Who is vikings based on

Meanwhile, the coastal trading settlements are shown to contain slaves and traders from all over Europe and the Middle East. We even meet a Chinese princess, and a wanderer, Sinric, who might be Frisian or Saxon. Oddly, Celtic-speaking peoples seem to have been completely missed out, which is difficult to countenance.

For me, the material cultures and built environments portrayed deserves more credit than the storylines and characters. The creators have been at pains to create an immersive material world rich in Norse customs and laws, while beliefs and legends are explored from many different angles and perspectives. Through each series, Vikings effectively and repeatedly explores how characters interact with their physical environment of mountains, forests and fjords, but also imagined supernatural worlds and perceived magical forces, from private prayer to consulting the Seer.

And even if elites take centre-stage, viewers are exposed to a host of background activities by others: fishing, hunting and farming; boat-building and repairing; cooking and textile production. This diverse and evolving 9th-century world provides glimpses onto the banal — daily regimes of cooking, feasting, travel by land and water, resting, sleeping, playing games, tending animals, combing hair and telling stories alongside the grand set piece voyages and battles.

The action repeatedly draws upon historical and archaeological evidence, incorporating and adapting scenes from Icelandic and Norwegian sagas. In particular, halls are repeatedly shown as the heart of social, political and cultic activities for the Viking-period societies of Scandinavia, but they rightly vary considerably in their appearances and uses throughout the six series. This is a world in which warfare, politics, family and community life, and religion interact in complex ways in the hall.

Regardless of the fact this is at least a century too early for defences around early towns, and the details of walls, ditches and towers might be queried, never before to my knowledge has any show attempted to show the vast labour involved in the creation of early medieval fortifications.

Notably, the funerals are multi-staged and varied according to the social identity of the deceased and varied circumstances of death at home and during raids: we see open-air cremation on land and over water, ship-burial, and more humble inhumation burials with and without furnishings. Many funerals take their inspiration from sagas and archaeological sources equally. Hence, Vikings offers insights into what we know about death in the Viking Age , but also the show serves to inform and inspire our own changing 21st-century death ways.

Grave-goods are shown as carrying both personal stories and religious significance when placed with the dead, for instance in the touching funeral of Helga in series four. In all these regards, Vikings deserves widespread recognition in promoting and enhancing fresh public understandings of the Early Middle Ages.

Despite perpetuating and fostering some old and new myths for public consumption, Vikings reveals a drastic shift in public representations 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.

Most viewers understand that historical fiction requires some amount of creative invention to make the story work. This is especially true when we're talking about a story from the Dark Ages , since the historical record from this time period just isn't anywhere near complete enough to float a meticulous dramatization made up exclusively of verifiable details. The events that Hirst's series purports to bring to the screen supposedly took place over years ago, during a time period after the fall of Rome in which European peoples got pretty bad at writing things down.

That said, Michael Hirst has used a scaffolding of available history to prop up his popular show. Similarly, major series' events are also culled from historical sources. The raid at Lindisfarne, the Great Heathen Invasion, the Viking raid on Paris — even Ragnar's death in a pit of venomous snakes — none of these events were purely Hirst's invention.

The real questions are whether the historical accounts of this time are even accurate, and just how much liberty Hirst took when stitching them together into a cogent narrative. One of the most important and brutal events of season 1 is actually one of the better documented historical events in the series.

Ragnar Lothbrok's raid on the Northumbrian monastery on the Island of Lindisfarne has substantial historical evidence for its occurence, and is considered by most historians to mark the official beginning of the Viking Age. Placing the legendary Ragnar at the head of that raid was a fanciful convenience for Hirst's story, but the raid itself seems to closely track the historical record. In , Scandinavian raiders more likely Danes than Norwegians landed a longship at Lindisfarne and "attacked the sacred heart of the Northumbrian kingdom" via English Heritage.

A contemporaneous account of this raid exists in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , an Old English source that provides our most reliable record of the time period beginning with the rise of Wessex and ending in a unified England.

This presented a problem for Hirst, however, since he wanted to tell the Scandinavian side of the story. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle undoubtedly frames most of the events of the time in the light most favorable to the Christian Saxons. His daughter, Georgia Hirst, plays shieldmaiden Torvi in the series. Fans still miss Athelstan's character, who later appeared in the form of visions or as part of flashbacks throughout the series.

Vikings: King Aethulwulf addresses family on death bed. Is Vikings based on Viking history? Vikings season 6, episode 11 release date: When does Vikings return? Vikings: Floki killed Athelstan in the series Image: Sky.

He praised the History Channel for portraying the historical aspect in an accurate way. Vikings season 6B rumours: Did Ragga Ragnars die in battle? Athelstan is taken back to Scandinavia and is kept as a slave working for Ragnar's family. Vikings season 6 part B: Was Bjorn dreaming about battle with Ivar? Vikings explained: What really happened to Halfdan in Vikings?

Vikings: Why was Aethelwulf killed off - is this the real reason? Vikings season 6 part A is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video. Vikings: Did Ragnar Lothbrok really die in the series?