This time we sat down with Ross Downing to talk about the new book he co-wrote and edited with Kaarina Aitamurto, Germanic and Slavic Paganisms: Security Threats and Resiliency, which through a collection of essays looks at the various ways the Viking past is interpreted and misinterpreted in modern Paganism. Ross has an extensive academic and professional background in the study of religions and Old Norse mythology as well as in investigating right wing extremism’s misuse of them.

In this interview, we talk about the background of modern Paganism and how it is deeply rooted in the romantic nationalism of the 19th century — a time when modern nation states were just being born in Europe, and many of them — including in Scandinavia — looked to the Vikings as the perfect model for how those nations wanted to be viewed: as strong, independent, and courageous folk with an adventurous spirit.

But, as Ross explains, the creation of that history and folklore also resulted in what his books calls “The Folkish Problem.” Originating in the German word völkisch, folkish refers to a more nativist and exclusive view of what it means to have Germanic heritage. And this “you’re either one of us, or you’re not” has become the basis for many right wing extremist movements who also co-opt Paganism and use the Vikings as their ideal.

Ross’ book highlights the problems this has caused and continues to cause in the world, and argues for an inclusive Paganism, or Heathenry, as well as provides tools for how it can work toward a set of beliefs and practices that are less prone to misuse and abuse by those who seek to use Viking history and symbols in dangerous ways. It should be read by anyone interested in the “Old Ways.”

We also discuss the obligation that academics who research Vikings have in helping us understand that past in a way that is grounded in the evidence. As a researcher who has taken his expertise into the world of security and threat assessment, Ross is the very embodiment of the ways that responsible scholarly knowledge of the past can be used to help address some of the most pressing issues of our time.

Thank you Ross for a very thought-provoking conversation!

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We are delighted to welcome back to the show Dr habil. Leszek Gardeła. It’s been two years since our last conversation with him, and so we were excited to get a chance to speak with him again and hear about his new book The Vikings in Poland (hardback now available, paperback to be released soon). Leszek is a Polish archaeologist, so this history is personal for him, and this book has been a long time in the making. But thankfully he undertook the task of researching and writing it, for it finally brings to light an often-neglected but very important aspect of the Viking Age.

In addition to his book, we talk about our changing understanding of just what a “Viking” is (or was) and the art and artifacts that help us to see them a bit more clearly. We also talk about the misuse of history and symbols of the past particularly those connected with the Viking Age. And we cover the migrations and mixes of past peoples that show us a dynamic world that can’t easily be reduced to Scandinavian or Slav, Viking or warrior, us or them. As always, the conversation with him is thoughtful and enlightening.

Leszek is a prolific writer. He is skilled at taking the complexities and nuances of the Vikings and bringing reason and clarity — in short, he finds the humans behind the legends. We highly recommend his books for anyone interested in the Viking Age.

Dziękuję Leszek! We look forward to chatting again.

Click the images to buy his books. Vikingology has no affiliate relationship and does not profit from book sales. We provide links simply to support the author.

Interested in our previous chat with Leszek? We’ve got you covered…

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The search for the Great Viking Army is both literal and figurative. For years, scholars have tried to answer the questions surrounding this supposed “army” — What, exactly, was it? How big was it? Who fought in it? Who commanded it, and what were their goals? In this episode we welcome back friend of the show archaeologist Tom Horne to help us answer these questions and understand the exciting ways our knowledge of the Great Army is changing. If you’ve ever wondered what the difference between a Viking raider and a Viking army warrior was, this episode has you covered!

Another crucial question has been, where did the Army go? Turns out it was likely right in Tom’s backyard in central and northern Scotland all along. For evidence, Tom shows us some artifacts at Dunblane Museum and explains what they tell us about the Viking presence in places we’ve not known about until now.

To keep up with all the latest updates and finds, check out Tom’s website and Viking blog. We also highly recommend his book A Viking Market Kingdom in Ireland and Britain, which gives context for the trade networks and silver fever that helped to drive the Great Army’s expansion.

Also follow Tom on his several social media platforms to read more about his work and see lots of really cool images of Viking stuff.

Thanks Tom. We look forward to next time and more epiphanies!

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What comes to your mind when you think of Vikings? If it’s a bunch of hairy thugs in boats with swords and axes coming to steal your things, you are only partially correct. In this chat with Dr. Christian Cooijmans we found out that Viking activity in Francia — which encompassed a large swath of Continental Europe 1,200 years ago — was a much more sophisticated and calculated affair than anyone has previously thought.

