Viking Scotland: The Siege of Dumbarton

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“In the year 870, a siege took place on the west coast of what is now Scotland. The Barton”

Rock on the River Clyde was the capital of the Britonic Kingdom of Altclot. If you've

never heard of Altclot, then this siege is probably the reason. It lasted just four months

and saw the relocation of the capital and the renaming of the realm to the kingdom of Strath Clyde. There's something else that's unusual about this siege too. It was conducted by the kings of the smash and grab raid, the Vikings. Why did they adapt their tactics when they reached Dumbaton? What made the Rock such a prize? How did these four months in 870 alter our perception of the Vikings and lay the foundations for a united kingdom

of Scotland? To help me unravel these events and make sense of their impact, I'm delighted to be joined by Todd Ferguson who specializes in Scottish history and has studied the siege of Dumbaton so that he can tell us all about it. Thank you very much for having me along. I'm very much looking forward to digging into something that I don't know anything about. This was an event that I wasn't aware of,

didn't only think about it and sound fascinating so we can talk about the siege of Dumbaton

in a second. I wondered if you could just help us before we get started on all of that

to orient us in time and space. When we talk about the siege of Dumbaton, where are we talking about? Yeah, absolutely. We're talking towards the end of the 9th century so 870 to be specific. We're located on the western seaboard of Scotland. What would become known as modern-day Scotland? So essentially the 1st of Clyde, Dumbaton sits on the Clyde-Estry leading into the river Clyde going up towards what is modern-day Glasgow

and then further out, you've got all this kind of access into the wider Irish sea and North Atlantic, which as we know, where super highways during the 9th century of activity for the Vikings. We're obviously going to get into lots of detail about the siege, the build-up to what happens in the aftermath of it. Without given away too many spoilers. Why is this a significant moment? Why is it something we should know about? To be perfectly honest with

you, as far as I'm concerned, it's a greatly misunderstood event in wider British and Irish history. The connections across what's going on right across the country and even further extended into what's happening in Europe as well at this period. You cannot get away from the events that happen at Dumbaton without looking into some of this in more detail. You know, for an example, you've got your favorite topic talking about the great Heathen Army running about and rampaging

around in England. It's all interlinked and this is why Dumbaton is so important. I'm also a local guy so I sit firmly within the apogee of the Kingdom of Strathclyde so it's very dear to my

“own heart and I think that your listeners will be really interested to hear more about it. Yeah,”

fantastic. And what if you could then help us kind of let's set up our chess piece for what's happening here. We've got several players on the board so very much not to chess pieces because

Kingdom of Strathclyde? What kind of group of people would we call them? Yeah, we're really looking

“at a group of people that have had a long established connection with this part of the world post-Roman”

period. You're looking at a botonic people. They speak what would be considered modern Welsh or sort of old Welsh in terms of the Kubrick language. So they're very much one of these traditional old British kingdoms right in the heart of the islands. Yeah, we have lots of references from the earlier period that actually referenced the name around what it was known at the time as outcilt. So that comes from Clota, which they believe was Britonic. God, S, she that is pure,

they think that is the the meaning behind the name, but we find this reference in Tacitus who talks about the the the different divide between the Clyde and the fourth as well. And then even further on we again bead talks about the fortress and the city of outcilt as well. So it must have been quite a significant power base. As I said, these are well-established Britonic kingdoms. And probably as I said, you're speaking in and that close connection with with the Welsh coming

“up that side of the country on the western coast. Interesting. So are we to I'm just conscious,”

we've already given kind of two names who we've got the kingdom of Strathe Clyde and we've got outcilt. How do they relate to each other? Yeah, this is where it becomes quite interesting because you know, without giving a spoiler away, the king that is in charge of the botan rock at the time of the siege, there are some historical arguments going around or debates going around in terms of whether he remains the last king of outcilt and potentially the first king of Strathe Clyde as well.

Because Strathe Clyde doesn't appear in the sources that particularly around the Irish animals, where we get most of her information for this period, Strathe Clyde starts to appear after what happens in eight 70. So there's a distinctive shift in the name as I said during the period

leading up to that postroom and it's always referred to as outcilt and it's referred to as outcilt

within the Irish animals as well as I said up until eight 70 when it goes through a significant

