Category: Videos
Don’t like reading? No problem. In that case, I’ll keep this description short. Behold! Fjorn’s video lectures!
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Norse Mythology: Yggdrasil
For the Norse, Yggdrasil was their world(s) tree. That’s right, world(s)—because they conceived their cosmos as having 9 worlds, not just 1. This raid therefore aims to plunder the heart of their cosmos to better understand Yggdrasil’s role and its symbolism in the Norse world(s)view. We won’t talk about everything (like Odin’s well-known sacrifice upon…
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Women’s Day Special: Aud or Unn? The Sagas of a Norse Matriarch
You probably haven’t heard about a Norse woman who single-handedly saved her family from a political turmoil in Scotland, settled part of Iceland, distributed land, arranged marriages for her kin, and maintained a respected reputation that was remember for generations? Of course not. This International Women’s Day special tells the story of a woman named…
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Norse Mythology: Midgard and Asgard
It’s not a stretch to say that Midgard and Asgard are the two most important worlds of the Norse cosmos, for they are the homes of us humans and our gods. But…have you ever wondered why they’re both conceived of as fortresses? It’s not a coincidence. In this raid, we’ll go through the must-know details…
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Norse Mythology: Creating the Cosmos
The Norse imagined the creation of the cosmos as a story of ice and fire—but it’s really nothing like the more well-known Song of Ice and Fire that people prefer to talk about now. Well, perhaps they used to until a certain show ended on a less-than-popular note. But I digress. In this raid, we’re…
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Norse Mythology in Saga Literature
This is our third and final raid covering the scanty sources we have for Norse Mythology. To most people, sagas are an odd and obscure group of medieval literature mostly from the equally odd and obscure Iceland. Their content typically covers things like feuding farmers or campaigning kings (occasionally featuring whack-a-mole spectral seals and red-shirt…
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Special Raid: ‘Viking’ Love Stories
When it comes to love in the medieval North, these are some of the most essential stories to know. We start things off with a fairly detailed discussion about Freyja, the free-spirited goddess of love and war, including her ferocious cats and her experience with magic, aka seiðr. After that, we cringe (and laugh) through…
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Norse Mythology: Snorri and Saxo’s Salty Prose
When it comes to ‘primary’ source material about Norse mythology, few are better than the Prose Edda—but everyone hates on its 13th-century Icelandic author, the infamous Snorri Sturluson. There’s plenty of good reasons for that, but I think people take for granted that he was much less salty than his Danish contemporary, Saxo Grammaticus. This…
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Norse Mythology in Eddic and Skaldic Poetry
The first remnants of Norse Mythology we’re discussing are, of course, eddic and skaldic poetry. They’re not the friendliest sources for those unfamiliar with the lore, but they are, perhaps, the most ‘reliable’ of the scanty source material we have to work with. Yet, even though their origins are often in the Viking Age, you’ll…
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Norse Mythology: Remnants from the Void
Like the creation of the Norse cosmos, our coverage of Norse Mythology begins with a great void. Instead of cows licking salty ice, however, we’re facing the challenges of oral traditions and material culture without contemporary context. This raid is therefore a brief overview of those remnants from the void: our scanty sources for a…
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Viking History: How to Tame a Viking (Christianization and the End of the Viking Age)
I almost titled this video “How to Train a Viking,” and, to be honest, it would have worked just as well. Why? Because the Viking Age came to an end because…well, you should probably watch the video. In sum, we cover how Viking legends became Christian kings and, more importantly, why they chose to do…
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Viking History: What Made a Raid Viking?
To bake a Viking raid, one needs a few more ingredients than a Norseman with an axe. Naturally, you’ll have to watch this video to get the recipe. I will say this, though: we cover the developments in Scandinavia that provided the foundation for the first Viking raids, the main factors used to differentiate ‘Viking’…
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Viking History: The Viking Age (c. 750-1050 CE)
The ‘first’ raid of the Viking Age (c. 750-1050 or, more conventionally, 793-1066) isn’t as straightforward as you might think. You might have heard about Lindisfarne before, if you’ve been into Vikings and Norse things for a while—but, spoiler alert, that’s not really the first raid. It’s impactful, but not the ‘original.’ This video will…
