Scandinavians have been almost wilfully quiet since the mid-11th century.
Not completely quiet, of course.
The Danish recently gave us the very good television crime series Forbrydelsen, and the Swedes did invent Ikea, thought the latter is now in the hands of the Dutch.
But things, my friends, have not always been thus.
A millennium past, the inhabitants of that frozen northern peninsula were embroiled in activities of the most exorbitant ferocity and raucous intent.
The age of the Vikings was an age to which heavy metal and thrash fans can doff their metaphorical hats and bang their metaphorical heads in only the most limp-wristed and slightly ashamed way.
Long-haired Scottish fellow Neil Oliver takes us back - way, way back - to that age in Vikings on BBC Knowledge from next Thursday evening.
And Neil is probably the best sort of fellow to do it.
The Renfrewshire-born archaeologist and television presenter has a heavy accent, which seems essential for such an undertaking.
He also starred in Two Men in a Trench, where he and a chum visited historic British battlefields and recreated battle situations using state-of-the-art archaeological techniques.
Mr Oliver begins his show Vikings in the northern English city of York, a spot founded by the Romans and in the ninth century one of the great Christian cities.
That was until 866, of course, when the Vikings hit like a tonne of Scandinavian bricks.
But why?
Who were they?
And why were they so very, very mean?
Of course, much of what we know about Vikings is myth, hogwash and scuttlebutt.
Most disappointing of all, those horned hats were not even real Viking apparel.
To find out the truth, or something close enough, Mr Oliver takes his long hair and strong accent to the northeast. He explains the Vikings were more than just savage raiders and pirates.
They were sophisticated traders, who crisscrossed the known world, buying and selling stolen goods and slaves, as well as silks and other more acceptable items.
But we don't stumble immediately in to the world of the wild men of 866.
Vikings takes us even further east and further back in time to prehistoric Gotland, to find where the Viking long-boat, the technology behind the terrors unleashed later, came from.
Then it's off to Copenhagen as we head to the world of long-houses, long-haired Bronze Age farmers and gruesome pagan rituals.
Vikings runs over three episodes, as it explores the darker side of European history.
- Charles Loughrey