“change. And I guess the other local people that people might be aware of are the”

the picked. Do they play any part in this story? Yeah, absolutely. You can't get away without the picked being around the neck and the wood. The other thing that's quite interesting as well is and it might be quite interesting to talk about this is there's also the other kingdom of Delriata to the north which ceases to be a going kingdom around about the same time that the viking starts to appear in this part of the world. So the pickedish kingdoms are basically the tends to be

disputes and we've got sources in the Irish animals about one glowing conflict and battles and seizures between the picks, the Delriata and the kingdom of outcilt as well. So they're all in the mix. There are family connections as well. They are big, big power players in this part of the world and they're all interconnected and I mean even further afield, the kingdom of Northumbria plays a significant part as well because at different times there should be a wear with kind of ancient

boundaries of kingdoms they're quite fluid and changing all the time depending on who's coming to the four. So the kingdom of Northumbria actually owns part of or isn't control of part of what would become the much later and much bigger a kingdom of Strathclides. So they're all big players as I said, they're all pieces moving around the chessboard as you said, trying to get one up and the other thing is that they continue to make alliances with each other as well. So we see often in the sources

around about the eight century where the pickedish and Northumbrians are allied against the Britons and vice-virus of the Britons are then attacking into Delriata as well. And what is the religious situation in outcrict at this moment as well? Are they Christian? Are they sort of Gaylet Christian, rather than Roman Christian or is it still a pagan kingdom? No, they're definitely Christian by this period in time. There's actually quite an early source going back to about the six century

where Patrick writes a letter to a king by the name of Karotakis who they think is one of the

kings of outlook and he's basically Patrick's rapping his knuckles because there've been on a campaign

to enslave some Irish Christian so he's not particularly happy about this so he's trying to excommunicate them. So I guess at that stage you understand that there are Christianity as come across from a lot of the kind of ecclesiasties that are coming into the pickedish kingdoms and the Britonic kingdoms following the end of the Roman period and you know they are definitely 100% embedded within Christianity and certainly by the 9th century they are doing Christian kingdom. And the other people that we

need to get somewhere on this board too are the Vikings. So what kind of Viking presence are we looking at in this region in the northwest of Scotland during this period? Yeah, it's a really interesting dynamic of what's going on in this part of the world. There's been a long, long running

Lathland, Lockeland. Now some of the arguments have been centered on this being in Norwegian kingdom,

“so the kings, the Viking kings coming from Norway but there's a more recent kind of academic”

direction which kind of places this within the western Isles of Scotland because what we see in around about 853 is a very well known person in the sources called Amlav who has been linked different times with Olaf the White. There's probably a little bit speurius whether he is Olaf

the White or not from the later saga traditions but he's a very powerful Viking king he comes in

to this part of the world and he's referred to as the son of the King of Lockeland and this is kind of what's kickstarted all this debate because there's lots of activity going on in Ireland, there's lots of activity going on in the western sea board. As I said earlier the kind of the changing dynamic in the kingdom of Delriata which buffers on to this western Isles and the Hebrides of Scotland is something distinctly different is happening in that area. We start to see evidence in the sources

“as well where when Amlav arrives in Ireland he's not only exacting tribute from the Norse and the”

Vikings that within Ireland he's able to exact tribute from the Irish as well so that's quite a

significant development where the Vikings are then taking tribute off of the local Irish population

and another kind of group of people that we see kind of pop up around this time is you end up with the what's called the Galgoyle which is that the foreign gales for a long long time people have associated this with being Norse Gales which is certainly possible. There is another argument that they are a throwback to an older kingdom from the Hebrides and they're the ones that are being displaced because what we see in the Irish sources like the Annals of Holster is that

these Galgoyles ally themselves with Irish kings and they're fighting against this kind of influx of Vikings coming into the area. So we have Amlav as I said he comes in he's got two brothers

“one is Eva and the other one is Osso apologies for my pronunciation is probably people with Irish”

scholars probably scratching the head of that but they come in here and they're really this kind of triumvirate of Viking lords and elites rampaging across Ireland and exacting tribute and sacking monasteries all the kind of things that we associate with the Vikings of this period but there's also a sudden shift in terms of settlement and you know this starts to play out across the emerging kingdom of Dublin that we start to see over this period as well. So huge amount of activity going on you know

early on. So while we see Amlav Ima and Osso start to campaign across Ireland as something distinctly different happens around about 866 and this is around about the time that Eva disappears from the Irish Annals and this is why it's quite exciting because historians have started linking this to the potential that Eva is the same as Eva the bonus that is joining up with the great Heathen Army and campaigning across that part of the world and I guess coming back to my original

point about however everything is into linked across this period. Amlav and Osso go on a campaign against Pickland in 866 it exactly the same time that Eva and the great Heathen Army are bearing down on York so there's a lot of synergy going on there's some suggestions that this is a coordinated attempt to take full control or just take advantage of the fact that the kingdom of Northumbria are under increasing pressure as I said they had previously been allied with the picks

over long periods of time and there might just be an opportunity for that engagement across the Pickland with the Vikings as well and it comes back to I guess one of the original points around these family connections because there is a school of thought that believes that Amlav was married to sister of the king of the picks so this is the very very famous Canadian Macalpen, Kenneth Macalpen

his son becomes the constant team the first king of the picks around this period as well

and there's family connections that link the sisters also another sister is married to the son of the king of the Britons at Alklut and also another sister potentially married to one of the Hikings in Ireland so you start to unpick this picture of the fact that it's less random and more organized and certainly more coordinated and we may be believed previously and we're sitting right in the hotspot where where Viking activity is changing from kind of hit and run

raiding to much more of a maybe not quite settlement yet but a much more permanent presence they're trying to make actual inroads into kingdoms and to gain control of those regions too which is a bit of a shift in their activity on the British Isles. Yeah 100% you can't get away from the

bands of people rampaging around the country and picking up as much portable wealth as they can by this stage of the 9th century it's very much more organized it's strategic there's lots of logistics

