Scandinavia: Did you mean...?

An 1859 illustration of Yggdrasil: The Mundane Tree, copied from an older version by Finnur Magnússon (1781-1847). Courtesy of The Public Domain Review.

Thor fighting the mighty giant serpent Jörmungandr during a fishing trip with Hymir the giant. Painting by Henry Fuseli, 1788. Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Illustration depicting the Norse god Heimdall, from the Edda oblongata, a 17th-century illuminated manuscript of the 13th-century CE Prose Edda, which is the basis for the modern understanding of Norse mythology. Made...

Painting of the giantesses Fenja and Menja grinding salt with the magic grindstone Grótti, a scene from the Old Norse poem "Song of Grótti". Painted by Carl Christian Peters (1822-1899 CE).

An 1882 CE engraving, titled "Heimdallr Lifted by his Mothers, the Nine Wave Maidens" by German artist Carl Ehrenberg (1840-1914 CE). The illustration depicts the Norse god Heimdall being born. Published in Nordisch-germanische...

The Battle of Floabardagi (1244 CE) by Marek Szyszko. Courtesy of Medieval Warfare Magazine / Karwansaray Publishers.

King Sverre Sigurdsson of Norway (r. 1184-1202 CE) admonishes his troops for looting without authorization, by by Zvonimir Grbasic. Medieval Warfare Magazine / Karwansaray Publishers

The Black Death was a plague pandemic that devastated medieval Europe from 1347 to 1352. The Black Death killed an estimated 25-30 million people. The disease originated in central Asia and was taken to the Crimea by Mongol warriors...

A Valkyrie is a figure in Norse mythology depicted as a warrior woman on horseback, a wolf or boar, and armed with a spear, who decides the fate of warriors in battle and carries the dead to Odin’s Valhalla. Valkyrie means "chooser...

Medieval serfs (aka villeins) were unfree labourers who worked the land of a landowner (or tenant) in return for physical and legal protection and the right to work a separate piece of land for their own basic needs. Serfs made up 75%...