Through investigating various sources which document Viking activity across the realm, Chris paints a picture of Vikings as economic actors with a level of business acumen rarely ascribed to them. Rather than random farmers out for an occasional good time, think planning, logistics, risk/reward calculations, and a very adaptable infrastructure, and you’ll be on the right track. These are not your grandmother’s Vikings.

After watching or listening to the episode, read more about it in his book Monarchs and Hydrarchs: The Conceptual Development of Viking Activity Across the Frankish Realm (c. 750 - 940) which is available directly from the publisher here. Use code VIKINGOLOGY for 25% off until January 31, 2025. It will make a perfect holiday gift for that Viking nerd in your life.

We also talked to Chris about his involvement in The Great Viking Survey, which is part of a research project looking into modern perceptions of Vikings on a global scale. Responses will help inform researchers about how the world sees Vikings at this moment in the 21st century. Anyone can participate in the survey which you’ll find here on our site by clicking the story below.

Thanks Chris for a fun and illuminating conversation about the changing nature of how we see Vikings. We look forward to chatting again very soon!

Skál!

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Have you ever thought, like really thought, about what it would be like if you took a time machine to the Viking Age? Where would you get food? How do you make clothes? What do you brush your teeth with, or do you brush them at all? And what on earth do you do without cellphones and the internet?

Our guests today know firsthand the answer to all these questions and more.

This time we had the privilege of sitting down with Kevin Alexandrowicz and Devon Rawlings, both members of Járnborg Vikings, a chapter in the Northwest Viking Alliance. These are NOT your garden-variety cosplay enthusiasts, but people who are deeply interested in experiencing the past, and learning from it, in an authentic way through living history experimental archaeology — a big fancy phrase meaning they understand the small mundane things that constituted daily life in northern Europe 1,000 years ago.

Things like how to make a wooden spoon, how to forge a needle to sew your clothes with, what it’s like to butcher an animal, and even how women dealt with that time of the month.

But besides learning some cool specialized knowledge or skills, why on earth would anyone really want to experience the Viking Age in this way?? We asked them about that and found ourselves wandering into the more philosophical issue of embracing the past versus escaping the present. It was an interesting and enlightening chat!

Þanciaþ!

If you live in the Pacific Northwest and you’re interested in finding out more or even maybe joining a group, check out the Northwest Viking Alliance. If you live outside the PNW, they can probably help you find similar groups in your area.

Kevin and Devon are also artists. Please check out their craft on their sites below. There’s some really beautiful stuff, and they’ll appreciate the support.

Kevin’s work at Archaic Growth and on Instagram @archaicgrowth.

Devon’s work at Baseborn and on Instagram at @baseborn.co

Vikingology Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To support our work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

This time we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Eleanor Barraclough to the show. We nerded out in a previous episode about her book Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas, which is a great read we highly recommend, so we were very excited to speak with Eleanor about her new book Embers of the Hands: The Hidden Histories of the Viking Age.

In the new book, she delves into all kinds of evidence, both written and archaeological, to try and find the little bits of “gold” from the Viking Age past — you know, those bits that represent the utter humanity that often gets lost in the shuffle.

That search for humanity took us on a wide-ranging chat. We talked about Eleanor’s interest in the Sámi, an often overlooked Nordic culture that both shared and didn’t share space with the Vikings. And then true to our style at Vikingology, we wandered into all sorts of oddities like squirrels, whether Vikings would have been vegan, monsters, and turds — all things that defined what it meant to be human in the Arctic North 1,000 years ago, and that we can still relate to today.

We also ponder what we can learn from the Viking Age and whether at least some of it is worth repeating, based on Terri’s recent post.

To read more about all the interesting things she’s up to, check out Eleanor’s site. And for an intimate and seriously entertaining yet educational way to learn about the Viking Age, for goodness sake buy her books! You won’t regret it.

We had such a fun time! For an extra treat, stay tuned at the very end for a behind-the-scenes look at our pre-show banter.

Thanks Eleanor! We definitely look forward to meeting up again soon.

Skál!

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It’s been a minute, but Terri and C.J. are finally back together, so in this episode it’s time for life updates from Vikingology.

First up, Happy Birthday! We were both born on September 18, so shout out to us for recently completing another turn around the sun.

Terri is just back from Iceland, while C.J. is preparing to move to France. We talk about the Viking connection to both places including Terri tricking friend of the show Reynir into helping uncover a stone ship setting (which he didn’t mind too much) and finally getting to meet his Hurstwic sidekick William in person, and C.J. proposing a business idea for when he settles in France that also involves a Viking ship.

