Top Medieval Historian Rates Viking TV Shows

I feel like the lack of evidence for Edington just shows how determined people were back then. Swarms of Alfred's subjects probably cleaned up the battlefield in the days to come after. (Not to mention scavengers.)

Hate the silly little rectangular shields they give the Saxons in The Last Kingdom. Totally daft, shields like that wouldn't have worked in shield wall at all.

WTF are you talking about - gay vikings?

The "coffin trick" is actually attributed to Harald Hardrada and can be found in Snorre Sturlasson's Heimskringla. It's been a while since I last read that book. But I believe the incident happened on Sicily. It was one of several castles on Sicily that Harald defeated according to Harald Hardrada's saga in Heimskringla. The trick of using captured birds and the attaching burning pitch tar to them was also used by Harald as described in his saga in Heimskringla. The idea was that the birds flew back into the castle and started fires in the thatched roofs of buildings inside the castle walls. I believe this idea was also incorporated into an episode of Vikings but with Ragnar Lothbrok using this strategy! Harald Hardrada served in the Varangian guard of the Byzantine Empire but also campaigned in various places on behalf of the Byzantine emperor throughout the Mediterranean Sea. It was through these campaigns that Harald amassed enormous wealth as his share of bounty from looted cities.

Damn, SPOILERS!!!!

It's very frustrating to watch experts react to things out of context.

Absolutely love The Last Kingdom series. And the show. It just draws you in and doesn’t stop.🥰

Why do none of the Vikings wear Viking helmets? 😅

Accurate archery is an effective, but not necessary, addition to the Nithing beam.

I love the last kingdom series but the movie was disappointing to say the least

Female warriors? Have you heard of Amazons?

what you have to think obviously its not dead on but its Hollywood they have to keep the viewers to come back etc etc

I would love to know your opinion on the clothing. Because it seems very strange.

I love the Last Kingdom, such and awesome show and the movie was so good to. It was quits historically correct, at least as far I know, I am Icelandic ans we have old sagas that write about some if the events in the Last Kindgom, like the final batyle in the movie.

But the show Vikings is shæt, pardon my french. They ruined the reputation of a local Icelandic man of that time period, one if the first humans to be born on Icelandic soil and survive to adulthood. He was a respected warror called "Egill Skallagrimsson", he was roasted by Ragnars Langbróks wife, Lagatha, like a fing pig early in this series. I am not even going into the fact that Ragnar Loðbrók is based in a real man whose achievements were so exaggerated, vikings did that a lot. But I can't stand this show, it is historically wrong, it makes the achievements of some known men seem small and the first solo king of Norway "Haraldur Hárfagri" was singing the poem Egils mother made for him through out the show. It made me angry. Besides, Haraldur had the other kings if Norway murdered and forced their subjects to be liyal to him or face exicution. The vikings fleed to Iceland because of him.

The first season of Vikings was fine, I got through 3 seasons, I gave up when Ragnar became a viking Captian Sparrow.

I find it weird how they idolise vikings in these show's. They were extremely brutal that even Anglo saxons wers shocked.

you saying "its likely true" when you obviously know about a grave with weapons and a woman inside pisses me tf off. ITS A FACT

Wait till she sees how in season 2 Lagertha says to King Horiks wife Gunhild that she heard that Gunhild had killed Sweyn forkbeard. Then she watches vikings Valhalla, which is supposed to be 100 yrs after the death of Ragnor, and she sees Forkbeard as one of the main characters. Both series written by Michael Hirst.

why the fuck's viking valhalla in hindi

I've only watched Vikings, and absolutely loved it... reading these comments I'm realizing ANY viking show is good lol...I'll be looking into The Last Kingdom and Norsemen

Finally I get some recognition

Please, PLEASE comment Lagerthas funeral in Vikings. I know it had so many fantasy moments, but i really wish that there are some bits of real traditions in that beautiful and emotional Adaption. Please consider a review of more like... interpretations of the culture, rather than only fighting scenes? 😊

I thought Ivar the boneless led the great heathen army

Before they were vikingers, they were traders. They knew all about the places they raided.

They weren't bearskins but Wolfskins. They were Ulfhednar.

Hey, whaddya know, Vikings looked exactly like 21st-century paleo-bros.

