported by Ringen (Ringen 2023: 29) but also by one of the most widely cited experts Else Roesdahl (Roesdahl 2016: 308).  From Roesdahl’s perspective this battle not just ended the existing relationship between Denmark/Norway and England, it also paved the way for a new battle between upcoming Scandinavian nations and the new kingdoms being formed. So in the end, this violent period in many ways helped create a new understanding of national identity:

The enormous energy which characterized the Viking Age and which had sent waves of people across many parts of Europe had now dwindled, but the deeds of the Viking Age has inspired Scandinavian literature, history and politics, and enhanced national pride and identity (Roesdahl 2023: 309)

What the Vikings achieved between 750 – 1066 is quite amazing on many levels. One factor is how few Scandinavians there actually were in that period. Stein Ringen’s estimate, based on demographic research (Ringen 2023: 42-43), is that the Norwegian population can be set to 185.000 at the end of the Viking age, which would equal 25.000 to 30.000 households. There are no such demographic estimates for Denmark and Sweden, but based on the fact that both these countries were richer and more developed, Ringen sets Sweden at 200.000 and Denmark 400.000. So the total Scandinavian population in this period most have been no more than 800.000 to 900.000. Though the figures are hard to verify they set their global and local deeds and accomplishments in warfare, sailing, trade, exploration, culture and society building in perspective.

That the Vikings managed to form global connections to the extent they did is amazing in itself. It also had a lasting influence on the development of Scandinavia in the world, and it brought the three countries into the general, European development. There was a cultural dimension in letters, arts and religion, which the Christian revolution could at least partly build on, and trade and commerce lifted the economy just as technical and social skills were refined and developed. Despite the violence and warfare, deeper structural changes were underway, and as Winroth points out (Winroth 2016: 12), although the Vikings in the beginning followed a social and cultural paths different from the European mainstream, the Viking age eventually led Scandinavia back to the European main road.

The society of the Vikings was built on small social enclaves led by chieftains that tended to fight each other, even though they also built broader social structures. We know of many kings in the Viking age, but they were not always in control of the territories they claimed. The building of larger trading places and cities like for instance Ribe (Denmark), Hedeby (Germany, but historically Denmark), Kaupang (Southern Norway) and Birka (Sweden) – and possibly also the experience of conquering and ruling areas in for instance England – started a move towards more developed and centralized forms of societies and power structures. In Ringen’s words, the end of the Viking Age was the start of a structural modernization led by the rise of kingdoms and the Catholic church:

The men who ravaged Europe brought north seeds of modernisation. They found a new and superior faith and took it home, out of which grew Church organisations. The most successful fighters became kings and started to acquire a new understanding of politics, out of which would emerge early state structures. It took time, but the order they passed on to their successors would be more robust than the one they themselves had inherited. Where there had been a Scandinavia of warriors, there would be a Scandinavia of church and kingship (Ringen 2023: 75)

Also Winroth sees the changes in the later part of the Viking Age and the following periods towards kingdoms and more united nations as a directs result of the social development in the Viking age. The kings and secular and religious rulers were building on and at the same time overcoming the very fragmented power structures of the Viking age with its dominance of fighting chieftains. The centralization of regions and countries under kingdoms was of course also furthered by Christianity and the very centralized structure of the Catholic church. The Viking age was to a large degree based on the very personal power rule of chieftains. It was built on a loyalty and gift culture between the chieftains and their men, a loyalty that constantly had to be renewed and proven in battle and on travels. In the following decades the power structure was much more formalized, a system based on law and defined social hierarchy. In the words of Winroth, the instability of nations and the fragility of power continued in the Scandinavia of nations and kingdoms, but the structure had changed:

The processes that brought about the three medieval kingdoms of Scandinavia were long, complex, and violent. Many of the details are lost to history, but the main outline of events is clear. The formless but dynamic society of the Viking Age, when many chieftains competed violently with one another, was followed by the early kingdoms, where power continued to be violently contested and unstable. When such kingdoms matured, as they did in Denmark in the twelfth century and in Norway and Sweden in the thirteenth, kings enjoyed largely stable rules, and the system of taxes, fees, and hierarchy was not seriously questioned. Thus Scandinavia entered the mainstream of European history (Winroth 2016: 156).

Everyday life in the Viking age

Although large empirical data about life in the Viking age are few, archaeological findings do tell us quite a lot about life, death and the relation between the upper and lower classes. Burial places tell us about how the rich were often buried with symbols showing their social rank, while graves of the poor show no such signs. In Danish graves of men of high rank from this period we often find for instance horses, riding equipment, dogs, weapons and drinking cups richly decorated, while women were dressed in fine clothes and jewels. In what is assumed to be graves of kings we find even more spectacular signs of their power. In for instance the village Ladby in Denmark, skeletons of 11 horses were found and a whole Viking ship was used as a coffin (Sawyer 1988: 169). What archaeological findings reveal is a very hierarchical society with a very dominant upper class, some people living from and near this class and a larger group of farmers and workers who might be free in some ways but who at the same time had to work hard just to get food on the table.

But one thing all people in the Viking Age had in common was that death came early, for many even a brutal and sudden death. Few reached beyond 40 and 50, and the mortality rate for grown-ups and children was high, just as sickness, malnutrition and war at home or abroad took many lives (Winroth 2016: 157ff). We know little of social classes and gender differences although there is evidence that the upper classes were healthier and that women lived longer than men. We do have evidence that even rather rich people suffered from malnutrition and sickness, although it is fair to assumes that those belonging to the lower classes were hit harder by the circumstances of their life. Although life in the Viking Age was hard for all classes and life often not very long, it was clearly a class society with large differences:

It is clear that great social and economic differences existed in Viking society. The dead might be buried in splendidly furnished graves in large mounds, or at the other end carelessly discarded. We read about kings and chieftains, about free, self-confident farmers, about slaves, and various stations in between. We know least about the lower groups and the mobility and interrelationships of the groups. There were many poor people that were not slaves and we know of many terms between the ordinary free farmer and the supreme warrior upper class (…) However, there were certainly local differences with regard to the structure of society, and the structure also developed during the Viking Age (Roesdahl 2016: 55)

There has been some debate on the women’s place and role in the Viking Age. Roesdahl for instance is inclined to see the place of women at home as pretty strong, given that the men were often away (Roesdahl 2016: 62). Ringen on the other hand notes that the Sagas (written much later) tend to give women a strong role and presence (Ringen 2023: 51). But the sagas may have changed the reality, and Ringen is also inclined to see the role of women as rather traditional and confined to home. In fact, we have little empirical evidence of women from this period, and the few concrete women we know about are queens or high ranked persons. As we shall see, women warriors or strong women at home and abroad occur in both fiction and historical documentaries, so the theme is present in contemporary narratives. Roesdahl’s argument cited above of women having a strong position because men were away on Viking raids a lot of the time is criticized by other historians. Winroth argues that in premodern agricultural societies the work of both men and women (and children) was necessary:

Farm work was and is unpleasant, laborious and backbreakingly hard (…) Not only was agricultural work hard, the farmer was always threatened by natural disasters as well as wilful destruction by hostile bands of warriors. If the harvest failed (…) poor people might simply starve to death or die from any of the many diseases that often accompany famines (Winroth 2016: 178)

At the same time he points to the medieval law book Gragas, where it is clearly spelled out that women are responsible for everything in the home, while men were in charge of everything outside (Winroth 2016: 165). It is therefore pretty safe to assume that also the Viking Age had a very traditional system of gender roles, and that there is certainly no reason to romanticize neither the Viking warrior or the basically agricultural society they lived in. As Jóhanna Fridriksdóttir points out in her book Valkyrie: The Women of the Viking World (2020), in which she analyses the world of the Sagas in order to evaluate the role of women in the Viking Age, women do appear as powerful, mythical figures, as Valkyries deciding over life and death. However, she also says that “the world of the sagas was one in which men were in the company of other warriors, and women seldom appear except to admire them” (Ringen 2023: 55).

Especially men did see more glorious parts of the world and they brought home rare treasures, just as they learned from what they saw abroad. But the everyday life was not glorious, and life was hard and an early death almost certain. Gender roles were traditional, even though some woman no doubt had power, not just in the life at home on the farm and in the town, but also in other matters. So despite Valkyries and some high-ranking powerful women, Fridriksdóttir tend to see the power of women as using their influence and skills outside the traditional areas of power and politics:

Viking women were bold and resourceful, determined to use their assets and skills to improve their material conditions, social status and political influence. They involved themselves in politics, sometimes through their husbands or male relatives, but others claim space to make their own independent life and decisions. A few women became proxy or co-rulers, and perhaps even sole rulers, empowered by their authority or charisma (Fridriksdóttir 2020: 13).

Ribe: life in a Danish Viking village

It speaks to the importance of the Viking Age in our Scandinavian heritage that many museums and sites today can be found in all three countries – and that such places can also be found in other parts of Europe. There are several Viking museums in England and in Germany, and in many of the places in historic Scandinavia, where we find important towns and trading places. This is the case with Kaupang  in southern Norway (https://vikingtown.no/), with Birka in Sweden (https://birkavikingastaden.se) and with Hedeby/Haithabu which during the Viking Age was located in southern Denmark but now lies in Northern Germany (https://haithabu.de). While drawing on historical data on these places and museums, my focus in the following will be on the Danish town Ribe, the heritage of Vikings represented in Ribe Viking Center (https://www.ribevikingecenter.dk//en/), and the broader history of Ribe during the Viking Age. I will also include some references to other Danish museums, such as the very massive covering of Viking history in two of the Danish national museums: The National Museum in Copenhagen and the regional museum, Moesgaard in Aarhus.

