Vikingology Podcast

Ever wondered what a Viking sounded like? Is it a dead language, or could someone have a proper chat with a Viking if one was suddenly transported to the 21st century? In this episode we found out firsthand from Dr. Jesse Byock who is an expert in Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. Take a listen and find out.

In addition to teaching Old Norse, Jesse has also spent his career unearthing – literally! – the truth behind the Viking Age sagas.  He is the principal archaeologist for the Mosfell Archaeological Project, a dig site that you may recall from our other episode with his Field Director, Davide Zori.  Between the two of them and their team they may very well have discovered the last farmstead and resting place of famed Viking warrior Egil Skallagrimsson.

If you’d like to learn how to talk like a Viking, Jesse offers all his books and learning materials online which you can check out on his website. He has also written several translations of the sagas. You can find them on his website as well.

Takk fyrir Jess!

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Just think of it. Those poor Christian monks minding their own business dedicating themselves to God living lives of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and then boom! Vikings start showing up to terrorize and steal from them, and then do it again and again and again. Why? What on earth could have brought this catastrophe upon those defenseless religious communities?

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Matthew Ponesse of Ohio Dominican University, an expert in 8th and 9th-century Frankish monasticism — you know, the kind created and supported by that medieval super King and Emperor Charlemagne — to get a sense of what they had that Vikings wanted so badly.

He talks to us about what it meant to become a monk, the role and place of monasteries in the Carolingian and Viking worlds, and why he’s been able to spend his entire academic career ignoring Vikings even though they hammered the Frankish Empire repeatedly throughout the 9th century.

Vikingology Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this episode we traverse a lot of Viking ground. Dr. Jesch is a scholar who has written on several aspects of the Viking Age over a long and distinguished career, from women and the Nordic diaspora to poetry and the runes. We talk to her about the influence Vikings had on the various areas where they traveled and settled, the difference between Skaldic and Eddic poetry, and what a Viking Age poetry performance looked and sounded like. We discuss the transition from oral to written culture and the amazing ability to commit things to memory that the Vikings possessed.

If you’d rather watch the video version of the interview, you can find it here.

Vikingology Podcast is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this episode we sat down with Dr. Davide Zori, archaeologist and historian at Baylor University who specializes in Vikings, to discuss some of Davide's most exciting finds at a farmstead in Iceland, including a grave which may be that of Egil Skallagrimsson, a famous Viking whose story is recounted in Egil’s saga Skallagrimssonar.

Read the saga in English translation here.

Davide worked the site for several years with Dr. Jesse Byock of UCLA and the University of Iceland. Their work is part of the Mosfell Archaeological Project.

We also talked with Jesse on another episode about the site and also Old Norse language. Check it out!