Warning: spoilers for Vikings: Valhalla season 2.
Vikings: Valhalla caught up with Leif Erikson (Sam Corlett) after he unleashed his inner berserker at the end of season 1, and the shocking events at the end of the first season had an impact on him, as he was seeing (and talking to) his deceased partner, Liv (Lujza Richter). However, this didn’t last long, and he eventually stopped seeing her – and here’s why. Vikings: Valhalla season 2 saw Leif reuniting with Freydis (Frida Gustavsson) and Harald (Leo Suter) after the destruction of Kattegat, but they parted ways again not long after as they ran away from Olaf Haraldsson (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson).
While Freydis was taken to Jomsborg, Leif and Harald sailed to Novgorod and later to Constantinople so Harald could form an army to go against Olaf and claim the throne of Norway. Meanwhile, Leif was struggling with the death of Liv, as he started to have hallucinations of her and even talked to her, something that Freydis noticed and talked to him about it. Leif’s hallucinations continued while in Novgorod, but he stopped seeing her after taking opium one night and almost falling to his death – so, why did he see Liv in the first place and what changed that made him stop seeing her?
Leif Goes Through A Crisis of Faith In Vikings: Valhalla Season 2
Liv was killed by Olaf during the invasion of Kattegat at the end of Vikings: Valhalla season 1, and during her final moments, she asked Leif to promise her he would meet her in Valhalla. Leif couldn’t bring himself to promise her that, and Liv died without hearing what she wanted. Leif’s guilt is what made him hallucinate Liv, as he later told Freydis that he couldn’t promise Liv to meet her in Valhalla because he doesn’t believe in it anymore. Leif’s crisis of faith started in season 1 when a Christian girl left a cross in his hand when she found him in the swamps, and he carried it with him in subsequent battles. Leif later hid the cross in Liv’s clothes when she was recovering from some severe wounds, and she made a quick recovery after that.
Leif confronted his visions of Liv in Novgorod, where he took opium as he was told that he could talk to the dead if he took it. Leif saw Liv again and she led him to the roof of another temple. There, Liv tried to get Leif to go to Valhalla with her by jumping off the roof, but Leif understood that he had to let go of Liv and accept that he no longer believes in Norse religion, though that doesn’t mean he’s a Christian, either. Liv didn’t appear to Leif again as he moved on, not just with Mariam (Hayat Kamille), but from Norse religion as well.
Was The Real Leif Erikson A Christian?
The real Leif Erikson wasn’t a pagan his whole life, though Vikings: Valhalla season 1 introduced him and Freydis as firm believers of the Norse religion. According to the Saga of Erik the Red, Leif spent time at the court of Norwegian King Olaf Tryggvesson and converted to Christianity. When Leif was on his way to Greenland to introduce Greenlanders to Christianity, he was blown off course, and that’s how he discovered Vinland. Vikings: Valhalla’s Leif Erikson might be on his way to converting to Christianity, which in turn could lead to the series covering his “discovery” of Vinland (in the universe of Vikings, Floki and Ubbe got there many years before Leif), and it will be interesting to see how Freydis will react to her brother no longer sharing her beliefs.