New research on early medieval frisia makes connection Redbad > Walhalla
*REDBAD: the legendary king’* sheds new light on King Redbad (c. 670–719), a legendary yet elusive ruler whose influence on the North Sea world may have been far greater than previously assumed.
Thanks to new Dutch-German research, his world is being re-examined as part of a dynamic North Sea region. Through a strategic form of kingship, in which diplomacy and warfare went hand in hand, Redbad succeeded in binding regional rulers to his sphere of influence. At its height, this united kingdom Frisia possibly stretched along the North Sea coast from the Dutch-Belgian border to the German-Danish border, extending inland towards the river region around Utrecht.
For the exhibition project, Dutch and German researchers are collaborating on a large-scale research program into the early medieval coastal regions of Northwestern Europe. Never before has this period been studied on such a scale.
The REDBAD exhibition project has yielded a remarkable discovery: an eighth-century song recounts how the Frisian king dreamed of Valhalla—the mythical afterlife previously associated primarily with the Vikings, with the earliest known mention dating back to the ninth century. Redbad’s dream may thus represent the earliest known reference to Valhalla, predating previous estimates by about a century. The scholarly analysis underpinning this discovery is presented in the chapter "Sacral Kingship: A Song of Redbad and Woden"—authored by Han Nijdam, Ewoud van Aalst, Petter Jensen, Arjan Sterken, and Hilbert Vinkenoog—which will appear in the academic volume accompanying the REDBAD project in February 2027.
The exhibition, featuring archaeological masterpieces from Northern Europe such as the Wijnaldum fibula and the Odin of Lejre, will be on display at the Fries Museum in the autumn of 2026.