Thank you, An hour listening to Professor Hutton is an hour well spent.

No one has more authoritative ambivalence. Hutton: "We don't know." Me: "I'm learning so much!"

"The 13th Warrior" also faithfully attempts both parts of Beowulf, it is surprisingly good.

Small correction: the Andalucian native Antonio Banderas portrayed the medieval scholar ibn Fadlan.

Another fantastic lecture from Professor Hutton! I never fail to learn from him, thank you Professor!!!

I came for the subject, but stayed for the lecturer! Hutton is one of my favorites :D

Professor looks so stylish and cozy, he's like a character from an educational children's book ❤

I can’t ever get enough of Dr. Hutton and I’d never be able to see him in Florida so these programs are so very much appreciated. Thank you.

Any lecture from Professor Hutton is an instant yes please!

Fantastic lecture! Thanks again to Gresham College and Prof Hutton for this presentation.

I genuinely wish that I had been taught this type of history of our beautiful country. The very greatest thanks and warmest regards for this fascinating Professor 💜🙏

Thank you for showing this lecture. Please have Prof. Hutton again!

Hutton is a treasure. I can imagine him strolling the Agora as he presents this lecture.

I'm so glad I found these lectures by Hutton.

As a Scandinavian, it’s been such a joyous experience hearing Professor Hutton talking about the era of the Anglo-Saxon et al., and the "Norse"/"Vikings" - of course the rest of his talks were also quite fascinating! Thank you for making these talks available on KZfaq!

'The Vandals and the Goths are landlocked Vikings.'

MORE Hutton!

The movie, "The 13th Warrior" was an adaption of an early work by Michael Crichton, the originator of the "Jurassic Park" film franchise. While still a medical student at Harvard, Critchton became intrigued with Viking Age archeology. According to rumor, a fellow student challenged Crieghton to create a Viking tale in the form of a scholarly paper or monograph, complete with footnotes and a bibliography citing real and imaginary sources. What he came up with was a blending of the authentic but fragmentary account of Ibn Fadlan and the "Beowulf" epic. Crichton's literary joke was later expanded and published as a novel titled "The Eaters of the Dead".

I thoroughly enjoyed this - thank-you Gresham College and Professor Hutton😊

Many thanks Dr Hutton. I lost all trace of time listening to your fascinating presentation. Thus, my roast chicken now resembles a moorhen, in size and colour. Roast moorhen is rather 'chewy'.

A supremely interesting lecture, thank you so very much for making this freely available. I love Dr. Hutton's combination of erudition and wit :)

I have learned SO much from Prof Hutton in these lectures and I thought I knew quite a bit. Please continue with these!

Hello from Arizona. I have followed you for years!

Thank you, Dr Hutton. Hauls me back to Bristol history almost 40 years ago, and with enormous pleasure. Of course I wish I had chosen your wonderful courses on the Tudors. Live long and prosper.

Always enjoy his lectures and contributions.

Just love his talks, thank you Sir, for sharing and imparting your knowledge with us, much appreciated x

My understanding is that "catgut" is made from sheep, not cats.

Love these. Thank you.

Thank you Sir , for teaching me things I never knew existed 😊

15:20 I distinctly remember visiting a place called Thurso?

תודה רבה. מעניין מאוד.

We still name the days of the week after the Viking gods.

Said the Valkyrie maid: I once slung Dead men on my saddle, and swung Off to Valhalla's hall, Where I never did fall, So remember when kissing, no tongue.

Brilliant presentation.

Professor Ronny is my absolute fave ❤...Banderas is Spanish, BTW not Mexican.

Antonio Banderas is not Mexican. He was born in Malaga, Spain. Andalusia, actually. The southernmost part of the peninsula, last captured from the Muslims

Beyond the pale Dr Hutton, extremely interesting and always a treat with your great wit and style. Proud to say that the lain of the 13Th Warrior was supplied by a Canadian scholar at the University of British Columbia, where a lot of the movie was filmed. Cheers

Thank you for uploading another fascinating lecture by professor Hutton.

3:29 oh, they showed a variation of this story in an episode of Vikings, where lvar smashed a boy’s head with an axe while playing a ball game with a group of children . I didn’t know it was based on this .

Wonderful lecture!!!!

Superb

Thankyou gresham college...you make us all more culturally aware of what makes us British

Please do more on this.

First saw Dr. Hutton on the Edwardian Farm series on BBC, what a great presenter....I wish all academia took his approach!

Interesting lecture, thank you! The bit on cat guts was... thought-provoking.

Banderas is Spanish mate😁

But the Vikings did have a tradition of carved stone scenes before christianity: take a look at the magnificent Gotlandic picture stones. They are dated to the 7-8th centuries and represent elaborate pictures often involving great ships and including Odin on his 8 legged horse. Nice documentary though.

they probably dug up the bones in the mercian monastery looking for gold and then disposed of them afterwards in the same mass grave that they used to dispose of their own bodies with.

Currently reading 'Pagan Britain' by Ronald Hutton and, to be honest: struggling! It is very stark and absolutist imo. Something - pick your favourite 'something', like Stonehenge, Maiden Castle etc - might mean this or that, or maybe something else but basically we don't know. We don't know what it meant to ancient peoples, we don't agree what it should mean to us ... I'm only 40% through the book and it may all come together and I become a deciple of RH. If so, I bet he would be disappointed! These online lectures are fantastic - he is more human and less authoritarian

Because of the extent of the Viking range, do you think that tendency to violence in people carries forward today? Thoroughly enjoy all your lectures.

Until now, what I've seen about the blood eagle ritual involved pulling the lungs out of the back of the honoree to represent wings.

