Search - The History of Warfare: Viking Wars - The Norse Terror on DVD

Useful in History Class

Eileen Cunningham | Wichita, KS United States | 11/01/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I have purchased several DVDs in the "History of Warfare" series, including this one on the Vikings. I find them informative and appealing to students in my classes at a classical school, where I have used this one as background for a study of *Asser's Life of Alfred the Great* with advanced eighth-graders. There are re-enactments of Viking invasions as well as maps showing Norse routes to England, Ireland, France, the eastern Mediterranean, and even the northeastern coast of the American continent. While discussing the Viking world view, the video does a good job of explaining Valhalla, an after-life that looks a bit like Dante's vision of hell, it turns out. I do wish the video contained more information about the building of the Viking ships, but, all in all, I found it useful for my purposes."

A good overview of Viking History

CGScammell | Southern Arizona | 07/03/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This English series is good at focusing on facts rather than dramatic Hollywoodish reenactments. From the end of the Roman Empire but more beginning with the 8th century to 1066 ("The Age of Reckoning"), this episode covers the Vikings in a nutshell: its society, religions, language, marauding and settling and finally demise.

Battle scenes play in the background as the narrator talks about the Viking raids into the British Isles from Scandinavia. Also covered, briefly, are the shallow longships, the "revolution of shipbuilding" which historians are convinced were able to reach the shores of North America, to Norse mythology and pagan practices; the anonymous Anglo-Saxon chronicles, the Dane Laws and Danes Geld are all represented here quite well.

Although the Vikings are known for their brutality, gore and violence are muted and silenced. The actors are silent in the background; all you hear are battle cries but no dialogue. There is no graphic gore here, making this series ideal for high school viewers. This episode is barely 47 minutes long and could be viewed in one standard classroom hour.

I especially enjoyed listening to the old English verse as written by anonymous writers of that era. The old English then sounds very much like a combination of Danish, Flemish, German, Dutch, French, which makes sense since Vikings are known to have settled in those areas."