Archaeological, historical and cultural museums are of course extremely important for the mediation of national heritage, and the analysis of aspects of how this is done with Ribe in focus and the national main museums will form a basis for the following analysis of mediation in documentary and fictional narratives. The story of Ribe in itself will also lead us towards a deeper understanding of how towns developed in the Viking age, and about everyday life and social and cultural structures. Ribe is considered the oldest town i Denmark, founded around 700, and in 948 the town is mentioned as one of the two earliest episcopal towns in Denmark, together with Hedeby. We also know from archaeological findings that Ribe between 700 and well into year 800 became a very busy trading place connecting Scandinavia and the Frisian, Frankish and English parts of early Europe. Between 705-865 the town developed from a small place with scattered buildings to a rather large and differentiated town with a defence system (Feveile 2013: 10-11). However, we also know that after 865 the town, together with other similar towns in the region, was hit by stagnation and that the trading almost vanishes, only to return and rise again after 945. We do not know the cause, but changes in climate could be a factor together with competition from other cities and regions.

Ribes importance lies in its central position in the Wadden sea area connecting important trade routes. As Feveile states, Ribe became the northernmost point in an international network stretching south, west and east by the see and rivers (Feveile 2013: 4-5). The archaeological findings from this area show products from many places in the world: glass, gold and silver, weapons, coins etc. Remains have been found from many craftsmen shops and houses in the area, and the river linking the place to the Wadden sea could hold quite many ships. There are also clear indications that a chieftain controlled the area around 700, which furthermore indicates the importance of the town, something also the burial place can testify. The busiest time was during late spring, summer an early autumn where the town had open air trading. Rest of the year fewer people worked there. Feveile gives a lively description of how the town must have been:

The whole purpose of the Ribe phenomenon was trade. Foreign merchants and local farmers would have haggled using extravagant gestures and sign language. Heathens and Christians did business together. Highly specialised craftsmen stood side-by-side with street performers, swindlers, musicians, rakes and charlatans. There was probably no shortage of mead alongside Ribe Å. Whores and pickpockets? It would be a strange market that could not also sport these professions. Ribe was a centre for a multitude of relations (Feveile 2013: 17).

This was market life, but behind that the people permanently living in Ribe of course had another life year-round. Here farmers dominated besides craftsmen necessary for upholding daily life in the Viking Age. Here we find the kind of houses typical for the Viking period, the longhouses were families and cattle lived and also smaller and special houses. At this time the Ribe people were heathens and worshipped the Nordic gods of the Viking Age, but that started to change from around 850 and on. A town like Ribe would need a ruler or chieftain to control the trade, the social life and to protect the town against potential enemies. But we do not know the ruler and there is no evidence of attacks on the town, but the town was fortified around 845. Also other fortresses were built, because times became more violent in and around Denmark. But around the same time Ribe lost its central position as an international trading network until it regained a new position as episcopal centre in 948.

Ribe was never the place for violent and battling Vikings, it was an important trading place. The museum of Ribe, Ribe Viking Center, therefore clearly stresses this, the exhibition (both at the museum and through an online virtual tour) mediates a broad picture of everyday life, where the building of a fortress is just one aspect. The different parts of the exhibitions are: the viking fortress 980, Ribe harbour 750, Viking boats, the mythological playground, the heathen sacrificial place, the Ansgar church 860 (early Christianity), the marketplace 710-750, the longhouse, the town 825, the Thing-hall 710-825, the bread maker, and the glass beadmaker. So you can literally walk around in the Viking Age in Ribe and experience almost all aspects of life from war and politics to everyday life. The exhibitions also show films about Vikings, and offer Viking recipes. On top of that, the museum offers a number of thematic exhibitions, for instance in 2024 on Viking tales and stories and the Viking warrior.

The Viking fascination: historical documentaries

Ribe Viking Centre is just one of many in Denmark, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe. Besides these more permanent, specialised displays of our fascination with the Viking heritage, also the national museums around the world often deal with the same period. In 2024 the National Museum in Copenhagen thus opened the exhibition The Viking Sorceress focusing on the real and women magicians in the Viking Age. The regional museum, Moesgaard Museum, in Jutland also has a strong focus on the Viking age, both in their permanent and thematic exhibitions. The museum-experience underlines the fascination with Vikings, and so does the many Scandinavian documentaries, not to mention fictional international and Scandinavian tv-series and films. It shows what Johanna Katrin Fridriksdottir concludes in the epilogue of her book on women in the Viking Age, based on ana analysis of the Sagas:

Today, a millennium after the Vikings lowered their weapons, sailed their magnificent ships to harbour and retired from their adventures for good, their stories provide rich material for countless artists and storytellers, who offer us new perspectives on ancient material through the medium of film, television, photography, visual art, music, theatre, radio, re-enactment or living history projects (Fridriksdottir 2020: 199).

Fridriksdottir’s book about the women in the Viking Age is based on both historical and archaeological research, but the main source and analytical focus is on the sagas, written around 200 years after the Viking Age. She admits herself that those stories probably are a mixture of phantasy and reality, which is – as already indicated (s. xx) – also the perspective used in the Swedish documentary program, Sanning i sagorna/Truth in the sagas (2023). This program goes far to prove – with the help of experts – if there is any truth in the sagas, and they actually manage to find ways from these ancient narratives to a truth that can be confirmed. Other parts of the investigation end with more certainty, for instance the question of female warriors. In this way documentary programs actually create a way between fiction and fact, and also at the say time accept the role of fiction in recreating our heritage.

Another Swedish program, Vikingakungarnes krigere (2023) is part of a series that takes us directly into present time archaeological research and new findings. In the first program we are near Uppsala uncovering two Viking ships, which leads to a deeper understanding of Viking Warriors, how they lived, travelled and died. Based on the findings they can also conclude, that the warriors buried here belonged to a special group close to the king. The burial ritual is reconstructed as it is the case with most historical documentaries, mixing a scientific and narrative approach. We also follow the examination of the remains of the bodies, and surprisingly some of them seem to be between 60-70 years old. This raises the question whether they were actually warriors, and the conclusion seems to be that they were warriors following on trade travels, perhaps in faraway places. Not all Vikings were brutal warriors, although some of the men have serious and fatal wounds.

Another program deals with the uncovering of a very large bronze grave. Programs like this takes us into both historical research and combined with reconstructions also a far-away historical reality. The number of historical documentaries on Scandinavian channels is quite high, and those with Viking Age themes start already in the 1960s on Swedish, Norwegian and Danish public service stations. In terms of narrative and aesthetics the early programs are more primitive, such as for instance the Norwegian program Vikingenes veger (1968) which in two programs of each 30 minutes deals with the travels of the Vikings. The first about Eigil Skallagrimsson who came from Norway to Iceland and became a poet but also a heathen main figure in the saga with his name. The second episode follows the travels of the Vikings and where they came from. Such programs are mainly fact-based programs on specific aspects of the Viking Age, and the visual and narrative construction is rather limited.

However, some programs deal with direct links between the Viking Age and the present, for instance Hektet på fortiden (2016, NRK, Connected with the past) which looks at a group of people still living in the Viking Age. These people are fascinated by what they see as Vikings living more in tune with nature and they let the spirits and forces of nature influence their everyday life. The programs take a critical look at what can be seen as an obsession with the past, a cult involving sacred rituals. They live in a Viking village and reproduce not just ritual but also houses and things from the Viking Age. We follow their work with creating food, dresses, jewellery, and things for the house and how they prepare rituals. In that sense the Viking Age comes alive, we actually see people trying to live like Vikings. We also focus on children and teenagers and how they enjoy living in this way and how at the same time they can also move in and out the modern world. No matter how one looks upon this experiment in living in the past, the program also becomes and anthropological travel back into the Viking Age relived today.

On the oldest Danish tv-channel DR, history is given a high profile, and the Viking Age is a very popular topic. For instance the historian Cecilie Nissen has specialised in a type of documentary where she goes on a hunt for unsolved mysteries. Here she combines a classical, authoritative voice and figure with an almost criminal investigation into the past using modern DNA techniques as well as more traditional archaeological procedures. In Mysteriet om Danmarks første konge (2021, 1-5, The mystery of Denmark’s first king), which means Gorm den Gamle (936-958, presumably), but where she tries to argue for an even older Danish king before Gorm. This takes us back to Ribe, the oldest Danish town and a search for traces there – and a coin with the image of a male face from around 725. A coin which for 100 years was the only official coin in Ribe. A large stone ship at Holstene south of Århus from year 500 also indicates the existence of a powerful person. But maybe not a king of a nation which is not yet formed, but a ruler of people and a region, a ruler among others. In Lejre, one of the important Danish Viking sites, on also find a very large house from around 700, now called a king’s house. The series takes us into a legendary and partly mythical historical reality, where it is extremely difficult to find a historical truth. Maybe therefore this series also use animated cartoons to illustrate the legends and stories from this period.

