So you've watched all 4 and a half season of Vikings. No more, no less. And you're wondering to yourself, 'some of this stuff is way too good to be true!' The good news is that you're right! Many elements of History Channel's Vikings are outright magical, fantastical, or some manner of other worldly.
However, that doesn't mean the writers of the show didn't do their homework. Throughout the show there are a variety of scenes that were lifted almost word for word from viking legends and myths, some of them not even from the sagas and stories about Ragnar Lothbrok and his sons.
The action of the show Vikings really gets started with Ragnar's band of adventureres boldly journeying west as the Norse had done regularly for centuries never before!
Lindisfarne was an influential monastery in the kingdom of Northumbia, one of the largest and most powerful kingdoms in Anglo-Saxon England at the time. It was a renowned center of learning and had been founded by the famous Irish monks from Iona. Garnering royal patronage and activity, the monastery produced magnificent works of arts such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and had grown quite powerful and wealthy. However to the Norsemen it lay open and undefended with a veritable treasure trove of riches just lying there for the taking.
The viking attack on this settlement struck fear into the hearts of men across Europe, and Frankish and Anglo-Saxon sources mention the fury of the attack and the punishment from God that it surely entailed. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle even mentions the signs of storms, famines, and dragons heralding the arrival of the Norsemen.
2 https://youtu.be/9LZsfDKpZFU?t=2 (sorry about the quality)
Ragnar Lothbrok is not only a fighter however. He was also a lover! The show actually cut one of his wives, but retained the story of how he met his third (second in the show) wife, Aslaug.
Rangar, to test her wits, asked that she come to him, neither naked or clothed, neither fed nor fasting, and neither alone or in company. Aslaug to his surprise meets his demands and he quickly finds her an enthralling companion to have.
However, this is just about where the differences between the show and saga end. While in both versions Aslaug meets Ragnar's test and bears him several children (including the deformed Ivar), in the show they grow to be estranged, while in the saga she fights alongside the men and even gifts Ragnar with a shirt that protects him from harm. Even in his final battle and moments, this shirt keeps him safe until he is forcibly stripped by King Ælla and only then can he die.
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN2podGREsE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzFLTI7InZk
The highlight of Ragnar's career in the show and his crowning moment of viking badassery was Ragnar's conquest of Paris. Sown with his baptism in an earlier episode and his sever injury before that the pay off finally arrives in grand form. The previously unconquerable city of Paris falls to Ragnar's Trojan coffin and the viking hordes sweep in and through the city, doing what they do best.
This sequence was clearly inspired by the saga of the only other viking warrior to rival Ragnar's own exploits. Harald Hardrade (Hard-Ruler) from Norway had an adventurous life. Exiled from his homeland of Norway and on the run seeking his fortune, he came to first Russia and then to the legendary city of Constantinople. There he entered the service of the emperor himself and became a leader of the Varangian guard. An all Norseman unit of bodyguards that were tasked with the hardest fights and toughest battles. In return they received the right to plunder the treasury of Byzantium. Harald himself participated in this rite three times before returning to Scandinavia and making himself king and then invading England before dying in battle to the forces of Harold Godwinson at Stamford Bridge.
However during his service with the Romans in Sicily he had been tasked with seizing a string of fortresses. The final was totally impervious to all assault. So he had to resort to trickery. Feigning illness and weakness he set his tent off from the rest of the army and fooled the enemy spies who now believed him on death's door.
After his "death" his men requested that he be given a proper burial in sanctified ground within the city. Thinking of the riches that could come to them as the final resting place of such a great man, the enemy fortress agreed. As his coffin entered the gates, Harald sprung from his coffin handed out the weapons his men needed and barred the gates open so the rest of the army could poor through.
4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuhBDkIn_RM
One of the most memorable moments from the early seasons of Vikings was the temple at Uppsala and the sacrifices made there as well as the introduction of King Horik to Ragnar, as well as the beginnings of Rollo's own jealousy of his brother.
The construction of the temple and the sacrifices made around it comes almost verbatim from the account of Adam of Bremen, a bishop from Hamburg who wrote about the lands to his North in his Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg
Within its pages he describes a monstrous pagan temple, gilded, and overlooking a wood, within lie the statues of the Norse gods, foremost Frey, Odin, and Thor. However it is the tales of sacrifice that truly captivate the mind of the reader. He claims that every nine years, the Norsemen make a sacrifice of 9 of each animal to be hanged from the trees and offered to their gods.
The show takes its own liberties and adds in certain stipulations as to the men who must be sacrificed as well as making the process of sacrifice far more long and drawn out than Adam of Bremen recounts. The temple itself is very reminscent of Norwegian stave churches, though their existence during the viking age is doubted.
5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7Tf-a8pKIE
Finally there is the end to the story of Ragnar Lothbrok. Captured by King Ælla of Northumbria and condemned to death, he is finally executed by being thrown into a pit filled with snakes.
In the sagas this is actually much more of a poetic bookend to his storied career. He first rose to fame according to the saga by slaying two venomous serpents by means of his specially made trousers. The appearance of these hairy pants actually gave him his name of "lothbrok". He finally meets his end surrounded by mundane snakes. His end also has similarities to the death of Gunnar in the Volsunga Saga. Here Attila the Hun out of his greed for Gunnar's wealth has Gunnar executed by being thrown into a snake pit.
However, according to Saxo Grammaticus and the Saga of Ragnar, his sons wrought a horrible revenge for their father's murder on not just Ælla, but all of England and their successors created the Danelaw as well as many of the royal houses of Scandinavia.
So there you have it bits of History Channel's very solid four and a half seasons of tv. Some of it embellished, some ripped right out of the sagas themselves.