Tag: Podcast
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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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Raid 14: 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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Raid 13: 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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Raid 12: 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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Valentine’s Day Special: ‘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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Raid 11: Norse Mythology in 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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Raid 10: 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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Raid 9: Remnants from the Void (Sources for Norse Mythology)
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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Raid 8: How to Tame a Viking
I almost titled this raid “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 listen to this episode. In sum, we cover how Viking legends became Christian kings and, more importantly, why they chose to…
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Raid 7: 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 listen to this episode 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…
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Raid 6: The Viking Age (c. 750-1050 CE)
What was the First ‘Viking’ Raid? To be honest, 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.…
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Raid 5: The Vendel Period (c. 550-750 CE)
How did the Norse ‘become’ Vikings? Okay, so “becoming Vikings” is hardly historically appropriate…but let me explain. In this raid, we ‘conclude’ the prequel to the Viking Age by covering the Vendel Period. Dates vary, as always, but we’ll be using 550 to 750 CE. During this discussion, we’ll learn how the North quite literally…