“involved big populations of people moving around I think I can't remember the the academia”

Scandinavian academic had basically worked out that the gox that ship which is slightly later 880 I

believe he looked at that and and established that it could probably take 67 warriors and and 67 people in the bout and 64 of them would have been warriors and while not every ship at this period is going to be the size of the gox that ship and you're going to have all your supply ships and logistics ships as well it certainly gives you a better idea that some of the what used to be considered overinflated sizes of Viking armies are probably more realistic now so you could be

looking anywhere between 5 and 10,000 people rampaging around the country based on the the number of ships if we take on face value that you know 140 ships landed here or 200 ships landed there so yeah definitely far more organized far more strategic a lot more coordination going on as I said that you can't have these big movements without being having a much more structured

“organization to what's going on and I guess that comes back to the original point that when”

I'm left first appears on the scene in the Irish animals he's very much there to take control

of the Vikings that are in operation in these areas so probably collecting up these disparate groups and bring them into you know that the local fold you know we certainly don't think that Vikings were some kind of homogeneous group early on but they probably move towards that as we as we start to develop throughout the spirit another really interesting thing in terms of trying to establish some changes around what's happening if you look at the sources in Ireland

for attacks on monasteries and ecclesiastical centers what you have is between 820 and 840 there's approximately 43 attacks on churches are recorded in the Irish animals by the 850s to 900s only 7 attacks are recorded so there's a real change in how they're operating it probably indicates that they're more settled within their localities and quite frankly you're not going to be attacking your own backyard it wouldn't be very good policy to do that and similar

things we see similar things in I owner as well you know the last raid what would potentially be considered a Viking smash and grab raid was in 825 so really really changing that dynamic and I guess it comes back to answering you know some of these questions that you know if we want to consider that the kingdom of Lathland or Lothland however you want to pronounce it is based in the Western Isles then this would make far more sense that this is how people are operating the

operating from a central power base and then branching out into all these these other areas using yeah these very well-established sea trading routes and routes of transportation yeah it feels like

“the only thing that must have been more terrifying than all the Viking raids that you've already”

been suffering during this period is the idea that the Vikings are now getting organized and getting better right yeah I mean a circle I can't be good news when you go and accept the Viking no and I wonder if we could talk a little bit about the the kind of source material that we have for what's going on in this region at this time you've mentioned a couple of kind of Irish animals how much detail are we able to get what kind of documents what kind of sources that we're

relying on when we we look at things like the siege of Dumbarton yeah it's it's really difficult I

mean I I guess the first thing to point out is that we don't have any Britonic sources themselves

so we're very much relying on what other people are telling us about the Britons and the kingdom which is probably why there's not a lot of information contained within it so the Irish animals are our biggest source of information particularly the animals of Ulster some of the fragmentary animals as well then there are a couple of Welsh sources the animals can be they also talk about the sack of Dumbarton but it's we're limited to single lines and then from a picture perspective there

is the what used to be called the old Scottish Chronicle which is the Chronicles of the Kings of Alaba that starts around about eight four five and what we start to get is a bit more information and what's happening from that side as well but very much heavily orientated around picture experience and the kings are coming into that part of the world so sadly as I said we really do rely on information about the Britons themselves and this is why we see in the

sources we don't really get a lot about the social day-to-day experiences of being and living in the Britonic kingdom what we're getting is or the king of the Britons went and attacked here the king of the Britons went sat and blamed in eight four nine so it's quite sad on that front but the sources that we do have contain lots of information about the Vikings of the spirit because they are operating in that sphere so that's why we know a lot about

where it tells us that the Amlab and a couple of his brothers are going and they're smashing into

“prehistoric terms looking for treasure and all sorts of things so we often look at sources and”

think oh this is just yeah somebody's writing a couple of centuries later and compiling these sources together but we do have some evidence albeit much later archaeological evidence that Vikings or Scandinavians were breaking into terms because in May's how which is very famous prehistoric term up in Orkney we have Viking runic graffiti inside and some of the graffiti tells us that they were there specifically looking for treasure or a great treasure had been here before

or so before someone had removed it so it's nice to get that tie in between the archaeology and

the history the evidence is not always strong from an archaeological point of view in Scotland but

it is getting much much better and there are a couple of early excavations around the nineteen seventies but the sources can tell us a lot of information about what's going on sadly as I said just not a lot about the Britonic experience which sounds pretty horrific I probably won't tell the host of our sister podcasting ancient it's the wonderful ancients that ever should go and listen to that there is a potential that they were damaging broxia because he kind of loves a brok

and you know if if I ever thought the Vikings in the medieval period where they destroyed brox he might never talk to me again and how much do we know about who who is the king of

