The Einherjar are the brave fallen warriors who live in Valhalla and are destined to join the gods in the final battle of Ragnarök. This concept has been embraced in modern Viking culture, with all warriors wishing to live and die in a way worthy of Valhalla. But what did it really mean to join…
Drawing of what the Jelling site might have looked like based on early archaeological investigations. Since Viking history feels old, it can often be surprising when we talk about new knowledge and new discoveries. But what we know about the Viking world is constantly evolving. To uncover Viking history, we rely on fragments of surviving…
It feels like almost every day there is news of a new Viking burial discovered in someone’s backyard or during new construction work. These sites reveal stunning pieces of jewelry, formidable weapons, and new insights into what the Vikings thought about both life and death. Let’s take a look at four recent and interesting Viking…
When you look around the internet, it is not hard to find examples of Thor’s hammer, or Mjolnir, amulets. They were popular pieces worn in the Viking age, and they are also popular pieces of jewelry among modern-day Vikings and followers of the Norse religion. When looking at pictures, it can be difficult to determine…
How do you tell if you have Viking DNA? If you send your DNA off to an ancestry DNA testing lab, you might get results suggesting that you are 50% “broadly European”, 10% “North African”, and 40% “Norwegian”. That means you have Viking genes, right? You may also be told a fascinating Viking DNA family…
We are very excited about the release of the new The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series. The first episode dropped on Amazon Prime on September 1 (2022). It is set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the Second Age described in…
We often talk about “the Vikings”, but the people that we think of today as Vikings were not in fact a homogenous group. They were northern Europeans from present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden whose culture thrived between the 8th and 11th centuries. They also shared a seafaring culture of exploration, trade, and also pillaging. They…
I have heard quite a few people suggest that the image of Santa Claus, an important character in the Christain Christmas festival, is based on Odin, the All-Father and principal Viking god. They make a good point. If you look at traditions surrounding Santa Claus, especially before Coca-Cola reimagined him for their brand in the…
While it is great to see the Marvel movie franchise popularizing some of the important entities from Norse mythology, such as Thor, Loki, and Odin, it is important to remember that Marvel is representing a fictional universe based on a well-established comic book series with its own contextual universe, and not based directly on Norse…
With the launch of the new series on Disney Plus, our favorite Norse trickster Loki is more popular than ever. But how much does the Loki that we encounter in the Marvel universe line up with the giant described in Norse myth and legend? Let’s take a look at six factors and see where Marvel…