Recently started watching the show for the first time and I’m a few episodes in. So far I’m liking it quite a bit.

Yesterday I made a long post talking about my reaction to episode one and giving a historical overview of the geopolitical situation in Europe and Scandinavia at the time the show begins, in 793 CE. Today, I’m gonna talk about E2-4, the actual historical Lindesfarne raid, and other early Viking Age activity.

What Happened In The Show (Ep. 2-4)

Ragnar, Rollo, and their new crew embark west on the new boat, defying the Earl’s authority. They make it to England and raid Lindesfarne monastery in the kingdom of Northumbria, taking the church’s treasures and killing monks. They take a few, including Aethelstan, as slaves. Upon return to their village, the Earl confiscates their pillage, but Ragnar keeps Aethelstan.

Aethelstan turns out to be a valuable source of English information for Ragnar, teaching him about the political and religious situation in 8th century England. He also teaches Ragnar some Old English, the language of early medieval England. Ragnar uses this info to convince the Earl of another raid. Ragnar’s crew heads back to Northumbria and sack a larger town.

They are encountered by the town’s sheriff afterwards and win a battle. Upon returning to their village after the second English raid, the Earl arrests Ragnar for murdering his man, but Ragnar is acquitted. Despite this, Earl sees that Ragnar is building a support base and is beginning to amass enough power to challenge him politically, so he attacks Ragnar’s holdfast.

What’s Happening In Real History

As stated in my first post, which you can find in my profile history, the show begins right at the dawn of the Viking Age.

As Western Europe picked itself up off the mat following the fall of the Western Romans in the 400s, new, powerful polities had emerged by the end of the 8th century. The Anglo-Saxon germanic peoples who took over England had formed three decently powerful kingdoms - Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. But more importantly for the 8th century Scandinavians, the great Frankish Empire of Charlemagne had reached its pinnacle around the turn of the century. Its empire’s borders had expanded to the edge of Scandinavia - specifically Denmark. As a result, the Scandinavian petty kingdoms next door had a powerful neighbor to trade with, and defend against. As Denmark, the Swedes, and the Norwegians became more prosperous, they also began to consolidate into larger kingdoms and needed (and became more able to acquire) more resources. Enter the Viking Age.

The Vikings had already been exploring and pillaging before 793. In the east, they roamed the Baltic coast and went inland along the great rivers, to the land of Kiev. In the west, they raided northern France and, starting in 793, began raiding England in earnest.

Lindesfarne was a real, historic raid. And it happened pretty much the way it was portrayed in the show. However, the raiding in the British isles mostly shifted to the less powerful petty kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland after the initial pillage of Lindesfarne. Most of the Viking manpower until the mid 800s was instead sent to their closer, more powerful neighbor - the Franks.

Anyway, enough of the geopolitical situation behind the early Viking raids. Let’s talk briefly about the main character, Ragnar. Ragnar was probably a real person, or a compilation of a few real early Viking leaders.

Every society has a Ragnar. That semi-legendary, half-true legend on the edge of a society’s written history. In China, it’s the Yellow Emperor of 2000s BCE that redirected the flow of the Yellow River. In Rome, it’s the founders of the eternal city, Romulus and Remus. Legendary figures whose feats were probably the result of several great men, but because the particular society was pre-literate (pre-history), not much is known about them and they get lumped into one legendary hero. That’s Ragnar Lodbrok.

Because Scandinavia was just entering written history, we see a lot of semi-legendary figures like Ragnar around this time period. Ragnar might have been a petty king. Might’ve been a king of Denmark or Sweden. But probably, he was a few early Scandinavian guys who did a lot.

Okay, I’ve rambled quite enough. Interested to see where the show goes. Do the Vikings shift to France? Do we get to meet Charlemagne? More as I continue watching.