In another program Cecilie Nissen continues to try to solve historical mysteries, this time Gorm den Gamle’s queen Thyra, Gåden om Thyra (2023, 1-2, The Mystery of Thyra), but she moves even more into mythical and legendary history in Gåden om Odin (2023, 1-6, The mystery of Odin). Here we move into the ancient religion of the Vikings and the meeting with the new, Christian religion. Aesthetically this move into myth and religion leads to a much more dominant use of animated films, illustrating the ancient gods and the more heathen prehistory. Digging deeper into the period where Gorm the Old raised his famous rune stone claiming to have made the Danes Christian. Old iron and gold figures seem to indicate a connection between the Huns influence in Scandinavia. Maybe such a theory is very difficult to prove, but in the early 500 years the world was more chaotic just as the old heathen religion had rather brutal aspects and went much further back than the Viking Age.

In this documentary on the Odin cult and its historic birth, scientific data tell us that the Nordic mythology is grounded in the events around 500, where a severe climate change caused by volcanic eruptions created a long winter around the world. This is shown by dendrological data from Scandinavia, data that actually correlate with Snorre’s Edda in which there is talk of a “fimbul winter” from 536 and three years on. So even though the sagas are partly much later narratives and fiction, they also lead to real historic event. In the sagas there is a mythological dimension around the Nordic gods at this time, where Ragnarok (utter chaos) dominates the early Scandinavian societies, where the Fenris Wolf swallows the sun and where gods and other mythological giants are fighting each other. This is a myth but also a realistic description of what humans went through during this Ragnarok.

The historians cited in the program talk about 536-539 as the worst time in to live in, and therefore rituals and religious acts have probably increased in this period. Recently a huge gold collection was found from this period in Vindelev, near Jellinge, where Gorm den Gamle in 900 declared Denmark united under Christianity. The gold treasure in Vindelev however show how strong Odin and the Nordic mythology was from 500 and until then, and the gold was a sacrifice to Odin. A documentary like this combines a strong scientific argumentation, an almost crime like structure with very creative, animated illustrations of how life before, and in the Viking Age, was interwoven with myth and ritual acts. The documentary series also keeps moving and expanding our knowledge of historic periods and of the connection between Scandinavian history and the broader European and world history.

The international fascination with the Viking: films and tv-series

It is beyond doubt that the Viking Age has fascinated filmmakers around the world and attracted audiences in large number. In the book The Vikings on Film (2011, edited by Kevin J. Harty) we find a cross national analysis of some of the most successful Viking films and there is also a very useful global filmography of all films from the silent era to 2011. It is no surprise that the first Viking film is British (The Viking’s Bride, 1907, Lewis Fitzhammon) and the second American (The Viking’s Daugther, the Story of the Ancient Norsemen, 1908, J. Stuart Blackton), nor that the narrative combines a less than historic realism with melodrama, love and family feuds. Of the 74 films in this filmography, we find 7 from the silent era and the rest made from the 1950s and on.  Of these films, UK and US alone or in co-production have made 42, but national Nordic productions or co-productions are actually quite well represented with 16 films. But what is also quite astonishing is that 11 countries (Japan, Germany, Austria, Australia, Poland, France, Bulgaria, USSR, Turkey, Belgium, Ireland and Italy) are also represented in this period. What we can conclude is that the Viking narrative is globally very strong represented, and seem to fascinate audiences across many nations.

Some of these films draw on Sagas or historical books. The silent movie, The Viking (1928, R. William Neill) is based on a historical novel and deals with the historical figure Leif the Lucky/Leif Eriksen and the arrival of Norwegian Vikings in America. It is made in Technicolor and with a quite strong musical score. The film creates both a Norwegian trading place and village, we follow the Vikings on expeditions and raids, and the narrative also has a very melodramatic love story, centred around a strongheaded woman, Helga loved by three men. The film depicts the Vikings as not very violent, although fighting scenes occur, and they are also Christian. When they finally walk ashore near Rhode Island and peacefully meet with the native Americans, they are clearly inscribed in a modern, American myth of how America was made. As a Viking narrative the historic realism is quite limited, although the film is based on an at least partly true story.

This can be said about a number of the earlier, international Viking films even though they are based on historic literature or on sagas and original poems from the immediate post Viking period. No less than three films on the filmography are based on the ancient British poem Beowulf, a quite adventurous poem about a Scandinavian hero, and his fight with the monster Grendel. As already pointed out, this fantasy driven poem is actually based on some real historical events (see xx). However, in the many remakes and not least the American versions it is the fantasy-adventure dimension that dominates. For instance in the US-European co-production Beowulf (1999, Graham Baker), set in a post-apocalyptic future, and the very ambitious digital 3D version by Robert Zemeckis (Beowulf, 2007), taking place in an ancient Denmark under King Hrotgar (Anthony Hopkins). Here the fantasy universe is at least clearly placed in an actual, historical setting.

Viking films have of course also attracted the large Hollywood names and the search for daring adventure, war and romance. We see this in Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings (1958), based on an American novel by Dale Wasserman, starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine and Janet Leigh, and one of the first films in wide screen and technicolour to use the Norwegian setting in a more realistic way. As Kelly points out in an analysis of the film: “The Vikings succeeds in persuading diegetically because of its Technicolor scenery, and extra-diegetically, because the publicity for the film asserts its authenticity so absolutely that no reviewer questions it” (Kelly 2011: 10). Perhaps this combination of authenticity in recreating an ancient Viking world and the ability to create drama is even stronger in a British film like The Long Ships (1964, Jack Cardiff, starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier) which is based on Frans Bengtson’s international bestseller Røde orm/Read Orm (1-2, 1941-45). Although a fictional and partly mythical story in an Arab country, it also captures a reality of the Viking Age, and the meeting between north and south.

Looking at the rather long list of non-Scandinavian Viking films from the silent era and on makes it quite clear that Viking narratives keep fascinating producers, directors and audiences, and that the relation between historic realism and fantasy-adventure takes many forms. I will pursue this theme in more detail in a short analysis of two of the most recent and successful Viking narratives: the long running tv-series, Vikings (6 seasons, 95 episodes, 2013-20), created by Michael Hirst for the History Channel, and very dedicated to historical realism, and The Northman (2022, Robert Eggers), a film where violent action-adventure meets historical reality. The intention is not to give a full-length analysis of these to different versions of a Viking narrative, but to look at how the creative, narrative and the historical realities interact and engage viewers in a historical world.

Vikings is undoubtedly the longest running and internationally most viewed and popular Viking narrative. The fact that it was originally produced for and broadcast on History Channel shows a basic intention of building on a historical reality although also creating a fictional narrative based on a selective and free version of history. The series was written by Michael Hirst, an English producer and screenwriter, who has also made successful films like Elisabeth (1998), Elisabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and the tv series The Tudors (2007-2017). Interviews with Michael Hirst reveal a clear strategy in his writing, where solid knowledge of the historical period is important, also that as a writer of historical fiction: “In terms of individual storylines, I’m a writer, so I have to condense, imagine and shape” (interview in Creative Screenwriting by Brock Swinson: 2016). In the same interview, he also talks about the checking of the authenticity, but criticising historians, who often make impossible claims about fact and authenticity, he says: “So I run everything by him (series historical consultant Justin Pollard) to check if it is authentic, plausible, or real. You can’t always talk in terms of historical accuracy, since a) I’m not writing a documentary, and b) I’ve often wondered if there is such a thing. That said, there has been criticism of the historical accuracy in Vikings, but one of the top British Historians, Howard Williams (Williams 2020) has given the show a rather strong authenticity stamp, even though he points to a number of elements that cannot be defined as historical correct:

As a specialist of the Early Middle Ages, including the archaeology of the Viking period in Britain and Scandinavia, I argue that we can celebrate the immersive, diverse and rapidly changing material environment Vikings deliver. We can take it seriously as a form of public engagement – not because it ‘gets everything right’, but because it inspires so many insights and tackle many key issues which historians, archaeologists and other specialists are investigating about the Viking world (Williams 2020: xx).

What Williams also celebrates in the series is the fact that it is not just about action and adventure, not just by the elites, but also the diversity of people, conflicts and themes and the importance of everyday life. This is all unfolded already in the first episode in season one, in which most of the themes and structures of the narrative are presented, including some of the aesthetic blending of mythical and more realistic dimensions. The opening scene is a brutal fighting scene, filmed in a dark and gloomy light, and leaving only Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) and his brother Rollo (Clive Standen) left alive. Bodies are spread all over the field, and ravens are already picking the dead. This opening scene plays into the dominant picture of the Vikings as brutal warriors. Another dimension is opened, when Odin and other mythological, religious figures appear from the sky, among other things to carry the dead to Valhalla. This dimension of myth and religion, this living with and appealing to things beyond the normal, real world is present throughout the series adding a symbolic layer to the story, but also telling us how religion was an important part of everyday life. We see the same blending of the symbolic and the everyday in the trailer for the series.

It is therefore an important narrative move we see in the following scenes in episode one. From the world of men in battle and the gods, we jump to the women’s world, a world of fishing, making food, taking care of the house and the children. But as we learn soon after, women do not just belong at home, they have a quite strong place in society. Ragnar’s wife Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick) is called a Valkyrie, and she is capable of chasing two men away with sword in hand, just as she also accompanies Ragnar on a raid to England, a daring first trip towards the west. The series thus in many ways support the debated theory of women in the Viking age. In some of the early scenes love and sex relations are also taken up, and a potentially dangerous relation between Rollo and Lagertha adds to the gender theme of the series.