The Last Kingdom is waaaay better the Vikings

A lot of the comments she’s making about Vikings could be answered if she really watch the show. Like the reason, Ragnar’s coffin is being carried, and has shields on it. 😂

The coffin tactics: both kings Harald Hardråde and Sigurd the crusader apparently used this way to get in to other (and smaller) besieged cities.

The raid on Lindisfarne is in one interpretation a message to Alcuin from nearby York, the counselor to emperor Charlemagne who just recently slaughtered some thousands saxons nearby the Danish border. Alcuin wrote a letter to Charlemagne about going further north.

Vikings are so much a relic of Victorian age English (not British) founding history. 793 to 1066 just shows the threat to what is England, while norse expansion westwards didn't end until the 1200's.

Are you taking the liberty of using the term "warrior" to describe a shield maiden? A few or even a dozen women buried with armor, swords, etc doesn't allow "historians" to fantasize about women "warriors" to fill in the blank. When a "historian" does this, they are no different than a movie making fantastical incidents in their films. Stick to the facts, please.

In Vikings on the raid in lindisfarne I don’t think they were shocked that there was treasure they were just shocked that there was no one defending the treasure

Tens of thousands of Viking warrior graves have been found and only 1 or 2 were female so it seems female warriors, if they existed at all, have been extremely rare.

Perhaps you should have watched the show first. Then you would know better the context of each scene. For instance, in the show, they did know about the wealth in the churches, but not all of the raiders did first hand, and that is not an army of women fighting with Lagertha . Its only a few.

Thank you for not being like every other female historians and just go head long into big uping female Norse warriors.
I get they could have existed but not nearly as many as what Vikings depicted.

I just am so upset by Vikings past season 2 as they went fully down the bullshit road and for lack of a better term hollywooded history…

The whole fake death in Paris was said to have been done by bjron, who does have more then just sagas to claim he was real. Along side rollo and ivar however rollo existed like 200-300 years after Ragnar was have said to be alive in the sagas and ivar along with bjron don’t really know if they are actual sons of Ragnar but ivar mostly conducted his business in Ireland and basically founded Dublin.

There was no such thing as shield maidens. It's a feminist fantasy.

A lot of it was just “we don’t know if this is actually true” and just narrating it. What was the point of this

Lagertha knew he was going to die from a son of Ragnar, knowing that she took on a guy who hates the kingdom that banished him, I hated that season but lagertha killing him was a cherry on top and the other shieldmaidens worshipping her is a kiss

If you were watching Vikings you’d know that, it was their first time going anywhere besides the west, the Viking show shows it all, in the show Ragnar was the first to sail that way and got famous because of it he was smart enough to know it was all gonna get confiscated and built a new boat with the gold he hid

This was supposed be the first time the Vikings landed. In the show anyway

The one most faithful to the historical Viking age is actually Norsemen, and that is just a parody :P

Viking Valhalla is pure fantasy. I found it pretty abysmal . The first few seasons of original Vikings show was fantastic and Last Kingdom is fun and well written.

I love how she barely addresses the laughably bad costume design in Vikings.

Brittania is another insanely underrated, seemingly almost unheard of show that is right up there in quality of The Last Kingdom & Vikings.
Obviously it’s about the Roman’s attempts to conquer all of the ‘’Barbarians’’ of Brittania/ Briton & Celtic tribes of 🇬🇧 & England. I know that this vid is of the kinda typical kinda smug superiority complex of a mainstream archeologists knowledge of Vikings, but obviously these shows are dramatizations meant to also pull in viewers & learning the more accurate history is incredible, like that Rollo & Ragnar were I believe several hundred years apart & obvious weren’t brothers but also what else could the creators of History channels Vikings - draw upon but the sagas? Whether she’s seen the exact cultural layers of the specific scenes is irrelevant, because again a lot of it had to be combined & considering all the research they did do it’s pretty incredible, there was a cool documentary on I believe prime back a few years ago (ya know when having prime afforded you cool additions like not being charged extra for documentaries & whatnot 😠!) but it was hosted with Clive Standen who played Rollo & he went on a neat journey about the known history. It was well done, w/o ego & with grace, that’s just not something that’s as common w/ these type of archeologists.

Norsemen was so underrated. A great show with touching moments of pathos

Good commentary on the show, a bit like dumbing down as many fans think everything that happened was totally true. Much was but not the same order & with different people. There are a few excellent books if anyone really want to understand & appreciate the contribution made by Viking culture.