In Popular Culture
- Rosemary Sutcliff's 1976 historical novel Blood Feud depicts the formation of the Varangian Guard by Basil II, from the point of view of a half-Saxon orphan who journeyed to Constantinople via the Dnieper trading route.
- Henry Treece's Viking Trilogy which describe the adventures of Harald Sigurdson.
- Michael Ennis's Byzantium ISBN 978-0-330-31596-8 is a fictionalised version of the life of Harald Hardrada, much of which is spent in the Varangian Guard.
- The John Ringo Paladin of Shadows series, features a fictional, long forgotten enclave of the Varangian Guard in the mountains of Georgia.
- Turisas's second studio album The Varangian Way is a concept album that tells the story of a group of Scandinavians travelling the river routes of medieval Russia, through Ladoga, Novgorod and Kiev, down to the Byzantine Empire. Their third album, Stand Up and Fight, describes the history of the Varangian Guard's service to the Byzantine Empire.
- Bearded axe-wielding Easterlings known as Variags, inspired by the elite Viking mercenaries, are described in the fantasy novel Return of the King.
- In the PC game series Mount&Blade, the name and location of the Vaegirs is used to represent this group of people. The unique unit for this faction is called a Vaegir Guard.
- In the PC games Medieval: Total War and Medieval II: Total War the Varangian Guard is an axe-wielding elite infantry unit of the Byzantine Empire.
- Track 5 of Amon Amarth's seventh studio album Twilight of the Thunder God is titled "Varyags of Miklagaard."
- Varangian soldiers are a common enemy in the video game Assassin's Creed: Revelations.
Read more about this topic: Varangians
Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, popular and/or culture:
“Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
—Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)
“Why is it so difficult to see the lesbian—even when she is there, quite plainly, in front of us? In part because she has been “ghosted”Mor made to seem invisible—by culture itself.... Once the lesbian has been defined as ghostly—the better to drain her of any sensual or moral authority—she can then be exorcised.”
—Terry Castle, U.S. lesbian author. The Apparitional Lesbian, ch. 1 (1993)