The scenography of the series is magnificent and the forces of nature around Viking life play an important role. A screen text at the start says “Somewhere in Norway”, and even though most of the series is shot in Ireland or, with few additional shots from Canada and Norway, the scenery and the places used give a very realistic picture of ancient Viking life in Norway and England. The same goes for the images from Ragnar’s farm, the main village, and Earl Haraldsson’s (Gabriel Byrne) house, from where everything is being controlled. The narrative develops into a portrait of those in power, ordinary people and those Viking going east or west on ships. In short, we get an insight experience into the kind of democracy and collective decision making in the Viking age and the underlying power struggles. This conflict is the dynamite the narrative feeds on in all of the first season, and an additional conflict is that between the traditional power and Ragnar as a more visionary person who wants technological development and the opening of new horizons.

Vikings is a powerful, historical drama, and although it doesn’t have and neither claim to have a documentary approach to the historic period, it clearly represents a historic drama with a very strong basis in real historical events, conflicts and the everyday life of people in the Viking age. There are no available and verified viewing figures for the series, which went from History Channel, to Amazon Prime Video and now Netflix, but worldwide we a probably talking about several hundred millions. The show’s popularity with viewers all over the world and not just Europe, can also be seen from the fact that Netflix commissioned a sequel, Vikings: Valhalla, this time not just written by Michael Hirst, but also other screenwriters, a series which takes place one hundred years later than Vikings. Another thing is, that we here see a series with such a powerful mixture of historical realism and narrative and aesthetic phantasy, that even some historians tune in, to quote professor Williams again:

Despite perpetuating and fostering some old and new myths for public consumption, Vikings reveals a drastic shift in public representation of the period. Viewers can experience a sense of a disturbing and complex Norse society, and a sense of history unfolding, in which the principal characters are repeatedly shown to be only, part of broader changes in raiding, invading, trading and settling across Europe and beyond. For me, it is the breadth and depth of this imagined early Viking-period material environment, both fabulous and factual, where Vikings shines forth and promises to engage and inspire new audiences to learn about the early medieval past (Williams 2020: xx)

Vikings is a very complex, historical Viking narrative, where many layers are unfolded: from the everyday life through very different characters, the world of men and women, the internal power struggles between different social layers, the world of battles and long travels to kill, rob and take land, and into a religious and mythological world. Even though other international narratives with elements of this complexity can be found, it is mostly the action-adventure tendency that dominates. A brutal and extreme case of this can be found in Robert Eggers film The Northman, which indeed is a dark tale of hate and revenge. The film’s use of myth and religion is second to none, the good and evil spirits appear throughout the film and seem to guide the actions of the main characters. American director Robert Eggers is known for his ability to make scary and shocking historical horror films, and this is indeed a Viking horror-action-adventure film. The film is shot in Ireland, but a large part of the films pretends to take place in Iceland. But the everyday historical reality of the film is only a frame around a tale of wrath, revenge and of the eternal battle between and in families. The brutality of the battle and killing scenes are almost unbearable, and many of the sequences are drenched in blood and darkness. It is a classical family revenge story, where Amleth (Stellan Skarsgaard) sees his father get killed by his brother Fjölnir (Claus Bang). When the final battle between them comes, they kill each other, but in a white vision, Amleth sees his family live on to glory, and in the last sequences he rides on his white horse into the white gates of Valhalla in the sky.

Scandinavian Viking narratives

The international Viking films are of course influenced by Scandinavian history and culture, and in some of these films we also find co-productions with one or several Scandinavian countries. The Northman has several Scandinavian main characters and Film Iceland has also contributed to the film. This tendency also goes the other way, some Scandinavian Viking films are made with foreign support, and some have international actors. Whereas we find a few international Viking narratives in the silent era, this is not the case in Scandinavia. Even though we find many historical films during the silent era, some even about the middle-ages, the first Scandinavian Viking films are from the 1960s and on. This is also the period where the theme starts booming internationally, but the international and Scandinavian profile in this genre differ in some ways.

One of the earliest Scandinavian Viking films is a comedy or rather a sometimes quite silly farce, Här kommer bersärkarna (Here Comes the Wild Wikings, 1965,Arne Mattson), where a group of Vikings go against the Roman empire. The film is a Swedish, Danish Yugoslavian co-production, mostly shot in Trieste, but even though the two main characters, Swedish Carl-Gustaf Lindstedt and Danish Dirch Passer, were both popular national comedy stars, the critics called it one of the most spectacular failures, and the film was no success in the cinema. The plot is quite absurd: the two brothers Glum (Lindstedt) and Garm (Passer) are robbed by king Olav the Sour, because their father cannot pay his debt to this chieftain. Olav then as punishment sends his two sons to the fictional town Cassinopel, where the brothers are taken slaves and have to fight as gladiators. When they miraculously return to Sweden, they manage to rob Olav, and we have a happy ending.

A comedy/farce like this is far from historical reality, but elements and stereotypes are used and twisted, as it is the case with all comedies whether they twist love plots, crime plots, western plots or historical plots. Such ironic plays with the Viking Age can also be found in other Scandinavian productions, for instance the Norwegian tv-series Vikinga (3 seasons, 2016, NRK, Norsemen, Netflix) written and directed by Jon Iver Helgaker og Jonas Torgersen. The series was simultaneously shot in a Norwegian and English version. However, in this series humour is so to say taken seriously, and the whole series is played out in very realistic, settings in a Viking village in Norway around 790, in the series called Norheim. The series was filmed on location in the village Avaldsnes in Rogaland, and the series uses the authentic Norwegian setting to the full. The basic structure and form of humour in the series is the use of contemporary perspectives on the historic past. One example is from episode one, when one of the boats coming back from a raid. Here a slave Rufus, actually a captured Roman actor, keeps asking the chief what the payment is for the work he is going to do as a slave. He also complains about the lack of information and communication and he is of course beaten, which leads to a discussion of forms of leadership. It adds to the irony that it is a Roman slave who tries to reform the Viking culture, and the use of this a-historical element gives us a critical view of the Viking culture. Another example from this episode is a group of old men, who are supposed to do a “ættestup” (a jump from the cliff), which means to kills themselves to spare the family the burden of feeding them. However, they start arguing and protest. This kind of irony and humour clearly makes the viewer aware of differences in way of life in the Viking Age and today. It is a kind of learning by humour, it is a piece of reflexive historical narrative. The characters live in the Viking Age, but the speak, think and act with a modern mind.

Through this Rufus slave-character and the general ironic, humorous look at an otherwise rather realistic, historic reality, the series takes us through central aspects of the Viking culture: sexuality and the relation between men and women, religion, the fighting between different Viking clans, the raids and pillaging east and west, the aspects of everyday life, the social and (not so) democratic structures. In many ways the series does show us a historical world, only the characters seem to speak with a modern mind that creates clashes between different worlds. Rufus is just one figure speaking a more modern language, also the women in the series often play powerful roles or speak their mind as if they were feminists of today Gender roles and sexuality is frequently addressed in a very direct and modern way. When Chieftain Olav returns from a raid in England, he tells with pride of Frøya’s skills both as Valkyrie on the battle field, and in the mass rapes, where she forced several monks to “ride” her. Her husband Orm, brother to Olav, is on the other hand described as gay, and all through the series gender roles and sexuality is realistically addressed – and with humour and irony. Even the basic narrative structure of the three seasons is a bit unusual. Where season one and two follow a traditional unfolding narrative, the third and last season goes back in time to before season one and two.

The series seem to have fascinated the Norwegian viewers, at least NRK news reported that almost 1 million viewers followed the first episodes, well over 40% more than normal for NRK 1 broadcast in that slot for flow-tv, and also many viewers followed on NRK.no. (https://www.nrk.no/kultur/nesten-en-million-har-sett-premieren-1.13194121). The leading Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet (Marie Kleve, 2016) is also very positive, and defines the series as “a collage of Viking sketches combined with an overarching principle: what would happen if we let the Vikings from then think and speak as we do today in between, raping, plundering and having wild mead drinking parties”. She also salutes the realism in setting and characters, which makes the satire and irony work. Internationally the series also got fine reviews: New York Times called it one of the ten best tv-shows in 2017 (Poniewozik, James; Hale, Mike; Lyons, Margaret (4 December 2017), and in 2019 one of the best shows in a decade (Hale, Mike (30 December 2019), and in The Guardian, Julia Raeside (Raeside 2017) called the series “Monty Python meets Game of Thrones in this Norwegian Comedy”, and she ended her praise of the series with the following: “If you are left uncharmed by Norsemen, you are both heartless and immune to their heartily irreverent approach to situation comedy. Lighten up and let the men in plaits beguile you into stupid, helpless giggles.”

Viking Age for the young audience

Maybe a first thought would consider it inconceivable to make Viking film for children given the violence and brutality connected with the Viking age. However, in Scandinavia the film policy around the young audience is pretty liberal, and films for the younger audience has been made in different genres in both Denmark, Sweden and Norway. A common structural and narrative element in such films and tv-series is to make children central characters in the Viking universe and to make them help solve conflicts created by grownups. This secures a strong identification from the young audience and an active involvement in the historical world. Another element is to play with the time difference, both showing a historic difference and yet tell a story which at a certain level is quite universal. Playing with time can also be done in a very adventurous way, when time travel is part of the narrative.