“outcruity I know you should refer to this ruler several times as king of the Britons it”

is that a title at they used it they call themselves kings of the Britons as in the sense of the king of of all the Britonic people no because at this stage there's there's a couple of different variations within the Irish animals and you get king of the Britons usually is associated with the Welsh rulers then a Gwyneth perhaps so what we see is and again this happens there's not a lot of evidence to or not a lot of evidence that backs up the king of the Britons of Strath

Clyde as he is referred to but that is only to record his death in eight seven two that we get this reference that he is referred to as the kings of the Britons of Strath Clyde so they're almost like a disparate group of Britons that that's a separate kingdom that is quite well understood

he is a guy by the name of art gal at Dunwell and he basically the name means I think his name

means his valorous as a bear so it probably gives you a kind of an idea of what kind of a character he is and he comes from quite a long line of father to some regular authority within the Britonic kingdom we get a much earlier source as I kind of alluded to earlier in eight four nine when the Britons take the opportunity the Britons of Strath Clyde take the opportunity or outclock take the opportunity to go to Dunblane which is a significant picture she pleased the

ask school site and they burn that now some people suggest that it might have been art gal's father that was undertaking this campaign but there's every possibility that he was involved in it as well and as I said we know he has a son who is rune who as mentioned is married to a sister of

Constantine the King of the Picks so there's not a lot of evidence about his activity sadly

as I said it's a bit like the kingdom of inertia where we don't have a lot of sources we don't have any sources sorry for for the Britons themselves which is quite sad so what we have is rather tenuous it's interesting though and what kind of relationship do they have with the picks at this point at the moment when you know the siege of Dunblane is happening because it sounds like they've been raiding there but now they're marrying into the picturesque royal families are they kind of

on terms at the moment yeah it's one of these really difficult things we don't know whether ruin is married to Constantine's sister prior to Dunblane or following Dunblane what we do know about him is that much later and I don't know if this may be jumping to gunna wee bit but the picturesque king when Constantine is killed in eight seven five his brother takes the throne as the king of the picks for a year but then it is it's ruined son the awkward who becomes the king of

the picks so it's quite an interesting dynamic because we don't as I said we don't know when the marriage alliance happens what we do know is that the sources tell us that there's this eight seventy siege of Dunblane which runs for four months which is quite a significant period of time you know the source is quite explicit on that four month period but it doesn't seem that anyone is coming to help them out so you know you can draw your own conclusions as to to why that may be

also have to keep in mind that the picturesque kingdom had been attacked by the Vikings that are involved in the attack on Dunblane only four years previously so they might still have been

“reeling from that event themselves I think when we start to to look at the relationships between”

the kingdoms in this part of the world it seems to be quite fractious you know as I said sadly we don't get the evidence of the potential good relationships that are happening in between all these big events you know that's the kind of the detraction of the sources to a degree

actually anyone and they went everyone punching each other's lights out

“and when the Vikings arrive so when we get towards the siege of Dunblane are they targeting”

Dunblane is the first place they arrive or is this somewhere they arrive on a campaign through

the area no we believe it's the first place that they're hitting it it seems to be very targeted there is a kind of a loose link in the chronicle of the princes which is another well-sourced for 870 and it's not a source that I found anywhere else and they talk about an attack at a different area called cryonan now that could be in the ashtray in 870 but there is up near you know lots of people in school in the familiar with the crinnin canal which is the galicous cryonan so there's

every possibility that there was a kind of an area campaign up at crinnan which is a well-known

“portage route for Vikings of later periods so it's probably a wee bit loose to to link it directly”

to the events but what we do know is that the Vikings are starting to operate within this

part of the world quite heavily strategically and you know if you're raiding across a kingdom of Britonic peoples into pickland it then becomes a challenge with them in your rear you know this may be the reason that they want to get the sea routes because where Dunblane is placed it opens up the river Clyde going up into central Scotland and then to the north you've got the river leaving which takes you up into the huge expanse of lollum and as well and we know that the

kingdom of Strath Clyde kind of extended up beyond to the top of lollum and it goes in quite

