[dramatic music playing]

[CLIP] You thought you were so clever. But soon, the name Harald Sigurdsson will be forgotten. 

[CLIP] Leo Suter (as Harald Sigurdsson): We'll see.

Jeb Stuart: You can't do a show like Vikings: Valhalla without incredible amounts of research. The Vikings did not have a written language, so they didn't leave us a trail. A lot of the things that we know about the Vikings is not from the Viking world per se, but from their enemies. 

Jeb Stuart: We had excellent researchers throughout the series, and we'd meet and talk about what could happen, what did happen, what is completely fiction that we can't even touch. And then you make dramatic decisions based upon that. That's what everybody talks about. Cast, crew, everybody lives and eats and breathes the Viking world. 

[TITLE CARD:]  THE HISTORY BEHIND VIKINGS: VALHALLA SEASON 3

Jeb Stuart: When we come into Vikings: Valhalla for season 3, we're coming into a time seven years after we left season 2. That would roughly put our Vikings around the year 1033. At this time, the Viking explorations were really at its apogee. The Baltic, England, Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, even Greenland, all had Viking establishments. The Vikings also were across the Mediterranean by this time. They'd been in Spain. They had been in North Africa. They had been in Sicily. They had been in Italy. It was really a point where their influence had reached its peak.

[CLIP]  [crowd cheering]

[CLIP] [man] This is what glory looks like, my friends.

[CLIP] [dramatic music continues]

[TITLE CARD] VIKINGS IN THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE

Jeb Stuart: Harald and Leif, when we pick them up again, they're in Constantinople. The Byzantine Empire was an extension of the Roman Empire. It lasted from, say, the 4th century AD all the way to the 1400s. For over 1,000 years, it was a very dynamic and important part of the history of that part of the world. 

[CLIP] Man: An empire that stretches from the Alps to Asia. [crowd cheers]

Jeb Stuart: Constantinople, we must remember, is gigantic. To put it in perspective, London in 1066, which is not too far away from our time period, had only 15,000 people in it. Constantinople had somewhere between a half a million and a million people. To expose somebody who comes from a small village in Greenland, let's say, to Constantinople, is just mind-boggling. So it's interesting that the Vikings made the impact that they did. 

[CLIP] Man: Harald, that you fought for the Empire on my behalf will not be forgotten.

[dramatic music continues] 

[TITLE CARD] THE VARANGIAN GUARD

Jeb Stuart: In the Byzantine Empire, there was a group of very specialized warriors called the Varangian Guard. But most of them had Viking roots and Harald established himself as the leader of the Varangian Guard. 

[CLIP] Man: Fellow Varangians! I promise you glory! [cheering]

Jeb Stuart: We open season 3 with the Battle of Syracuse, which is in Sicily. And we establish Georgios Maniakes, who is a great general in the Byzantine army. What we know about Maniakes was that he was a huge man. He was almost like a Goliath. People said he was over nine feet tall. In historical fact, Harald and Maniakes fought together, and their rivalry was legend. 

[CLIP] Man: Someday, Viking, your quick tongue will not be quick enough to save you. 

Jeb Stuart: It's really the clash of cultures, and it's seen dramatically in that opening battle, because the Byzantine army fought with different weapons than the Vikings had before, the structure of their army was different, their uniforms are different, their shields and swords are different, and of course, we had to allow for all of that with our own armory. 

Jeb Stuart: When Harald was driven out of Norway, he set upon a mission to raise money so that he could come back and retake the throne of Norway, which he felt was rightfully his. What we see in season 3 is that he's tempted by all the riches that are available to him in Constantinople, and it makes it very tempting to stay there.

[CLIP] Marcin Dorociński (as Yaroslav): With all of this, I do not blame you for forgetting your homeland. I have not forgotten Norway. 

Jeb Stuart: This is part of the theme of the story because all of season 3 is about coming home.

[somber music playing]

[TITLE CARD]  THE GREENLANDERS AND ERIK THE RED]

[CLIP] Child: Is this your home? 

Jeb Stuart: One of the most exciting parts of season 3 was that we had Freydis return to Greenland. And if the audience remembers, we bring our Greenlanders in in season 1, and they've never been exposed to Norse culture. They're suddenly thrown into the deep end of the Viking world.

[CLIP] [shouting and grunting] 

Jeb Stuart: Now in season 3, Freydis, with all she's learned about the Viking world, returns to her roots.

[CLIP] Frida Gustavsson (as Freydis): Father! 

[CLIP] Man: It is Freydis! 

