Viking Astronomy by Martin Lunn – Festival of Ideas

The Vikings have acquired the reputation of being barbaric marauders. What is less well known is that they were very good astronomers. They produced their own maps of the night sky and have their own myths and legends to describe the sky. In this talk we will go back to the year 912 AD; a very good year to have been an astronomer, and we will look at the night sky as the Vikings would have seen it.