HistoryExtra Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast 2026-10-23T09:16:17.000Z https://www.historyextra.com/topic/myths-and-legends/feed/atom James Osborne <![CDATA[The Vikings had a terrifying myth about the end of the world. Was it inspired by a real deadly disaster?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/viking/fimbulwinter-inspired-by-real-disaster/ 2026-10-23T09:16:17.000Z 2026-10-23T09:16:17.000Z The legend goes something like this: before the gods met their enemies in their final battle, an unprecedented winter would take hold. A thick blizzard would come down from every direction, blocking out the weakening sun. Three successive winters would pass, with no summer between them.
This is the story of Fimbulwinter, the “mighty winter” of Norse mythology: the prelude to the destruction of the world at Ragnarök. It’s a story preserved in the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda; one part of a broader suite of legendary tales from these two sources of Norse mythology.
But what if Fimbulwinter wasn’t just a story, but rather, a memory?
“We know beyond any doubt now there were a series of really drastic volcanic eruptions in the mid-500s, with enormous effects on Scandinavia, that really impacted the population” says Professor Neil Price, one of the foremost world experts on the Viking Age.
Scientific evidence confirms the eruptions, but establishing what they did to Scandinavian communities is harder, and tracing their effects into stories told centuries later is harder still. Price nevertheless suspects that accounts of the disaster survived through oral storytelling, eventually becoming preserved for evermore as part of the grand Norse vision of the world’s end.
A fragmented empire
The volcanic eruptions Professor Price describes struck more than two centuries before the conventional (though contentious) beginning of the Viking Age in the late eighth century. In this early medieval period, Scandinavians then lived in farming societies connected by trade, warfare and travel to the rest of Europe, where Roman imperial power had broken down. Some historians refer to this period of turbulence the Age of Migrations. But Professor Price argues that the vast movement of peoples was only part of the upheaval.
“What we're really looking at is the disintegration of a superpower,” he says, speaking on an upcoming episode of the HistoryExtra podcast. “What happens when something like the Roman Empire begins to come apart in different ways, at different speeds, in different places, all through its territory, and what comes out of that?”
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Imperial rule in western Europe fragmented during the fifth century. Scandinavia had never been a Roman province, but its inhabitants were connected to the empire’s economic and military networks. Disruption farther south affected the movement of goods, wealth and people. “There is a decline in the numbers of settlements, the numbers of cemeteries, basically a decline in human habitation in Scandinavia at this time,” Price explains.
Amid this destabilisation, Scandinavian mercenaries returning north, Price suggests, could use their military experience to strengthen their position at home, consolidating power around themselves as regional warlords. So, communities were already dealing with economic disruption, conflict and shifts in political authority when the eruptions began.
Changing climates
In AD 536, observers around the Mediterranean reported an unusually dim sun. The historian Procopius, writing about the wars of the eastern Roman emperor Justinian, described weak sunlight resembling an eclipse. Other accounts recorded disturbed seasons and problems with food supplies. These witnesses were far from Scandinavia, so their reports show how widely the effects were felt.
Researchers can compare those accounts with records preserved in ice and wood, thanks to archaeological science. Ice cores contain sulphate deposited after volcanic eruptions; unusually narrow tree rings can indicate poor growing conditions. Together, they help researchers connect eruptions with periods of abrupt cooling.
This evidence points to major eruptions in 536 and around 540, followed by another in 547. In a short window, the climate suffered repeated, violent disturbances. As a result, says Price, “you end up with something resembling a volcanic winter.”
For communities of early medieval Scandinavia, these eruptions would have been catastrophic. “The margins of subsistence [in this region], in terms of the regular climate, the scarcity of agricultural land and so on, they're so much narrower than they are in, say, the Mediterranean.”
Unlike in the warmer climates of the Mediterranean, Scandinavian farmers needed enough warmth to bring in their harvest before autumn. They also had to gather fodder to keep livestock alive through winter. A poor growing season threatened both sources of food. Repeated agricultural failures would make survival nearly impossible.
“Some scholars have estimated that the combined impact just of the volcanic eruptions is a 50 per cent mortality rate, not universally across Scandinavia, but in some places,” says Price. “In social terms, that's catastrophic.”
