It could have been those superb dragon prows at the head of their long boats—or maybe the boats themselves, slender and able to sail up a shallow river and across the Atlantic. Or maybe it’s those helmets with the horns?
For some reason, Vikings have stuck to the imagination while Visigoths and even Huns have been relegated to the back pages. Witness the latest cable documentary on those warlike seafaring ancestors of today’s peaceful, contended Scandinavians. “Vikings: Raiders from the North” will be out next month on DVD.
Although the narrator touches on their far-flung voyages into Russia and across the Mediterranean to Sicily and Constantinople, the focus is on the more familiar Viking depredations in the British Isles. From 787 through 1066, the Vikings used the islands as a goose that kept laying golden eggs. What they didn’t take in plunder they squeezed through tribute. After a while, many of the Viking bands set themselves up as extortion rackets, accepting money from the local rulers in exchange for not pillaging. Naturally, the cost of peace kept rising.
Along the way the Anglo-Saxons inflicted a few defeats on their tormentors, even as the Vikings began colonizing the land with permanent settlers. In 1066 the last Anglo-Saxon king defeated the final Norse invasion, only to be defeated within months by William the Conqueror’s Normans, who seized control of England and thwarted any future Viking advances.
“Vikings: Raiders from the North” features intelligent narration, interviews with historians and well done reenactments.
