various poems and sagas. The second approach emphasizes historical accuracy, typically relying on Norse mythology as the sole focus of lyricism and identity. Many Viking metal bands identify first with local roots – for instance, Moonsorrow with Finland or Einherjer with Norway – with a wider northern European identity coming second. Many songs are composed in English, but Viking metal bands often write lyrics in other languages, usually of the North Germanic family – Norwegian, Old Norse, Swedish, Danish and, less commonly, Icelandic and Faroese – and also in Finnish, which is non-Germanic. Other European languages, such as German, Old High German, Latin, Dutch, Sámi languages, or Gaulish are sometimes used. Heavy metal fans around the world sometimes learn languages such as Norwegian or Finnish in order to understand the lyrics of their favorite bands and improve their appreciation of the music. Irina-Maria Manea considers this preference to sing in a native language, along with the imagery of album covers, and stage performances which often involve warrior costumes, weapons, and sometimes reenactments, a demonstration of a völkisch aspect to Viking metal. Specifically, the thematic focus of Viking metal bands conceptualizes ethnicity as uniform, unchanged history from "time immemorial," which is, state Manea, "precisely in the völkisch framework." Paganism and opposition to Christianity The imagery in Viking metal draws upon the material culture created during the Viking Age, but — according to Trafford and Pluskowski — it also "encompasses the broad semiotic system favored by many black and death metal bands, not least of all the exultation of violence and hyper-masculinity expressed through weapons and battlefields". In Viking metal this semiotic system is melded with an interest in ancestral roots, specifically a pre-Christian heritage, "expressed visually through Viking mythology and the aesthetics of northern landscapes". Extreme and obsessive loathing of Christianity had long been the norm for black and death metal bands, but in the 1990s Bathory and many other bands began turning away from Satanism as the primary opposition to Christianity, instead placing their faith in the Vikings and Odin. Many artists claim affiliation to the modern Pagan religion of Heathenry, treating Christianity as a foreign influence that was forcibly imposed, and therefore as a wrong to be righted. Some members of the Norwegian black metal scene were motivated to take violent action against this influence – for instance, the church burnings by black metal musicians Varg Vikernes, Samoth, Faust,