Even where communities survived, their inhabitants faced years of disruption. “An awful lot of lives were not only ended, but the lives of all the survivors were also disrupted.”
A legendary truth?
Price thinks those experiences of intense climate disruption may help explain the legend of Fimbulwinter. He sees similarities between the environmental crisis and the wider mythology of Ragnarök: darkness, cold, hunger and the breakdown of social order; a memory of a real environmental catastrophe, passed down across generations, possibly transformed over the course of centuries into this frosty myth of the precursor to the end of the world.
But Ragnarök, despite all the death and despair, isn’t a tale of total doom. The stories also describe a world renewed after the destruction, though scholars debate how Christian influence may have shaped the surviving accounts. For Price, the prospect of life continuing after catastrophe is another possible connection with the sixth-century experience.
- Read more | This Viking warlord had a magical banner that promised victory. But it had a secret curse
“Ragnarök is not in the past tense. It's still in the future. [And] of course, in the 6th century, the world didn't actually end,” says Price. “People did get past that.”
Research into connections between natural events and traditional stories is called geomythology. These connections can be suggestive and persuasive, but similarities alone don’t prove that a story descended from a particular event. Could a culture that has had no experience of a long, harsh winter create a myth that tells of a long, harsh winter, drawn from imagination rather than reality? Logically, yes. Retaining some scepticism is important.
That’s why Price says “it's an interesting idea, but it's also a bit risky and like a circular argument because you find what you're looking for in the end.”
“But personally, I think the idea that there is an echo of that disruption, that trauma, centuries later in the Norse myth of the end of the world, I think it's very strong.”
Neil Price was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast.
]]> HistoryExtra <![CDATA[This Viking ruler begged to be dismembered – but his rival had something far worse in mind]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/viking-leaders-orkney/ 2026-10-21T14:31:04.000Z 2026-10-21T14:30:39.000Z It’s Easter time, 1116. Hardly a fitting moment for an act of great treachery. Yet this was medieval Orkney, and treachery was very much on the menu.
That spring day 910 years ago, two powerful men came face to face on the island of Egilsay, in order to seal a peace agreement. Magnús Erlendsson and Hákon Pálsson were cousins and co-rulers of the Earldom of Orkney, and had been for years. But things were about to change.
Hákon had decided that he’d had enough of sharing power with his cousin, and so he lured Magnús into a trap. After a period of escalating tensions, Hákon had arranged what was ostensibly a peace meeting between the two rulers. But when Magnús arrived, he swiftly realised that he was outnumbered by eight warships to two – and that Hákon harboured violent intent.
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Magnús knew that he had been outwitted. And so he made Hákon three offers in an attempt to save his life. Firstly, Magnús offered to go to Rome and Jerusalem to “redeem both our souls” and never return. This was refused. Then he suggested going into captivity in Scotland. This, too, was turned down.
Then Magnús made a third offer: to be dismembered, or blinded, and imprisoned. Hákon was at first inclined to accept this bid. But Orkney’s chieftains were having none of it.
“We must kill one or the other of you now,” they declared. “And you shall not both rule the lands from this day forth.”
“Kill him then!” said Hákon. “Because I want to rule the territory and the lands before I die so suddenly.”
The killing of Magnús Erlendsson is arguably the central episode in The Saga of the Earls of Orkney, a narrative history of the Orkney and Shetland islands and Caithness in the medieval period, embellished with layers of fantasy.
In the Saga’s telling of this 12th-century showdown between co-rulers, Magnús’s martyrdom – not to mention a series of miracles attributed to him – led to his recognition as a saint two decades later. Over the following decades, Orcadians’ reverence for Magnús only grew – as did a building constructed to house his relics. That building, St Magnus Cathedral, still stands in the town of Kirkwall: Scotland’s oldest and most northerly cathedral and an impressive, Romanesque tribute to the slain earl.
The aftermath
Given Magnús’s status, it’s hardly surprising that the Saga was full of praise for his capabilities as a ruler. He was, we’re told:
“The most outstanding person, imposing in size, manly and intelligent-looking, well-mannered in his conduct, victorious in battles, wise in his understanding, eloquent and imperious... He gave many gifts to chieftains and powerful men, and yet he often showed the most care for poor people.”
