On Vikings

While watching the First Four of the NCAA Tournament (No, I am not a compulsive gambler.  Yes, I get a case of March Madness every year.), I noticed promotions for “Vikings” on the History Channel.  From the ads, I guessed the series would follow the revisionist line of Vikings as noble, good-hearted manly men who sailed the seas being very manly.

So I was expecting to blog that the Vikings were not noble at all.  They were looters, murders, and rapists who, among other atrocities, brutally sacked peaceful monasteries.  And I was going to ask with slight smugness and indignity whether the History Channel was going to show that part of Viking history.

But, lo and behold, it appears the series actually does show that side of the Vikings.  A synopsis of the “Dispossessed” episode begins, “A monastery in Lindesfarne is about to get a firsthand look at how the Vikings operate. In and out in a flurry of violence and terror, Ragnar and his crew raid the monastery for everything it contains, from treasure to monks who can be sold as slaves.”

Hmmm.  So the series does have at least some degree of real history and no freemasons or space aliens that I can see.  And I do like my early medieval history. 

I might have to watch.