This is the case with the Norwegian Brødrene Dal series (four series between 1979-2005) on NRK, all directed by Eivind Aaseng. The main idea behind these four series, is to make two grown up brothers living in modern Norway travel back in time to different historic times in order to solve a problem back in time threatening to change things today. A combination of history learning by time traveling and at the same time a dash of science fiction, adventure and comedy. One of the most seen of these for series was Brødrene Dal og mysteriet om Karl XIIs gamasjer (2005, The Dal Brothers and the Mystery of Karl XII’s Legggings). The series was broadcast in 2005, the 100 year of Norways independence from Sweden.  The two Dal-brothers have to go back find the Swedish king’s leggings or else there is a possibility that Norway will again be under Swedish jurisdiction. The very spectacular narrative takes the two brothers through many historic events and battles between the two countries. The series was extremely popular and seen by 1.2 million Norwegians, presumably many children and young. Not quite as popular was the film Brødrene Dal og vikingesverdets forbannelse (2010, The Dal Brothers and the Curse of the Viking Sword), the last in the series and the first film. Here the time machine by accident takes the two brothers back to the Viking Age, on the spot where two of the most dominant Viking groups fought a battle over a magic sword. Maybe here the comic-absurd dimension killed the historical reality too much.

Animation is another common way of approaching younger audiences, and here one of the most successful Scandinavian films is the Danish Valhalla (1986) based on Peter Madsen’s cartoon by the same name (1977). Peter Madsen wrote the manuscript, partly in collaboration with Disney’s Jeffrey Varab, and also directed the film. One of Denmark’s best animators, Børge Ring, is also credited. It was one of the most expensive Danish films in the 1980s, but also of the most popular, seen by 578.830 people, and it received the Audience prize in Cannes in 1987 for best children and youth film. Animation diminishes the reality of a film and thus makes it possible to create a certain distance to even very scary elements in the film. Comic is often added to this, giving characters a special softness. Valhalla is a kind of historic fairy tale involving three worlds in the Viking Age: the human world, where the boy Tjalve and his sister Røskva live their ordinary Viking life with their family; the world of the Gods (Valhalla), and the world of the Giants in Midgaard. The plot is, that the two children get mixed up in the fight between the two other worlds. Thor and Loke visit their humble house, they do magic tricks and they tell dramatic stories, classic saga stuff, and a Viking fairy tale world. Even though there is a fundamental fight between good and evil, between maintaining the world as it is or Ragnarok, and the children take part it, the film never turns really bad. Furthermore the world of the gods is very much like the ordinary, human world – plus the magic.

Valhalla is far from a realistic, didactic historic film about the Viking Age, it is a warm comedy, a fantasy miming aspects of the Nordic mythology. Even though the gods come to the earth and the children return with the gods, the world they meet is in many ways a mundane world where the mythology and magic is taken down to the level of children. When Danish director Fenar Ahmad in 2019 remade the film (with the same title) as a live action drama, a dark thriller and allegory about the present climate crisis, still as a film for those turned 11 and older, the film failed completely.

Even though Danish director Jesper W. Nielsen with his film Den sidste viking (1997, The Last Wiking) fares much better with his film for the +15 years old, it was no success either. It is a co-production with Sweden, and it was shot on location in Estonia, and it is a powerful drama about the fight between chieftains and the King, a king who wants to confiscate all ships to stabilize his power. The film has many brutal fight scenes, and the two children (Bjarke and his bright and forceful little brother Harald) are not just caught up in the battle, but also contribute to the final solution as their fathers sails away to fight the king, and the King’s men invade their house. So the film follows a classical children-youth film concept in making children active players in the grown-up world. They are not just active they do in fact represent human values that contrast the grown-up world. He does this together with his brother, the girl Eisa with whom he experiences a first innocent form of love, and with Skralling (Per Oscarsson), who people consider to be mad. So children and a former slave and gifted boat builder are destined to go against the powerful and mighty. The film is a rather realistic war drama, and we learn a lot about the Viking Age by watching the film, even though the plot with the two brothers, the girl and the half-mad boatbuilder is a fantasy, a way of bringing teenagers into the film and catching a young audience. In the cinema it only sold 11.114 tickets, but it has had a longer success on dvd, tv-stations and streaming services).

The Swedish film Halvdan viking (2018, Gustaf Åkerblom), which is made for a slightly younger audience, has a rather similar plot. Halvdan (11 years old) has a limp and doesn’t have a high status in his village, and his father went on a raid abroad eight years ago. The village he lives in was once one village, but at some point, the chieftain in the East part of the village and the West part became enemies. Since the to villages have been separated, but a process starts when Halvdan from the East village celebration the Nordic gods, meets the girl Meia from the Christian West village. When the much richer West village plans to attack the East village, encouraged by a Monk. The two kids try to prevent this, and together they also try to bring food to the starving East village. Through the film we actually get many scenes from the everyday life in the two villages, and the film clearly indicates that the children and the women are much more reasonable than the men. In the dramatic ending of the film, where the war between the two villages breaks out, it is Halvdan and Meia and the two wives of the chieftains that stop it and declare peace.

The Scandinavian Viking drama made in Saga style

Scandinavian Wiking film dramas are, as we have already seen with Viking tv-series, not necessarily national productions. The Viking narrative has a strong position with international producers, directors and audiences, it is a narrative which builds on something unique to Scandinavia, but has fascinated a global audience, just as the Vikings historically moved around and influence history around the world. It is a prime example of something very national which at the same time is rather universal. National specificity often goes hand in hand with more universal themes, storylines and aesthetic forms, just as co-production is quite normal.

This mix of specific national elements and universal is very visible in Danish director Gabriel Axel’s very ambitious, international co-productions Den røde kappe (1967, The Red mantle) and Prince of Jutland (1994, Royal Deceit). The first has a Scandinavian cast, although it is a huge international co-production, was shot on Iceland and some locations in Denmark. It takes place in the Wiking age, and is based on the story of Hagbard and Signe in Gesta Danorum written by the Danish clerk and scholar Saxo Grammaticus. So it is fundamentally a Scandinavian story and a Danish-Swedish-Icelandic film, but as one of the most expensive films made in that period, it clearly also aimed at an international audience. The film clearly tries to translate the Saga-literature to film. There are magnificent landscapes and action scenes as realistic as a 1964-film can be and the dialogue is kept to a minimum. The theme is both historical and universal: two families have been in a long fight for power, but then Hagbard and Signe belonging to each of those families fall in love. The result is predictable: Hagbard is hanged and Signe commit suicide, it is the old, universal story of the individual and the family. Some of the best creative forces in Danish culture were involved: The author Frank Jæger is in charge of the imitation of a Saga-dialogue, the cinematography is in the hand of Henning Bendtsen (Dreyers chief cinematographer) and a daring choice of the very modern composer Per Nørgård try to develop unique score for the film. The famous historian Erik Kjersgaard is even called upon to secure the historical authenticity. But despite all this, the film failed miserably both in Scandinavia and internationally. It was however selected for the Cannes Festival, but only received a special technique price. As a Viking narrative the film lacked a convincing story and the spectacular Icelandic setting was not enough to bring the classical story home. The film had a much better success abroad than in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia, and even got decent reviews in UK and US newspapers, but still the film came out with a huge deficit (Mørch 2008: 336ff) and is today mostly remembered as an expensive, artistic failure.

Prinsen af Jylland/Royal Deceit was perhaps an even greater failure, although compared to The Red Mantle it seems to have a stronger narrative structure. It was from the beginning much more international, shot in English with a quite impressive international cast, loosely based on the Danish legend of prince Amleth, partly derived from Saxo, Grammaticus again, partly Shakespeare, and co-produced with Les Films Ariane (FR), Woodline Films (GB), Kenneth Madsen Filmproduktion (DK), Hamburg Film Fund (DE) and Allarts (NL).  Great international actors like Gabriel Byrne, Helen Mirren, Christian Bale, Kate Beckinsale and Tom Wilkinson worked hard to make the film a strong, artistic narrative. Again, it is a family feud at center, it is about revenge, and set in a both classical Danish and English Viking landscape and setting. From the start to finish the film unfolds as a story of treason between brothers, of a brother killing his brother to become king and marrying his brother’s wife, and the revenge by the son Amled of the murder on his father.

We know the story, a powerful classic tragedy, and the style and narrative pace of the film clearly tries to capture the style of the Icelandic sagas. Few words are spoken, the narrative pace is rather slow, and action scenes more stylized than in many other Viking films. The plot sticks very close to both the old tale and Shakespeare’s version, although the scenes from Lindsey in England presents us with a more developed narrative of war and fighting. However, as a Viking film it mostly deals with family feud among high-ranking persons, and has little of the everyday life aspect we find in most other films of this kind, although we do get such scenes, and some love scenes. Amled gets his full revenge against those that killed his father, and after marrying the daughter of the English king he himself becomes the new king. Despite the strong international backup for the film, it was not seen by many, despite Axel’s international fame after Babette’s Feast (1987). Time out (2012) was merciless in its short critique of the film:

A major disappointment after the delightful Babette’s Feast, Axel’s version of the Hamlet story (in English) is taken not from Shakespeare but an earlier source. Bale is the prince who goes literally barking mad (or does he?) after witnessing the murder of the king his father (Wilkinson). By the time we reach the scene in which the murderer (Byrne) ‘consoles’ the coveted queen (Mirren), the stilted script, half-hearted acting and overall poverty (financial and imaginative) raise the question: Is it some sort of parody? Indeed, the later skirmishes are so small and scrappy they look not unlike the Pythons’ glorious sketch of famous battles staged by the Batley Townswomen’s Guild.

Variety was also extremely critical (Elly, 2012) and said that the film “might have scraped by as an exotic art movie in Anglo markets (…) but pointed out that the film was in the same category as The Red Mantle: “dispassionate, event-laden content perfectly mirrors the chronicle tradition on which it draws, but beyond extra-special situations and study classes, this looks like a pic without a public”. Both the national and international critique were harsh, and there is none of the fascination of other international or Scandinavian Viking movies to be found.

