101. Rites of Passage

The first episode opens up in 793 in the Eastern Baltics.  Two men are fighting against a better-armoured but less skilled army.  We find out that they are Ragnar Lothbrok and Rollo--two brothers who raid together in search of glory... and uh.... wait a fucking minute.

Manly hugs of blood and sweat and manliness.  Mmm.

Ragnar Lothbrok and Rollo (or Hrolfr, which is his birth name) weren't brothers.  They didn't even live around the same time.  Ragnar died in the year 865 while being young enough to go raiding (yet old enough to have an ungodly amount of children).  Rollo was born in 846 and died in 911.  I mean.. I guess they could have been brothers, but I don't see Rollo getting all deliciously beefy by age 19 when his brother kicks it.  Anyways, there's the more important elephant in the room here... these men lived well after the show's date.

So we're already dealing with some anachronism here.

Now, I'm not too worried about it, myself.  Ragnar is a man who is probably more fiction than fact.  His exploits have been chronicled in histories like Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and The Saga of Ragnar with The Saga of Ragnar's Sons.  In a nutshell, Ragnar leads raids on France, pisses off the king of England and eventually becomes the king of Denmark.  Today we honor him with this amazing TV show and giving his name to the mascot for the Minnesota Vikings.

You're welcome. 

The show touches on a few of his legends.  When Ragnar and Bjorn are camping out in the fjords, he tells the story of how he met his wife, Lagertha.  His tale comes strait out of the Gesta Danorum.  She was a powerful shieldmaiden who fought alongside Ragnar and impressed him.  He sent many messengers to her house to try and woo her and she pretended to have fallen in love with him--though in her heart she wasn't interested.  When she heard he was coming to see her, she set a bear and a dog at her door to keep him away.  He killed them in the manner he described and thus won her heart.

We have another nod to one of his legends through his name, Lothbrok.  Lothbrok isn't a family surname, it's the nickname that he received when he won the heart of Thora Townheart.  Ragnar saw her when he was only fifteen years old and became absolutely smitten with her beauty.  At the time, as teenaged boys are wont to do, he was making a set of armour out of hides dipped in pitch.  The pants were still incredibly hairy and must have looked ridiculous enough to draw attention.  He put them on to go woo the girl, but found out there was a giant snake guarding her.  Ragnar fought the snake and succeeding in killing it while many  men had failed before, because his pants were too thick for the snake to bite through.  Instead of entering the house and claiming his prize, however, he decided to leave before anyone could see him.  Luckily, he left the head of his spear in the body of the snake.

I'm just tickled pink by any legend that basically compares Ragnar to Cinderella.

Anyways, Thora's father called a Thing and tried matching the large, heavy spearhead to the spearshafts of the men who attended.  Finally, he matched it to Ragnar's, made a comment about his stupid pants (which stuck forever.  Nicknames, amirite?) and gave Thora to Ragnar for them to live happily ever after.  Or... at least live until he decided he wanted to woo another lady and she conveniently died of an illness.

Enough about Ragnar, who's the other dude hugging it out after the battle?

Rollo came from either Norway or Denmark, depending on who you ask as historians from both countries claim him for their own.  What isn't contested is that he raided the northern coast of France and even made his way down the Seine to siege Paris.  He was defeated... but seriously, how many Vikings can say they managed to make it all the way to Paris to give those cheese eaters a what-for?  King Charles eventually signs a treaty with him and makes him the Jarl of Normandy. (so named because of the Northmen who raided and settled there)  His descendants become the Dukes of Normandy and eventually the Kings of England.  For being so darn special, we gave him his own little statue in the holiest of places... Fargo, ND.

"A neighboring Jarl has offended me... fetch the woodchipper."

Unlike his not-brother, there aren't as many legends about Rollo because we have more information about him from more reliable sources, pointing to him being definitely a real person.  Also, I'm fairly certain that all of the interesting things he did are going to be in the show at some point, so I'd like to shy away from possible spoilers.

So back to the episode!

Bjorn and Ragnar are on their way to a Thing.  There they will dispense justice for crimes committed, Bjorn will receive an arm ring and they will discuss where to raid in the summer.  To be honest, I loved this part because it was mostly correct!

Except for the arm ring.  Really, arm rings were only given to seasoned warriors as a reward for their service.  Gold isn't easy to come by, especially in a small town like Kattegat where they haven't been raiding and trading with anybody rich enough to get them those stores of gold.

But that's besides the point.  A Viking Thing is a periodic gathering of free men (and occasionally women).  All decisions must be made by the general assembly and the Jarl usually has no say over the outcome.  The only person with real authority is the Law Speaker, who happens to be conveniently in Jarl Haraldson's pocket.  The Law Speaker would recite the relevant rules and punishments for the crime committed and the assembly would vote on what punishment is given.  Well done, history channel, it looks like you've studied some history!

Then Bjorn completes his rites of passage and becomes a man.  To be honest, I haven't found any sources saying exactly when this would happen.  It's generally about the age of puberty... some boys would raid as young as 12 and some would when they were 15.  When you live in a violent age where most men would be expected to fight, it's probably more important to wait for physical maturity than an arbitrary age.  But if anybody has any sources contradicting me, I would love to see them!  Leaaaarning.

Ragnar interrupts the Thing with his goals of sailing west.  This angers the Jarl and seems to excite the assembly, but he doesn't say how he's going to do this thing that nobody's done before.  (Ignoring, of course, the raids on Portland Bay four years before.)  But he and the audience know that he's going to use a sunstone.

The sunstone is also a real thing, though it probably wasn't used at this time and we think it was used in a very different manner.  It's a type of spar that you can find in Iceland.  You put a single black dot on one side and hold it up to the sun, watching the shadow.  You'll see two dots until you rotate the stone and it's pointing at the sun.  The two dots will converge into one and you'll know where the sun is at noon.  Perhaps a difficult concept to explain on a TV show, and we're not entirely sure that's how it was done anyways since the only sunstone we've found (outside of legends and sagas) was on an Elizabethan warship, not a Viking longboat.

That's where I'll leave it for today.  There's so much going on in this episode and I could talk about it for HOURS but then that wouldn't leave any content for the next post.  If you have any subjects that you would like me to talk about or expand on, please let me know in the comments!  Also, reviews reviews reviews!  Give me your thoughts on what I've said.  Until next time!