99.9% pure Hollywood baloney!
One of my colleagues in the chess world has alerted me to a TV series depicting Haakon Jarl–a late 10th Century warlord of Norway, supplanted by King Olaf Trygvesson–
–as a black woman (https://screenrant.com/vikings-valhalla-jarl-haakon-true-story-black-ruler/#:~:text=In%20addition%2C%20Jarl%20Haakon%20actress,York%2C%20before%20settling%20in%20Paris.). With a capital B.
I resist the urge to bang my head against the wall. The Viking Age was my special field of study, the topic of my honors thesis, defended before a panel of professors. So I know what I’m talking about here.
Would you believe that this howling crapola had six seasons on the freakin’ History Channel? History? What kind of “history” is that? And now yet another season is being shown on Netflix or someplace. And reviewers are spouting arrant drivel about “the fact [fact??? What fact?] of Black [sic] Vikings…” And “Many [???] legendary Viking heroes were women.” That astounding “fact” somehow managed to elude the attention of every historian, every saga-composer, every court poet living at the time. I defy the babbling ninnies out there to produce one “legendary Viking hero” who was a woman. I triple-dog dare you.
By the way, “Viking” was not an ethnicity. It was a profession. Today we’d call it armed robbery. And they didn’t wear helmets with horns on them. Trust me.
They’re always messing with the Viking Age. Back in 2017 another duffle-brained “scholar” asserted there were “Muslim Vikings” (https://leeduigon.com/2023/10/12/muslim-vikings-baloney-says-scholar-2017-2/). This nonsense was exposed pretty quickly.
What’s next? Midget Vikings?
Anyone who thinks you can “learn” by watching television is barking very, very loudly up the wrong tree. The only things you can learn there are things that aren’t true.