“that deep because there's a there's a lovely name stone called clack number a town which is basically”

the stone of the Britons and it seems to be a boundary stone on the boundary of the previous delreart and kingdom the picturesch kingdom and the kingdom of the the Britons of outclips so definitely think that it's a direct attack in a reason to move a power player in your in their backyard where's the door? that's by Lotto 6 from now and 40 not only the rupes are right there but every week every man is a really good winner who also really really does it really well and our

answer to a click for all the missions involved Lotto 6 from now and 40 that's original play in web, web or direct in the other way of the channel but at 10 legal answers click game can really make an infos and help her to check their game d after civil war regicide and cromwell's

republic the monarchy returned but Britain would never be the same i'm professus is an ellipsicum

and this month or not just the tutors were transported back to the age of restoration royalty from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the empire during me or not just the tutors from history hit whatever you get your podcasts Chicago 2011 a cop is murdered police and prosecutors swear they have the trigger man he swears he didn't do it how far will each side go to prove their right like it's just one bombshell after another you know you're like what what the story of a

place station a brain eating amoeba and the relentless pursuit of justice off duty out now listen wherever you get your podcasts and it sounds like it may be less to do with the fact that this is the capital of a kingdom and you might want to you know displace the king and rule it yourself and more to do with the fact that this is a really well strategically placed location that the Vikings want to use so i guess i'm trying to say maybe they're not trying to conquer outclot as such

what they want is the the strong strategic position it gives them control over the season the river at Dunbarton yeah 100% and yeah it does even the argument to be made if we think that ruin is not with his father and is somehow allied with the picturesch kingdom and they're looking for a change of power dynamic in the local area then it starts to possibly make more sense as well you know as the Vikings in terms of a logistical operation you're only going to besiege somewhere for four

months if there's a real opportunity to remove someone from the board and i think you know

sense that that's why they are hanging about in this part of the world to try and remove argal from the

“the power there's also other arguments that he reappears as a kind of client king of the Vikings”

and that's another argument that's kind of been put forward so it's it's a really interesting dynamic as you say that the the long established trade routes for Dunbarton an outlook go back quite significantly there's there's really good evidence through Leslie and Elizabeth Alcox excavations archaeological excavations on the rock in the seventies where they were finding Mediterranean pottery and glassware and merivinci and glassware as well so it seems to be quite a

high profile trading site and perhaps that was what it was of interest to the Vikings and then

again we have to look at you know what are the Vikings doing at this period human collateral

slavery as a big part of what their operations are all hinged on and their economy has hinged on the movement of people and trafficking people because there is much later there's a later source in

“871 that essentially says that after what happens at Dunbarton they go back to Dublin with”

thousands of slaves but angles picks and Britain so it seems to be a whole all Britain encompassing raid yeah and do we get much from the Viking side of what's going on I mean is any of this included in the Viking sagas that will get written up no sadly not this is the real kind of unusual feature about what's going on because it it's a big event as I said four months it's almost unprecedented in terms of siege warfare for Vikings we have earlier siege activity at Paris in eight four five

which is very heavily linked to ragna lockbrook and and his activities through the saga material and some of the arguments are that you know perhaps you know either the bone losses is considered the son of ragna amlaven and all these other people that are involved in campaigns have done etc so there's every possibility that if that is correct in the sons where with the father at the siege of Paris in eight four five and then they are learning new techniques and they are then applying

them to Dunbarton certainly but don't think a lot in barricine one by saying that you won't consider Dunbarton in Paris as being anywhere near similar in today's mindset but back in the eight 70s they must have been significant enough that this was a strategy and a tactic that they wanted to use against these types of sites the interesting thing as well as as the author the later attempts

“at Paris in the eight eighties as well which go on for much longer I think there's about a year”

the siege in the eighties at Paris but certainly from DeBarton's point of view it must have been significant enough to expend that amount of resource you know they've timed it to come inside with the summer campaigning we can establish this by where it appears within the sources it's quite probably about middle of the the year so definitely taking full advantage of the height of summer to continue helps of provisioning logistics etc what we don't know and what we don't

have evidence of are any camps we know that they camp to round the rock from later sources and kind of supposition from historians but we don't have any evidence archaeologically of that which is quite sad I mean you've sort of answered my next question which was going to be about how unusual it is for the Vikings to invest the time and the resources required for a siege because we associate them so closely with those smash and grab raids that we've talked about and with you know the

great even army yes in camping but moving around still and attacking places it feels really really unusual for a siege is this kind of a fairly unique moment in the the Viking history of the British oils yeah I would say 100% you know we don't see this happening anywhere else you know some people talk about the siege of York in 86 but it's not just on the siege by any stretch of imagination this is four months of sustained pressure on a kingdom that essentially is as well brings an end

to the kind of second generation of hill fort usage in the British Isles because all of a sudden

being up high is no longer a defensive feature and that then starts to shift the kind of dynamics towards urbanized power center similar to what we're seeing with the Vikings in Dublin so they kind of change the way people start to think about their own settlements and kingdoms and power bases as well so it's entirely unique as far as I can see within the context of the British oils which is why it's exceedingly sad that it's not as well known as it should be because this is a massive

change in the way that the Vikings are operating as you said yourself you know just the sheer logistics are trying to organize this provision the men that are besieging our clue what how many men were in situ were they coming and going in different periods were they campaigning

explained this to begin with it's it's a gigantic hunk of rock in the Clyde Estuary and you know it

