Any attempt to put this into the epic class falls down because of a hodge-podge of a storyline, a mixture of styles and insufficient development of characterization.

Has impossible acting, a preposterous script, some eminently seeworthy ship reconstructions, and more enjoyable bloody foolishness than many an epic costing three times as much.

Awful international Technirama hodge-podge, adapted from a novel by Frank G Bengtsson, in which the Vikings wrestle with the Moors to lay hands on the legendary Golden Bell of St James (rather an anti-climax when it finally appears).

I choose to think all this was intentional, a straight-faced spoof of all the stuff and nonsense that mythologies are made of -- so straight-faced that it can afford the occasional wisecrack, the here-we-go-again ending.