Vinland in Valhalla
How is Vinland, the medieval Norse understanding of North America, shown in popular media today? I look into the video game series Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and its depiction of a ‘far off land’ and people.
When given the opportunity to choose my own final project for a Race in Antiquity-based class, I knew I wanted to focus on the video game I was currently playing, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Trying to base this game on actual primary sources from its own period was much easier than I expected, as there are two extremely well-known Nordic sagas detailing the Vikings’ journey at the turn of the first millennia, about 995 CE, The Greenlanders Saga and Erik the Red’s Saga. Anyone familiar with the Assassin’s Creed games players inhabit a member of the secret brotherhood of Assassins that has existed since the Roman Period in Ancient Egypt, about 50 BCE, shown in an earlier installment of Assassin’s Creed Origins. In Valhalla, the main character is Eivor, a Nordic Viking who travels south from Norway to England in 859 CE when numerous Viking tribes were known to move south and begin interacting with the native Saxons. We see this happening when Eivor visits ancient cities that have lasted since the Roman occupation of England, including Lunden.
The historical sagas I compared the game to have clear and glaring differences, specifically the date of Viking’s first landing in North America. After reading the Vinland Sagas and preparing to play this game, I am interested in how they are going to address this clear difference. Of course, Assassin’s Creed has to alter the historical narrative slightly to make a cohesive and recognizable storyline for gameplay, but how Vikings are on an entirely foreign continent to them one hundred years earlier than the historical record shows is going to be an interesting explanation.
Rasmussen, Carl Eric Christin Jens. Summer in the Greenland Coast. 1875, Private Collection.
This mini blog series will detail my gameplay of Valhalla’s Vinland Saga, starting with Eivor’s arrival in Vinland and ending with their departure. I have a few key sections of the game that I’m going to be focusing on comparing to the historical sagas, including the introduction to Vinland, the Native tribes present in the game and saga and their differences, the attributes of gameplay that pair well with the sagas, and the reasons for leaving North America in both sources.
Enter Vinland
This time I start the travel to Vinland in the game and explore the starting differences between Assassin’s Creed's take on Vinland compared to the source texts in the Vinland Sagas.
To compare these sagas with the game, we need to go to their shared location of Vinland. For this, I had to defeat nine order members to unlock the mission to head west across the "whale road." The game treated this journey as long and arduous, stating it would take four weeks and Eivor could not bring any other weapons or armor, a scheme to make you explore their map to collect all the new gear.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Version 1.7.0. For PlayStation 4, Ubisoft, 2020
Upon arriving in Vinland, Eivor lands in an established settlement named Nynfon. They are warned against leaving the town as the natives are dangerous and attack. However, Eivor immediately leaves and bonds with the Native tribe Kanien'hehá, where she begins working toward her plan of assassinating the Viking leader, Gorm. The Kanien'hehá's in-game depiction is really interesting and stark compared to the Sagas, so I'll talk more about them in a later post.
In the Vinland Sagas, the journey west is far more detailed and drawn out. The crews were the ones supposedly finding this land for the first time, not following a pre-made route. Before reaching Vinland, Viking crews land on various islands but continue heading west. Multiple crews make the journey, and the length varies greatly, with one group becoming lost in a storm and taking only four days. However, the first long-term exploration of Vinland was credited in the stories to Leif the Lucky, the son of Eirik the Red, who had discovered the land years prior but could not explore, and his crew found two different lands before Vinland, pointing to a longer journey.
Upon landing in Vinland, the Viking crew, led by Leif the Lucky, built houses and began exploring, finding vines and grapes, earning the land the name Vinland. In both the sagas, very little time is actually spent in Vinland, with at most one chapter at a time, about two pages, being spent exploring or collecting supplies before returning to Greenland with their ships full of timber.
This mention of timber is interesting, as Eivor comments on the sheer number of trees present on the new land upon arrival. When given the first chance for synchronization, the player is able to view the relatively small map, a densely forested area with several branches of rivers running through.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Version 1.7.0. For PlayStation 4, Ubisoft, 2020
From here, the game has Eivor begin exploring and interacting with the local tribes and animal life. The saga's interactions with the local environment are far more violent and less politically correct depictions of the natives.
Who’s in Vinland
Who was in Vinland, both in the Vinland Sagas and Assassin’s Creed? How are these groups described and represented? Here I take a look at the differences and minor similarities of the native American tribes present.
Throughout Eivor's time in Vinland, they interact heavily and rely upon the local tribe, the Kanien'hehá. Assassin's Creed as a franchise has performed extensive research by a multicultural and diverse group of game designers. Every time players open the game, they are greeted with a disclosure of their works to unbiased and truthful depictions of history. The game's depiction of the Native Americans who interacted with the Viking explorers bases then upon the Kanien'hehá, a real tribe whose name means 'people of the flint' and that was part of the Iroquois nation. The two villages shown in the game were Karonhiaken:iate' and Kahrhakén:rat, where the player can interact with the community leaders, traders, and Olav the Unlucky.