But what of Hákon? Perhaps surprisingly, the Saga doesn’t paint the architect of Magnús’s death as wholly evil. After a brief period of oppressing Magnús’s followers, Hákon, we’re told, had a change of heart. He travelled to Rome and Jerusalem and bathed in the river Jordan. On his return to Orkney he became “a good ruler and brought peace to his territory... At this his popularity began to grow; in the end, the Orcadians wanted nothing more than to have Hákon and his offspring as their chieftains.”
So what was going on here? Why was the Saga willing to give Hákon, slayer of the saintly Magnús, such a positive press? The answer lies in the distinctive way power was inherited in the Earldom of Orkney.
Royal support
The origins of the earldom lie in the Viking Age settlement of parts of what is now Scotland in the ninth and tenth centuries. This meant that the earldom developed in a Norwegian tradition of inheritance, in which territory was divided between family members who had equal claims to it.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Earldom encompassed Shetland and Caithness as well as Orkney. It was soon established as a Christian polity presided over by earls who owed their power to the king of Norway. And because of that Norwegian inheritance system, there were often two or more earls, usually close kinsmen, ruling together.
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This was the context confronting the authors of the Saga when, in the early 13th century, they described Hákon’s deeds. The elevation of Magnús to sanctity suggests some disapproval – at least from the church – of such political killings. But the attitude of the chieftains, and Hákon’s popularity, opens a window on an alternative viewpoint in the Saga: that peace and prosperity could only be achieved when there was a single ruler.
The history of the Earldom of Orkney suggests that this viewpoint had more than a little merit. The death of Magnús at the hands of his cousin and co-earl is the best-known example of such a killing in the Saga. Yet it was far from the only one. In fact, the Saga is studded with examples of co-rulership ending in violence.
A beginner's guide to The Saga of the Earls of Orkney How do we know so much about the exploits of the rulers of early medieval Orkney? The answer lies in The Saga of the Earls of Orkney, otherwise known as the Orkneyinga Saga. The sagas are long, prose narratives of varying types. But those written with historical intent focus on the Viking Age (c750–1100) and the following centuries, and are mostly set in Iceland or Norway. The Saga of the Earls of Orkney is the only one of these set largely in the British Isles, reflecting the fact that parts of what is now Scotland then belonged culturally and politically to that Scandinavian world. It tells the story of the rulers of northern Scotland and their henchmen, taking the reader on a journey from their ancestry in Norway through to the beginning of the 13th century. Its account, particularly of the 11th and 12th centuries, presents a plausible, though certainly partial, outline of the main events of that time. Most of the action takes place in Orkney and Caithness, with occasional forays to Shetland. Readers are also taken to Ireland, and even the Holy Land via Galicia and Narbonne. The narrative is predominantly realistic, but it also has supernatural elements and a host of weird and wonderful characters. The Saga was compiled in Iceland in the early 13th century. It is, however, clearly based on the testimony of informants knowledgeable about northern Scotland, and on traditions from across the Viking diaspora. These traditions include the poetry quoted in the Saga, composed at the time of the events described. The narrative is firmly situated in the landscape of northern Scotland. As such it mentions locales that, in many cases, visitors to this beautiful part of the world can still see in the landscape today.
It all started in the early 11th century – decades before the rise of Hákon and Magnús – when the earldom was ruled by three of five brothers: Sumarliði, Einarr and Brúsi. When Sumarliði died, the youngest brother, Þorfinnr, staked his claim. Einarr was eliminated and Brúsi died of natural causes, leaving Þorfinnr to share power with his nephew, Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason.
But Þorfinnr was not inclined to rule alongside his nephew. And so, like Magnús in the following century, Rǫgnvaldr was killed by a follower of his co-earl – this time on the island of Papa Stronsay. And like Hákon, Þorfinnr went on to become a successful sole ruler, known as the ‘Mighty’.
Þorfinnr was succeeded by his sons, who got along just fine before their own sons – Magnús and Hákon – grew up. The Earldom of Orkney continued to follow the Norwegian model of co-rulers, and so the cycle of internecine violence was fated to continue.
