Viking Lives

Viking Lives

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Viking Lives episodes

  • Lagertha the Shield Maiden
    Lagertha the Shield Maiden appears only briefly in the medieval Viking stories, but she retains a powerful hold on the modern imagination. In this episode, Richard and Kári are joined by Dr. Lisa Bennett, author of Viking Women, to explore the concept of the Norse shield maiden, and to examine the evidence for the existence of these fierce Viking warrior-women.

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    40 min
  • Ragnar the Raider
    Last time we brought you the mythic tale of Ragnar Lodbrok.In this episode, Richard and Kari go on the trail of the real-life, flesh-and-blood Ragnar, whose life is recorded in the chronicles of medieval Europe.This Ragnar is remembered as a ruthless chieftain, hated by the kings of Christendom, who led a Viking invasion of France, and then put the city of Paris to siege.

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    37 min
  • Ragnar the Legend
    This is the first of two episodes on the life of Ragnar Lodbrok.Richard and Kári begin with the story of the legendary Ragnar taken from the mythic saga that bears his name. In this telling, Ragnar is an impossibly strong Viking warrior who kills a dragon, marries the princess Aslaug, and becomes a king. Ragnar’s adventures make him famous, but when his sons' reputations threaten to overshadow him, he embarks on a final disastrous invasion of Britain.

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    55 min
  • Mad Amleth
    Kári and Richard present the strange tale of Amleth the Mad: the Danish prince whose uncle murders his father and then marries his mother in unseemly haste. Amleth, alone and in great danger, pretends to be mad until he can figure out how to take his revenge. This was the original story that inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and formed the basis of the recent film The Northman’, with Alexander Skarsgard.

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    48 min
  • Yngvar the Helmsman

    Richard and Kári dig up the remains of a Viking king named Yngvar.

    Yngvar was long thought to have been a figure of legend. But in 2008, a ship-grave was excavated on a Baltic island that was dated to the year 750 AD.

    Inside the ship were the remains of 34 wounded warriors and their mysterious leader, who was found with a gilded sword and a chess piece lodged in his mouth.

     

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    45 min
  • Beowulf the Strong
    Kári and Richard plunge into the tale of Beowulf, the legendary Norseman who sets out to kill a murderous creature named Grendel, and then must face an even more dangerous monster: Grendel’s mother.

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    48 min
  • Gudrun the Vengeful
    Richard and Kári delve into the semi-mythic tale of the Viking heroine Gudrun the Vengeful, and her destruction of Attila the Hun.

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    43 min
  • Dawn on Lindisfarne
    Introducing a new podcast by Richard Fidler and Kári Gislason, in which they travel to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in England where Viking plunderers stepped ashore in 793 AD, generating a shockwave that rippled across Christian Europe.

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    12 min
  • Odin the One-Eyed
    Kári and Richard go to Oxford to speak with Professor Carolyne Larrington on the mythic origins of Odin, the doomed chieftain of the Norse gods, who makes a sacrifice of himself to himself in the pursuit of wisdom.

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    43 min

About Viking Lives

From the publisher's feed

The great arc of Viking history told through a chain of life stories, presented by broadcaster Richard Fidler and author Kári Gíslason.

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