Fuck yeah, you posted something about my hyperfixation! I love the Viking age so much, what little we know about the raiders is always interesting to read about.
(if you’re interested in that time period I HIGHLY recommend the book “Eaters of the Dead” by Michael Crichton, it starts off nonfiction with one of our earliest known historical records of the Vikings written by Ibn Fadlan, and as the book continues, it shifts from nonfiction to fiction with a variation on the Beowulf story!)
It truly is tragic that so much knowledge from Scandinavia during that time frame was never written down, its such a fascinating time period and such a fascinating culture!
(Just a note: when I use the word ‘Viking’ here, I refer to both the raider job/caste, as well as the people that made up these raiders, primarily consisting of Norwegians, Swedes, the Rus, and some of the Finnish, all of whom were primarily peaceful farmers and traders.)
Is this the event that the thing in Vikings was inspired by/based on?
Aaand Vinland Saga.
No
No - this might refer to the danish king svein tjugeskjegg We had an norwegian king olav there in the 990’s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_II_of_Norway#Reign
Skaldic poetry suggests he led a successful seaborne attack that took down London Bridge, though Anglo-Saxon sources do not confirm this. This may have been in 1014, restoring London and the English throne to Æthelred the Unready and removing Cnut.[19]
Can you imagine growing up with the name of Cnut, kids can be so mean!