However, within the sagas, Native Americans are depicted entirely differently. The earliest mention of natives is when the second expedition led by Thorvald, the brother of Leif, attacks nine men described as hiding under 'skin boats,' canoes made of moose hide, and killing all but one who escaped. Most interactions follow this trend as the group is attacked the next day when Thorvald is hit by an arrow and killed. Eventually, a strategized battle took place and saw many Skaelings, natives, killed with their leader supposedly picking up an axe, killing his ally, and tossing the weapon aside.
The one nonviolent interaction occurred when a new expedition party arrived, and natives arrived to trade packs full of furs for a few cups of milk from the cows brought along. This depiction shows them as less intelligent as they are shortly after, scared off by the mooing of cows.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Version 1.7.0. For PlayStation 4, Ubisoft, 2020
Within the game, however, the local tribes are shown as caring and more spiritually intelligent than the invading Vikings. They actually know what the Piece of Eden is that Eivor finds on Gorm’s body. The villages shown are far more built up and organized than the small, barely formed landing site for the Viking ships.
Animals and Weapons
In the gameplay of Assassin’s Creed Valhlla, there are several aspects of life in Vinland that have actual context based on the sagas. Today, I look into how these gameplay parts compare to historical sources.
Within the Vinland quest line of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, players explore new and unique weapons, armor, and animals. Entering the new lands, Eivor comes without any of their pre-existing weapons and must find new ones or fight with her fists among the native tribes through trading leather, iron ores, and copper ores, which can be collected across the map by riding Viking encampments, hunting animals, or destroying ore containing rocks. There are traders in both villages for Eivor to trade with, at which she can collect a new set of armor of the same design as the native’s dress, as well as a club, spear, and bow and arrow.
The few weapons in Vinland follow the sagas, as the battles continuously describe the natives using bows and catapults while also turning from the axes wielded by Vikings.
Being on a new continent, there are new animals to encounter and fight against. World events triggered by the player roaming the map involve fighting bears and mountain lions to help the other Vikings in Vinland. Throughout past Assassin's Creed games, legendary and alpha animals have been present, especially in Odyssey, the ancient Greek installment, having players fight against the Kalydonian boar, Nemian Lion, Kretan bull, and others. Valhalla is no different, with Vinland being home to the powerful and painful O' Yan Do Ne Bug, which moose players have to face with only their recently collected weapons. O' Yan Do Ne Bug is interestingly an actual figure in Iroquois mythology, being a moose personification of the east wind.
All the animals mentioned within the Sagas are present in the game, except for a brief section that describes a member of their exploration crew successfully killing a uniped, which is sadly not a type of unicorn but a man with only one leg. Within the saga, this man comes from a nearby tribe of similar individuals. The legend of the uniped is wide-reaching and present in numerous cultures under different names, including monopods in European medieval mythology.
Leaving Vinland
After finishing up this series on the similarities and differences between Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and the Vinland Sagas, I think about why Vikings left Vinland.
Looking at Assassin’s Creed Valhalla’s depiction of Vinland, the general strokes are accurate compared to the original Vinland Sagas. However, unsurprisingly, the unique flora, fauna, and native tribes are far more nuanced and fleshed out, creating an actual space for the player to explore alongside the Viking explorers themselves.
In Assassin’s Creed, the game justified Eivor traveling west over a century before these sagas claim by having another real historical figure in Brendan of Clonfert, an early Irish Priest born in 484 CE and known for exploration. Saint Brendan’s story was collected in Navigatio Sancti Brandai Abbatis (Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot) around 900 CE. Within this text, a mysterious land is described and dubbed Saint Brendan’s Island, still disputed today by theories including North America. Assassin’s Creed takes this route, and specific mention of Saint Brendan is given with a standing stone called the Lord and Lady Grantebridgescire; there, players can find a short page written by Saint Brendan detailing his travels west.
This storyline isn’t important for the gameplay. However, by exploring the map, a standing stone structure can be found, a letter from Saint Brendan himself that directly connects him to the larger storyline of the Assassin’s Creed universe.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Version 1.7.0. For PlayStation 4, Ubisoft, 2020
In his letter, Saint Brendan gives his reasons for heading back east that directly mirror the reasons given in the game and the Vinland Sagas Vikings, who returned home without trying to colonize or set up long-standing outposts. Valhalla saw the Vikings return east after the leader who pushed them to Vinland for a proto-archeological dig was killed, leaving them with no reason to stay in an unwelcoming land. In the Sagas, multiple leaders ordered their crews to return to Greenland and Norway after multiple battles with local tribes that resulted in the death of some Viking chiefs.
I’ve played almost all the Assassin’s Creed games and used them to begin my interest in history as a subject. Today, I’m a history-based major about to graduate. While Assassin’s Creed was far from as influential as some great history teachers, I can’t help but look back at my younger self learning about the French Revolution from a video game far better than from my 10th-grade history and government teacher. All this to say, having this game as an opportunity to look into the earliest interactions of two distinct cultures allowed me to experience it to a small extent and brought what I was learning about this semester through this project to life.
If anyone is interested in the Assassin's Creed games further, I encourage you to look at the developer’s website, Ubisoft, here. If you are looking for the entire gameplay, YouTuber Hollow’s walkthroughs have been particularly useful for me in this project.