The Historical Events Behind <i>Vikings: Valhalla</i>

The History Channel series Vikings ran for six seasons and proved to be quite popular. Now Netflix is launching a sequel series called Vikings: Valhalla, to premiere Friday. The new series is set a hundred years after Vikings ended, and centers around Leif Ericsson, his sister Freydís Eiríksdóttir, and Harald Hardrada, who is Freydis’ lover and Leif’s close friend. All are historical characters, but Vikings: Valhalla is heavily fictionalized. You know Leif Ericsson, but who was Harald Hardrada? He was the king of Norway, a world traveler, and died while trying to invade England. Smithsonian calls him “perhaps the most interesting Viking in history.”

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Before you watch Vikings: Valhalla, you might want to learn what is historical about the series. For one thing, Ericsson and Hadrada were not quite contemporaries, so their relationship is just for the show. Ericsson was more of an explorer than a warrior, but he does give us a familiar name to orient us for the series. The battles depicted in the show are mostly historical, but somewhat out of order and fought by different people. You may be surprised at the appearance of a Black character among the Vikings, but Viking settlements were more multicultural than you may have realized, although not at all egalitarian. Read an overview of the action in Vikings: Valhalla and how it measures up with the historical timeline at Smithsonian.

Source: neatorama

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