“stands at 243 feet but it's a relatively small surface when you get to the top to the”

occupation layer they think about two hectares so you're probably looking maybe two maximum 300 people would be able to contain within it so quite small from that prospect as well and the other thing I guess that perhaps answers your question as well is that they put all this effort into taking Dumbarton rock and then they didn't use it for anything it essentially ceases to go out of existence as a going concern the kingdom of Strath Clyde as it's kind of re-established moves for

their up river to partic and govern some some excellent archaeological work being undertaken by Professor Straven Driscoll at the govern stones project up at govern as well and you're distant and cover some really nice stuff and quite a long history but the whole kind of kingdom just shifts dynamic for the up river so it's a massive change in what's happening in this part of the

“world yeah I think that that's really striking as well that there's a sense here that the Vikings”

don't necessarily want Dumbarton but they don't want the people that are there to be in their way and to have control of Dumbarton and control access to the sea and the river now they don't need to hold it they just don't want other people there yeah and and this is the I guess it shows that the changing power dynamic in the local area as well is the fact that the Britons don't after eight seventy they don't go and re-occupied Dumbarton it's it's dumb and dusted we don't hear about

output again in the record it changes the the terminology changes in the sources to Strath Clyde and you know that's something that is hugely significant to to see what we do have and and there's some really nice just to I guess further expand on this a little bit the we have some nice archaeology further up to the north of Dumbarton about ten miles away from Dumbarton rock which is a played call a place called mid-ross on the banks of Loch Lomend they have found

nine to ten century Viking graves some with grave goods some without grave goods they found Viking shield bosses they found wet stones from Scandinavia reusing previous prehistoric sites in terms of like boiden and a really nice thing which is you know ties directly back to this event is the as far as you know the excavators can tell that we've got a silver coin of Athel red the

first of west six that dates to eight six five eight seven one so this is right in the middle of

all this activity so what we've got is burials just to the north of Dumbarton rock with a north kind of context to them which proves that you know there is settlement going on and probably quite a lot of integration I would think at this period we don't hear of any other attacks by the Vikings on on the people of Stratclad until much much later probably into the middle of the 10th century yeah and I guess the Vikings are mainly concerned with controlling the coasts and the maritime

roots and everything else like that so there is maybe an idea that if you if you move a bit further inland you can sort of get out of there their line of sight get out of their area of focus yeah 100% and you know what we see again is that there is this ongoing interaction between the big players so Amlab, Eva the other brother or souls actually killed by Amlab quite early on

over a dispute about his wife which is always quite interesting but yeah they become quite big

players in this year sadly what happens is that Amlab and Eva both die quite early after or not long after the siege of debate in the eight seventy they believe that Eva's eight seven three and when he dies the sources call him you know the king of all the foreigners in Ireland and Britain so he's you know really established himself as over King of all the Vikings and the foreigners and in this part of the world Amlab has actually killed while exacting tribute from the picturesch

kingdom he's killed by Constantine so that carries on and then there's a little bit of revenge because Constantine's actually killed by half Dan who seems to continue campaigning in this part the world at the end of the great he the army raids in in eight seven five he kills Constantine and we start to see this shifting dynamic as well within the the picturesch kingdom as well at this period so there's lots and lots going on you know as I said it's one of these kind of

unique moments where all the big players kind of get knocked out of position at exactly the same time

“I think in other period where that happened was the hierarchy where Henry II came in and”

lots of the big players have been removed in eleven fifty fifty three so it made it much easier transition but yeah lots and lots of stuff going on and as I said earlier on the Kingdom of Strathclyde doesn't disappear it just it almost reinvents itself further up the Clyde River and we have a lovely examples of you know cultural fusion through hogback stones and epic govern and partick as well

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amoeba and the relentless pursuit of justice off duty out now listen wherever you get your podcasts yeah yeah and just returning to the actual siege itself we've mentioned it it lasted for

four months I guess we've told that in some of the written sources but what do we know about

how the siege paned out I mean besieging places is so unusual for the Vikings do we get any sense of the the tactics the technologies that they're using or are we kind of left with the the plane they would no we we we get some some quite good sources because what we what we know

