It’s funny how things happen, you know? I met this lady, Stacy Harp, almost thirty years ago at church. She and her husband got married one month after Joe and I got married and I didn’t even know that until this year.
Her brother married my sister. We celebrated the holidays last year together in Tennessee and it turns out that Stacy is a voice behind Active Christian Media. “We gotta get you on the show!” she told me last year. Because sometimes, Bible News Radio features Christian authors and Christian fiction.
It just…took us a while to get together!
But now we have. :) My portion begins at about thirty minutes in at this link here.
History has always been a hobby of mine. I studied English in college, as well as Theology, but it’s HISTORY that has been an avocation since I was very young. Vikings were a part of history, but never really a grand obsession until I began writing about them for my Éire’s Viking Trilogy.
Vikings have been much maligned by pop culture, in my estimation. Sure, they had their ups and downs, but the Norse people that I’ve studied were concerned about justice, morality, personal accomplishment, bravery, and family. Cleanliness was important, as were practical arts and crafts. The thing to remember, in dealing with any culture, is that the worldview these men and women possessed more than a thousand years ago was not the same one through which we experience the world, today.
Taken on their own terms, the Northmen, the Vikings, were true to themselves and their lights—and they had a plan for their cultural survival. Learning about them has been a wonderful thing.
And now, I am hooked. So much so that I am a HUGE fangirl of History Channel’s show, VIKINGS.
Ever since the first episode of Season One, back in 2013, I’ve watched, followed, tagged, tweeted. Twitter accounts you might wish to follow include:
The NoShip Network (podcasters extraordinaire)
Lissa Bryan (My partner in live-tweeting and next-morning follow-ups.)
Clive Standen (who plays ROLLO)
George Blagden (who plays ATHELSTAN)
Alexander Ludwig (who plays BJÖRN (adult))
Katheryn Winnick (who plays LAGERTHA)
The Vikings featured on the TV show originate in Scandinavia. I’m thinking Sweden, though King Horik was a Dane. The first part of Season One begins at the tail end of the 8th Century, just before my own trilogy begins in Nordweg (Norway) and Éire (Ireland) at the beginning of the 9th Century.
Image property of the History Channel and used only for illustrative purposes relating to the VIKINGS show.
If you have not yet seen this show, I HIGHLY recommend you watch it. I’ll be featuring a few of my favorite episodes between now and February 19th, which is when Season 3 begins here in the States. The History Channel is showing episodes on their website right now, so you’ve got the opportunity to immerse yourself in the Northern Way before Ragnar begins his new adventures.
My plan, over the course of the next several days, is to share with you some of the highlights of the VIKINGS show as well as stuff from my own research as we prepare for the invasion of the Northmen.
Heill þú farir, heill þú aftr komir, heill þú á sinnum sér!
Hale go forth, hale return, hale on your ways! – Vafþrúðnismál 4
Image courtesy of York Archaeological Trust
The Northmen, the terror of the coasts for perhaps hundreds of years, didn’t set out to make life difficult for everyone. They began because they wanted to make life better for themselves and their families. The winters were long, the growing season for farming short, and life could be pretty harsh much of the year. Men of valor, men who wanted to protect their families and enrich themselves, moved outward in their efforts to do so.
Image property of History Channel. Used here only as a illustration for VIKINGS.
Some were like Ragnar Lo∂brok, from History Channel’s VIKINGS. A farmer and fisherman, he wanted more – wanted to provide for his growing family, wanted renown as was considered favorable among his people. In the first season of this wonderful show, we see how he managed to do just that, using his creativity, strength, and battle prowess as well as people skills and compassion.
Quite a remarkable man, all the way around, eh?
Like the VIKINGS series to date, my trilogy has three parts, and the first part (first season, as it were) involved a man named Tuirgeis who led a raid to Éire – Ireland – to gain wealth for trading. The Northmen raided the Green Isle and then took goods and slaves across the ocean, to trade for what they wanted and needed back home. Nordweg.
