Age of the Vikings

Age of the Vikings, story by story.

1. INorthumbria, 793
   

   Chapter I · Northumbria, 793

   Lindisfarne

   You play Alcuin of York

   The impossible just came from the sea. What do you tell people?

   Northumbria, 793. For almost 350 years the English have farmed this coast, and nobody believes an attack could come at them from the sea.

   Your first call · The coast: nobody watching

   Post armed watchmen along the coastLeave the coast as it is

   Sources

   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, entries for 787, 793, 794, 795 (trans. J. A. Giles / J. Ingram)
   • Alcuin, letter to Bishop Higbald and the community of Lindisfarne, 793 (trans. after Whitelock, English Historical Documents I)
   • Alcuin, letter to King Æthelred and all his chief men, 793 (trans. Whitelock, English Historical Documents I): nearly 350 years; the blood-red rain at York in Lent; avarice, robbery, violent judgments; luxury of clothing while the poor die of cold and hunger; trimming of beard and hair to resemble the pagans; 'defend your country... by acts of justice and mercy to men'; 'nothing defends a country better than the equity and godliness of princes'; 'be rulers of the people, not robbers; shepherds, not plunderers'
   • Symeon of Durham, Historia Regum s.a. 779, 790, 791, 792, 793, 794, 796 and History of the Church of Durham ch. 19 to 20 (Æthelred expelled 779, restored 790; 791 sons of King Ælfwald drawn from the church at York by false promises and slain by Æthelred; 792 Osred returns from exile, captured and put to death by Æthelred's order; 792 marries Ælfflæd daughter of Offa at Catterick; 793 raid on 7 June: altars dug up, brethren killed, carried off in chains, stripped and driven out, drowned; survivors stayed by Cuthbert's body; 794 raiders plunder 'the port of king Ecgfrid, that is, Jarrow' and a monastery, their chief put to a cruel death by the Angles, ships wrecked by a storm, survivors cast ashore slain; St Cuthbert 'did not allow them to depart unpunished'; 796 Æthelred slain at Cobre, 18 April) (trans. J. Stevenson, Church Historians of England III.2, 1855)
   • Bede, Life of St Cuthbert 42 and Ecclesiastical History 4.30 (coffin opened eleven years after his death, body found incorrupt)
   • Offa's privilege for the Kentish churches, 792 (S 134): service 'contra paganos marinos cum classis migrantibus' and fortification of strongholds 'contra paganos'
   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 790 to 794 (790 Æthelred succeeds Osred; 792 Osred slain, Æthelred takes a new wife, Elfleda; s.a. 794 Æthelred slain by his own people; s.a. 794 raiders plunder a monastery, some leaders slain, ships shattered by weather, survivors dispatched on shore) with Symeon of Durham, Historia Regum s.a. 796 (slain at Cobre, 18 April 796)
   • Einhard, Life of Charlemagne 25 (Alcuin of Britain, 'the greatest scholar of the day', Charlemagne's teacher)
   • Æthelweard, Chronicle 3.1 (the reeve rode to the first three ships 'thinking them to be merchants rather than enemies', and was slain) (trans. J. Stevenson, Church Historians of England II.2)
   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 866 (a large heathen army comes into England)
2. IIEngland, 865 to 867
   

   Chapter II · England, 865 to 867

   The Great Heathen Army

   You play Ivar the Boneless

   Raiders who stopped going home: what do they want?

   England, 865. For seventy years the Northmen have mostly raided the same way: land, grab, sail home. The English have learned to wait for them to leave.

   Your first call · Horses in camp: almost none

   Take the horses and keep the peacePlunder East Anglia now

   Sources

   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, entries for 851, 865 to 870, 876 (Thanet wintering, 350 ships, Kent's broken peace, the great army horsed in East Anglia, York, the two kings, Edmund killed by Hingwar and Hubba, Halfdan shares out Northumbria)
   • Asser, Life of King Alfred 21, 26 to 27, 33 (the great army; York's walls 'not firm or strong'; the Northumbrians break in and are cut down inside and out; both kings killed) (trans. A. S. Cook, 1906)
   • Æthelweard, Chronicle 4.2 (the fleets of 'the tyrant Igware' winter among the East Angles, mount their horses and make peace) (trans. J. Stevenson, Church Historians of England II.2)
   • Symeon of Durham, Historia Regum s.a. 866, 867, 870, 872 and History of the Church of Durham (fleet under Halfdan, Inguar and Hubba horsed in East Anglia; York taken 1 November; 21 March battle; Ecgberht set up over the Northumbrians north of the Tyne; Edmund killed by Inguar; Ecgberht expelled 872) (trans. J. Stevenson, 1855)
   • The Tale of Ragnar's Sons (Ragnarssona þáttr) 1 (the nickname 'Ivar the Boneless'; a late saga)
3. IIIWessex, January 878
   

   Chapter III · Wessex, January 878

   Alfred in the Marshes

   You play Alfred the Great

   The last English kingdom is falling. Can its king hold on?

   Wessex, 878. In twelve years the great army has broken three English kingdoms. Only Wessex, in the south, still has a king of its own.