“from the sources is that essentially the Barton runs out of fresh water that's what brings”

about the downfall they managed to hold out for so long they appear to lose control of the the well which is in the kind of cleft between it's a double plugged volcanic rock at the Barton so there's two peaks the well kind of sits in the in the cleft and once they lose control

of that you know it's all over by the shouting and there is also in the sources they talk about

the Vikings perhaps getting access to the lower reaches of of the of the Citadel so it's not your traditional siege you know people think medieval sieges with big siege engines we do know from the sources from the later Paris siege in the eight eighties that they were employing siege machinery and building camps and defenses we don't have any evidence of that at all for what's going on in the bottom it seems to be in circle the up high will eventually get them out

once once once once we get control of the wells and that essentially is what happens and you know as I mentioned earlier in in eight seven one we get a reference that am love an Evar return to Ireland return to Dublin with 200 ships with thousands of of captives as well so it seems to be quite quick once it once at all kind of falls apart if that makes sense yeah for months it's almost like a wait and see what happens again it's it's quite sad because we don't know what's going on

on the day-to-day basis of that within that four month period you know I'm assuming it's probably

“quite boring I don't think there would have been breakout attempts I think the kings of the”

king of outlook on and his people probably were quite comfortable to sit up there and think well we've got these guys sust out they can't kind of scale the rocks to to get out of so yeah it's once it kind of comes to me it might be quite confident they could hold out for a while but then I suppose the Vikings are also there with control of the sea able to resupply themselves they can kind of stay there for as long as they like or as long as the weather stays good and it just

it just boils down to this well you know is what causes the end of it yeah 100% and yeah this is what becomes quite interesting if we start looking at some of the discussions around where the kingdom of of Lathland Locke and it is situated because if it's situated in the Western Isles it's not that far from Dumbarton to getting your ships and go back to you know the Western Isles you know even coming down to the Isle of Cumbry but Aaron you know they're all fairly close you

would have to think that they were perhaps having control of them and even if they weren't they were able to dominate the people that were living on those islands so yeah it also be as thinking about the power dynamics of the kingdom of outlook that they were confident enough that they could hang out or hold out for such a prolonged period you know they must have been confident in their own abilities and perhaps this had happened in the past they were much earlier

sources that reference attacks on outlook back in the 700 there is also so I should mention there is evidence of burning on one of the palisades that Leslie Alcock and Elizabeth Alcock

Viking pommel that dates to the 9th century so it does tie in to events that were happening

that there was some form of of burning event after the outlook was taken because the sources do talk about how it was destroyed and plundered as well so a deliberate attempt as you said to knock it off the game board and do we see I mean I guess if we're saying there's maybe two or 300 people in Dunbarton and we we know that the Vikings return to island with thousands of enslaved people then presumably they're using this as a springboard this does become part of a

larger campaign it can't just be that they've attacked Dunbarton ruin that and got him because they're going home with so many slaves they must have captured them from around Scotland yeah under

“percent you know you have to look at this in the round and and say you know was this going on”

while they were besieging the bottom that they were going out for the field and picking up as many

people as they could there's also an argument to suggest that because Eva has come back from the great heathen army that he is bringing the angles slaves back with him in tow but even the logistics of that you know if we take on face valued at thousands of slaves have been taken they're logistics of looking after those people transporting them guarding them even yeah there's lots of logistics where you have to take people out of the front line operations to then look after the slaves

that you're collecting along the way I mean as I said it does mention about 200 ships are taken back to Dublin in eight seven one but if we look if they arrive in summer eight seventy four months you know you're coming into October they're probably over wintering somewhere and then returning

to I believe they return to Dublin quite early in the sources in eight seven one's a probably

“January February time and do we see this is a time where you know in Anglo-Saxon England we're”

seeing the Dain Law kind of being carved out we've got a Viking King in Dublin we've got periodically we've got a Viking King in York as well do we see the Vikings beginning to integrate themselves into the the politics of the area that we now call Scotland the the kind of Brithonic and and Pictish kingdoms are they trying to rule there are they becoming integrated you mentioned there's some evidence that they were you know living amongst the people there and becoming

integrated sort of on the ground but is there really sense in which the Vikings take a political role in Scotland not as far as I can see I mean they seem to be exact in tribute from different areas and you know that certainly indicates that they are power players and the region perhaps these are client kings you know Constantine perhaps wasn't particularly happy there's about this as the King of the Pixies are you know quite proud and independent kingdoms that are running in

their own entity but you know you certainly start to see some of the dynamic shifting you know as I said if you start looking towards the 50-60 years after what happens at Dimbarten you even see coalitions and confederations between you know one of your great favorites eighth of lead and she's making deals with the kings of the Pixies and the Kings of the Brittons to stand against the Vikings so it doesn't seem that they seem to get a really strong foothold in Scotland

for whatever reason you know perhaps that is the case that they feel they've done enough to try and take control there are these family relationships we do see some kind of weird dynamics occurring much later in the King lists for the King of the Pixies for example there is a King by the name of Amlav once it becomes the kingdom of Alaba so that name has continued on into the mid 10th