As Magnús had no children, the rule then reverted to Hákon’s sons (by different mothers), Páli and Haraldr. This time, the elimination of one of the co-earls, Haraldr, happened by accident when he put on a deadly linen garment intended by his mother for his half-brother Páli.
Páli ruled alone until his second cousin, Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson), emerged to claim his part of the earldom. He was the son of St Magnús’s sister and had been brought up in Norway. His role in the capture and elimination of Páli by an enigmatic Saga character called Sveinn Ásleifarson is not clear, but it undoubtedly benefited him, clearing his way to the earldom.
But Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson) was not to rule alone. Páli’s sister, Margét, saw an opportunity for her son, Haraldr Maddaðarson, to replace Páli and rule as co-earl with Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson), who was persuaded by a couple of bishops to agree to this. The bishops perhaps did not anticipate any problems, as Haraldr was only three at the time. And the two earls ruled together quite successfully for 20 years. But then events took a familiar turn.
In 1158, Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson)’s life was brought to a violent end by a man called Þorbjǫrn, kinsman of Haraldr. In the Saga’s telling of events, Þorbjǫrn acknowledged his guilt but told Haraldr it was for his benefit:
“This deed that I have done is a great crime, and I am responsible, but all the territory has fallen into your power.”
Þorbjǫrn was right. Haraldr went on to become sole earl, ruling alone for 48 more years. However, unlike Hákon and Þorfinnr before him (those other earls who went on to enjoy long tenures in power following the deaths of their co-rulers), Haraldr didn’t get a particularly sympathetic hearing from the Saga. Other sagas show that he was also responsible for losing half of Caithness to the king of Scotland.
As for Rǫgnvaldr (Kolsson), he fared a lot better in the Saga’s pages. Like his uncle Magnús, he was venerated as a saint:
“His death was much lamented, because he was very popular there in the isles and widely elsewhere. He had been of assistance to many people, generous with money, calm and loyal to friends, a man of many skills and a good poet.”
This was high praise indeed. But such praise was rarely lavished on the earls’ henchmen. In fact, in a trope widely found in medieval literature, the Saga repeatedly attributes the earls’ murderous actions to the malign influence of their advisers.
Of the bust-up between Þorfinnr and Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason, the Saga writes:
“There was always a good relationship between the kinsmen when they met, but if worse men intervened, then there were differences.”
The same applies for Magnús and Hákon. These co-rulers are shown to have cooperated in the defence of their lands, but “when the kinsmen had ruled the land for some time, then it transpired as it more often and regularly does that many ill-intentioned men took to destroying their relationship”.
Despite the Saga’s misgivings, power-sharing persisted until the early 1200s, a century after Magnús’s death. So what are we to make of the system of co-rulership practised in the Earldom of Orkney? Was it always destined to end in bloodshed? And why did it endure so long? To answer these questions, we need to look to the realm that exerted such power over the earldom in the Viking Age: Norway.
Single and stable?
In the 11th and 12th centuries, Norway was also often ruled by co-kings, always close relatives, often brothers. Some historians have argued that such power-sharing arrangements led to more stable societies than those in which power was concentrated in single hands.
However, just as it sets out the challenges presented by co-rulership in the Earldom of Orkney, so the Saga describes the spectacular breakdown in relations between Norwegian kings. For example, in an episode set in the 1130s, the Saga notes that:
“Magnús and Haraldr [who were nephew and uncle] were kings of Norway for three winters, while their agreement could be said to hold, but in the fourth summer they fought at Färlev.”
Whatever the pros and cons of co-rulership, by the mid-13th century Norway had adopted a sole monarchy, bolstered by detailed legislation, primogeniture and the support of the church. The Orkney Earldom could not go down this road as it was never a kingdom nor powerful enough to become one. Yet it’s hard not to conclude from the Saga that power-sharing usually worked for a time, but always ended badly.
- Read more | The Vikings brutalised our ancestors. So why do the English still love them?
Overall, there is a sense that neither the Icelandic compilers of the Saga nor their informants from Scotland were impressed by the earls, whether ruling jointly or singly.