As Ragnar found out in VIKINGS, Agnarr and Tuirgeis discovered in Éire’s Captive Moon that having a slave carries obligations. Ragnar found himself making friends with his Christian priest, in the television show. And Tuirgeis found himself eventually adopting Cowan—also a Christian—out of slavery and into his own family. Agnarr, too, found himself developing feelings for his captive, Charis.
Lives do carry obligations for those with the heart to feel them.
The people of the North were not heartless. They weren’t “bad” folks taken as a whole – they just had a set of goals that tended to take priority. The people of most import were their FAMILIES. Their friends, their villages. In Norway, there weren’t kingdoms in the early 9th Century, but there were loyalties to strong leaders, jarls, overlords. In the land of the Danes, there was a king to whom others pledged loyalty. Other people? Well, if they were weak enough to be victims, they didn’t deserve not to be, was the rationale of many.
This doesn’t excuse what they did, of course. Depriving someone of their freedom isn’t good in anyone’s book, but often one has to be on the other side of a problem before one sees it. For Agnarr, he felt a bit of that other side when the village of Balestrand was invaded by outsiders.
Problem is that for some, the acquisition of anything leads to the desire for more of it. Power, wealth, status, pride… All of these things can create a deeper hunger for more of the same, which is where a simple wish for bettering the life of a family can grow into a thirst for, say, ruling a people.
And ruling, as Tuirgeis finds out and as Ragnar Lo∂brok likely will discover, is far different than merely conquest.
Tomorrow: My favorite episode from Season One. :)
So sorry I lagged behind with this post. With the Valentine Weekend promotional stuff, I felt rather overwhelmed!
All Vikings images herein are the property of the History Channel. Click here to go there.
But THIS WEEK, my favorite show VIKINGS is back. Thursday night! So excited! If you aren’t following me on twitter but are interested in reading my live-tweeting comments with Lissa Bryan, come find me on twitter – the link is on my sidebar.
Today, I wanted to share with you my favorite episode from Season One of VIKINGS. The first season was fantastic for so many reasons. First, for me, was that it was the INVASION story. Ragnar went to Lindisfarne in episode two. [Link goes to my post where Lissa and I discussed this episode.]
In this episode, we see how Ragnar the adventurer and navigator leads his men to England, where they hit Lindisfarne Monastery at the end of the 8th Century. Ragnar had definite goals in mind, but one he did not have was to find Athelstan, a young monk, whom he took as a captive.
This episode began a strange friendship between two disparate men that has continued thus far throughout the show.
In my Éire’s Viking Trilogy, I also tried to develop friendships and kinship between the Northmen and those whom they captured. In Éire’s Captive Moon, Tuirgeis (a Viking leader) captures Cowan (a prince of Ireland) and the two men have rational discussions, even about Cowan’s Christian faith. Tuirgeis eventually adopts Cowan as a brother. Through the course of my trilogy, the interrelationships between men of Ireland and the men of Norway are very important as the plot spins out.
My friends who have read my work for years know I have lain heavy hands on violence and/or death in many of my stories. But my real obsession, I think, is to find relationships between those for whom friendship (or romance, in some cases), is not a likely prospect. The challenge is to bend a story to my will, to bring characters through places that compel mutual understanding and appreciation, to show their best sides to one another as they learn to work together toward a common goal or purpose.
THAT is the delight of my craft, and I so enjoy seeing others—like the VIKINGS creators, writer, and producers—do so as well.
Tomorrow night is the night! Prepare for the invasion, because VIKINGS are back in Season 3!
Season 2 is actually available to view online right now at http://www.history.com/vikings and if you haven’t seen it? You really should. Engage in binge-watching if you have time, or at least check out the recaps.
And then go see the season finale: The Lord’s Prayer.
And THEN read the discussion Lissa Bryan and I had about it. You might even enjoy listening to the podcast for this episode over on iTunes. Just look for NoShip Network podcast and then find Vikings Season 2: The Lord’s Prayer. The crew at NoShip Network really do their homework and have great discussions. Warning: This is an adult show. As VIKINGS is rated at TV-14, this podcast is rated as Explicit. Grownups only, okay?
