Vikingens udødelige sang

Lea Grosen Jørgensen: “The Viking’s Undying Song – A Comparison of Old Norse Poems and Heroic Portrayals in Vikings (2013-) and Oehlenschläger’s Regnar Lodbrok (1849)” This article discusses the portrayal of the legendary Viking Regnar Lodbrok in Michael Hirst’s TV series Vikings and Adam Oehlenchläger’s Romantic poem Regnar Lodbrok. Focusing on the incorporation of the Old Norse death song “Krákumál” in both the series and the poem, the article shows that the reinterpretations of the death song determine the versions of the Viking hero. Reinventing the hero after the fashion of their own age, as either a modern self-made hero or as a tender warrior-skald , Hirst and Oehlenschläger contribute to the perception of the Viking Age in the twenty-first and the nineteenth century, respectively.