Have you ever wondered why one of Ruan Cathedral's towers is called the Tower of Butter, or what

animals have faced trials in courts for, or even how the black country got its name?

Well, you can find the answers to questions like these and hundreds more in our new book,

The History Hit Misscellanie. It's the perfect present for any history fan.

It's available to buy now from your favourite bookshop or by visiting historyhit.com forward slash

book.

Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman.

A new film about the Vikings has just come out. It's called The Northman.

And it's director Robert Eggers has said that this is the most accurate Viking movie that's

ever been made. And that's quite a claim. But could it be true? And to me of course that statement

raised a million different questions like what do we actually mean by historical accuracy

in film? But for the Viking Age especially, is it the physical representations of the past,

of buildings, clothes and objects? Or is it more about the world views, the society they lived in,

religious beliefs and personal and political relationships? Now, Eggers said that to achieve

this particular ambition he worked with the greatest historians and archaeologists in the field.

And that's certainly true because he engaged among other archaeologists Professor Neil Price

as one of his consultants. So for today's episode, I'm really delighted to have Neil here with me to

talk about his role in this movie and also how the Viking world is portrayed within it.

For those of you with an interest in the Vikings, Neil might be a familiar name. He is the author

of the recent and very successful book Children of Ash and Elm, a history of the Vikings, which

I can highly recommend, by the way. But he's also one of the leading authorities on Viking Age

archaeology is based at the University of Uppsala in Sweden where he is Professor of archaeology.

...