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Viking music received some challenging reviews. Andalucian Arab traveller, Ibrahin ibn Yaqub was an enthusiastic fan of Viking food, drink and hospitality but he shared the opinion of many southern visitors to the Norselands; 鈥淭here is no uglier song than the groans that come out of their throats. It is like the baying of hounds, only worse.鈥�

Norse scholar, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, is determined to recover their musical reputation. She doesn鈥檛 buy ibn Yaqub鈥檚 cultural dismissiveness. There鈥檚 no doubt that the Vikings prized music highly - it鈥檚 a regular theme of the great sagas. So what did it actually sound like?

So begins an epic quest, in which Eleanor is joined by the Norwegian composer, musician and instrument maker Einar Selvik. Einar is a former Black Metal star who now fronts the influential Nordic folk project, Wardruna. He has put Old Norse poems to orchestral scores with the Bergen Filharmoniske Orkester and created soundscapes from Viking sites and landscapes.

Eleanor conjures up the scene in a huge reconstructed Viking hall at Lejre in Denmark. Poets and musicians are gathered together to celebrate the international raiding adventures of the local Jarls. We have the poetry- handed down orally to the saga writers- and we know that music accompanied the poems. But what was the soundtrack?

Archaeologists, instrument makers, composers and singers share their insights with Eleanor before she returns to Einar's studio on the south-east coast of Norway. Here they consider the evidence, play ancient instruments and use contemporary music technology until they produce an authentic shiver up the spine of musician and historian. Is this the sound that the Jarls of the Viking world would have feasted to?

Eleanor is also assisted on her quest by composer Edmund Hunt of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, archaeologist S酶ren Michael Sindb忙k of Aarhus University, musician and instrument maker Jens Bonde of the Ribe Viking Museum, Charlotte Frantzdatter of Sanglandet Lejre, Michael Lerche Nielsen, Anne Mette Hansen and Natasha Fazlic of the Arnamagnaean Manuscript Collection and Sara Heil Jensen of the Viking Museum, Fyrkat.

Producer: Alasdair Cross