What the general population thought of their rulers is harder to discern. The Saga tells us that when Earl Hákon Pálsson was struck down by disease, “people thought that was a great shame because it was very peaceful in his latter days and the householders were doubtful of any co-operation between the brothers Páli and Haraldr”. But the Saga focuses mainly on the doings of the earls and their closest associates. The ‘little people’ remain largely anonymous.
The last co-earls mentioned in the Saga were Haraldr Maddaðarson’s sons, Davíð and Jón. But Davíð died in 1214 and the Saga ends with Jón as sole earl of the Orkneys. By then, the islands were a part of a Norwegian empire that had also experienced its own period of civil wars, but had come through to establish a strong monarchy.
The earls of Orkney continued to wield a degree of power. But, over the following centuries – increasingly living in the shadow of the kingdoms of Norway and Scotland – that power would wane.
Judith Jesch specialises in Old Norse language and literature, and the Viking Age. Her translation of The Saga of the Earls of Orkney was published by Birlinn in 2025.
This article was first published in the November 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
]]> James Osborne <![CDATA[This Viking warlord had a magical banner that promised victory. But it had a secret curse]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/viking/viking-warlord-sigurd-the-stout-raven-banner/ 2026-10-20T14:59:20.000Z 2026-10-20T14:59:20.000Z Facing a Scottish army he believed outnumbered his own seven to one, the Viking warlord Sigurd the Stout went to his mother for help. According to Orkneyinga Saga, she had little sympathy – if any – for his concerns.
“She basically says, ‘Well, if I thought you would be worried about dying, I would have brought you up in my wool basket,’” Viking Age scholar Judith Jesch explains on the HistoryExtra podcast.
Despite her misgivings about her son’s courage, his mother had, however, made something for him: a banner bearing a raven, so skilfully worked that the bird seemed to fly when the cloth whipped in the wind. She promised that it would bring him victory, with one condition.
“She says, ‘This banner will help you win the battle, but whoever carries the banner will die.’”
Three standard-bearers were killed in the fighting that followed. “You'd think they would have heard that it was a bad idea to carry this banner,” Jesch says. “But Sigurd does eventually win the battle.”
Fighting for power in Scotland
Sigurd ruled Orkney in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. From the islands off Scotland’s northern coast, the Norse earls could reach allies and enemies across Scandinavia, Scotland and Ireland. They also sought territory closer to home, across the Pentland Firth in Caithness.
The saga names Sigurd’s Scottish opponent as Earl Finnleik and places their battle at a site generally identified as Skitten, near Wick. Control of this part of the mainland was a recurring concern for Orkney’s rulers.
This account of the battle was written long after the fighting. Orkneyinga Saga, a history of the islands’ earls, is generally thought to have first taken shape around 1200, some two centuries after Sigurd’s lifetime. Its writers drew on earlier traditions, and the text underwent further revision.
We cannot recover a conversation between Sigurd and his mother from this scene, or establish what happened at Skitten through its account of an enchanted banner. We can, though, see what interested the storytellers who wrote this legend.
A taunting mother
“Her response to him is goading,” Jesch explains. “And this is a motif we find a lot in Icelandic sagas.”
In saga feuds, a killing or an insult could affect the standing of an entire family. Relatives had a stake in whether a man sought compensation, took revenge or did nothing, even if they would never fight themselves.
“It's often thought of as a very masculine world,” says Jesch. “It's the men going out and killing each other, basically. But as the sagas make clear, women also play a part in this process because they're part of the family group.”
That involvement often means “urging, encouraging the menfolk to go out” and commit violence, she explains, whether to avenge a wrong or for another purpose.
Sigurd’s mother uses the same pressure against her son. Her wool-basket remark paints a picture of an earl anxious about the odds as a child who still needs protecting – it’s emasculating. If he wants to be taken seriously, she implies, he must accept the possibility of death.
Such scenes tell us about the expectations of saga writers and their audiences. The woman who shames a reluctant man into fighting is a recurring literary figure – beyond this saga, too; think of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
But in this story, the notion of women encouraging men to commit violence is only one of several motifs.
“It's the combination of women giving advice, women with magical powers, and women goading men to go out and kill. These are three motifs that are entwined in this episode.”
