The Vikings

The History Channel (which is for the most part the conspiracy theory and hunting and fishing channel) commissioned a drama series set in the late 8th century. We've watched the first two episodes and were mostly OK with it until the Viking Ragnar and one of the monks on Lindesfarne started talking to each other. How mutually intelligible were Old Norse & Old English? The wikipedia article about Old Norse gives cognates, but that's not the same as being able to talk about why saving saving the Gospel of John was more important to the monk than protecting the gold & silver altar stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse
The Viking Answer Lady's Lindesfarne-related page:
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/vikfury.shtml
The show's web site is fairly extensive
http://www.history.com/shows/vikings/about
Up until the point we have seen, the woman on the left in the photo on the about page has worn normal clothes (including an apron dress with nice brooches). She has been presented as a good fighter (and farmer, and mother) but a quick glance through Mistress Thora's viking clothing pages doesn't say anything about women wearing trousers and a short tunic, even when it might have been useful
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/qdirtyvk.html
Again, as of the end of episode 2, the only clothes that have bothered us are those of the Earl's wife. It took me almost two episodes to notice that she is played by an actress who was on Glee for a couple of years. The dim light in the longhouse? Different hair/clothes/make-up? Otherwise, the only actor we've recognized is Gabriel Byrne. The cast comes from all over the English-speaking TV show world - US, Canada, England, Ireland, Australia. It's filmed in Ireland, and looks very good. The writer is the same guy who did The Tudors, which I found unwatchable, but we'll see how far we go with the folks from the North.