   Your first call · Your men: a small band

   Hide in the Somerset marshesTake ship for Francia

   Sources

   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, entries for 871 to 878 (nine battles, Ashdown, Æthelred's death, peace with the army, Burgred to Rome, Halfdan's share-out, the holy ring oath at Wareham, Exeter, 120 ships lost at Swanage, Chippenham after Twelfth Night, the raven banner, Athelney, Egbert's Stone, Edington, the baptism)
   • Asser, Life of King Alfred 35 to 42, 46, 49 to 56 (Ashdown, Alfred king, Wareham oath and night ride to Exeter, Chippenham, life in the Somerset woods and swamps, Cynwit, Athelney, Egbert's Stone, Edington, fourteen-day siege, hostages without return, baptism at Aller with thirty men) (trans. A. S. Cook, 1906)
   • Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum (the border along the Thames, Lea, Bedford and Ouse; made with 'all the people that are in East Anglia', so after the 880 settlement in ASC 880)
   • Asser, Life of King Alfred 91 (his restoration of cities and towns, and others built where none had been) (trans. A. S. Cook)
   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 926 (Athelstan takes Northumbria and rules all the kings in the island); 836 (Æthelwulf gives Kent to his son Athelstan) and 880 (Guthrum's army settles East Anglia) are on the 750 to 919 page, ang09
4. IVNorth America, about 1000 to 1010
   

   Chapter IV · North America, about 1000 to 1010

   Vinland

   You play Thorfinn Karlsefni

   A rich new land across the sea, and someone already lives there. Can the Norse keep it?

   Greenland, about 1000. A small colony of Norse farmers lives on a coast of ice and grass, with hardly a tree to build a house or a ship.

   Your first call · Your people: sixty men and five women

   Ban weapon trading. Offer milk.Trade them the swords

   Sources

   • The Saga of the Greenlanders (Grænlendinga saga), chapters 1 to 7 (Erik names Greenland; Bjarni's voyage; Leif's 35 men and Erik's fall; Leif's houses, salmon, Tyrkir and the grapes; Thorvald, the nine men under three skin boats, his death and burial; Karlsefni's 60 men, 5 women and livestock; the whale; the bull; weapons refused and milk traded; the palisade; Snorri's birth; the killing over weapons; the battlefield between water and forest; the return) (trans. We Vikings, 2024)
   • The Saga of Erik the Red (Eiríks saga rauða), for comparison only; the story follows the Greenlanders' saga (trans. We Vikings)
   • M. Kuitems et al., 'Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021', Nature 601 (2022)
   • Parks Canada, L'Anse aux Meadows: Culture and history (Helge Ingstad found the site in 1960; eight years of excavation with Anne Stine Ingstad; walls and roofs of sod over a frame)
5. VEngland, 1016
   

   Chapter V · England, 1016

   Cnut's Empire

   You play Cnut

   How do you conquer a country that keeps changing sides?

   England, 1016. Alfred's family has ruled it for nearly a century. Now a young Danish prince wants the whole country.

   Your first call · Your army: one year, five battles

   Split England with EdmundFight on for all of England

   Sources

   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 991 (first tribute, 10,000 pounds)
   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, entries for 1002 (St Brice's Day order), 1012 (48,000 pounds), 1013 to 1018 and 1035 to 1042 (Sweyn's conquest, Æthelred to Normandy, Sweyn's death and the fleet's choice of Cnut, the hostages at Sandwich, Eadric's killings and 40 ships, Æthelred's death, Edmund chosen, the siege of London, Eadric's switch and flight at Assandun, the peace at Olney, Edmund's death on St Andrew's day, Emma fetched before 1 August 1017, Eadric slain, the 72,000 pound payment)
   • John of Worcester (Florence), Chronicle s.a. 1014 to 1017 (Cnut maims the hostages at Sandwich and goes to Denmark; Assandun and Eadric's flight; the two kings meet on the island of Olanege in the Severn and swear brotherhood; Edmund dies about St Andrew's day; Cnut marries Emma in July 1017; Eadric killed in the palace at Christmas, his body thrown from the walls) (trans. J. Stevenson, Church Historians of England II.1)
   • Encomium Emmae Reginae, prologue and excerpts incl. book 2 (Emma and Cnut joined 'by the marital link' after protracted negotiation)
   • Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Saga of Olaf Haraldsson 252 (Svein, son of Cnut and Alfifa, sent to rule Norway with his mother) (trans. S. Laing)
   • Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, un-rǽd ('evil counsel, ill-advised course') and streóna ('one who acquires', nickname of Eadric)
   • Æthelred's charter for St Frideswide's, Oxford, 1004 (S 909): the Danes broke into the church for refuge, and the townsmen set fire to it and burned it with its ornaments and books
6. VIYorkshire, September 1066
   

   Chapter VI · Yorkshire, September 1066

   Stamford Bridge

   You play Harald Hardrada

   Can the last great Viking king take England?

   England, 1066. The old king has died without a son, and three men believe his crown belongs to them.

   Your first call · King Harold: far away in the south

   Make peace and take hostagesSack York as a warning

   Sources

   • Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1066 (Edward's death, Harold crowned, the comet for a week, Tostig's raids and Scotland, Harold Hardrada with three hundred ships, Harold's army sent home at the Nativity of St Mary, the Ouse, Fulford on the eve of St Matthew, York's hostages and the condition of marching south, hostages promised at Stamford Bridge, Harold through York on Monday, the battle, Olaf home with twenty-four ships, William at Pevensey)
   • Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Saga of Harald Hardrada (Stiklestad at fifteen, Constantinople, half the treasure for half the kingdom, the claim through Magnus, Tostig, Fulford and the dead in the fen, the hot day and armour left behind, Tostig's counsel and the three riders, the ring of shields, Land-Waster, seven feet of English ground, the arrow in the windpipe, Orri's storm) (trans. S. Laing)
   • John of Worcester (Florence), Chronicle s.a. 1065 to 1066 (Tostig outlawed; Norwegians land at Richale [Riccall]; battle on the north bank of the Ouse near York on 20 September; Stamford Bridge on Monday 25 September) (trans. J. Stevenson, Church Historians of England II.1)
   • Symeon of Durham, Historia Regum s.a. 1066 (the earls fought the Norwegians 'at Fulford, near York') (trans. J. Stevenson, 1855)