C.J. shares that he’s putting the finishing touches on the fourth book in his series The Saga of Hasting the Avenger. The newest installment is The Fell Deeds of Fate and will be available soon. Follow him on Amazon or his Substack for updates.

Lastly, we tease some cool upcoming guests that you won’t want to miss. And as always, we laugh a lot. So, there’s lots going on at Vikingology!

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"Let us burn him house and all," said Mord.

Then they took the vetch-stack and set fire to it, and they who were inside were not aware of it till the whole hall was ablaze over their heads.

Then Flosi and his men made a great pile before each of the doors, and then the women folk who were inside began to weep and to wail.

Njal’s saga, chapters 76 and 128

This time on the podcast we are thrilled to welcome back William Short and Reynir Óskarson of Hurstwic. They were our very first guests way back in December 2022 when they told us about their experience and expertise in Viking Age weaponry.

This time they are here to tell us all about a Viking battle tactic found in several sagas: burning an enemy’s house. If a certain Talking Heads song is in your head right now, it should be.

But this is not your usual historical discussion. William and Reynir are renowned for their years of mixing research of the written sources such as sagas and law codes with experimental archaeology to try and determine firsthand in real time what aspects of life in the Viking Age were like. So, in early July they didn’t just publish an academic paper or write a book about a burn, they actually performed one on a recreated Viking Age house (well, half of one anyway) near Eiríksstaðir in Iceland.

Take a listen to hear all about what went into planning this experiment, how it was carried out, and some of what they learned from it. You won’t want to miss this one. It’s about as raw and close to the past as you can get!

You can also check out more about Viking weapons and tactics in their book Men of Terror: A Comprehensive Analysis of Viking Combat

Vikingology Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To support our work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

We are so happy and excited to welcome Professor Clare Downham back to the show. If you didn’t catch our first episode with her, you should. We had a great chat about lots of Viking, historical, and philosophical stuff.

But this time we decided to do something a little different and engage in a bit of storytelling. Since Clare is one of the world’s leading experts on Vikings in Ireland, we asked her to tell us about one of the most important battles in Irish history, The Battle of Clontarf in 1014 — a battle much beloved and remembered by many in Ireland to this day.

With the Irish side being led by national hero King Brian Boru, this battle has everything: Vikings, politics, greed, magical raven banners, scorned ex-wives, religion, beheading, ambition, martyrdom, good vs. evil, and female spirits weaving the grisly fate of it all. It’s the stuff that legends are made of.

The battle appears in several sources that we discuss in the episode, but arguably the most famous is Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib ("The War of the Irish with the Foreigners").

We hope you enjoy this one. Though it’s difficult to tease fact from fiction at times, there’s one thing we know for sure — someone needs to make this movie, stat!

On another note…..

If you are in the Aberdeen, Scotland area or would like to travel there, be sure to check out the Scottish Society for Northern Studies’ big conference from 26-28 June. Clare will be presenting on Thursday, and there are other interesting talks, as well as a side trip to a museum and distillery. Of course. It’s Scotland! Please do check it out and support their work.

Also, remember to check out Clare’s books if you are interested in medieval Irish history. You won’t be disappointed.

* Viking Kings of Britain and Ireland: The Dynasty of Ívarr to A.D. 1014

* Medieval Ireland

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For much of the English-speaking world, the “Viking Age” ostensibly got its start with the infamous raid on Lindisfarne in A.D. 793. But did you know by that time there was already a half century of Viking activity in the East in what is now the Baltic States and all the way south to Ukraine?

And did you also know that they may even have laid the foundation for what is now Russia?

In this episode we wanted to learn a bit more about those eastern Vikings — known there as the Rus, and an elite subset of them known as Varangians who served as “special forces” soldiers in Constantinople — so, we turned to Icelandic scholar and professor of medieval history Sverrir Jakobsson.

Sverrir has researched and written extensively on the medieval and Viking Age history of Iceland, but he has particular interest in the Rus and Varangians who are the subject of his book The Varangians: In God’s Holy Fire.

We learned from him who they were, how we know that from surviving sources such as the Annals of St. Bertin, and how they compared to Vikings in the West. Turns out they started out as the ultimate “others” seen as terrifying forces of nature and, for some at least, ended up becoming honored members of elite society.

A case in point: Sverrir writes about King Harald III of Norway — nicknamed hardrada, or “hard ruler” — who embodies this progression from Viking to mercenary to royalty. His article “Araltes: The Evolution of a Varangian Stereotype” is well worth the read, as is his book, for anyone interested in the fascinating history of the Scandinavians who helped to shape the East and who are so often overlooked.

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