Weaving the fate of warriors
Women who foresee events or practise magic appear elsewhere in Norse literature, among them the seeresses known as ‘völur’. The banner belongs to another strand of Norse storytelling, in which textile work gives women control over the fate of warriors. A poem preserved in Njál’s Saga describes valkyries, the supernatural figures associated with choosing the battlefield dead, weaving a fabric of war from human entrails and severed heads.
The raven, too, was familiar in accounts of battle. It fed on the corpses left after fighting and was associated with Odin, whose ravens Huginn and Muninn brought him knowledge of the world. On Sigurd’s banner, the bird is an appropriate emblem for a victory that will leave its bearers dead.
There is evidence for Vikings entering battles with raven standards outside the sagas. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the capture of a Viking war banner with the black bird in Devon in 878 – during the Viking attacks on Alfred the Great’s Wessex.
The death of Earl Sigurd
Sigurd died in 1014 at Clontarf, near Dublin, fighting in the coalition opposed to the Irish ruler Brian Boru. His allies included the rulers of Dublin and Leinster. With Irish and Norse interests entangled on the battlefield, the conflict neatly demonstrates how interlinked the Norse and broader Gaelic worlds had become.
- Read more | The history of Dublin: from Viking stronghold to international success story
His death is recorded beyond the Icelandic saga tradition. The Annals of Ulster name the earl of Orkney among the dead. And in Njál’s Saga, the raven banner returns to account for his end. Once again, its bearers are killed. This time, the surviving men refuse to take it. Sigurd takes the banner himself. As per his mother’s magic, he dies.
Judith Jesch was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
]]> Jonny Wilkes <![CDATA[This medieval king ruled a vast empire and inspired the pope. He also didn't exist]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/this-medieval-king-ruled-a-vast-empire-and-inspired-the-pope-he-also-didnt-exist/ 2026-10-18T10:31:03.000Z 2026-10-18T10:30:11.000Z In 1145, the German bishop Otto of Freising published his influential work of history and philosophy, the Chronica, in which he mentioned a Christian ruler of a domain far to the east. This priest-king had defeated the Muslims in battle and set out to capture Jerusalem, but had been unable to cross his army over the Tigris River.
This is the first-known written reference to Prester John, a significant figure in medieval Europe, despite the fact that he never existed.
The myth behind the man
Twenty years later, in 1165, a letter appeared at the court of the Byzantine emperor purporting to be from the mysterious man, the “supreme ruler of the three Indies”. In the lengthy missive, he introduced himself: “I, Prester John, am lord of lords and surpass, in all riches which are under the heaven, in virtue and in power, all the kings of the wide world.”
He was a devout Christian who served as both king and religious leader (the word ‘prester’ means priest) of a vast empire where 72 kingdoms lived in peace and all crime and vice had been eliminated. Riches abounded, with rivers literally flowing with precious gems, and mythical creatures such as the phoenix and cyclopes thrived.
Not only did the letter promise a Christian paradise on Earth that could be explored, but also the ally that Western Europe so badly needed to fight the Muslim forces in the crusades.
Why did people believe Prester John was real?
The letter was a fake written by a still-unknown author, yet it was widely circulated. Soon, the name and reputation of Prester John spread across Europe with many having no problem in considering him to be completely genuine. Pope Alexander III even sent an envoy to attempt to deliver a letter to this imperious king to the east.
Europeans had long believed that there had to be Christian kingdoms in the east, and not without reason. There were indeed huge Christian communities across Asia; it was thought that Prester John – who claimed to be a descendent of one of the Magi, the three wise men who visited Christ at his birth – may have belonged to a sect called Nestorianism.
Limited knowledge of geography beyond the Islamic world meant that Europeans simply did not know who lived there and what they were like, so why could there not be a Christian ruler of a vast empire? There were enough kernels of truth on which to grow Prester John’s image too: there were indeed non-Muslim peoples making their presence known in Europe, namely the Mongols.
Perhaps the most important factor in why Prester John’s existence was not questioned too strongly was that Europeans wanted to believe in him. They wanted to hold onto the possibility of an ally that would change the course of the crusades, to be evoked whenever the need was greatest.
