The Vikings Reimagined: Reception, Recovery, Engagement ed. by Tom Birkett and Roderick Dale (review)

This volume consists of fourteen papers given by international scholars at the “Rediscovering the Vikings Conference” on November 25 and 26, 2016, at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland. The authors explore the modern reception, image, and use of Vikings in history, literature, digital games, television, historical re-enactment, tourism, and branding. The book features an introduction by Tom Birkett and afterword by Kevin Crossley-Holland, and includes fifteen black-and-white and color illustrations and an index.

In his paper, “Vikings!,” M. J. Driscoll refers to the 1980 BBC series and book by Magnus Magnusson of the same title, which encapsulates the widespread public appeal of Vikings as wild and exciting barbarians from the north. He first discusses the disputed origins of the term “Viking” and the different suggestions deriving from the Old Norse noun vík (bay, creek, inlet), the verb víkja (to turn away or move), and the Old English verb wīcian (to camp) or noun wīc (harbor, trading place, town; camp, temporary settlement). Driscoll then turns to the origin and definitions of the term “Viking Age,” as well as the tendency of all inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries during the period to be referred to as “Vikings” rather than just those who engaged in pillaging and raiding. He concludes that it is a futile effort to protest such shorthand usage of the term due to its pervasiveness throughout modern discourse.

Neil Price’s contribution discusses the difference between the historical Vikings as we know them and their portrayal in the Vikings TV series. While the series contains many small and large inaccuracies, some of which he finds concerning or problematic, he counts other aspects as successes, such as depictions of daily life at home, the complexity of paganism and its interactions with Christianity, and realistic female characters. Price’s overall verdict is positive because the series paints a picture of a believable, living society from its own perspective, rather than through the lens of foreign sources. Ultimately, Price holds, the representation of Vikings in entertainment is shaped by the sensibilities of the time.

Leszek Gardeła traces Viking Studies in Poland from the nineteenth century through the early twentieth century, the Nazi occupation in World War II, the postwar communist period, and the post-communist period, to the present-day. The field has moved through Romantic Nationalism, struggles against Nazi ideology, and post-Nazi revisionism, to focus on contacts between Vikings and Slavs, resulting in today’s thriving Viking studies and enthusiastic historical re-enactment, more popular than ever.

Klaudia Karpińska offers a fascinating look at women in modern Viking re-enactment in Poland. Gathering data from informants at the Festival of Slavs and Vikings in Wolin, and the Carpathian Archaeological Festival in Trzcinica, she reveals that the majority of women who engage in Viking re-enactment do not research their costumes and perceive Viking women as strong and independent figures they could relate to. Karpińska also investigates the special roles of Vǫlur (sorceresses) and warrior women in re-enactment and uncovers the remaining gender imbalance, which appears to be changing due to new archaeological discoveries.

Jessica Clare Hancock analyzes gender roles in historical and fictional children’s picture books about Vikings, published between 2000 and 2016. While most of the historical books examined portray a “raider-masculinity,” Hancock finds that many fictional books offer alternate masculinities for male characters and active roles for female characters, which significantly influence readers’ future attitudes toward gender in the Viking World.

Thomas Spray explores comedic parodies of Icelandic sagas from the nineteenth-century pieces by Charles Cavendis Clifford and William Mitchell Banks, to a Monty Python’s Flying Circus 1972 episode featuring Njorl’s Saga, to Jackson Crawford’s saga-style Star Wars parody Tattúínárdǿla saga. According to Spray, the specific jokes and parodies of the sagas as a genre can offer a thermometer of academic and social attitudes...