Justin Pollard - The world of Vikings

Siegfried (Greg Orvis) relaxes with his prosthetic head and nemesis Count Odo (Owen Roe) in a break during film making.

For Steph, Coco, and Fliss.
Jafnan er hlfsg saga ef einn segir.

Justin Pollard

For my mentor and friend, Nicolas Roeg.

Michael Hirst

Ragnar (Travis Fimmel) exhausted after the sack of Lindisfarne.

By Michael Hirst

EXPERIENCE HAS TAUGHT ME that fact is stranger than fiction. Indeed, thats one of the reasons I dont personally like fantasy. The Viking age, the Viking gods, the Viking voyages of discovery that took them to Russia, to England, to Spain, to Italy, to Ireland, to Iceland, to Greenland, and thence to North America, hundreds of years before Columbusall these realities are beyond imagining. In order to do justice to these fierce Northern raiders who struck such fear into the minds of our ancestors, we need to clear our own minds of the clutter of prejudices and received opinions that have always surrounded them. Just as we need to remember that they never wrote down a word about themselves.

The first thing I need to say about my own work on Vikings is that it is drama and not documentary. The second, and equally important, thing to note is that the drama is based on historical research and historical record. These two ideas are not, as some might think, contradictory. Long before I start to write, I spend weeks, even months, rummaging about in accounts of Viking life, society, and culture, teasing out story lines and watching as various characters begin to emerge from the material and claim my attention. In this process Im helped by our historical adviser, Justin Pollard, an expert on the Dark Ages. Justin carefully guides me through the labyrinth of Viking myth, legend, and historical account so that I know my narrative is as credible and as authentic as I can make it.

Vikings have always been the other. They have alwaysfrom the eighth century to our ownpersonified the threat of arbitrary and excessive violence. Appearing out of the blue, in their sleek ships with dragon heads, they fell upon poor Christian communities with brutal savagery, motivated only by greed and lust. So, anyway, the first witnesses to these events put them on record. But these scribes were Christian monks, who had every reason to spread fear about such wanton, ruthless, immoral, Iron Age pagans. What they didnt mention, because they didnt know, was that Viking society was far more open and democratic than their own. And that the Vikings had a deeper respect for women, who could own property, divorce their husbands, fight beside their brothers and sons in the shield wall, and even rule.

These things were news to me too. I dont write for educational purposesonce again, I insist that I write drama. Nevertheless, I am thrilled when what I write and produce inspires teachers and students around the world to go back to their texts and rediscover a very different Viking world. An infinitely more real Viking world.

I first encountered these formidable Northmen when, after writing Elizabeth, I was commissioned to write a movie about another famous English monarch, Alfred the Great. By Alfreds time, Viking war bands and armies were frequent visitors to the shores of Britain. Indeed, Alfred was driven out of his own kingdom of Wessex by Vikings from Denmark, who established what was called the Danelaw in its place. I became fascinated by these northern raiders, but quickly discovered that, since this happened during the Dark Ages, not a great deal was known about them. In any case, at the time, there did not seem to be a huge appetite to find out. Nobody, back in 1998, got excited about the Vikings.

Yet it was very different when, in 2010, MGM asked me if I was interested in writing a television drama series about them. It seemed as if everyone were suddenly interested in the subject; Vikings were in the zeitgeist, and there was talk about Viking exhibitions opening at the British Museum and all around the world.

How to account for this new interest, or the fact that the show is now being watched in 152 countries? Well, it seems that the Earth continues to deliver up new and exciting evidence of Viking presence around the globe: a second possible settlement in Nova Scotia, the frozen remains of a bejeweled Viking princess in Russia, a wonderful Viking hoard with precious pottery in the UK. All this is proof, if proof were needed, that the Vikings went everywhere, and that their DNA is present from the Urals to Africa.

But perhaps even more important is a new and urgent interest in paganism and Viking religion. We live in an age of religious fundamentalisman age of conflict between absolute faiths. In the eighth century it was the same, except that the conflict was between the Hammer and the Cross: paganism and Christianity. I always wanted to write about this subject. As a storyteller myself, I have always found the Norse sagas to be an unending source of drama. And, once again, the truth is always stranger than fiction.

Athelstan (George Blagden) considers if the pen really is mightier than the sword.

My problem was: how to introduce a contemporary audience into this world? And the answer was a character called Athelstan. A young monk captured during the Vikings first raid on mainland Britain, Athelstan began life as a devicea guide into a past and lost culturewho quickly became a character and then a living person. This is the beauty of writing a television series rather than a movie. You have time and opportunity to develop and explore all your major characters. They come alive and urge their reality upon you.