History Channel Gets Vikings Precisely Wrong

[Valin]

The American Spectator

Kirk Douglas would have taken greater care.

Lars Walker

3.12.13

 

It’s been more than fifty years since Kirk Douglas and his production company produced what most people still consider the best Viking movie ever made, The Vikings. Within the limits of the information available at the time, they made a good faith effort to do the thing relatively authentically. We’ve learned much in the years since, especially due to advances in archaeology, and many reenactors around the world (of whom I am among the least) work hard to re-create authentic Viking Age life. Dozens of accurate replicas of Viking ships have been built and put to sea, to the wonder and delight of many. The time would seem to be ripe for a depiction of the Viking Age that would surpass Kirk Douglas’s film in portraying of one of the most exciting and colorful eras in human history.

 

The History Channel’s new series, Vikings, is not it.

 

I could say a lot about the technical faults of this series — the nonsensical idea that 8th or 9th century Scandinavians had never heard of the British Isles, the placement of the “steering board” (starboard) on the port side of the ship — but I want to discuss here what I see — on the basis of viewing the first episode — as the philosophical and political underpinnings of the thing. And no, I’m not joking. *There’s ideology being flogged here, and it’s more significant to our history than you probably think.

 

(Snip)

 

As pictured in the Vikings series, the Thing is held in the jarl’s house and is totally under his control. The jarl of this story acts in ways the real Vikings of that time would never have tolerated. Indeed, one of the old Norwegian Thing laws (unfortunately impossible to date) makes it a civil duty to rebel against a chieftain who arrogates too much power to himself. Things were held in the open air, in a central, neutral location offering no special advantage to the chieftain.

 

(Snip)

 

* Words cannot express how shocked I am that an Ideology is being promoted. I bet it's Presentism

[Valin]

I remember this from my (much much) younger days. That summer we were all Vikings.

 

http://youtu.be/DFes1Rl2l0Q