Jeb Stuart: And of course, this gives us the opportunity to introduce Erik the Red. Erik the Red was a historic figure who was a bit of a renegade. He was born in Norway. He was expelled because of manslaughter. He went to Iceland, established a community in Iceland, but was forced out of Iceland, which caused him to move farther west, where he found Greenland. But by the time we find Erik, the colony is suffering. We know this from historical fact. So Freydis's return with this influx of Pagans is a great thing when she first arrives. 

[CLIP] Man: Ah!

Jeb Stuart: If you believe the sagas, we know that Freydis went to the New World. We're not sure if she ever returned. In my thinking, Freydis never returned. She ended in a place that was Pagan, it had always been Pagan. In my imagination, it was a great home for the last believers in the old Norse ways. 

[TITLE CARD] LEIF ERIKSSON’S JOURNEY WEST

Jeb Stuart: Any real Viking history buff will know that Leif Eriksson never made it to the Mediterranean. But we do know that Leif was very inquisitive. He was exposed to many, many of the things that would have been new ideas at that particular time.

[CLIP] Man: Leif? You can operate an astrolabe.

Jeb Stuart: We do know now, because of archeological finds in Newfoundland, that the Vikings really did get to the New World, that they established a community there. It may have been a hub that they could go off and explore in, but they did spend some time there, and they did interact with the Indigenous peoples in that area. It also instructs many of the things we think about in terms of, how did Leif get to the New World? What sort of things would he have been exposed to that could have guided him? Where is this from? In season 3, there are many maps that we looked at as a team. A lot of the scholars at that time postulated that there would have been a continent somewhere sitting off to the west. They thought about this from currents. And so that gave us a sort of opening to explore how Leif could have found the New World. 

[CLIP] Man: I'm in search of a ship and a crew to sail west, to find a land I believe is out there. 

[CLIP] Man: May you bring glory to all Vikings with your discovery.

[dramatic music playing] 

[TITLE CARD] CHRISTIANITY IN THE VIKING WORLD

Jeb Stuart: Canute the Great returns in season 3, and he did travel with Emma and Godwin to Rome and had an audience with the Pope. In fact, we know quite a bit. During this particular time, he felt too much money was being taken away from England and the Church there, and he wanted that money to build more churches. He was making a gigantic attempt to fully Christianize the Viking aspects of England. And yet, Canute was still a Viking. 

[CLIP] Man: You cannot tell me how to rule my empire!

Jeb Stuart: I was always fascinated by the idea of what it would be like to have this tattooed Viking warrior kneel before the Pope, something that you couldn't even begin to imagine 200 years earlier in the Viking story.

[CLIP] Man: A Viking in Rome, meeting with the leader of the Christian church. I would've liked to have seen that.

Jeb Stuart: We know that Harald did return to Norway. He did take over the crown. 

[CLIP] Leo Suter (as Harald Hardrada) I am Harald Hardrada!

Jeb Stuart: He then spent years invading Denmark and trying to consolidate the Viking world in 1066. But we finally know that Harald goes to England in 1066. He lays claim to the English throne, but he was defeated at Stamford Bridge by Harold Godwinson, who we introduce also in our season 3.

[CLIP]Man: Harold!

Jeb Stuart:…who was groomed by his father and mother, Gytha and Godwin. 

[CLIP] Man: When the time comes, I will take what is mine. 

Jeb Stuart: And if there is any Easter egg that we leave our audience with, it's that we introduce a young man in Normandy who is a descendant of Rollo, who is the nephew of Queen Emma.

[CLIP] Man: May I introduce to you William, the Duke of Normandy. Your Highnesses. 

Jeb Stuart: Our audience will know him later as William the Conqueror. His defeat of Harold Godwinson sets an end to the incredible Viking era. 

[TITLE CARD] THE END OF THE VIKING ERA

Jeb Stuart: The more we learn about the Viking era, the more it supports many of the things that you see in the show itself, and we lean heavily into the historical aspects of it, which showed that you could explore all over the known world, that boldness and that adventurousness, the Viking belief in egalitarianism.

[CLIP] Man: I've never seen a leader who's so loved by her people.

Jeb Stuart: There was no word in the Viking lexicon for “racism.” If you earned it, you deserved it. All of that goes away in 1066 very rapidly. Suddenly, women lose all their rights for the next 900 years. So for all its violence and the things that we think about Vikings as pirate and raiders, it was actually also a very magical period of time that lasted less than 300 years. And it ends right after our series ends. 

[CLIP] Man: May you find now what you're looking for.

[thrilling music playing]

[Tudum sound playing]