Images

Simon Forman (1552 -1611), Elizabethan astrologer and doctor, oil on wood painting by an unknown artist, c. 1900, likely based on the earlier portrait by John Bulfinch, later engraved by Richard Godfrey in 1776. Wellcome Collection, London...

A 'zodiac man' woodcut from the almanacs of Petrus Slovacius, published by Johan Scharffenberg, Breslau, 1580. Wellcome Collection, London. The zodiac man regularly appeared in astrological and medical texts throughout the 16th century...

Nancy Marie Brown, author of The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women.

Cover of The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women by Nancy Marie Brown.

Idun and Brage, oil on canvas painting by the Swedish artist Nils Blommér, 1846. Malmö Art Museum. Bragi was the Norse god of poetry and Idunn, his wife, a fertility goddess who kept the apples the gods needed to retain their youth and...

Loki and Idunn, by the Swedish artist and illustrator John Bauer, published in Our Fathers' Godsaga by Viktor Rydberg, 1911, most likely depicting Loki luring Idunn into following him to the forest where she would be abducted.

An image presenting the trickster Loki giving Sif newly-made gold-spun hair. Loki was an entity in Norse mythology who was involved in misdeeds against multiple gods and mortals. One of them was cutting off the golden hair of Sif, the goddess...

Hel, queen of the underworld in Norse mythology, artwork by Mkasahara, 2019. Hel was a female character in Norse mythology who ruled the realm of the dead of the same name. Her kingdom was said to be a hopeless, gloomy, and dark place, located...

Hel, the Norse Queen of the Underworld, as portrayed by the Australia-based artist Tara Ryzebol in 2006. Hel was a female character in Norse mythology who ruled the realm of the dead of the same name. Her kingdom was said to be a gloomy and...

An artist's impression of how the Welsh pirate Bartholomew Roberts, aka 'Black Bart' Roberts (c. 1682-1722) may have looked. Roberts was one of the most successful pirates of the so-called Golden Age of Piracy. He was killed resisting arrest...