This article develops the notion of boreal medievalism through a dialogue between Nordic studies – with the concept of borealism – and History – with the notion and field of medievalism. The discourses on and representations of the Viking Age are characterised by their plasticity, their alterity from western medievalism, and their proximity to the reader. Boreal medievalism refers, therefore, to a specific and distinct form of medievalism constructed in an identity-based alterity (altérité identitaire) and established through the intertwining of three imaginaries: a geographical one with the North, a temporal one with the Middle Ages and the Viking Age, as well as an ethnic one with the figure of the Viking.