Vikings trivia: the story of Ragnar, raids, and Valhalla

Why Vikings trivia starts with Ragnar

Vikings trivia begins with a series that mixed historical drama with Norse legend from the start. Vikings was created and written by Michael Hirst, premiered on the History Channel on March 3, 2013, and was inspired by the sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok.

The show opens at the start of the Viking Age, with the Lindisfarne raid in 793. It portrays Ragnar as a farmer from the fictional village of Kattegat who rises to fame by raiding England. That setup gives the series its central path: a local man, a seafaring world, and a rise built on raids, family, and ambition.

The series was filmed entirely in Ireland, and its first season had a budget of US$40 million. That first run premiered on March 3, 2013, and concluded on April 28, 2013, with nine episodes.

How did the first seasons perform?

The first season received an 81% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. According to Nielsen, the series premiere drew six million viewers in the United States.

The second season followed with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 92% based on twelve professional critic reviews. Those early seasons helped establish the show's mix of battle, family conflict, and the pull between home and conquest.

The story also widened beyond Ragnar. In the later seasons, the series follows the fortunes of Ragnar's sons and their adventures in North America. That shift kept the focus on inheritance and expansion, while keeping the family line at the center of the drama.

Who made Vikings and where did it continue?

Michael Hirst remained the creator and writer behind the series, and the world he built kept extending across multiple seasons. The sixth and final season premiered on December 4, 2019, on History in Canada.

That sixth season consisted of twenty episodes split into two parts of ten episodes each. The series concluded with its broadcast on History in Canada from January 1 to March 3, 2021.

One standout detail from that final stretch is the eighth episode of season six, "Valhalla Can Wait," which was directed by Katheryn Winnick. It is a neat marker of how the production carried both the saga scale and the personal touch of key cast-and-crew figures into the endgame.

What happened after the original series?

The story did not stop with the final broadcast of Vikings. A sequel series titled Vikings: Valhalla premiered on Netflix on February 25, 2022.

That sequel extended the franchise beyond the original run, but the foundation stayed the same: Ragnar Lodbrok, Kattegat, England, and the sweeping family saga that began with a farmer and a raid. For viewers and quiz fans, those are the details that keep Vikings easy to recognize and easy to test yourself on.

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