Exotic TV «Vikings»

This article discusses the representation of the early Viking age past in the popular television show, Vikings. Based loosely on Ragnars saga loðbrókar and Ragnars sona þáttr, the show demonstrates an awareness of academic research into the early Viking age and pays particular attention to academic research on the material realities of the Viking age mainly through its use of archaeological evidence. While the show is not the only popular cultural product to do so, it does, however, present a version of the past that creates the Viking age as a «foreign country» by defamiliarising the familiar past. It is the contention of this article that a careful comparison with the tropes and methods of Orientalism can help illuminate the show’s processes of reimagining the past.