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08/11/2026

Attendees of this week have the opportunity to visit the Oseberg ship burial mound. One of the most important Viking sights in

This is where the incredible Oseberg Ship was discovered in 1904, containing the remains of two women and one of the richest collections of grave goods ever found from the Viking Age.

The burial included an entire ship, carved wagons and sledges, textiles, beds, animals, tools, household objects and some of the finest Viking Age artwork ever discovered. Whoever these women were, at least one of them clearly held an extremely important position in Viking society.

I'll be taking groups to the actual burial mound this week as part of our Vestfold Viking tour, along with Gokstad and Kaupang.

Tickets are available through the Midgardsblot website.

08/04/2026

Coming to Midgardsblot? Don't just see the festival—see where the Viking Age actually happened.

This year I'll be leading guided tours to some of the most important Viking sites in Scandinavia. Tickets are available now through the Midgardsblot website.

We'll visit:

• Borre – the royal burial mounds.
• Oseberg – where the famous Oseberg Ship was discovered.
• Gokstad – home of the legendary Gokstad Ship.
• Kaupang – Norway's first known town and one of the greatest trading centers of the Viking Age.

And if you have extra time in Vestfold, don't stop there. Tønsberg, Farmannshaugen, Istrehågan, Mølen, and dozens of other incredible sites are all within easy reach.

There's no better place to experience the Viking Age than Vestfold. Hope to see some of you on the tour!

08/03/2026

Most people travel to Norway for the fjords. I think they should come for Vestfold.

If you're interested in the Viking Age, I don't think there's a better region anywhere in the world.

In just one area you can visit:

• Borre – the royal burial mounds.
• Oseberg – the burial place of the famous Oseberg Ship.
• Gokstad – where another of the greatest Viking ships was uncovered.
• Kaupang – Norway's first known town and a major Viking trading center.
• Tønsberg – one of Norway's oldest cities.
• Farmannshaugen – a massive royal burial mound.
• Istrehågan – one of the country's most fascinating stone ship monuments.
• Mølen – an incredible ancient coastal landscape filled with burial cairns.

These are the places where Viking history actually happened. You can stand on the same ground where kings were buried, merchants traded, and some of the greatest archaeological discoveries in Scandinavia were made.

If Viking history is on your bucket list, make sure Vestfold is too.

08/02/2026

If you're looking for the best place in the world to experience Viking history, start with Vestfold.

Within a short drive you can visit:

• Borre – the largest collection of monumental Viking burial mounds in Northern Europe.
• Oseberg Burial Mound – where the world's richest Viking ship burial was discovered.
• Gokstad Burial Mound – home of the famous Gokstad Ship.
• Kaupang – Norway's first known town and one of Scandinavia's earliest trading centers.
• Tønsberg – one of Norway's oldest towns with deep Viking Age roots.
• Farmannshaugen – one of Norway's largest royal burial mounds.
• Istrehågan – one of Scandinavia's most mysterious stone ship settings.
• Mølen at Nevlungshavn – an ancient harbor and monumental burial landscape used for thousands of years.

And that's just the beginning. There are dozens of smaller burial mounds, standing stones, archaeological sites, and hidden gems scattered throughout the region.

If you're planning a Viking trip, Vestfold should be at the top of your list.

07/31/2026

Did the Vikings believe in reincarnation? The sources suggest that many of them did.

Reincarnation isn't just an idea borrowed from Eastern religions. It appears repeatedly in Old Norse literature.

In the Poetic Edda, Helgi and his valkyrie lover are said to be reborn across multiple lifetimes. Gautreks saga also refers to rebirth, and the traditions surrounding Saint Olav preserve the belief that he was the reincarnation of an earlier Viking Age king.

These examples don't necessarily mean every Norse person believed in reincarnation, but they do show that rebirth was part of the religious landscape preserved in the medieval sources.

The Norse belonged to the wider Indo-European family of cultures, and traditions of rebirth appear in many Indo-European religions at different times and in different forms.

The more you read the original texts, the more complex the old religion becomes.

07/30/2026

There were many great Christian Vikings. Saint Olav was not one of them.

On the last Wednesday of July, we remember the death of Olav Haraldsson at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030—a man who would later be canonized as Saint Olav.

His supporters remembered him as a saint and the king who united Norway. But the medieval sources also describe a ruler who used violence, harsh punishments, and political force to consolidate his kingdom and advance Christianity. His conflicts were not only with followers of the old religion, but also with rival Christian leaders and Norwegian chieftains who resisted his rule.

Whether viewed as a saint, a conqueror, or both, Olav remains one of the most controversial figures of the Viking Age.

Scandinavia produced far greater rulers—kings like C**t the Great, Sweyn Forkbeard, Haakon the Good, and Harald Hardrada—whose legacies deserve far more attention.

History is rarely as simple as the stories we learn growing up.

07/27/2026

If there's one place every Viking history fan should visit, it's Vestfold.

This small region is packed with some of the most important Viking Age sites anywhere in the world.

You've probably heard of the great ship burials at Oseberg and Gokstad, the monumental burial mounds at Borre, and Kaupang, Norway's first known town. But that's only the beginning.

There are incredible places that many visitors never discover, like Istrehågan, the massive Farmannshaugen burial mound, Mølen at Nevlungshavn, and countless other archaeological sites scattered across the region.

If you're visiting Norway this summer—especially for Midgardsblot—take some extra time to explore Vestfold. You could easily spend days here and still not see everything.

And while you're here, be sure to check out Visit Vestfold for even more places to explore.

07/25/2026

Book 11 of the Odyssey contains one of the greatest descriptions of a pagan European sacrifice ever written.

To speak with the dead, Odysseus digs a trench, pours offerings of milk, honey, wine, and blood, and waits as the spirits gather from the underworld.

It's one of the oldest surviving firsthand literary descriptions of a European ritual and one of our earliest detailed visions of what the afterlife looked like before Christianity. The dead aren't in heaven or hell—they continue to exist in a shadowy world beneath the earth, where they can still remember, speak, and long for the life they lost.

Whether you're interested in Greek religion, Norse mythology, or the wider Indo-European world, this chapter is essential reading. Many of the same themes appear again centuries later across Europe in different forms.

It's an incredible reminder that some of our oldest stories are also some of our most important.

07/24/2026

The Odyssey is arguably Europe's oldest surviving story.

While there are older texts—like the Epic of Gilgamesh—and even older Indo-European myths that scholars can partially reconstruct, the Odyssey is the earliest complete European narrative that we can confidently connect to the tradition of Homer, usually dated to around the 8th century BC.

For nearly 3,000 years, people have read this story of wandering, homecoming, monsters, gods, sacrifice, and the longing to return home.

Its influence is everywhere. Literature, history, philosophy, religion, and even modern films all trace something back to Homer.

If you want to understand the foundations of European civilization, the Odyssey is one of the best places to begin.

07/23/2026

Everyone knows the Iliad and the Odyssey... but almost nobody knows what the Norse tradition says happens next.

The Greek epics end with Troy and Odysseus's journey home. But in the prologue to the Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson tells a very different story.

According to that medieval account, Thor's ancestry goes back to the Trojan king Priam. After the fall of Troy, the family is said to have settled in Thrace, and many generations later Odin leads his people north into Germany and Scandinavia.

Was this real history? Almost certainly not in the literal sense. Medieval writers often connected their own peoples to famous figures from the ancient world. But it's a fascinating tradition that shows how Norse authors understood their own origins.

With the Odyssey back on the big screen... maybe Hollywood has the chance to finish the trilogy.

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