Following the disaster of the Fifth Crusade, Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Ptolemais, wrote to the pope with words of optimism, explaining how the Muslims had been attacked by David, King of India and a descendent of Prester John. Historians have speculated that this account might have been inspired by Genghis Khan.
The move to Ethiopia
The story of Prester John inspired many travellers and missionaries over the years to head into the unknown and locate his near-magical kingdom, thought for some time to be in India. By the time Marco Polo went on his travels in the late 13th century nothing had been found, but he still referenced Prester John as a real figure in the region.
As it became increasingly clear, however, that there was no Christian empire of the size and power related in Prester John’s letter, the story shifted to place the king in Africa instead, specifically in Ethiopia, where a Christian community had existed since the fourth century.
From the 14th century, embassies from Ethiopia travelled to Italy and established a presence in Rome, and Europeans quickly jumped to the conclusion that their leader must be Prester John. Tales emerged of how his land contained the source of the Nile and he had the power to divert its course and wreak havoc in Egypt.
The Portuguese committed huge resources to their exploration of Africa – which led to Vaso da Gama’s world-changing voyage to India around the Cape of Good Hope from 1497-99 – fuelled in no small part by the aim of finding Prester John once and for all. They did find a Christian ruler in Ethiopia, but it was clear that this was not the all-powerful, fabulously wealthy king of the legend.
While belief in Prester John diminished, this mythical king had a very real legacy: it was the desire to find his empire that helped light the fires of European exploration in Asia and Africa.
]]> Jonny Wilkes <![CDATA[It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – so why was it destroyed three times?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/it-was-the-one-of-the-seven-wonders-of-the-ancient-world-so-why-was-it-destroyed-three-times/ 2026-10-15T21:43:49.000Z 2026-10-14T10:30:17.000Z When ancient travellers of the Mediterranean Rim came up with their lists of must-see architectural marvels, which would be collated into the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, a landmark that always made the cut was the Temple of Artemis.
One such traveller, the second-century BC poet Antipater of Sidon, went so far as to say: “I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the Hanging Gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, ‘Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand’.”
At its grandest, the Temple of Artemis, or Artemesium, loomed over the landscape of Ephesus, in modern-day Selcuk, Turkey, at nearly double the size of the Parthenon in Athens. A total of 127 columns ran in two rows along all four sides, many adorned with works of art depicting scenes from Greek mythology, and an inner chamber at the centre houses a statue of the goddess Artemis.
Who was Artemis?
Artemis was the Greek goddess of the hunt and wild animals, as well as chastity and childbirth. The twin sister of Apollo, she was typically represented as a youthful maiden carrying a bow and arrow and wearing a short tunic so that she could run during her hunts in the forests.
At Ephesus, however, Artemis was worshipped more for her role in childbirth and her depiction differed from the typical Greek image as it contained elements from other cultures. More of a maternal figure, her statue in the great temple had oval objects all over the torso, thought to represent breasts or eggs as a symbol of fertility.
- Read more | This ancient goddess commanded a Wonder of the World – but why did she have thirty breasts?
How many temples were there?
Long before Antipater of Sidon looked upon the wondrous structure that was the Temple of Artemis in the second century BC, the site had already seen two earlier attempts at a temple. The first went back to the eighth century BC, established by the Amazons, according to legend, before being damaged in a flood.
Around 550 BC, Croesus, King of Lydia and conqueror of Ephesus, ordered the construction of a great temple out of marble to honour Artemis. Designed and built by the architect Chersiphron and his son Metagenes, this would become the model of Ionic temples across the Hellenistic world.
This second temple may well have been the version that ended up on the list of Seven Wonders, were it not for a man named Herostratus. In 356 BC, he burned it down for no reason other than his desire to be famous. He got his wish, but at the cost of his life.
Traditionally, Herostratus’s destruction of the temple took place on the same day as the birth of Alexander the Great. It was even said that Artemis had become distracted by the historic event and so did not see the fire until it was too late. As a man, Alexander visited Ephesus and offered to pay for the rebuilding of the temple, but he was declined. The Ephesians argued that it would not be right for one god to give such a gift to another.
When was the final destruction of the temple?
