Are you getting excited by the British Museum Vikings Exhibition? I am! The British museum is one my most favourite places in the world and the new exhibition is going to open the brand new World Conservation and Exhibition Centre.
Having a Norwegian mother, I always thought I would grow up to be a Viking. Unfortunately there are few jobs for Vikings these days, so I became a children’s author and illustrator instead.
Eventually the time came to write my Viking stories. I was inspired the day I went to my Auntie’s Hutte – or little holiday house – on an island not far from Bergen in Norway.The Hutte looks down on a small inlet from the sea.
There was a moment when I put the name and the geography together and realised that Snekkevik (Snake Vik) would have once been a Viking settlement.
The name Viking means “People of the Viks“. This inlet was a Vik and this is where Vikings would have lived. Now you can drive there over bridges and there is gas and electricity too. But I could imagine Viking children playing on the beach, just as my children were doing a thousand years later.
Viking Vik was born in my imagination! A lot of work later and The eight book series became a reality. If you are studying Vikings, you may like to have a bit of Viking related reading. They’re both fun and informative – boys love them 😀
Learn to draw Viking Vik!
