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The North Way Podcast

The North Way Podcast

Written by: thenorthwaypodcast
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About this listen

The North Way is a history podcast on the Viking Age that uses an engaging, entertaining story-telling format to bring this incredibly interesting time period to life in peoples minds

About me: My name is Henry Holst, I studied history of the University of Georgia then got an M.A. in a history-adjacent topic from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington D.C. before embarking on a career in Intelligence then Corporate Strategy & Ops--so to be clear, I am not a historian. Like Dan Carlin says, I am a 'fan of history', so my value add comes from my passion for (and deep reading into) this time period, my multi-functional background, and my ability to bring history to life through storytelling.

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Episodes
  • (E2) Horse Lords

    (E2) Horse Lords
    Oct 3 2025
    The most incredible and horrifying story of conquest you’ve never heard of: the Indo-European conquest of Europe. Trace the Viking ancestors path from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe to Scandinavia, and learn how this brutal conquest laid the foundation for Western Civilization and the Viking Age to come Music rights (Heidevolk) granted by Firebird Industries (Image 1A) Indo European languages ‘drift’ process, visualized like a tree branching out (I love this (Image 1B) An assessment of how the word for ‘Name’ evolved over time as Indo European drifted into new languages, splitting over and over. Credit: Starkey Comics (Image 2) A map of the Pontic Caspian Steppe (Image 3) A 4,000 year old wagon made from Oak, unearthed near Lake Sevan, in Armenia: one of the oldest discovered wagons on earth (Image 4) Indo European invasion routes with key Cultures/Groups highlighted (Note the span of time these occurred over) "Image 5" Coach Orgeron's Cajun accent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbiPeVM_1I4&t=1s (Image 6) This map shows the percentage of modern day people in the highlighted European countries that have Yamnaya ancestry (Credit: David Reich) (Image 7) Share of Yamnaya Genetic Component in present day Europeans. (Source: Leo S. Klejn, Wolfgang Haak, Iosif Lazaridis (Harvard Medical School), Nick Patterson) (Image 8) The percent of Yamnaya vs. Western Hunter Gatherer vs. European Farmer (shown as ‘Early Neolithic’ here) DNA, by modern day country (Source: Wolfgang Haak and many others, published in Nature) (Image 9) A map of average height by European Country (Image 10): A map of lactose INTOLERANCE in Europe (Image 11) A graph showing temperature variations during our current Holocene interglacial period, along with a rough time range for the Climatic Optimum (Image 12) A graph showing the glacial vs. brief inter-glacial periods over the last 500,000 years (Image 13) The Hjortspring Boat in the National Museum of Denmark (Image 14) A recreation of the Hjortspring boat (Image 15) The Oseberg ship from early Viking Age Norway (late 700s to early 800s). Note the ‘clinker’ or ‘lapstrake’ design of overlapping planks. It was discovered in a burial mound in Vestfold, Norway, and is among the best preserved artifacts we have from the Viking Age (Image 16) A map of Scandinavia and the Baltic region from ~8,000 B.C. The light colored area denotes fresh water (i.e., 8,000 years ago, the Baltic Sea was a freshwater lake that was not yet connected to the Atlantic). Source: GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (University of Kiel, Germany) (Image 17) A map of Stockholm in 5,000 b.c. and in 1,200 b.c. The light blue denotes land that is now above water; the dark blue denotes the Baltic Sea (Image 18) A piece of Baltic Amber held up to the sunlight. (Image 19) Baltic Amber in Pharaoh Tutenhamun’s ‘Scarab Brooch’: The Amber parts are the four orange-ish pendants at the bottom. ~1,323 B.C. (Image 20) Baltic Amber necklaces from 2,000 B.C., in the National Museum of Denmark
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    2 hrs and 23 mins
  • (E1 / Introduction) Oceanic Inroads

    (E1 / Introduction) Oceanic Inroads
    Oct 2 2025

    In this kickoff episode we will get into the famous Lindisfarne Raid in 793, which was a thunderbolt to the spine of the Christian world and is considered to be the 'starting point' of the Viking Age, after which we'll get into what this podcast is, and how I'm creating it, as well as who I am and why this series will be worth listening to.

    Music rights granted to me by Firebird Industries

    Reference Images

    Image 1: The Lindisfarne Gospel is a 516-page manuscript made in the Lindisfarne monastery scriptorium between 715 and 720 a.d. by the Bishop Eadfrith of Lindisfarne. It was made from ~150 calf skins worth of vellum, and is unique in having Germanic ‘interlace’ patterns (i.e., twisting and interwoven animal figures). This image shows the book’s famous ‘Chi Rho’ page, with Matthew 1:18 illuminated.

    Image 2: Chapter opening page for the Gospel of Matthew, with the first few words of the gospel illuminated

    Image 3: A Lindisfarne Gospel ‘carpet page’ (i.e., a purely artistic page containing Christian-themed Germanic interlace patterns

    Image 4: Another Lindisfarne Gospel ‘carpet page’

    Image 5: Another Lindisfarne Gospel ‘carpet page’

    Image 6: Chapter opening page for the Gospel of Luke, with the first few words of the gospel illuminated
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    33 mins
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