The more I learn about the "vikings" the less I know about them and the less I'm certain we will ever know

OOOO - what is a 9th century ironing board? And how do we know it was an ironing board? My grandmother used the table-board for ironing on until those handy fold-up metal ones were easily available, and so far as I know, the use of the table-board fro ironing goes back several centuries at least, in between said same board being used for meals, reading and writing, playing games, etc (and possibly occasionally serving as the bed-board during the night, when it was re-located off of the table-frame or pair of table-horses)

Interesting episode from the sagas: boy kills other boy, in the subsequent altercation several men die. Now my questions: how do societies, in which revenge in very much in-grained and which no modern things like a monopoly of violence of some authority; stop such events from becoming the seed of extended slaughter? What puts a stop to blood revenge, where does it stop, who can put a stop to it? These are quite general questions, however, all the ancient myths and legends are full of such stories, e.g., the Greeks killing the Trojan boys for fear of them growing up and seeking revenge once they come of age.

The cat could also be for fur. We have cat bones from Viking context in Dublin that have tool marks indicating disassembly.

Banderas might not be an Arab, but he was fantastic in The 13th Warrior - which, as it happens, is my all time favourite film.

The evidence tells me that the Viking burial is one of respect by the conquered to the conqueror. There must have been factions among the people on the subject of Vikings.

is it me but Professor Hutton doesnt seem his normal exuberant self...was he unwell?

If the Slavic and Baltic cult places are "well-built temples" then what are they compared to? These were mostly open-air shrines with idols or sacred precints.

Antonio Banderas is not Mexican.

Eureka! Hutton with an “H” . Brilliant! Epiphanic! Get him a room at All Souls immediately!!!!!! Don’t let him go anywhere……

I've had this poem for a long time and always thought it was based on a Norse legend but I cannot find it anywhere and do not know who wrote it. (although some of the spelling suggests it may be Irish?) Does anyone know? The raven is calling, She sits at my side, She laughs like a demon, For death is my bride. She's courted me often, But ne'er in the sun, And now she will wed me, When the battle is done. The stag is my totem, The bull is your own. 'Tis reason e'now That we fight all alone. I have called my young brother, But now we must fight, And the victor be crowned, Ere the day turns to night. Oh, my brother be wary, I'll not easily die, Though the season is turning, And the sun is sae high. My sword, it is heavy, My arms, they are cold. Though the raven is calling, I'll do battle sae bold. My shield, it is broken, Like the covenant sworn, 'Twixt the gods and my mother, On the day I was born. They promised her truly, That I would not die, 'Till the sun stood quite still, In the solstice day sky. The raven is calling, With her black mocking voice. I would not heed it, But she leaves me nae choice, She sings as she flies, Across the sun's face, And the shadow, it falls, On this very place. Now wisdom is folly, And folly is wise, When the battle is joined, And the sun's in your eyes. I have fought like the champion I was raised up to be, But the raven is calling, She's calling for me.

Antonio banderas is actually from southern spain. Considering the history of the moors in the region, and that they would be the ones ruling his homeland at the time, it's not too much a ludicrous jump as it would have been if he were mexican. Dude just probably just assumed he was mexican from zorro or the Desperado franchise

Is Egil "Ail"?

The pagan deities and pantheon of Germanic, Greco-Roman and Slavic cultures had a common root in ancient Indo-European proto culture. Thus eg Odin, Zeus/Jupiter, Perkun.

The pagan Viking in the Christian burial ground with the monks could be so he will be right there with in them in the next world to beat them up and/or see them off so the other Vikings buried in the fully pagan burial ground so they wouldn't be harassed by them and they got their best warrior in there for the job. That would make sense seeing as they seem to believe everything everything including animals and inanimate objects translate directly over and will pick up from where they left off.

Why is Loki "evil", wouldn't the Valhallans rather be, imprisoning and killing his children for no reason other than fear? Ragnarok is emancipation day!

As a Spaniard, not a Mexican, you could perhaps justify Banderas playing a Cordoban from the caliphate in southern Hispania, maybe finding work in the Abbasid court? I doubt the movie writers were that interested in historical accuracy.

Micheal top don

I and the Father are One John 10.30 😊

No group in history is totally evil - everything has its positive side -even Genghis khan and his Mongol hordes, first having slaughtered millions later settled down -whether in China, India or further west and became farmers, traders and other things. They suppressed brigandage which had hassled the merchants along the Silk Road and established the Pax Mongolica.

Did they bury Ivan with the monks to stop Christians digging him up again? Hidden in holy bones

There is no reason to doubt that the Rus were Vikings

Nothing new to Britain. Wodin'sm to Odin'sm.

The original Vikings were the ancient Picts in Caledonia ie Scotland they arrived via a landbridge connecting from Scandinavia to today's Scotland it was called Doggerland ❤

Wonderful as ever, but I wish he didn't drink from a one use water bottle. Heaven's only knows what our descendants will say about us at a Gresham lecture in another 500 years!

Anglo-Saxon Britain was Pagan for long period. Not just Vikings. This is of at least 5 tribal groups. Vikings another group.

Viking gods come from the Cimbri tribe. And that Cimbri tribe was Celtic! All Norse mythology is based on the older Brythonic mythology. These people would later become known by English speakers as the Welsh.

I think you are making a fool of the scandinavian Viking traditions. Renember that these traditions are much older than from the Iron age. Many originates from Indo European traditions and belief. They predates christianity by several thousends of years. My guess is that christianity copied also. You mention that there is a lack if pictures in Viking traditions. Are you forgetting pictures on runestones and the famous picturestones from the island of Gotland ? We have salso the pictures on helmets , same as the Sutton Hoo helmet. These describes warriors in different positions. We shall be proud of our traditions. In these days our way of life is attacked by forces who wants to be charge over us.