Beneath the darkening sky, a crowd gathers around a wooden post slick with blood.

Drums pound slowly echoing off the fjord.

A priest raises his arms to the gods, Odin, Thor, Freya.

And the chosen victim trembles, garlanded with branches, eyes fixed on the dark water beyond.

A blade glints in the firelight.

The drums beat louder as life and death hanged together in the

freezing night air. To their gods, this is an offering. To their enemies, a barbaric horror.

Were the Vikings truly the monsters their victims described, or believers in a brutal, sacred

code the rest of the world could never possibly understand?

We're told they arrived on longboats, merciless and brutal pagans foaming at the mouth,

interested only in pillaging, killing, and human sacrifice.

What is certain is that after the Vikings arrived on your shore, nothing would ever be the same again.

But who were these people? And are we getting the full story? Were the Vikings really bloodthirsty heathens?

Or are we seeing them only through the lens of the Christians who feared them?

From the dark heart of the Viking Age, this is after dark. This is After Dark. My name's Anthony.

And I'm Adi.

And when you hear the word Viking, what comes to mind? Well,

it comes with a lot of cultural weight, largely thanks to the way TV and film have betrayed

Vikings, and even that's controversial. We'll get into it all. But in the past, this has been

people who are horn-helmeted. They've been wild and merciless men, mostly. In recent years,

however, it's been wild and merciless men in a sexy outfit, which, you know, that's fine for

TV, I'll allow it. But with today's guest, Dr. Elmer Barclough, historian and author of books,

...