Vikings: Valhalla ‘Choices’ – Canute’s Mercian wife comes to England
- Cherish
- Jun 18
- 5 min read
Recapper's Note: Vikings: Valhalla had its three-season run whilst I was mostly away from the recapping world. Now that I'm back, I still want to write about it. Please join me in this look back as we wait for the next Viking show.
Vikings: Valhalla Season 1 Episode 7 Recap and Review
I love Emma. I have expressed my love for Emma in many ways in past recaps. So, when I write that I heartily enjoyed having Ælfgifu in the Saxon court, that is not a knock on Emma. It was a move that made narrative and political sense, and I am glad they went there.
Before we get to Ælfgifu’s takeover of the Saxon court, however, the first half of the episode was of a different kind of takeover, that of King Forkbeard, King Canute’s father. An imposing presence, Forkbeard immediately made it known to the Saxon court that he was not as soft-hearted as his son. Canute had to leave to defend Denmark from an attack by the Wends, Rus people from the east. Before he left, he married Emma. The ship that arrived at the end of the last episode must have been Forkbeard’s, with news of the invasion.
Vikings: Valhalla in general has done well with casting, and Søren Pilmark’s Forkbeard is another winner. He came to England to run it for his son, but not take over it. He openly disagreed with some of his son’s choices, but he did not actively work against his overall goal. Forkbeard was a hammer to Canute’s sharp knife, but they were still on the same side, and his presence gave this episode welcome energy.
That Edmund lived was a decision by Canute that Forkbeard strongly disagreed with, but I do not think he gave Godwin the order to kill him. Godwin made that decision on his own and he bet, correctly, that Forkbeard would condone the murder. As appalled as Emma was with the murder of her stepson, Forkbeard had a point – now, Canute was the sole King of England. There was no more son of another long gone king the English nobles could rally their support around. And, Godwin just performed a service to the man who made him Jarl of Wessex.
Godwin’s plan was as disturbing as it was brilliant. He planted the seeds of resistance on Edmund’s head during one of their rides. He gathered up the English nobles and got them to agree to a plot to get rid of Forkbeard. Then, he murdered Edmund right then and there, with the nobles as witnesses to the ‘accident’ – he manipulated Edmund into another race, but secretly, he had already placed a rope on the route that tripped Edmund’s horse. When he fell – witnessed by the nobles, but they were too far away to see much more than that – Godwin quickly gathered up the rope, then slipped a knife right onto Edmund’s heart, just another of his several injuries from the fall. The English nobles respected the succession, they had not much choice but to rally around Edmund as King, but they did not like him. They were not going to look too closely at the marks on his body. Emma was the only one who might have raised alarm, but she was not the sole power in England, not with Forkbeard there, and Forkbeard was the kind of man who would appreciate, even admire, the audacity of Godwin’s plan.
Besides, Emma and Forkbeard soon had another problem. Queen Ælfgifu, on whose ears Olaf had poured bile, had arrived, along with her two sons. She declared that she came to England to claim the crown that was due to her as Canute’s wife. Forkbeard countered that Ælfgifu and Canute were married in the pagan way, before Canute converted to Christianity, which meant that in the eyes of the God they now worshipped, they were never married. When Ælfgifu’s appeal toward his affection to his grandchildren did not move Forkbeard, she moved to blackmail. If Canute committed to Emma, he would lose Norway. Olaf had tried to buy Denmark’s fleet but Ælfgifu brought it to England instead, hidden, where Forkbeard could not easily find it, but close enough to receive her command. If they did not hear from her, the fleet would sail to Kattegat under Olaf’s flag.
As Emma offered Forkbeard her help to locate the fleet, so did Godwin approach Ælfgifu with his own offer to help. Stay away from him, Ælfgifu!
In Kattegat, preparations continued for the anticipated attack by Kåre and Olaf. Harald kept acting like he could love Freydis out of her very real concerns over their differences in faith. He had this almost boyish fantasy that as King of Norway, he could create a country that was as open as Kattegat, where all faiths would be welcomed. When a boat arrived carrying the heads of the dead along with a single crying baby, the child of the healer who helped Freydis and Yrsa, Jarl Haakon knew that something horrifying had happened in Uppsala. She was right. Freydis and company arrived to find Uppsala, the centre of their faith, completely destroyed. The only survivors were kids whom Kåre spared to give Freydis a message, that God ordered him to destroy Kattegat and kill Freydis. Harald understood that Kåre and his army were not just committing a series of massacres, they were cleansing the land, trying to erase all signs of its pagan past.
Kåre’s mission was not borne out of faith but madness. When Olaf asked for his help in taking Kattegat so he could unite all of Norway under the banner of Christ, Kåre asked only that in return Olaf should build a great church in Kattegat with a spire that reached heaven. Had he left it there, then Olaf might have thought that he simply found common cause with a fellow devoted Christian, but during their meeting, Kåre kept talking to the Seer purportedly in a cage but was not there. Kåre’s madness ran deep, and Olaf knew it.
Perhaps it was the reason why he looked so pleased when he saw Harald ride out to him. There naturally was lingering affection between the brothers, but there must have been relief as well, now that he did not have to deal with Kåre alone. Or, perhaps something else. On the eve of battle, and the brothers were reunited. On to the finale we go!
Strays
⚔️Harald: ‘I love you.’ Freydis: ‘And you think this love is a good thing?’ Lol.
⚔️Harald declared that he would set aside his destiny to be King of Norway for her.
⚔️Canute’s niece Princess Gytha was now lady in waiting to Emma. Forkbeard looked pleased. They had really taken on the customs of the land they raided, and later conquered.
⚔️Forkbeard killed Sigefeard of Wessex, who had previously protested against paying taxes, and made Godwin the new Jarl.
⚔️ Leif and Liv talked about Leif’s father whilst they were tracking Kåre’s army. Leif said there was a darkness in his father that he could not control, and that Leif shared it.
⚔️Edmund gave Emma a wedding gift, a necklace that once belonged to his mother.
⚔️Arne approached Leif again, and said he must defend his father’s name. Leif successfully talked him out of a fight.
⚔️Ælfgifu to Emma: ‘Surely you are astute enough to realise that if a wolf is roaming your halls and warming itself by your fires, it must be considering you its dinner.’
Writer: Declan Croghan
Director: David Frazee
Original Air Date: February 25, 2022