“century but it seems to be fleeting I think there's definitely connections and you know one of”

the potential discussion points that you could have around this is if we come back to a very important date prior to eight seventy and eight four nine what you see is Kenneth McAlpen arrives on the scene as the king of Delreart are moves into become King of the Pixies it's around the same time that there's conflict going on in the western Isles between the Vikings and the Norse that are established there and then you've also got the Britons moving into Pickland as well so there's a lot of

stuff going on and this kind of connection seems to be that it's a knocking out of kingdoms you know and Kenneth McAlpen is Galic is he's moving in he's is Galic is cultural identity so he starts to move that into Pickland and what you see is the Pictish community starts to change and alter as well and much much later I mean all these kingdoms are kind of established eventually this is what the catalyst is for moving towards a more unified Scotland as we would understand it today but

it does seem to take some time I mean the kingdom of stratified kind of continues in existence up to about the 12th century so it's got a long range even following what happens at the bottom and that then becomes quite an interesting dynamic to think about you know who are the real power players in this part of the world and as you said perhaps the Ueema dynasty in Ireland

England and western Isles of Scotland and that's quite content for them yeah I was going to ask

“whether we ought to consider this I mean I think you've made a really brilliant pitch for”

why we should all know the siege of Dunbarton better there is clearly so much really fascinating stuff going on but I was going to ask about whether we can see this is some kind of catalyst a stepping stone the starting gun being fired on moving towards a more unified Scotland it does this existential threat from from Vikings kind of forced them to coalesce and get on a bit better but it sounds like actually the picture is still quite fragmented for the several centuries

afterwards yeah absolutely it's definitely fragmented for quite a number of centuries following what we probably should touch on as well is that in 872 the Irish animals tell us that art gale is put to death at the instigation of Constantine so there we have the king of the pits

basically directing people to kill art gale who's the king of the Britons no one of these arguments

could be that it's because he is a client king of the Vikings Constantine doesn't want this

“the other argument is that it could be that he wants to put ruin onto the throne and so that he's”

got that family connection through his sister to the kingdom of the Britons of Stratclides well but it's quite an interesting choice of words because as I said you get this distinct picture that you know poor art gale has gone through this huge process where he's been defeated or lost outklote as a power centre you know thousands or hundreds of his people have been taken into slavery and captivity and then he comes back on the scene we don't know whether it's in Ireland or in Scotland

that he's killed sadly some of the arguments are that because it's mentioned in the Irish

animals that it must be in Ireland but that's not always the case because we do hear of other

kings that are referred to as dying that we know specifically died in England or in Scotland they don't give a location in the Irish animals either so it's it's a little bit tenuous to decide and this is why one of the arguments is is art gale the last kings of outklote and the first king of Strathclides as well because it seems to be this two-year period where he's still knocking about until he's killed by the king of the pigs so I guess coming back to the original

point of fragmented kingdoms yeah definitely still happening but once you start seeing that coalition between the 8th of late of Novemberer which is extending up to you know as far up as Edinburgh at this period in time you know a lot of people don't understand the Edinburgh was considered outside of Scotland Scotland is north of the fourth and then you've got this kingdom of Strathclides which actually starts to as it develops go right down to Lancaster as well

so it takes in cumbria cumballand and yeah I learned off the west coast of Scotland is kind of an etymological throwback to that as well because it's still greater in little cumbria so people speaking cumbria can those areas so yeah still still happens but fundamentally a shift in direction for where people are going because what we see at this period is you start to see this almost amalgamation of interrelated kings from what becomes pickland and Strathclides that then

start into marrying and merging and that will eventually move towards a more unified kingdom and you know even just looking on as a political picture today one of the sad things is it's not as well known we know the political picture in Scotland is quite fragmented itself at the moment and you know some of the academia is maybe not been as focused on a kingdom of Britons as it potentially should be because it goes against a lot of the modern contemporary narratives

about whether a Scotland should be independent or not so hopefully we'll see that kind of redress itself because it's usually important in the formation of Scotland as a country and it sits right the heart of a period of time that's changing you know so dynamically well thank you so much Todd I feel like we've packed so much into this discussion you know we've sent it on a siege of Dunbart and that that might have seemed like you know nothing at four months siege and

“and then nothing really happens without clue afterwards but I think you've put it in a fairly”

immense context and I feel like I know what's going on in the west of Scotland far far better than I did before and so thank you so much for joining us Todd and sharing your expertise about the siege of Dunbart. No absolutely there's been a great pleasure to be here and I hope more people will take it on board and go and research it because it's a fantastic piece of history that has wind or repercussions as I said not just for Scotland but for the wider British Isles and Ireland

in Europe as well. Yeah wonderful thank you very much thank you. I hope you found that story interesting if you'd like to hear more about Scottish history you can find recent episodes on the Saga's of the Earls of Orcany and on the medieval Queens of Scotland. For more Vikings you might like the episode Ellen has done recently on the origins of the Viking Age and there are loads of great Viking episodes throughout our back catalogue for you to hop into a long ship and rage or

to join Ellen and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also

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