75. The Unspeakable Things Vikings Did During Their Reign | A Day In History

In February 2022, Netflix premiered the sequel to History Channel's "Vikings," called "Vikings: Valhalla." Two main characters are the famous Leif Eriksson and his sister, Freydis Eriksdotter. As you may know, Leif is reputed to have arrived in North America centuries before Christopher Columbus. Some accounts in the Norse sagas include a couple of tales of Leif's sister, Freydis – but in one of them, the close brothersister relationship depicted in the series is anything but that! We'll tell you about that in a moment.The Vikings were brutal. It was the early Middle Ages – everyone was brutal. The most powerful Christian king at the start of the Viking era was Charlemagne. Charlemagne may have been Christian and welleducated, but that didn't stop him from waging a genocidal war against the Saxons of Germany in his campaign to convert them to Christianity. Saxon children were instructed to report any pagan activity. Many pagan men and women were burned alive, and many Saxon children were taken back to Charlemagne's kingdom and raised as Christians. Pretty brutal, right?The Magyars of today's Hungary became Christian around 1000 under King, now "saint" Stephen. Stephen was brutal, too – he burned stubborn pagans at the stake, among other punishments.The only real reason the Vikings were considered especially brutal – and they were, make no mistakewas that combined with their brutality was their habit of appearing suddenly out of nowhere and killing many unsuspecting people. Then, they took the survivors as slaves and then disappeared. They did this for about 300 years before most converted to Christianity. At that point, Scandinavian raids essentially stopped, and the tales of their brutality stopped as well.#vikings #history #vikingshistory #ivartheboneless #ragnarlothbrok #norsehistory #rollo DISCLAIMER: All materials in these videos are used for entertainment purposes and fall within the guidelines of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. If you are, or represent, the copyright owner of materials used in this video, and have an issue with the use of said material, please send an email to [email protected] © 2021 A Day In History. All rights reserved.Managed by ⁠PodcastPayouts.com⁠ ------------- Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices