7. Rise of the Sea King

amada. Vessel stretching as far as the eye can see, maybe 200 or more. On an

“or northerly wind sails full, the boats zip along, pulling up to 20 knots. Onward, I'll literally”

thousands of Viking warriors. Racing against the swell, the men check the weapons, adjust gear, utter oaths to the gods. Turning westward now into a wide bay, there is enough

momentum to carry the first wave of long ships right up into the shallow curve of sand. It

is an amphibious landing at full throttle. Beyond the dunes, the defenders, local plansmen lie and wait. They rattle clubs against rough wooden shields. What they lack in weaponry, they make up for with intimidation. But they will prove no contest to the

“horsemen, the warriors in coming now, waiting through the surf. At their head, is a”

man named Torgest, a fearsome Viking chieftain, and with the battle scars to prove it. He

is no armchair general, but a man to lead from the front. On his signal, the men form into

squads, must ring behind shield walls as the advance of the beach. A rain of arrows falls in effect to play upon him. The defenders put up a valiant fight, make no mistake. It is true what they say. These men are nothing if not brave. Vicious too, they don't take prisoners just their heads. But they are poorly equipped, badly organised.

“With the fighting over, Torgest surveys the land. Into the bay empties a wide river,”

it winds through lush green fields and rolling hills. There is a settlement on the estuary. A few wooden huts and coracles, a fishing village. This country, Torgest knows, doesn't have anything approximating times, let alone cities, not like England or Francia. But there is something else this land has. Something beyond compare. As the western centre of the new religion, it is home to some of the finest treasures in Christendom. Its monasteries

and religious centres are repositories for gold and silver. Home to exquisite metal work and precious stones. The fishing village is swiftly raised. The inhabitants flee or are put to the sword. The locals call the area with its dark, swirling title waters, the black pool. In the gaelic language, dovelin, Dublin. I'm Yen Glenn from the noise of podcast network. This is Real Vikings, Part 7.

In this series, we've seen Vikings go from raiding to trading to settling. We have witnessed them sweep into England and Northern France. We've watched them descend the waterways of Russia. Scandinavians have reached Spain, North Africa, Italy, Constantinople, Baghdad, have set foot in Persia. In Eastern Europe, they have founded a Norse-Slavic state, the Keeven Rus. Meanwhile, the centres, non-conformists, have abandoned the old home lands and

sailed into the north Atlantic. They have founded a Nordic utopia, Iceland.

Vikings were never a flashing the pan. By the late 9th century, they have been on the

scene for over a hundred years. Closer to home in Anglo-Saxon England, a great heathen army is about to pile on the misery, marauding up and down the country. It will result in partition.

Dain law. But this is only part of the story of what is happening across the British,

“or if you prefer the Anglo-Celtic Isles.”

We haven't spoken much yet about Ireland. At the start of the Viking Age, the tactics employed against it come straight out of the standard playbook. Rating parties menace coastal communities. They go for the usual soft targets, remote monasteries. In 795, two years after the historic raid on Lindisfar, Viking sack a number of holy sites. Though here the perpetrators are Norwegian, rather than Danish.

Professor David Aesari, and if you look at a map, you might wonder why that's a case because you think, well, Ireland's further away from Scandinavia, the England, maybe they

have to go through England first. But if you think of the map and turn it around from a

“Viking perspective, coming across the Atlantic, and onto the islands of Shetland, and”

the Hebrides. To get to the eastern coast of England, or to get to the Irish Sea, is about the same distance they can choose when they get to Scotland, to go to the left, and to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, or to go to the right and go into the Irish Sea. After ravaging Iona in Scotland's inner hebrides, Viking sack rafflin island in today's County Antrim. There are further hit and runs on western island outposts, inish Murray,

inish boffin, then in 798 of the East Coast, some Patrick's Isle. Viking raiders are noticing the difference between the peoples here and those across the water. Unlike the Germanic Anglo-Saxons, the inhabitants of Ireland remain Celtic.

“There akin to the native Britons shoved to the margins of Wales and Cornwall, or the”

picked way to the north, and the land the Romans called Caledonia. And that's another

thing. The Romans never got as far as Ireland. They traded with it, but it was never

a part of the empire. As a result, its society has evolved differently, without the legacy of Roman infrastructure, no road network, no real urban centres, and politically it is a minefield, a patchwork of over 150 petty fiefdoms. Yes, there are around a dozen over kingdoms. There is a nominal hiking, the Ardhry, at the Royal Sea of Tarra. But it is an ever-shifting landscape, one of a Lyons' and Indonesian fighting.

A decisive victory over an English kingdom will win you that whole territory. With Ireland, you are merely breaking it off in tiny chunks. Fielty is to a clan rather than to land, not that the clans don't wield considerable cloud. The Enale, or O'Neill dynasty, has become so dominant it is split into two branches. The northern Enale of Ulster, and the southern Enale of Mead, or middle kingdom, today is County Meath. Meanwhile, Munster, Cornwall, and

Lester are coalescing into powerful dominions. And confusingly, not everything is confined to

the physical island of Ireland. The kingdom of Del Riyada, spills beyond iron and shores up Scotland's west coast, present day are Gile, the coast of the Gales. The Irish settlers here were referred to by the Romans as Scotty. Scotty being the Latin word for Irish Gales generally. It is from those settlers that Scotland will eventually and ironically derive its name. The politics of Ireland is going to offer another possibility for the Vikings, some other

opportunities. This is also a culture and society ruled by chieftains that are warring each other and raiding each other for cattle and wealth. There aren't any big cities around. There are no towns around, so the wealth is distributed differently. I'm much of this wealth belongs to the church. Remote, out on the fringes, Ireland has been immune to the violent invasions and population shifts of the dark ages. In splendid isolation, it has developed as a sanctuary for Christian learning.

This period, the 6th to 9th centuries is known as the Irish Golden Age.

Mothership of the missions that will go over to Christianize Europe.

“It is home to some of the West's finest monasteries,”

replete with written works and reliquaries, simply teeming with treasure. Enter into the picture the man we met in our opening scene. Torguest, Torguest the Seeking, as he likes to style himself, or as the Irish will prefer, Torguest the Devil. A rough and ready Viking straight out of central casting,

Torguest appears in Ireland in 837. Exploiting the never-ending plan wars,

he arrives on the north coast and sails his long boats up the river ban, right into the huge inland body of water, Loch Naye. Torguest is a devotee of the maximum that all publicity is good publicity. He revels on the terror of his reputation.

“Said to be married to a witch, he cranks up the paganism.”

He sacks the great stone church of our mar, founded by St Patrick himself, then he performs a tribute to Odin, complete with human sacrifice,

on the most sacred altar in the land.

Provocatively he declares himself the new habit. Viking military prowess as we know is born of speed and mobility. In Ireland, with its lack of decent roads, the local foot sluggers can't keep up. Torguest's raiders are able to zip up and down the waterways with impunity. The Romans had called this place "Hyburnia" the land of winter. But in the medieval warm period, Ireland seems more a land of spring, lush, green, bounteous,

“and it has gold stashed in every crevice. Torguest decides to stay put.”

But manning a stockhead on Locke-Nay can only be done for so long. As land lovers,

Vikings are exposed and vulnerable. Lars Brownworth The Vikings weren't great out in the open. In fact, there are several examples of when the in Ireland, for example, when they're caught in the open country, they are not easily killed, but they are usually it doesn't end well for them.

If Torguest is to make a permanent defensible settlement, he needs a proper port and an invasion force of overwhelming strength to secure it. And so, in 841, that the head of a huge fleet, he returns to what he considers the perfect spot, midway down Ireland's east coast. As we have seen from our opening scene, he ceases it without difficulty. He builds a palisade around this new, trading, raiding post, and the city of Dublin is born.

There will be others to follow. One indication of this is some of the earliest towers that we know of in Ireland, Waterford, Wexford, are actually Scandinavian in name, weather off your other, there's a lot of fjord. Wexford is a wuxford. Then raffield. The nature of that physical, long-term presence of Scandinavians in Ireland is a little different. It doesn't appear to be this large

scale land takings. We're seeing in Ireland the Scandinavian and Viking presence seems to be a bit more confined to what appears to be a number of fortified hardpoints as it were on the coast. Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Limeric, Cork II, become what are known as the long ports, Viking enclaves in a hostile land. Aside from the gold, silver copper and precious stones that can now be shipped out, they will become trading hubs for another commodity that Ireland also

has in abundant supply. It's people. Connecting Ireland with the rest of Western Europe is a lot of slave trading that takes place. Celtic slaves, including one's brought in from Britain, will be shipped to the far corners of the Viking universe, from Spain to the Middle East, a huge number will help settle Iceland. Torgast meanwhile continues to antagonize the locals.

ultra of Limerick. For the Irish hiking, male shakno, enough is enough. With planned differences

“put aside, he is able to forge a coalition, the better to exercise this peak and devil once and”

for all. The Vikings cannot be dislodged from Dublin, but they are eventually beaten back and penned in. Torgast is willing to accept peace terms, but what does he care? He's going nowhere. It's a winter's night in 845. We're in the long house of Torgast, cited on the man of a one-day host Dublin castle. El flows, torches burn, and the Vikings of Dublin are at their most drunkenly raucous, in anticipation of the evening special guests. At the head of the table,

chewing on a hunk of beef is beards smeared with grease. Torgast is more eager than most.

For his part of his truce with male, is agreed not just to become a Christian, but to take

“males daughter as his bride. That is in addition to his current witchy one.”

Professor Elizabeth Rowe. Marriage was a contractor and agreement between two families, and whether the bride and the groom both wanted to be married was irrelevant to the political, say, or a social or economic relationship. But Torgast, a quintessential Viking, is thinking merely with his bridges. Male's daughter, it is said, is of uncommon beauty, quite an offering. Whisper goes around the long house, one of Torgast's lieutenant's calls for harsh.

And here, stepping into the heart of the Viking stronghold comes a group of young Irish women. Their wool cloaks pooled coilier around them. Their faces covered save for their eyes.

“They part to allow their mistress through. The princess herself.”

She stands before Torgast and the torchlight. From her eyes alone, this is one but garling creature. He is smitten. When the princess gestures us to whether she should remove her cloak, Torgast nods in excitement. To his delight, she is a fine figure of a woman, dressed in pure white linen, and with tumbling orban ringlets falling about her shoulders. It is only when he studies her jawline and spies her Adam's apple,

that the penny drops. This is not a damsel, not in the Viking understanding of the concept, and whoever they are, they're wielding a big knife. Male, especially selected a group of pre-bearded adolescent males to be his assassinations squad. And they set about their task with relish, springing forward to slash Torgast's throat, and falling upon his drunken kinsman in a murderous frenzy.

Whether males command us survive or not, no one knows, but it's a case of job done, mission accomplished. In an alternative version of the story, male captures Torgast in battle, ties him up in a sack with a load of rocks and chucks him in the river Liffy. Either way, it is the end for Torgast, Torgast the Seeking, Torgast the Devil.

Male promises to house the Vikings from Ireland, but it never comes to pass.

Instead, into the power vacuum, step yet more northmen. They include now dames from Francia with a plunder is running low. Vikings being Vikings, they are soon scrapping amongst themselves. It will lead to an internal struggle, a civil war between two north factions. The Irish delineate them according to the color of their hair.

There are the white foreigners, the Norwegians, and the dark foreigners, the dames. In 857, the opposing warlords will bury the hatchet. They agree to rule Dublin jointly. Power will be split between Olaf the White and someone whose name you may recognize. A man named Eva, assumed to be Eva the boneless, another of the sons of the great Ragnar Lothbrock.

over the water, hitting them this time from the west.

For he and his brothers are already mustering a mighty invasion force. The aforementioned great heathen army, which will attack England's east coast from across the North Sea. Later, on acquiring York as his English capital, Eva will see both it and Dublin as the twin pillars

“of Viking rule across the Isles. I think what we sometimes miss is that this is an incredibly”

complex and interconnected world, not least because you have Viking groups moving back and forth between these regions, quite regularly. Both Olaf and Eva will die while campaigning in England, both shuffling off Debal Halle in the year 870. Olaf's widow, meanwhile, will take refuge in Scotland before striking out with her entourage for the new Eldorado of Iceland. We have met her already in this series, or the deep

minded, the Norse world's first great matriarch. And Eva, he could, as we have also heard in a previous

episode, be the Viking king who skeleton was unearthed in the grand burial site at Repton,

“Darbyshire. Male shepel will be dead by them too. There was the 9th century wears on”

the Viking threat wings, Norseman began drifting off to seek a new life in England's Danelore. Dublin will, ultimately fall to Irish rule, but not until 902. It will bring to an end Ireland's first Viking age. In one of our earlier episodes, Eva's father, Ragnar, had launched his audacious attack on Paris. This was in the year 845, around the same time torquest appeared in Ireland. The Paris attack had come about as Viking sought to exploit the chaos of the Karolingian civil wars.

Chaos, of course, being the Vikings perfect mood music. Aside from trading and looting, there was easy money to be made by hiring themselves out as mercenaries. Or better still, just staying put and waiting to be paid off. It is a ransom we have already come across,

known as Dane Gelt, basically one big protection racket, literally money for nothing.

But just sitting on his backside, Ragnar had trousered our whopping six tons of silver. If the Franks thought the Vikings would simply go away, then just like the Anglo-Saxons, more fool them. Levi Roach is the professor of medieval history at the University of Exeter. So what we sort of see across the course of the 9th century is a gradual crescendo, a few well of Viking activity in France. Partly, this seems to be kind of a natural development,

if you will, of initial Viking raids, which are kind of smashing grab ones, and then the realization that you can get more booty and then be more successful if you overwinter, rather than going over

“for the summer and then coming back, why not stay there for a few years?”

Lightering with intent is the new go-to profession, one with no salary cap. Yet more Vikings flood into Northern France. With the Frankish realm divided, an authority collapsing, West Frank here is not just going rogue, it is on a fast track to anarchy. But the late 800s, the North's great cities are being attacked and sacked at will.

Roan, Bayer, Shatra, enter into the picture a man who is about to have a profound influence, not just on Francia, but on the entire course of medieval history. He is known in Old Norse as Harolfer. The Franks, unable to pronounce it, given the name by which we know him today. Rolo. We don't know a lot about the early life of Rolo.

We assume he was born sometime in the mid-800s, but as ever, the chronicles are writing with some removed. According to the monk and historian Dudeau of San Quanta, Rolo hailed from Denmark. A later version of the Rolo story, penned by Snorri Stirlison, as part of the Icelandic

Success, as they say, has many fathers. Rolo has a nickname, Rolo the Walker.

“It is said because of his wonderlust, though Snorri puts a spin on that too.”

So physically huge as Rolo, he claims, a veritable jack-reacher of a Viking, that there is no horse capable of bearing his weight. For him, it is a case of Shanks Pony. By all accounts Rolo is a big, big man. And in the finest tradition of Viking heroes, he is kicked out of his homeland, whichever one that might be, supposedly for falling out with a local chieftain.

Clearly, Rolo must, yes, have been a highly impressive individual,

highly successful Viking leader, simply because of his longevity.

You know, in saying it itself, we don't have large, well-established kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, things like that yet. So these leaders are very much kind of warlords, and their position can be quite precarious. So the very fact that Rolo is active for so many years, highly suggestial of his abilities. Before hitting France, Rolo seems to have pitched up an England as part of the great

hedonami. He is said to be pals with Guthrum, Viking King of East Anglia, the one who reconciles with Alfred the Great. With peace sealed and the day-lorer established, it's all a bit sedate for a died in the wool warrior like Rolo. Soon, he is in Francia, making Shatra his operational base. From there, Rolo sets Viking sites once more, upon the jewel in the frankish ground. Paris.

In November 1885, 40 years after Ragnar's expedition, Rolo assembles a massive fleet and around 10,000 warriors, and sails once more up the river San. Tactics have advanced since Ragnar's day. We are now into the age of siege engines and catapults. It will be a nasty, slow, protracted affair. This is this famous siege in '88-5, whereas Rolo is there.

This is the so-called Great Viking Army that's actually been creating huge problems in England for Alfred the Great. And that eventually, Alfred's now being successful, so there's no more easy pickings in England, so some of them settled there, and the rest of them who want to keep going

“raiding. Go somewhere else, that's what you do and you've got boats, that's your strategic advantage,”

and so they move over to France, which is struggling much more so. And there's this great show down where they besieged the city for multiple months. In the summer of 1886, hoping to break the deadlock, Charles the fat, the West frankish king, must as an army and manages to encircle Rolo's forces. If anything, although the siege ends in a defeat of the Vikings, it doesn't

rid down positively to Charles the fat, the emperor of entry rocks up its felt that he's kind of showed up a bit too late, actually, and dragged his feet. Rather than moving for the kill, and learning nothing from what's gone before,

Charles bungs Rolo's seven million silver coins to withdraw.

At which point, Rolo goes off to Plander Ruhr and Bayer, and take for himself a common law wife in the shape of a noble woman named Papa, with whom he has the son who will be his heir. For the pranks, the Viking problem is not going away. Ten years on, two frankish kings down the line, and the latest monarch, Charles the simple tears a leaf out of Alfred the Greates book. Knowing that however much you buy them off,

the Norseman will be back. Charles instead strikes up a deal. Charles's simple decides to make a fateful deal with Rolo, in return for his protection and defense of the mouth of the sandwich's leads of course to Paris. Charles will give him as thief part of the land. This land of the Northman will in time become known in a Frenchified version of the word, as Normandy, its citizens, Normans, Normans.

So in essence, where ends up happening is that Charles the simple is giving the Normans lands

“that mostly they control already, but it is important for them as well, it's formalizing this”

arrangement, and it's providing them a basis and a kind of a longer-term prospect.

sand slowly start to become normans. In return, Rolo must convert to Christianity,

bringing him into their European Brotherhood, plus he must pledge to fight for Charles should the king call upon his services. When Charles's a simple gives away Normandy to Rolo,

“many historians would say he made a fatal mistake. Why give this piece of land to the Vikings?”

The decision he made at the time, I think is quite reasonable, he needed to defend his lands, he needed to defend his capital Paris against further Viking attacks, and he thought by making an allegiance with this Viking, and making a feudal subject of him, he would be able to use the strength of Rolo and his men to defend his realm, and to a large extent it worked. For Rolo, it's a good deal too. He has looked on as over in England his Paul Guthrum is

converted to Christianity, adopted the name Athosdan, and is now running the day more as a kingdom within a kingdom. Some day, a Viking has to grow up. To seal it, Rolo will marry Charles's daughter

“Gisa, quite possibly still an infant at the time, in a purely political union. Rolo's men”

are ambivalent to the latest arrangement, they are unused to the notion of hierarchy. There's a famous story of a Viking siege of Paris, and the French sent out an ambassador, he asks to talk to their king and their responses, we have no king, all of us are kings, who is very, very decentralized. In 911, the Viking formerly known as Rolo,

will become Robert, count to Brewer, first ruler of Normandy, but Rolo will not forget his roots,

and neither in time will his descendants. A mid-great pageantry, today is the day that the Franks and the Vikings formally pledge their

“religions. Rolo and Charles are meeting at Tsar Klaer Sulheb, on the road from Paris to Rolo,”

the village that will give its name to their treaty. There is one small ceremony left to complete, something buried in the small print. Rolo, Robert, must kiss the foot of the Karolingian king and act that will demonstrate his submission. All well and good, but Rolo has a pagan Viking at publicly

uttered an oath. I will never bow at the knee before any man. No man's foot will I kiss.

