Jeppe Nordmann Garly has for years been a “recreational Viking,” a keen member of a fringe fraternity of would-be Norse warriors who dress up in 10th-century clothing, attend weekend craft fairs and trade tips over the Internet on where to pick up an authentic helmet or sword.

He has now become a full-time Viking. Formerly a teacher and jewelry maker in Denmark, Mr. Garly last month began a new job on a hillside campus in central Norway as the director of Scandinavia’s first government-funded training course on how to live like a Viking.

Or, that is, a politically correct one, purged of the bloodthirsty aggression that made the Viking Age a byword for macho violence.