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Abyss, on 19 February 2014 - 11:42 PM, said:
Say what I will about the story, Hist channel did a glorious job w the visuals, accuracy and combat when it actually took place. I think you'll enjoy.
Thanks, managed to see 4 episodes, some more during the following weekend. :-D Quite like it, buuut...afraid I have to regard it as a partial fantasy adaptation. They have paid attention to battles and law (as for instance in the reaction of the one accused of murder to the word "coward"...see argr), lots of visual eye candy gamboling about, and I was happy to hear actual Old English spoken, and so forth. Apparently the cast features a Finnish actor in the role of Kauko. :-D Drakkar-sized nitpicks, however:
-Seem that the Norsemen raided a Game of Thrones costume stock before Lindisfarne. More than half a dozen "What in Oden's sweaty balls are they wearing??!!!" reactions from me, the grandest blinkity-blink gape of the jaw at the wife of the jarl. White and undyed fabrics signified low class, white especially was regarded as something befitting slaves. She ought to have worn madder red or at least dark indigo. Jewelry was all over the place. Wrong styles for the period, for one thing. They had included some of the women's turtle brooches, but they're supposed to suspend the dress or peplos (Finnish variant), not just serve as fanciful nipple extensions.
-The ship wasn't tarred. Wouldn't last long in Rán' and Aegir's embrace.
-Apart from Iceland, the west wasn't an unknown direction to the Vikings. They had kept contacts with the British Isles during the Vendel era (ferthorssakes, archeologists have found king-level accoutrements and weapons sharing a distinct style on the Suffolk-Gamla Uppsala-Laitila axis, Beowulf was an epic sung in Old English in the overseas courts, yada yada...). and centuries before. Main trade routes and all that. Some legends point to Saami fishermen paddling to the Orkney islands, even.
-Magic (seidr) was considered a feminine art and something of an abomination for a man to practice. UNLESS he was a Saami/Finnish noita, who were popular as soothsayers, wind-summoners, and so forth. The jarl's shaman didn't appear to share any Saami attributes.
-No such thing as "Russia" existed back then. The East Baltic and Ladoga were largely inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes. Rus'/Ruts' (comes from the Finnish word Ruotsi/ruotsalaiset, Sweden/Swedes) were Swedish Vikings that founded Novgorod.
This doesn't deserve any kind of "historically accurate" stamp.