Instead, they themselves paid to have the third, and most impressive, version of the Temple of Artemis built. It stood for some 600 years before the final destruction came at the hands of East Germanic Goths in the third century. The temple fell into disuse until its official closure with the Christian persecution of pagan beliefs.
Lost for centuries, the ruins of the temple were discovered in 1869 by British archaeologist John Turtle Wood. Further excavations began in 1904 under David George Hogarth. Today, the only part of the temple still standing is a single, reconstructed column.
]]> Emily Briffett <![CDATA[Ancient explosives and the philosopher's stone: a history of alchemy]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/ancient-explosives-and-the-philosophers-stone-a-history-of-alchemy/ 2026-10-15T08:08:18.000Z 2026-10-06T10:29:23.000Z Think of alchemy, and you likely imagine bubbling vials of strange potions and molten metals. But how close is this popular perception to the truth? That’s the question behind historian and adventurer Kit Chapman’s latest book, The Age of Alchemy, which was recently announced as winner of the 2026 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize.
In this episode, Kit guides Emily Briffett through a remarkable story of discovery that blurred the boundaries between science and mysticism – and explains how alchemists pursued dreams of fortune and immortality that laid the foundations for modern science.
Beyond the podcast
An unlikely mix of scientist, scholar, engineer and magician, the 'magus' was a figure that sat at the heart of the transformative Renaissance period. Don’t miss this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast charting the careers of these men, seen as genius scholars by some and charlatans by others.
]]> Kev Lochun <![CDATA[The Odyssey’s forgotten epilogue]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/odyssey-podcast-series-episode-4/ 2026-09-04T09:00:09.000Z 2026-09-04T09:00:09.000Z Why did Alexander the Great sleep with a copy of the Odyssey under his pillow? In this final episode of our four-part series, Kev Lochun and classicist Daisy Dunn explore the astonishing cultural legacy of a poem that has been shaping how we think about home, heroism and hospitality for nearly 3,000 years. Plus, they consider what its portrayal of women reveals about power in the ancient world.
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Go beyond the podcast
Want to know more about ancient Greece? Kev Lochun has curated a collection of essential reading, listening and viewing from the HistoryExtra vaults to help you explore life in ancient Greece.
]]> Rob Attar <![CDATA[Was the Great Sphinx built by a lost civilisation?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-conspiracies-episode-6/ 2026-09-01T12:54:19.000Z 2026-09-01T11:10:23.000Z The Great Sphinx of Giza is one of the ancient world’s most enigmatic creations. So it’s no surprise that it has long been a magnet for pseudohistory and conspiracy theories. Could it be many thousands of years older than we think? Was it created by a lost civilisation? And do wondrous treasures lie beneath it waiting to be found?
In the final episode of season 3 of History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, Egyptologist Campbell Price joins Rob Attar to separate fact to fiction in the story of the Sphinx.
Want more from History's Greatest Conspiracy Theories? Listen to the rest of season 3.
]]> Rob Attar <![CDATA[Did an alien spacecraft crash-land in Russia?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-conspiracies-episode-5/ 2026-09-01T11:11:23.000Z 2026-09-01T10:58:28.000Z In 1908, in the remote forests of Siberia, there was a giant explosion and bright lights were seen in the sky. Was this an asteroid or a comet crashing to earth? Or could it have been an alien spacecraft – or even a human experiment gone horribly wrong?
In this episode of History's Greatest Conspiracy Theories, environmental historian Andy Bruno joins Rob Attar to explore the debates that still surround the mysterious Tunguska event.
]]> Rob Attar <![CDATA[Did 300 years of history never happen at all?]]> https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-conspiracies-episode-4/ 2026-09-01T11:11:23.000Z 2026-09-01T10:48:40.000Z The period after the fall of the western Roman empire is often known as the ‘Dark Ages’, due to an apparent shortage of historical evidence. Why might this be? Well, according to proponents of the Phantom Time Hypothesis, the explanation is simple: these centuries never happened at all.
In this episode of History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, Dr Philipp Nothaft from the University of Oxford joins Rob Attar to discuss the idea that these centuries were invented by powerful people for their own purposes – and that, ever since, we've all been inadvertently colluding in their fictional calendar.
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