Vikings Episode 207: The Lamentable Curse of a Good Run.
Up until this point I have fought hard to give Vikings good press; and deservingly so. Blood Eagle, however, made huge mistakes at several critical junctures in the storyline. First, the tale of Ecbert in Wessex is a vexing assortment of some misguided attempt at appeasing English national pride. Second, the tale of Floki and his new wife has diverged from mainstream history and entered the halls of fantasy. En revanche, the Blood Eagle was a marvelous spectacle: a slow buildup, dramatic cut scenes, and a final opaque glimpse at the horror. Was the blood Eagle accurate? This episode as a whole fell victim to the lamentable curse of a good run for it did not rise to the high expectations the previous episodes set for it.
The scene where the kings of Wessex and Northumbria meet vexed me. Their meeting included a most unusual homage to England with the chant “God Save England”. To put this Take 5 Productions idiosyncrasy into analogous perspective, the island they refer to as England was not referred to as such in the Viking Age. No, the island was known as Britain, a name given to it by the Romans. In fact, the region of France known as Brittany (Bretagne) also derives its name from the same source: Rome placed modern England and Brittany under the same prefecture. Nor did the British Isles have any modern sense of national coherence. Shortly prior to the Viking Age, the island had been invaded by Saxons and Angles, Germanic tribes who escaped the villainy of the Franks in the 5th century. Britain was a divided region. In fact, it was king Ecbert, years after the supposed time of the Vikings series, who conquered the small kingdoms around him to become the first proto-king of Britain; only to split apart again a few years later due to the deep divisions between the people of the region. The name England only surfaced in the beginning of the Middle Ages (some 200 years later) after the Norman conquest. England was lent its name by the Angles, a tribe of Germans who settled Britain with the Saxons. “God Save England” was a horrendous faux-pas.
Floki’s wedding also vexed me. Vikings exchanged dowries at weddings, not rings. Our tradition of exchanging dowries comes from the Vikings. A marriage in Viking Age Scandinavia was a contract in which both parties entered as equals, but the woman kept the dowries in case the husband died in battle. This was to ensure that the property rights passed to the wife upon the death of her husband. This was neither discussed nor explained in the show, nor adhered to as a historical fact. A deep ritual cleansing would have preceded the ceremony, which we did not see either. The wedding was a tremendous opportunity for the show to demonstrate a deeper understanding of how the Vikings conducted a wedding ceremony and its significance in the community. To this effect, they failed.
Lastly, the blood eagle delivered everything it promised. A colleague of mine asked me about my thoughts on the historical accuracy of the act. He was shocked that the Vikings would have been capable of such a horrific execution; and in public? Historically, the only evidence for the blood eagle comes to us from Adam of Bremen who briefly mentions the execution method. There is no other evidence, literary or otherwise, to substantiate whether or not this was an actual practice. Historians agree, however, that the act may have actually been used because human cultures have demonstrated repeatedly in history the ability to do horrific things to one another. In Japan, ritual suicides where the defeated party cut into his own stomach, removed his entrails, and presented them to his conquerors before being beheaded (Sepuku, or Hara Kiri) was a prolific cultural practice. As late as the 1950’s in the United States, courts ordered public hangings where families took their children for picnics. Therefore, I feel confident that the Vikings would have been capable of carrying out such an act. Does that meant they actually did it? No. But hey, this is historical fiction, they are allowed some fun!
Other than the blatant errors listed above, the drama of the show did not cease. I look forward to the next episode, but as of today I am not going to pay as close attention to the historical details and watch the show for what it is, entertainment. Vikings has begun caring less about the history and more about the Game of Thrones-esque plots which drive audiences. I understand this, and I accept it.
