Valhalla: Why King Aethelred Killed The Vikings

Warning: SPOILERS for Vikings: Valhalla.

In the opening scenes of Vikings: Valhalla, Aethelred, the King of England, ordered the execution of Vikings living in the Danelaw in a seemingly unprovoked move, yet the true story behind his actions was anything but. After the death of his half-brother, Edward the Martyr, the real-life young Aethelred became King at just 12 years old. His reign was marked by endless conflicts with the Danes and this time was not known for any kind of civil coexistence between the Vikings and the English as Valhalla has portrayed it.

The Vikings spinoff has certainly taken some liberties in its depiction of important historical events during this era, but the events themselves are mostly true, just told in a different order from how they actually happened. With the show starting at the beginning of the St. Brice’s Day Massacre, Vikings: Valhalla hadn’t provided any context for why King Aethelred was ordering such action to be taken. The Danes are portrayed as innocent residents of the British Isle and with the stern-faced Aethelred watching as his soldiers take them out, the King comes off as the bad guy in this scene.

Yet a little more historical context would have changed the entire feel of the scene in question. The Danes were constantly raiding England, trying to gain more land on the British Isle. Though in Vikings: Valhalla it appears that the Danes did nothing to warrant such action to be taken against them, the truth is, they had raided the kingdom of England every year from 997 to 1001. With those raids came horrific consequences, as Vikings were known for their brutal methods including slaughter, rape, and selling women and children off as slaves. Because of this constant assault against his people on his shores, King Aethelred took matters into his own hands, ordering the execution of a number of Vikings in an effort to send a message.

Much of Vikings: Valhalla takes place in England, but at this point, a large portion of that land was inhabited by the Danish. With the signing of the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum in 884, the boundaries of the Danelaw had been defined. The treaty was meant to give the Danes a slice of what they had been raiding England for: land. It was a kind of peace offering to calm the onslaught of raids endured by the English people, but the Danelaw was not enough to satisfy the Vikings. The raiding continued year after year until Aethelred took action in the year 1002.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Aethelred had been told that the Danes “would beshrew him of his life, and afterwards all his council, and then have his kingdom without any resistance” (via Gutenberg). This was the ultimate reason as to why he ordered their execution, resulting in a scene in Vikings: Valhalla reminiscent of the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones. The Chronicle also mentions that he ordered all of the Danes in England to be killed, but historians think that it was unlikely that most in the Danelaw would have been killed due to how much resistance the English would have been met with there. Still, the bodies of 34-38 men who were identified as Vikings were found in Oxford, England and radiocarbon dating technology shows that they would have been buried near the time of the massacre.

Historians have also looked deeper into the ramifications of the St. Brice’s Day Massacre. Some say it was an effort to provoke Sweyn Forkbeard’s invasion in the year 1003. Historian Audrey MacDonald says that the massacre is eventually what led right to the rise of England’s Viking King Canute. Vikings: Valhalla’s King Aethelred may have appeared to be the villain at the start of the series, but if the real-life actions of the Vikings had also happened prior to the start of the show, his approach wouldn’t have been unwarranted after all.

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