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Nordic history and culture

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12/11/2025

Not every Viking ship was made for battle. The knarr, built for cargo and long journeys, made trade and exploration possible from Scandinavia to North America. Here's how it shaped the Viking Age.

The Viking expansion of the early medieval period was not just dominated by pillage and violence. Underpinning this expansion was the forging of economic links and trade networks, in which the humble knarr was instrumental.

11/11/2025

Sweden's shift from Viking raiders to Christian crusaders reshaped northern Europe. These little-known campaigns in Finland and Russia tell part of that story.

At the end of the Viking Age, religious crusading took place not only in West Asia but also in the Arctic region, in what is now Finland and Russia. We look at why the Kingdom of Sweden, a once pagan nation, undertook these bloody military campaigns in the name of the Catholic Church.

10/11/2025

Heddal Stave Church was built in the early 1200s in the village of Heddal in Telemark, Norway. Made entirely of wood, it is the largest surviving stave church in the country.

The largest standing church from the medieval period in Norway, the Heddal Stave Church, is nowadays a major tourist attraction in the Telemark region. It has survived centuries of wear and tear, wars, disrepair, and even being sold into private hands.

09/11/2025

Can one decision set a feud in motion for years? The Laxdæla saga answers that question with names you will not forget.

Long before the likes of American reality television, Mexican telenovelas, or Shakespearean plays found popular appeal, people in Viking societies found their slice of over-the-top entertainment by regaling one another with sagas of epic drama.

07/11/2025

Could Old Norse speakers and Anglo-Saxons hold a conversation? Here is how far the overlap went.

Nowadays, it is not just the cold North Sea that separates England from Scandinavia but culture and language, too.

06/11/2025

Thanks to the soil under York, we can see what a Viking market street really looked like. Here is what the archeologists found.

A snapshot of the bustling mercantile nature of Viking York can be found by studying what lies beneath Coppergate Street in York, England.

05/11/2025

For anyone curious about the Norse history of Orkney and Shetland, this new translation of the saga is a great place to start.

Judith Jesch, the translator and editor of the book, has also been awarded a new position at a prominent Scottish university.

04/11/2025

Before Sweden had churches, before Christianity was dominant, someone carved a mix of old and new beliefs into a stone in Sparlösa. The result is one of the most complex runestones we have.

Whilst often playing second fiddle to the Rök runestone, said to be the Scandinavian nation's most famous, the Sparlösa runestone is a riddle etched in granite. With vivid and striking imagery and a perplexing written style, this runestone deserves more attention.

02/11/2025

A metal detectorist who stole millions of pounds' worth of Viking Age treasure, has been rearrested in the southern English county of Devon

The metal detectorist and stealer of the Herefordshire Hoard will return to jail after several months on the run.

01/11/2025

What happens when a deeply rooted national story meets a changing society? This piece explores how immigration has shaped Norway’s view of its Viking heritage.

Recent immigration has changed how Norwegians think about their culture, national identity, and their rich Viking heritage and history.

30/10/2025

An interview with Marie Ødegaard of the University of Stavanger on a four-year project that charts hundreds of beacon sites across Norway. The research sets out how signal fires under local leaders could raise ships and men within hours.

An international team has mapped out a network of hundreds of beacons used to signal danger throughout Norway.

29/10/2025

The twisted columns and leafy carvings on this Norwegian church portal don't match anything local. That's why some experts now believe it may have been carved by an English-trained craftsman.

Unique today, the church may once have been part of a common English architectural trend in Western Norway.

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