'Vikings: Valhalla' Creator Jeb Stuart on the True Story Behind the Show (2024)

In November 2019, one year before the end of Amazon Prime's Vikings, Netflix announced the story would continue with Vikings: Valhalla. Set in the 11th century, the eight-part series follows the lives of some of the most famous Vikings, including Leif Erikson, Freydís Eiríksdóttir, and Harald Sigurdsson.

Fans of the original Vikings series know creator Michael Hirst blended historical fact and fiction to tell the story of Ragnar Lothbrok and his sons, but has Vikings: Valhalla creator Jeb Stuart done the same? Newsweek spoke to Stuart to find out.

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Is Vikings: Valhalla Based on A True Story?

Yes and no. Like Vikings creator Michael Hirst, Vikings: Valhalla creator Jeb Stuart has taken a creative license to the true story of some of the most famous Vikings. Many parts of the series take inspiration from real people and historical events, but much of the drama is fictional for dramatic purposes.

Speaking to Newsweek, Stuart explained how the show plays with the "grey area" of history.

"I have read so much on Vikings and talked to so many people about Vikings. We obviously have great researchers who work with the show. They come up with the facts and things like that and we (the writers) come up with storylines that may be in the grey area of history. Our researchers can come to us and say 'wow, you kind of went a little too far outside of the lines on that.

"I'd say, for the most part, we try to be credibly authentic to things like dress, weapons, speech, all of those types of things. We do that but we're taking certain licenses in terms of character in terms of, for example, Olaf and Harald. They may not have existed in the same time period, but they're very close (in existence) and so we use certain aspects of them and they would have shared some of the same period, some of the same things that were going on, so I can bring them together like that."

'Vikings: Valhalla' Creator Jeb Stuart on the True Story Behind the Show (1)

The Vikings: Valhalla Cast

The majority of the show's main characters are real, minus the exception of Jarl Haakon.

Danish-Swedish singer Caroline Henderson makes her debut acting role as Haakon, the Black-female ruler of Kattegat. Some viewers might think she is based on the real Jarl Haakon, the de facto ruler of Norway from about 975 to 995, but Henderson confirmed to Newsweek this is not the case.

Instead, Vikings: Valhalla creator Jeb Stuart created a powerful, female mentor figure for Freydis (Frida Gustavsson) whilst Harald and Leif (Sam Corlett) were in London.

Henderson explained: "Haakon is fictional, purely fictional. So it's not like a male character, it's a fictional character but of course, she's inspired and based on both male and female characters, and I think the writers did a wonderful job of sort of putting something together that could have been a historical character.

"She is the ruler of Kattegat and she is also into paganism and she's very headstrong and her beliefs. She rules through a very difficult time in history because Viking time paganism is going down, Christianity is coming up. People want to conquer more land, so it's a difficult time for her but she's trying to rule with tolerance and openness, which is quite difficult, and is historically correct in that sense because that was a very challenging time in history."

Hakkon joins a host of characters in Vikings: Valhalla who are inspired by real Viking figures.

For example, Leif Erikson and Freydís Eiríksdóttir were really the children of famous Norse explorer, Erik the Red, and Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Suter) was the King of Norway from 1046 to 1066, making unsuccessful claims at the Danish and English throne.

King Canute "the Great" played by Bradley Freegard in Vikings: Valhalla was also real as was Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson's Olaf "the Holy" Haraldsson.

Canute, also known as Cnut, was King of England from 1016, King of Denmark from 1018, and King of Norway from 1028 until his death in 1035. Olaf was the real King of Norway from 1015 to 1028.

However, Stuart has taken some creative license as not all of the real-life figures were alive at the same time, there are no historical records of them meeting and the nature of their relationships (if they did meet) would be impossible to know.

The Vikings: Valhalla Plot

Vikings: Valhalla largely focuses on the feuding between the Pagan Vikings and the Vikings who have converted to Christianity, as well as the overall Viking battle against King Aethelred of England (Bosco Hogan).

For centuries the Vikings followed Paganism, also known as Old Norse Religion. This meant they believed in various gods and goddesses such as Odin and Thor. However, between the 8th and 12th centuries, the Christianization of Scandinavia began after the Vikings became exposed to the religion, partly as a result of raids in Anglo-Saxon England and across Europe.

Stuart discussed the importance of Paganism and Christianity amongst the Vikings in the 11th century to the series in conversation with Newsweek.

He explained: "This is really based on what was going on in Scandinavia at the turn of the 11th century. Christianity was kind of a hard pill to swallow up there and Scandinavia is one of the last parts of Western Europe where Christianity came in.

"A lot of people didn't want to give up the old gods and didn't want to change their beliefs. And so it was a very bloody time, it is a Viking show after all. But anyway, for me, it was fun, because it allowed me to play with it, it meant the audience that hadn't seen the original (series) could come into a story that was fresh, and for the old audience, who are used to seeing a sort of very staunch pagan Viking world. Now it had different colors to it in different layers to it than the old one did.

"The world of the original (series) was a very homogenous group of Vikings and as we move forward into the 11th century, now, we have pagan Vikings and Christian Vikings, and we have all sorts of other looks and characters out there. So there was a lot for me to get excited about.

"Religion plays a big part in Vikings: Valhalla but in the first season, Eric's daughter Freydis is a very staunch pagan Viking. That's been her culture and yet the world that she comes to when she travels from Greenland is a changing world where Viking culture is changing to Christianity and where does somebody with her beliefs fit into that."

'Vikings: Valhalla' Creator Jeb Stuart on the True Story Behind the Show (2)

At the beginning of Episode 1, Aethelred launched the St. Bride's Day Massacre on all of the Danes living in England in retaliation to continuous Viking raids and rumors of a Viking uprising. At the time of the massacre, the Danelaw (a series of Danish laws and customs) was in place largely in the North of England.

The real King Aethelred did launch an attack against the Danes on November 13, 1002, St. Brice's Day.

In 1004, Aethelred justified the massacre in a royal charter in which he explained the need to rebuild St. Frideswide's Church, now known as the famous Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford.

In his charter, he described the Danes as "sprouting like cockle amongst the wheat" and ordered their "most just extermination."

Sweyn Forkbeard, Viking and king of Denmark, raided England during 1002-1005, 1006-1007, and 1009-1012 to avenge the St. Brice's Day massacre victims, according to the Chronicle of John of Wallingford, written in the 13th century. Forkbeard was declared King of England in December 1013.

The Vikings: Valhalla Setting

The majority of the drama in Vikings: Valhalla takes place in very real places we recognize today. For example, Scandinavia features prominently, there are references to Greenland and Vinland (present-day coastal North America) and even London, in Anglo-Saxon England, amongst other U.K. locations.

However, the land of Kattegat, where Leif Erikson and Harald Sigurdsson first meet in the series, Haakon rules over and Freydis remains tied to, is fictional. Kattegat does exist in the real world, but as a sea area between the Jutlandic peninsula, the Danish Straits of Denmark and the Baltic Sea, and Västergötland, Skåne, Halland, and Bohuslän in Sweden.

Vikings: Valhalla is streaming on Netflix now.

'Vikings: Valhalla' Creator Jeb Stuart on the True Story Behind the Show (2024)
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