Vikings: Valhalla is based on historical events and real-life people, and a key event in this new series is the St. Brice’s Day massacre – but how many died at the massacre? One of the most popular historical dramas in recent years is Vikings, created by Michael Hirst (The Tudors). Vikings premiered on History Channel in 2013, and even though it was originally planned to be a miniseries, its success allowed it to continue for a total of six seasons, coming to an end in 2020. However, it wasn’t enough to tell the stories of the most notable Vikings in history, and so a sequel series was announced in 2019.

Vikings explored the first years of the Viking Age with legendary Norse figure Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) as the lead. The series initially followed Ragnar’s travels and raids alongside his Viking brothers, but as it evolved, it started shifting its focus to Ragnar’s sons (Björn, Ubbe, Hvitserk, Sigurd, and Ivar) and their own journeys. These characters took over Vikings after Ragnar’s death in season 4, and while their stories were given full closure, there are more battles, people, and legends to explore from the Viking Age, and many of them will be addressed in the sequel series Vikings: Valhalla.

Set more than a century after the events of Vikings, Vikings: Valhalla follows Leif Erikson (Sam Corlett), Freydís Eiríksdóttir (Frida Gustavsson), and Harald Sigurdsson (Leo Suter), who embark on a journey that takes them across oceans and battlefields, each one of them with a personal battle to deal with in the process. As the backdrop of their stories are the tensions between the Vikings and the English royals – Christians vs Pagans – leading to big battles and the deaths of many from both sides. Vikings: Valhalla begins with the St. Brice’s Day massacre, an event that triggers the rest of the series and leads the Vikings to battle and take over England in revenge for all those lives lost at the massacre.

The St. Brice’s Day massacre is a real event, and it happened on November 13, 1002. Tired of England being ravaged by Danish raids every year since 997, King Æthelred the Unready (played in Vikings: Valhalla by Bosco Hogan) ordered the deaths of all Danes living in England. Æthelred was also told that the Danes in England would “faithlessly take his life”, all his councilors, and “possess his kingdom afterwards”, so he went to extremes to try to prevent that. Vikings: Valhalla shows the death of entire Viking settlements, but in reality, little is known about how many died during the massacre. Although historians believe there was a significant amount of deaths, there aren’t any specific estimates, but it’s believed that among the victims was Gunhilde, who may have been the sister of Sweyn Forkbeard (Søren Pilmark), Canute’s (Bradley Freegard) father.

Gunhilde was married to Pallig Tokesen, a Dane who served Æthelred and who in some versions of the events played a part in provoking the massacre by deserting Æthelred’s service. In 2008, the skeletons of 34 to 38 young men between the ages of 16 and 25 were found during an excavation at St. John’s College, Oxford, and analysis on the bodies showed the remains are Viking, yet there’s not an estimated number of lives lost during the massacre. Vikings: Valhalla took some creative liberties at some points, but its depiction of the St. Brice’s Day massacre might not be that inaccurate.