Vikings: Valhalla
Created by Jeb Stuart
Starring Sam Corlett, Frida Gustavsson, Leo Suter, Bradley Freegard, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Caroline Henderson, Laura Berlin, David Oakes
Composer Trevor Morris
Executive producers Jeb Stuart, Morgan O’Sullivan, Michael Hirst, Sheila Hockin, Steve Stark, James Flynn, John Weber, Niels Arden Oplev, Sherry Marsh, Alan Gasmer, Paul Buccieri
Producers Mark Murdoch, Cáit Collins
Running time 44–59 minutes
Production companies , Metropolitan Films International, History, MGM Television
Distributor MGM Television and Digital Distribution & Netflix Streaming Services
On Netflix, February 25, 2022 – present
Preceded by Vikings
They’re back. The Vikings, that is. Bigger, hairier, more violent.
And that’s just the women.
Vikings: Valhalla picks up some 150 years after the end of the original Vikings series. It starts with the massacre of the Danish settlers in England by King Aethelred II, the Unready, on the feast of St. Brice in November of 1002. (There are a lot of characters in this based upon actual historical personages; they range from those known to every schoolchild, such as Lief Erickson and King Canute, to those taught about in the upper study classes, such as Aethelred and Godwin). That massacre did actually happen, but things start to slide after that.
Among those killed in Aethelred’s betrayal was Gunhilde, sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, then the King of Denmark. Sweyn did not take this well, and invaded England at Kent (the series has Canute ordering the raid, but historically, it was Sweyn). They learn that Aethelred has died (in reality, he fled London before the city fell, and indeed came back into power in 1014 until his death in 1016).
OK, obviously Valhalla doesn’t pay much attention to historical dates or sequences of events. It has been a half century since I was taught about the history of pre-Conquest England, but I knew that a lot of what I was seeing in the series just wasn’t so. For an American, it would be like learning that King Henry VIII attacked America in revenge for the slaughter of the Mohawks but discovered that General George Washington had died just before his air force arrived.
So it only has a nodding acquaintance with historical accuracy. It still has good acting, beautifully constructed sets and settings, and the costuming is top notch. Not a single horned helmet to be seen.
The main focus of the show is that the believers in the Aesir, the Nordic Gods, are under attack by the Christians, who wish to eradicate the false and pagan beliefs. This, too, must be regarded with a fair bit of skepticism. Ragnar Lothbrok, central character in the original series, was just as willing to attack and rape and pillage Nordic temples and shrines as he was Christian ones, and the Christians were just as indiscriminate. The show features a concerted effort by organized Christian forces to annihilate the followers of the Old Religion, but history doesn’t really back that up. Christianity spread amongst the population, assimilating rather than invading, and incorporating a lot of the old beliefs into their own—thus the equinoctial Eostre, the winter solstice celebrations with lights, trees, and yule logs, and a goodly portion of the early saints, including the progenitors of Santa Claus.
But, like the original series, the production is solid, and it’s well enough done that viewers will have considerable fun watching it. I don’t know if they actually called them “Shield Maidens” but it is a fact that some of the fiercest and most successful Viking warriors were female.
It’s fun, but as a history lesson, it’s mostly just more made-up stuff like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Nope—that wasn’t real, either.