In fact, the only somewhat positive comments on the film comes from Mette Hjort in an article in the academic book Cinema and Nation (Hjort & Mackenzie (2000), where she praises his attempt to downplay the national aspect in his film, an attempt of “intercultural thematization of nation”. As Hjort points out, the film´s narrative, founded in the Saxo Grammaticus 1200-year-old tale, is only fully understood, if the viewers also grasp the connection with and difference to Shakespeare’s version. The film is set in both Denmark and England and through its context thematically addresses both a clearly national aspects and a broader intercultural aspect. As Hjort says: “Unfortunately, it seems that the comparative process encouraged by The Prince of Jutland has served only, in various contexts of reception, to mark the film as a failure” (Hjort 2000: 113).

The mythological, bigger than life Viking drama

If Gabriel Axels films represent a low-key Saga-like representation of a Viking-drama, Nicolaj Winding Refn’s film Valhalla Rising (2009) is different in almost all aspects. Mads Mikkelsen plays a one-eyed, super-natural fighter, who is caught in between the world of a pagan Viking Chieftain, using him as a gladiator in price-fighting, and a Christian world of Christian Vikings in search of the Holy land, a search that also takes us to more mysterious and dark places. The narrative and the theme of the film thus moves between a Nordic Viking world, an upcoming Christian, and a completely mythologic space of dark forces, challenges and black visions. The film is shot entirely in Scotland where the Norwegian chieftain reigns, and while he represents the classical believer in Nordic Gods and mythology, it is a group of Christian Norwegian Vikings that are fighting heathens in a Scandinavians enclave of Scotland.

The Plot develops as One-Eye breaks free, kills the Chieftain quite brutally and sets out on a trip with another slave boy connected to the dead chieftain’s entourage. On their travel they encounter the Christian Vikings and agree to follow them on a search for the Holy Land, a crusade in other words. There is lots of action-scenes in the movie, also during the trip to what they believe is the Holy Land, but turns out to something completely different. In the end, where One-eye is separated from the Christian group after some fighting, he meets his destiny, somewhere on the coast, where twelve native warriors belonging to this unknown land kill him. The ending has mythological, religious overtones as One-eye seem to disappear through the water and into the clouds after his death.

The director Nicolas Winding Refn in this film takes some of his modern action movies and his visual style back to the Viking age. On the one hand the film is extremely violent: One-eyes victims are not just killed, they a massacred, they have their stomachs cut open and guts spilled out, and they have their heads smashed with the brain dripping. At the same time most action scenes take place in a dark and often densely foggy place, as a world before civilization or a world doomed, or even hell. These sequences of the film can be called brutal realism, and they appear throughout the film. It is as the chieftain that has One-eye as a slave says: “He is driven by hate, that’s how he survives and never loses”, and this chieftain get to feel that himself, when One-eye at the end of part one (Anger), is killed like all the other men and has his had planted at the top of a spear.

But this stream of narrative action scenes throughout the film are in fact not completely dominant, just as the darkness and fog that seem to cover all is broken by what one has to call a poetic-symbolic style, something that points to other dimensions in this ancient Viking world.  In the films following 5 parts: (Silent Warrior, Men of God, The Holy Land, Hell and The Sacrifice) the film in shorter and longer sequences moves into existential, mythological or even religious modes. One-eye sometimes has psychological glimpses of what is going to happen, often revealed in sharp red, blue or yellow colours. The initial dark, brutal reality of fighting, can suddenly change to extremely slow and silent scenes, for instance when One-eye has joined the Christian Viking and they drift away in darkness on a boat in search of the Holy Land. Suddenly the fog lifts and the sun rises over a green and lush country. However, what seems to be paradise and maybe even the Holy Land turns out to be Hell, and a deadly fight breaks out killing all. Then comes the mysterious scene One-eye has already seen in flashes: he is killed by the natives (almost looking like native-Americans), and through water, sky, and clouds he seems to have been reborn in the sky. The only person coming out alive, is the unnamed slave-boy which has followed him all the way.

Nicolas Winding Refn manages to make a poetic, mythological and brutal realistic Viking film, a film that divided audiences and critics. In Denmark Jacob Wendt Jensen called it a masterpiece (Wendt Jensen, 2010), while on the other hand Ebbe Iversen called it “unbearably pompous” action film, which was not really and action film (Iversen 2010). The international press was also split, but Philip French in The Observer, and he almost hit the same note as the director, who has said that he was more interested in hitting a spiritual science fiction tone than making a traditional period drama (Monggaard 2009). French said: “Valhalla Rising is like watching wood dry, but hypnotic, densely atmospheric in a portentous way, and weirdly beautiful” (French 2010). It was only seen 6.100 people in cinema, at the total international box office in 2010 was $731.000.

Viking films with a regional perspective

As we have seen, Viking films often touch upon themes of both nationality and transnationality, since the Vikings were some of the first to explore wide areas outside Europe. In the following I analyse Icelandic films by Hrafn Gunnlaugsson and one important film by Norwegian director Nils Gaup, dealing with ancient and in many ways universal themes, but also bringing new cultural regions into the Viking narrative. Gunnlaugsson’s trilogy Hrafniin Flýgur (ISL/SE,1984, When the Raven Flies), Í skugga hraffnsins (ISL, 1988, In the Shadow of the Raven), and Hvíti vikinguriin (ISL 1991, The White Viking) take place in both Iceland and Norway and they clearly point to differences between Iceland and the rest of Scandinavia. Iceland was of course the ultimate country of the Saga-literature, they were the ones that secured the old tales and brought them into modern culture which inspired literature and film across Scandinavia and many other parts of the world. In that way the Viking themes and narratives were both expressions of a specific regional and also common Scandinavian heritage, but clearly also inspired by more universal themes and story lines. The regional dimension is even stronger in Nils Gaup’s film Ofelas (NO, 1987, Veiviseren, Pathfinder), which takes place in the Sami-culture in the Northern part of Norway, is based on a Sami-legend, shot in Kautokeino in the Finnmark, and with a mostly local Sami cast. The regional and local in the film is strong, but the plot and themes clearly also resonate with elements in Scandinavian folklore and more universal themes.

In Scandinavian Viking films we find many European, American or Japanese inspirations, and Hrafn Gunnlaugsson’s trilogy is made with a clear Icelandic inspiration, but it was at the same time part of a more transnational project, where the films were produced in a broader, Scandinavian context and also aimed for an international audience (Møller 2005: 314f). When the Raven Flies won the Swedish prize, Guldbagge, and did get an international distribution, just as the other films in the trilogy. To make such a trilogy on Iceland is quite a challenge, and some of the films were therefore also co-financed. When the Raven Flies was made with Sweden, and the international release of the films has also contributed to the films financing just as the whole trilogy was released on DVD. Speaking about his inspiration for especially When the Raven Flies, Hrafn Gunnlaugsson has cited the Icelandic Sagas, films by Kurosawa, Sergio Leone and the American crime author Dashiell Hammett (Sørensen 2005: 341-49). So, even though the film has a strong Icelandic visual and narrative grounding, it is also influenced by modern genre films. The plot is a classical revenge plot: in Ireland a young boy’s family is killed by Vikings, while his sister is kidnapped. When the film resumes twenty years later, the boy (now a young man, called Gestur, meaning guest) has come to Norway to seek revenge and find his sister. He gets his revenge, but the final scene indicates that a relative to one of the killed is planning to get his revenge. Revenge seems to be a never-ending story, a perpetual vicious circle. There is good reason to sign in to Bjørn Sørensen’s concluding remarks in his analysis of Hrafn Gunnlaugson’s trilogy on the relation between the Icelandic sagas and modern films based on the same themes:

This is a reminder that the apparently close ties to the narrative world of the Icelandic sagas to a large extent is founded on narrative structure rather than historical markers, making the similarities to narratives based on Japanese and North American culture far from coincidental. Referring to the life-worlds of geographically and historically different societies, they nevertheless share a fictional world built on the principle of heroic action (Sørensen 2005: 355).

Such a conclusion about historical dramas like the Viking films of Gaup and Gunnlaugsson, is in line with the cognitive film theory, but it doesn’t rule out the role of historical reality as a point of fascination. In Viking films, we can both emotionally and cognitively react to structures and emotions that are based on universal, human schemas. The actions, the narrative structure and the characters in these films embody deep structures, while the historical setting and conflicts at the same time gives us specific historical understanding of the difference between then and now, between the realities of life in a historical perspective and compared to our reality. There is a reason why historical drama fascinates modern audiences, and it clearly has to do with the intimate relation between being in a historical world and being able to understand it as such and yet being able to identify with characters and actions that are both like us and yet different.

If we look at Gunnlaugsson’s film In the Shadow of the Raven we see a film that clearly takes place in Iceland during the Viking period, a film that deals with a violent clan fight and with dramatic conflict between the old Nordic paganism and the upcoming Christianity. However, it is also a tragic love story, inspired by the European legend of Tristan and Isolde. In the film Trausti (Swedish actor Reine Brynolfsson) comes back from Iceland, where he has been trained to be a priest. He has even brought with him the painter Leonardo who is to decorate a church dedicated to his mother. As the fight between the two clans (the Trausti clan and the Eirikur clan) erupts, Trausti tries to settle the dispute by laying down his sword, showing the Christian values of forgiveness, but as his father is killed and the love affair between Trausti and Isold (Tinna Gunlaugsdóttir) is also threatened by the feud, he returns to revenge, after his house is burned and Isold dies.

