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The Northmanwriter-director Robert Eggers is known as a particularly exacting filmmaker when it comes to historical accuracy.
But as youll learn, theyre all very much based in real history.
What year is it again?
And where are we exactly?
All over northern Europe.
Why is the plot basicallyHamlet?
(He also rearranged the letters in the main characters name.)
Whats up with Ethan Hawke getting on his knees and barking like a dog?
This communion is achieved primarily through trances, psychedelic and otherwise, that impart profound spiritual wisdom.
The likely culprit here isAmanita muscaria(a.k.a.
fly agaric), a mushroom native to the Northern Hemisphere with an eons-old connection to shamanic spirituality.
(Ravens are also associated with Odin the Allfather, the king of the Norse gods.)
And Alexander Skarsgard howling and ripping a guys throat out with his teeth?
Whats the tree Amleth keeps hallucinating?
Thats the ash tree Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, the center of the Viking cosmos.
The tree itself holds up the nine worlds of Viking mythology and connects all of them.
Its necromancy, so the latter.
The dead mans skin was then cured and fashioned into a pair of pants.
Historians are skeptical about whether anyone actuallymadenecropants or if theyre simply a folk belief.
But its a cool, gross idea.
Who are Fenrir and Freyr?
Who the characters inThe Northmanworship says a lot about their priorities.
Amleth and his fellow berserkers invoke Fenrir (a.k.a.
Fenriswolf) a mythological wolf representing chaos as they prepare to charge into battle in the Land of Rus.
There, he awaits Ragnarok, the Norse apocalypse.
Thats when he will break free, swallow the sun, and kill Odin.
Meanwhile, Freyr (a.k.a.
The brother of Freyja, the goddess of love and beauty, Freyr was widely worshiped in Norse society.
Whats Bjorks role in all of this?
(In the film, Bjork holds a drop spindle in her hand.)
If you had a successful life, it was because you were blessed with a benevolent Norn.
If your luck kept going from bad to worse, an ill-tempered Norn was to blame.
Did the Vikings really practice human sacrifice at funerals?
In short, yes.
The second time she said, I see all my dead relatives seated.
The third time she said, I see my master seated in Paradise and Paradise is beautiful and green … Take me to him.
Did Valkyries really have tooth bling?
Not just Valkyries: Some mortal Vikingsgot decorative dental workas well.
Maybe it just looked cool and scary?
