[2] According to her father's wishes, Queen Salina agrees to share the rule of Icena with Justinian, a Roman.

[3] The plot combines elements of life of the historic queen Boudica (featuring the Iceni tribe, combat chariots) with elements seemingly drawn from Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma, though that is set in Gaul, and William Shakespeare's King Lear.

The Viking Queen was given mixed reviews on its original release while it performed poorly at the box office.

[4] For a much later television screening, David Parkinson in the Radio Times thought the film used "a story that would struggle to get a pass grade in GCSE English.

";[5] while in TV Guide a reviewer wrote that it is "an interesting, well-photographed attempt to depict the land of the blue-painted troglodytes...The costumes reveal more flesh than might have been wise in the cold, damp climate of the Irish mountains where location scenes were shot.