A modern audience understand conflicts between families and the intricate love story, even though the story also tells of the historical fight between the old Viking society and the new Christian world.  In the film’s visual language this means that the Raven, symbolizing the pagan Viking culture, is substituted with Leonardo’s paintings in the church dedicated to his mother, and also symbolizing new social and cultural forms of love and forms of community. As Claudia Bornholdt has pointed out in her analysis of the film (Grimberg & Bornholdt 2011) the fight between paganism and Christianity seems to have been particularly strong and enduring on Iceland. In the conclusion she states about the films end:

Trausti seems to have not only lost his dream of living peacefully a Christian life in Iceland, he has also lost his great love Isold. Yet, just as a former prostitute can be embraced by the love of Christ – as the alterpiece unmistakably tells us – there is hope for Iceland, and this hope is embodied in Isold’s daughter Sol (Grimberg & Bornholdt 2011: 93).

This hard and long fight between paganism and Christianity on Iceland is also very much part of the plot and thematic in the last film of the trilogy, The White Viking, which takes place in both Norway and Iceland. King Olav of Norway is a Christian crusader and wants to eliminate the old Nordic paganism, and in the beginning of the film we see him worship the White Christ. He attacks the house of Jarl Godbrandur, as he and his followers are preparing a wedding between his daughter Embla and Askur, his foster son. They try to fight but are overcome, and Godbrandur has to convert to Christianity to save Embla and Askur. Askur is sent to Iceland with a group of men to try to convert Iceland as well but fails miserably. The fight between the two religions seem to continue with no winner, and especially Embla is cast between the two religions and desired by men from both sides. However, after many complicated plot-turns, Embla and Askur are reunited in the end.

In the final analysis of this chapter, I will compare two films which at least in the central plot is very similar. In Hrafn Gunnlaugsson’s film When the Raven Flies, a young boy in Ireland loses his parents in a brutal raid by Vikings while his sister is kidnapped. Twenty years later the boy (Gestur) travels to Iceland to revenge his parents and find his sister. In Nils Gaups Norwegian Sami-film, a similar story unfolds in the icy and snowy Finnmark around year 1000, when a young Sami man (Gestur) comes home to find his family killed by a group of raiding Tchudes, a group of eastern Vikings. Apart from the plot-similarity between the two films, they also both represent a major national and international breakthrough for Icelandic and Sami film culture.

Hrafn Gunlaugsson’s film brought Iceland into the centre of modern Viking films, and in many ways, he draws directly on his family background and upbringing there. The role of Sagas in even modern Icelandic culture has influenced him as a film director, although her clearly also draws on modern film inspirations and classical European literature. With Nils Gaups Norwegian-Sami film Veiviseren/Pathfinder, we enter another kind of regional perspective in the sense that the Sami-people live in Northern Norway and have their own language, culture and way of living. Built on an ancient Sami folktale the film still caught an international audience as well. It was nominated for an Oscar, just as 700.000 saw the film in Norway. It was a film which came from a minority region and managed to bring it out nationally and globally. As Roberta Davidson points out:

Structurally as well as symbolically, the film tell about belonging – both to a specific ethnic community and to universal humanity. It reaches out to a non-Sami audience through the use of subtitles, realistic sets, and identifiable characters. Indeed, the visual signals of who is good and who is evil are literally dark and light. Other symbols are equally easy to comprehend without access to a specific cultural context (Davidson 2011: 97).

The film plot doesn’t directly talk about Vikings, but we get a classical revenge-plot, which might as well have taken place in a traditional Viking-society. The sixteen-year-old Sami boy, Aigin, returns from a hunting expedition, only to find his family murdered. The murderers belong to a band of raiders, Tchudes, living in Russia and Finland, and ravaging wherever they can, just like vikings. Aigin is injured by an arrow in the arm and flees from his village to join a small neighboring community of Samis. As the Tchudes arrive there, Aigin offers to guide them to the next, larger village. He convinces them to tie themselves together in order not to get lost, and he takes them to a high cliff, where they are killed falling down. Aigin is of course an instant Sami hero, not least with his girlfriend in this new village. In the last scene of the film, he is selected as the Sami-groups new pathfinder, symbolized by a drum used for ceremonies and meetings where important decisions have to be made. The Sami culture is portrayed as strongly community oriented, something which is both connected to a shamanic world view, to the premodern nature life form, and to an almost modern, social understanding of community, of being together and helping each other. The plot around the Tschudes illustrates the opposite way of life, a life of destruction, stealing and murdering.

The opening scenes of the film tells the viewer a lot about the Sami-culture and the symbolic-mythological dimensions of the film. We are in a cold but beautiful and snowy and mountainous landscape and the moon stands clear in the sky. These natural surroundings, the sheer beauty of “this snowy, earthly paradise” (Thomas 1990) are used systematically throughout the film to underline the Sami culture as one trying to live in ecological balance with nature. Here in the opening scene, Raste (Nils Utsi) – the shaman and pathfinder – speaks directly to us, but in reality to Aigin: “I have come to tell you that I have seen the reindeer bull three times, the first time I was at your age, the second time I was in my best age, and the third time I was as an old man.”  This scene appears to be in real present time but is a vision Aigin has after Raste has been killed by the Tchudes later in the film. It is repeated in the end just as Aigin barely has survived after having killed all the Tchudes, by luring them down a dangerous cliff. In a flash Aigin also sees not just the reindeer bull, but also northern light, a magical symbol of his survival and of his future as the new shaman and pathfinder for his new Sami family. Apart from the structuring of a narrative plot, the film also in its use of nature and symbols try to illustrate the mind and everyday life of the Sami-people, the way they think and feel. They are dependent on reading nature signs and of living in harmony with their surroundings, and to survive they must move around and have rituals that shape their community. Throughout the film nature comments on the narrative, and animals signal life and death, for instance illustrated in Ravens and the rituals surrounding the hunting of a bear. In the scene where they kill a bear, this is illustrated, by the fact that the hunter most remain alone for three days, in order to get the power to kill the bear, and the ritual after the killing, celebrating the circle of creation, life and death (Dubois 2000).

The film also illustrates everyday life, placing the women centrally, not just in family matters, but also as part of the collective. Despite the danger the Sami-group is in, there is time for fun, laughter and making fun of the men or each other.  Compared to other revenge films in the Viking tradition, the Sami-culture seems to react on threats from others, not because of a perpetual, dominant revenge tradition. This is in fact very clear from the lecture Aigin gets from Raste, before he is killed by the Tchudes. Raste says: “You are obsessed with revenge, but you represent the faith in community. The Tchudes have forgotten that, but you must not forget that.” When Aigin claims that he is all alone and not part of a community, Raste gives him an almost physical lesson:

You may think that, but also you are bound by the deep community with its unbreakable bonds. It is like the air you may not see it but you are infinitely tied to it. If you forget that, you are a man on a false track, on your way to destroying your true self.

This very central lesson, the very core of the film’s meaning, is then followed by the tale of the three reindeer bulls from the films beginning, and by the same kind of mythological landscape we see in the opening scene. That the film became one of the biggest box office hits in Norway is amazing, since it is a regional film in Sami language set long time ago. It is perhaps even more amazing that the film was nominated for an Oscar in 1988, that it won the Norwegian Amanda award for best film, and has also been nominated for foreign awards and won the London Film Festival’s Sunderland Trophy. The film is now also on several Norwegian lists for best 10-20 Norwegian films of all times. All this proves the links between regional, national and international in modern film culture. Apart from the original films international release, an American remake (Pathfinder, 2007, director Marcus Nispel) also points to the potentials of an in many ways unique Scandinavian story, which is translated to an American version with Vikings and a native American tribe. Most such historical films can potentially function internationally in their original version, and at the same time narratives have universal potentials than can be translated. However, Nispel’s film was not successful, neither with critics or audiences. Davidson comments on this:

Adaptations from one genre or media to another has been done successfully many times, but they cannot succeed without an awareness of the challenges involved in taking a story from one form and embedding it in another. In this regard, Gaup, who consciously and extensively changed a folktale in order to re-embody it as a film, was critically praised and gave his audience a sense of “authenticity”. Nispel, who strove to be faithful to the vision of a graphic novel and recreate it on the screen, was not successful (Davidson 2011: 104).

Hrafn Gunnlaugsson’s first film in his Viking trilogy, When the Raven Flies, is clearly also a revenge story with a young boy seeking revenge as a grown up, after his family has been killed in Ireland by Norwegian Vikings. The plot in the film spans Ireland, where the tragic attack changes the life of a family, Norway where the Vikings come from originally, and Iceland, where they have settled temporarily, because of a conflict in Norway. The films main narrative takes place in Iceland, which forms a spectacular background for the dramatic conflict. The opening scenes take place in a sunny, bright and summerly Ireland where a father, a mother, a son and a daughter are gathering berries in the wood, when the attack by the Vikings changes everything: the father and mother is killed, the daughter abducted, and the son barely escapes death. He grows up in Ireland, full of vengeance and leaves Ireland to confront the Vikings that killed his parents. The opening scene however also defines a humanistic idea which is the opposite of revenge. The father reads from a book: “The soft will defeat the hard, as the water hollows the stone, and as the pen defeats the sword.”

