On the 13th of November 1002, King Æthelred of England ordered the killing of every Dane living on English soil. In this episode, we explore what drove a king to order a massacre of an entire people, who was killed and who survived, and — most fatally — who among the dead had a direct connection to the King of Denmark. Because what followed was not just a raid. It was a war of revenge that would ultimately end with a Viking king sitting on the throne of England. The St. Brice's Day Massacre is one of history's most dramatic examples of how one terrible decision can change everything.

Part of Vikings — The Nordic Saga.

In the autumn of 885, a Viking fleet of over 700 ships and 30,000 warriors sailed up the Seine and surrounded the city of Paris in the most dramatic siege of the entire Viking Age. In this episode, we tell the full story: how a small garrison of Frankish defenders held the bridges of Paris for over a year against an overwhelming force, the heroic role of Count Odo who became a legend in the process, and how the Carolingian Emperor Charles the Fat responded — not with glory, but with humiliation. This was the siege that exposed the collapse of Charlemagne's empire and changed the political map of Europe forever.

Part of Vikings — The Nordic Saga.

In the spring of 845, a fleet of 120 Viking longships sailed up the Seine River toward the heart of the Frankish Empire — and the most powerful kingdom in Europe paid them to leave. In this episode, we tell the story of the first Viking siege of Paris: the raid led by the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok, the terror that gripped the city, and the staggering ransom of 7,000 pounds of silver that bought its survival. We explore what this moment revealed about the weakness of the Carolingian Empire, why Paris became such an irresistible target, and how this single siege set the stage for everything that followed.

Part of Vikings — The Nordic Saga.

On a June morning in 793, longships appeared off the coast of a small holy island off northeast England — and nothing in Europe would ever be the same again. In this episode, we go deep into the raid on Lindisfarne: who carried it out, why this particular monastery was chosen, and what the terrified monks who survived wrote about it. But more than the raid itself, we explore what it meant — why historians mark this single morning as the opening chapter of the Viking Age, and what it tells us about the world that was about to be shaken to its core.

Part of Vikings — The Nordic Saga.

Chapter 18 — 845 AD: The First Siege of Paris & the Viking Who Held a City for Ransom

In the spring of 845, a fleet of 120 Viking longships sailed up the Seine River toward the heart of the Frankish Empire — and the most powerful kingdom in Europe paid them to leave. In this episode, we tell the story of the first Viking siege of Paris: the raid led by the legendary Ragnar Lothbrok, the terror that gripped the city, and the staggering ransom of 7,000 pounds of silver that bought its survival. We explore what this moment revealed about the weakness of the Carolingian Empire, why Paris became such an irresistible target, and how this single siege set the stage for everything that followed.

Part of Vikings — The Nordic Saga.

מתאים? רוצה לשנות משהו?

He was the only English king ever called "the Great" — and he earned it the hard way. In this episode, we follow Alfred of Wessex from near-total defeat, hiding in the swamps of Somerset, to his stunning comeback against the Great Heathen Army. We explore how he stopped the Viking advance, built a network of fortified towns, created the English navy almost from scratch, and laid the foundations for what would eventually become the unified kingdom of England. Alfred didn't just survive the Vikings — he changed everything because of them.

Part of Vikings — The Nordic Saga.

He was a Danish invader who conquered England by force — and then became one of its greatest kings. In this episode, we tell the remarkable story of Cnut the Great: how a young Viking warrior defeated the Anglo-Saxons, married the widow of his enemy, and built an empire stretching across England, Denmark, Norway, and parts of Sweden. We explore how he transformed from conqueror to statesman, why the English Church embraced him, and what the famous story of Cnut and the waves actually means. This is the story of a Viking who didn't just raid — he ruled.

Part of Vikings — The Nordic Saga.

One man lived three lifetimes: a wounded teenager fleeing a lost battle, an elite warrior in the

Byzantine emperor's Varangian Guard looting the palaces of Constantinople, and finally the hardhanded

king of Norway who gambled everything on the conquest of England. His death at Stamford

Bridge in 1066 is often used to mark the very end of the Viking Age. The most spectacular life the

Norse world ever produced — and the runes the Varangians left in the Hagia Sophia to prove they were

there.

Vikings reached North America around the year 1000 — half a millennium before Columbus — and the

proof is in the ground. We follow Erik the Red, the violent outlaw who named an icy land "Greenland"

to lure settlers, and his son Leif Erikson, who sailed past the edge of the known world to Vinland. The

L'Anse aux Meadows discovery, the doomed Greenland colony, the indigenous peoples who turned the

Norse back, and the fierce saga of Freydís.

The real Raven-Floki who followed birds across the open ocean to discover Iceland — and named it in

bitterness after a brutal winter. Plus: the genius of the Viking longship, how a free society with no king

arose on an empty island, how Iceland became the great archive of the Norse world, and the full reveal

of the show's most brilliant hidden detail — how the character Floki is a deliberate embodiment of the

trickster god Loki.

In 911, a Viking warlord made a deal with a French king that changed European history forever. Rollo

traded raiding for land, founded Normandy, and started a dynasty that would conquer England in 1066.

From pagan raider to Christian duke — how one bargain on a riverbank turned Vikings into Normans,

reshaped the medieval world, and left its mark on the English language itself. The most consequential

Viking who ever lived.