Again a good point. And I'll come at it from a little bit different angle. They said "We looked ahead from Odin's grave." As far as I know the people of the Norse religion worshipped Odin as a living god with the legends telling of a time when Fenrir would come an slay him. So "Odin's grave" to me means the point at which the Norse religion died as a "major religion."
Also Christianity wasn't really a big religion in the world until Charlemagne united all of Europe under Christianity and the holy roman empire around 800 A.D. Islam was by far more wide spread by the time of the Viking Age and directly proceeding it.
So really you could interpret this as a completely historical song. Or you could interpret the 1000 years they talked about as ending around now or 2100. They did use the word "kept" signifying the past just to keep the record strait. Also I think that 1000 years they talked about is a reference to the stuff the Bible talked about in revelations. So you could even come at it from the direction that they reference the future as well in reference to the end times. However, for the Norse religion the "end times" so to speak already happened around 1000-1100 AD after most of the populations of Europe were converted to Christianity.
@sokorny
Again a good point. And I'll come at it from a little bit different angle. They said "We looked ahead from Odin's grave." As far as I know the people of the Norse religion worshipped Odin as a living god with the legends telling of a time when Fenrir would come an slay him. So "Odin's grave" to me means the point at which the Norse religion died as a "major religion."
Also Christianity wasn't really a big religion in the world until Charlemagne united all of Europe under Christianity and the holy roman empire around 800 A.D. Islam was by far more wide spread by the time of the Viking Age and directly proceeding it.
So really you could interpret this as a completely historical song. Or you could interpret the 1000 years they talked about as ending around now or 2100. They did use the word "kept" signifying the past just to keep the record strait. Also I think that 1000 years they talked about is a reference to the stuff the Bible talked about in revelations. So you could even come at it from the direction that they reference the future as well in reference to the end times. However, for the Norse religion the "end times" so to speak already happened around 1000-1100 AD after most of the populations of Europe were converted to Christianity.
Tough to say.