Twenty years later the son (no name, but calls himself Guest), travels to Iceland to seek out the two leading Vikings (Thord and Erik) who killed his father and mother, which means that he doesn’t live according to the human ideology of his father. Guest is in fact a very trained killer, and he acts according to a very clever plot, in which he makes the Vikings go against each other. Even though he kills a lot of the men, and eventually also makes Thord kill his foster brother Erik, he faces a difficult situation, when he finds out that his sister is married to Thord and has a son, Einar, who is very fond of his father. Thord’s home is a traditional Viking-home with an Odin-room celebrating the old Nordic faith, and he prays to those gods, seeking advice, and he sacrifices to Odin. However, the plot thickens when he wants to sacrifice his own son to change his failing luck. When Guest at the same time confronts his sister and tell her about his plan to kill Thord and take her and her son back to Ireland. In a very dramatic scene, Thord goes almost all the way to sacrifice his own son, when his wife reveals where Guest is hiding. As part of the ceremony Thord tells his son a story:

Once there where two giants, which nobody could defeat. When they were attacked, they fought back-to-back and were like one person. Once they slept under a huge cliff. A small boy like you found them there. He climbed the cliff and threw a stone down upon the giants. One of the giants woke up and started to argue with the other, but he said he didn’t do anything. Then the boy threw another stone, and now the giants started to fight each other, and they could not stop. On top of the cliff the boy gloated as his strategy made the giants kill each other.

This story, together with the many action- and revenge scenes in the film, represents the basic idea in the Viking society of sticking together against enemies outside the clan and the family. It supports the eye for an eye rule behind blood feuds in this period. The film is a classical story of the lone revenger, who never forgets and forgives, the efficient and ruthless killer, we also know from western films. The father’s words at the beginning of the film, goes against this ideology, but the son acts according to the traditional laws of the Viking society. This means that he wins at one level: his enemies are all eliminated. But in many ways Guest by killing Thord reenacts the murder of his own father, a murder he saw with his own eyes. His sister and her son are both horrified by the murder, and they refuse to follow Guest back to Ireland. Guest buries all his weapons and declares that now the pen will replace the sword and the power of thought will replace the power of the hand. As Guest rides towards the ship taking him back to Ireland, Einar’s eyes follow him all the way, until he disappears in the horizon. Then he digs out the weapons Guest has buried, and in the last image of the film, we see him lifting a knife in the air. Revenge will create new revenge – it is a circle of continued evil.

Just as the film is a classical revenge drama, focused on actions and scheming plots, it is also visually and aesthetically a very classical narrative. The Icelandic landscape with its spectacular cliffs, a primitive rough nature, underlines the fateful narrative caught between a dramatic nature and the scattered places of civilization represented by the homes of the leading characters. We do get into the home culture of the Vikings, the family life and the religious beliefs, but it is the actions around and in different places in the great landscape which are the core of the narrative. Hrafn Gunnlaugsson has clearly stated that the film is inspired by plots and narratives in the Icelandic sagas and the films of Sergio Leone. Adding to the dramatic and sombre tone of the film is also the Danish composer Hans-Erik Philips score: an atonal music, which underlines the fateful narrative, and at the same timer the action scenes get added value from a different sort of tonality. It is no wonder that the film was a both national and international success.

The mediated Viking. Conclusion

Vikings are a rather unique, historical Scandinavian phenomenon. A few people living at the edge of Europe, a religious and mythological universe quite different from a dominantly Christian Europe, and a small population which nevertheless managed to explore and sometimes conquer land far away. Viking films have elements of adventure pointing to the much later discovery of new worlds and creation of colonies, but they are first of all rather violent stories reminding us of the western genre and the winning of the wild west. Like colourful Scandinavian westerns they have fascinated all over the world. However, behind the bloody action stories, there is also elements of a social and cultural history. The films tell a story of how Scandinavians influenced far away regions and countries, and how this globalization changed Scandinavia. Behind the film narratives lies a historical reality, which Else Roesdahl has described in the following way:

The world of the Vikings was extensive. I stretched round the whole of Europe: from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, along both easterly and westerly routes and to the north-west to Iceland, Greenland and America. Throughout the Viking Age many sought their fortune in distant lands. Some remained there, others returned home and the tough life took its toll. Never before or since have so many Scandinavians been commemorated at home for exploits abroad – on rune stones, in poems and later on in sagas (…) The many foreign cultures which the Vikings encountered meant that a multitude of influences and enormous riches came to Scandinavia (…) By the end of the Viking Age the Scandinavian communities where quite unlike those that had existed around the year 800 (Roesdahl 2016: 307)

The world described in documentaries and fiction film or tv-series is therefore not just interesting as an action dominated and violent world. Inside this perhaps sometimes rather dominant narrative and theme, we find a much broader theme that has to do with who we are as Scandinavians and what has shaped us. It is about culture and social heritage, and also Viking films are historical heritage dramas. Scandinavia was not just shaped by the intensive globalisation from the 20^th century and beyond. The DNA buried in Viking graves, the jewels, weapons and kitchenware, and the remnants of buildings found under our modern ground is heritage also forming our experience and knowledge of a distant past. And while archaeologist and historians can give us data and structural knowledge of this past, films can make this history come alive and speak to our understanding and emotions.

In this chapter I have pointed to the important role of the many Viking museums around the world, they are important as factual, historical places and also as narratives, as interactive experiences. The filmic experience of the Viking heritage is however – like all historical films much more intense in the sense that the emotional identification with a historical world, with specific historic characters gives us a deeper feeling of historic that also pays out at a more cognitive level. As demonstrated in the analysis of the documentaries about the Viking Age, this makes them use a double strategy: on the one hand the information by experts and on the other hand fragments of recreated history. Documentaries on the Viking Age is quite abundant, but looking at fiction film and tv-series, there is also an impressive international film heritage going back to the silent era. Even today high profile and very popular international tv-series keep appearing on streaming services, and especially History Channel’s Vikings combine a broad historic realism of life in the Viking Age with a dramatic narrative.

Scandinavian Viking films and tv-series cover many genres: farces and comedies, film for the young audience, animated films, films inspired by the saga literature and shot in Iceland, highly dramatic and violent dramas of revenge. A film like Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising combines an extremely violent plot with a poetic dimension raising religious and existential human questions that reflects the Viking age but also goes beyond.  The Scandinavian Viking films bring the past to life in forms which takes us into both the world of revenge, clan feuds and violent action and the world of everyday life. We sometimes see event from the perspective of children, and although it seems to be a man’s world, women have great influence and use their power in many quiet and intelligent ways. We also have films that take us into the outer regions of this historical period: in Norwegian Sami-born director Nils Gaup’s film Veiviseren/Ofelas based on a Sami-legend and taking place in a Sami culture trying to live according to collective human norms and nature, and in the Viking trilogy of Icelandic director Hrafn Gunnlaugsson, where traditional Viking values meet with ideologies and ways of life.

It is a main point in the analysis of these films that they add a special dimension to the international Viking films, and that they are at the same time deeply inspired by the European-American tradition, and in some cases also the Japanese tradition of samurai films. Narrative structures, themes, characters and visual aesthetics in the Scandinavian Viking films have Scandinavian roots and add a specific national, regional dimension to the international tradition. However, just as many Scandinavian actors take part in international productions, we also find international, generic inspirations behind Scandinavian films. Besides, it often happens that Scandinavian films not just travels well abroad but are also remade for the international market. All of this proves, that the Viking age is very much alive in the modern film and media culture, and that we see both a strong Scandinavian tradition and a just as strong cross-fertilization between Scandinavia and the rest of the world. The Viking world is part of both the Scandinavian and international heritage. According to historian Neil Price, the Viking Age in fact have a much higher and popular recognition than other ancient culture:

Over just three hundred centuries (…) the peoples of Scandinavia transformed the northern world in ways that are still felt today. They changed the political and cultural map of Europe and shaped new configurations of trade, economy, settlement. And conflict that ultimately stretched from the eastern American seaboard to the Asian steppe. The Vikings are known today for a stereotype of maritime aggression (…) but the Scandinavians also exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs (…) In the process they were themselves altered, developing new ways of life across a vast diaspora (Price 2020: 2-3)

We may think of the Roman empire as a very strong part of our world heritage, but even so Price points to a fact that explains why those 300 years of Scandinavian history still sparks a vivid interest, not just in Scandinavia but also worldwide – at least in Europe and America. National and regional heritage is very often connected in many ways, and not just historian but also film makers work on historic heritage in this vital focus point between the national and the international, between the past and the present.

References

Feveile, Claus (2013). Viking Ribe. Trade, Power and Faith. Forlaget Liljebjerget/Sydvestjyske Museer.

Fridriksdóttir, Jóhanna K. (2020). Valkyrie. The Women of the Viking World. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Harty, Kevin J. (eds. 2011). The Vikings on Film. Essays on Depictions of the Nordic Middle Ages. Jefferson N.C: McFraland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

Price, Neil (2020). The Cildren of Ash & Elm. A History of the Vikings. London: Allan Pane/Penguin.

Ringen, Stein (2023). The Story of Scandinavia. From the Vikings to Social Democracy. London: Weidenfeldt & Nicholson.

Roesdahl, Else (1987/2016). The Vikings. Third Edition. London: Penguin.

Sørensen, Bjørn (2005). The Viking Who Came in from the Cold? In Andrew Nestingen & Trevor G. Elkington (eds): Transnational Cinema in the Global North. Detroit: Wayne State University, p. 341-357.

Winroth, Anders (2016). The Age of the Vikings. Princeton: Princeton University Press