This episode, for me, is amazing in that the crew at VIKINGS really made it the Big Reveal episode. I was played all season. So was Lissa. And we were both in AWE of the orchestrations that happened behind the scenes to make it work so well.
When involved in any kind of creative endeavor, having an eye on the outcome is (in my opinion) crucial. It was clear in the season finale that the writer of the show, Michael Hirst and whomsoever he tag-teams, had a perfect idea of how they wanted the last episode to play out. The whole season’s actions and secrets played into the audience’s interpretations of how the finale was viewed, I think.
It was brilliant.
When I wrote the first book of my Viking trilogy, I knew the end I was going for, the suspense I hoped to create to get there, and all that that would entail. To reach that end, I began construction for it from the first chapter and kept the tension throughout. When I wrote the second, I had definite plans for my hero, and I had to make sure that each step of his journey would get him to where I needed him to be by story’s end. The challenge and delight of creation was making sure it happened the way I’d envisioned it.
I sure hope that the VIKINGS people have as much fun in their work as I do in mine!
Tomorrow: A quick preview of Season 3, based upon what one can find online.
Images from VIKINGS on the History Channel used here only as illustrations for this show. All rights belong to History Channel.
Tonight is the night! Lissa Bryan and I will be watching VIKINGS on History Channel. 10 pm Eastern time, follow @HistoryVikings, @LissaBryan, and me, @sandyquill on twitter. Lissa Bryan is an historical fiction writer, as I am, and she is brilliant. You’ll appreciate her insights, I am sure.
What will be happening this year on VIKINGS? The History Channel has provided some peeks into the upcoming season. Check out their video preview as well as their official Tumblr site: Vikings on HISTORY.
Well, we hear Ragnar is taking his people to England and even PARIS. But, as he asks, “Since when does any of this have to do with my happiness?” I have to think that the battles are hard for him. Not so much physically as much as emotionally and psychologically.
He is confronted with a need to be loyal to divergent people. “How many of us must die for your Christians?” Floki demands.
“We fight. That is how we win, and that is how we die,” Ragnar tells his son Björn.
Princess Aslaug asks Ragnar if he loves her, but we don’t hear the answer, here.
And I always, I confess, wonder how Ragnar’s heart stands in relation to Lagertha. (Hey, I’m a romance writer, too, yeah? The relationships are HUGE to me.)
Writer Michael Hirst was interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter, and has much else to say about Ragnar, Björn, Lagertha, the Seer, and even about Kevin Durand (whom I have enjoyed watching since I saw him ages ago in Mystery, Alaska with Russell Crowe) and his role this season. It’s so exciting! Hirst says, in summation:
Season three is our best season yet it’s our most ambitious season yet, and there are a lot of shocks and tragedies and unexpected events along the way.
Clive Standen, who plays Rollo, has been around and about on social media as well. He talks about Rollo’s future. He has more tattoos, the actor says, and “goes more down the rabbit hole of being a berserker.” But as we know, from watching him throughout the other seasons, Rollo can and does surprise us. Standen says:
So I think that’s midway through season three, maybe Rollo might surprise you and you’ll see a complete transformation, almost a phoenix from the flames.
Also, there have been rumblings that Athelstan will not be with us for the entire season. (George Blagden has a role in another historical production, and that is going well, so I have heard.) How will his crisis of faith play out? There is a series of short videos called Athelstan’s Journals on History Channel’s Vikings page. Check out their Videos section and look for them. There are several, each about five minutes in length.
And if that’s not ENOUGH to keep you occupied ’til the episode airs, check out the quick three-minute Behind the Scenes video. The actors chime in with words like “epic” and “better every year”. It sounds like everyone is really excited about what they got to film to share with us.
Find Lissa and me tonight and say Heill! We’re raiding England!
Image taken from the official Vikings Tumblr.
