Vikings: Valhalla | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix
Historical drama set in England with a bunch of historical characters including Leif Erikson and Æthelred the Unready. It starts with:
The St. Brice's Day massacre was the killing of Danes on the 13th of November 1002, ordered by King Æthelred the Unready of England in response to frequent Danish raids. - Wikipedia
I remember hearing about Leif Erikson when I was in school about a zillion years ago, and Æthelred the Unready, that's a name that sticks in the memory.
His epithet does not derive from the modern word "unready", but rather from the Old English unræd meaning "poorly advised"; it is a pun on his name, which means "well advised". - Wikipedia
Danes had been living in England for a long time. The English noblemen advised the King to exterminate them. Not everyone thought this was a good idea as they suspected this would enrage the Vikings and they would want revenge and that's just what happened. That's my quick guess as to the origin of his nickname.
This show is like a follow on to The Last Kingdom which starts in 877, and we've still got Normans, Saxons and Danes hacking on each other with swords and axes.
The production values are pretty good, meaning the clothing, weapons, boats and buildings all seem reasonable for the period. They do slip in a number of women and brown people into roles where you might not expect them, but who knows? This is hundreds of years after the Romans left and slavery is still a thing. Some people seem to get bent out of shape over this kind of thing, but it doesn't bother me. Sometimes having a black person in a drama really throws some light on the situation, like when we had a black person playing Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton.
Real historical characters from the show:
We even have some dates for some of them. The names in blue are links to Wikipedia which prove (prove) that they really, truly existed.
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