Still, nothing can be fudged. At the appointed moment, in his stead, Rolo sends forward one of his henchmen. He will act as his proxy. This is something that reads sort of like a Viking legend. But at the official ceremony, Rolo refuses to kiss the foot, Charles is simply instead asking one of his men to do it for him. At which point his men takes the foot of Charles the simple, without bowing down instead lifting Charles's foot to his mouth kissing it and then dropping him

on the ground. Classic Viking negotiation. The hapless monarch tumble is flattened his back, much to the muth of Rolo's on to Rolo. This April on the Neuser Podcast Network, Real Vikings continues as the Norseman journey through the Med over to Ireland and across to North America. On short history of, we witness the U.S. civil war and follow the remarkable life of Bob Dylan. On real survival stories, we're marooned in the Indian

ocean in a survival story truly for the ages. And in Sherlock Holmes' short stories, an Australian expat is found dead near a body of water and his son is in the frame, in the boscom valley mystery. Get all of these shows and more early and add free on Neuser Plus. And if you haven't already, get your hands in a copy of Neuser's book, a short history of ancient Rome. Available in all good bookshops and wherever you get your audiobooks.

With stability now in Francia, some of the Vikings turn their eyes to Ireland again. Three years after Rolo's inauguration, in 914, they might afresh a salt and old hypernia.

Citric one eyed, great grandson Aviva, notably reclaims Dublin. But learning from previous

“experience, the Norseman will never make a series attempted a full-on occupation of the island.”

The long ports will always face seawords, secured and reconciled to trade.

By 950, the Viking military incursions will peter out. But something has been happening for the passage of time in those trading hubs and their expanding surrounds. The result of over a century of intermingling intermarriage, and let's not be caught here, intercourse. A whole new strain of people has emerged, people who are what you would call mixed race, part Celtic, part Scandinavian.

It's an increasing trend among settler Vikings. The Norseman had been more than happy to adopt the local ways and forgo their mother tongue too, to adopt the native language,

in this case Gaelic. Some haven't offend to abandon their pagan ways for Christ.

“We see the Vikings assert themselves in the political order in Ireland and become a merchant”

sort of elite that is stationed along the rivers and coasts. And so, in Ireland, the Norse became integrated into the political landscape. This new strain in Irish society will be known as Norse Gales, or a high-burner Norse. So this is a fusion, a hybridization of cultural elements taken from the Irish and from the Scandinavian. Norse Gales will find themselves at the core of a new dynasty, the sions of Eva,

or Eva, whose realm extends along the Gaelic shores. The kinds of Vikings had ships. They were quite useful allies to have in Irish connections across the Irish sea, so to the Isle of Man, to Wales and to the Gaelic-speaking lands in what we would now think of this as Scotland and the Isles. So the Irish animals are one source that gives us a bit more information about the Scandinavians as settlers, not peaceful

sublars, but as people who do become part of the world of Irish politics. The same process of integration will soon be happening in Normandy. As he then roll over comes Christian Count Robert, so the Northman or Normans enjoy the fruits of what you might call settled status, adopting the local language, becoming culturally French. Apparently Norse dies out within a generation, and the same thing is true down south in Italy.

Same thing, they just adopt Italian or Arabic, whatever the local cultures are. And this makes them harder to see because they kind of just disappear, and they are very pragmatic. They take what works, and they found these incredibly stable states in what had been

a very chaotic Europe. There's no doubt that there is a will to assimilate, because ultimately

if we're going to rule these people successfully, we actually need their language, but also if we're going to integrate into that aristocratic class, where we see great benefits accruing from. If we're going to become a part of that, we need to adopt those cultural trappings. In England, the Norse and Anglo-Saxon languages and customs are similar enough for there to be a more organic cultural merger, whereas in Ireland and in Normandy,

“the only way to get by is to go all in to go native.”

Rollo is good to his word. Rooling like the most frankish of autocrats, he transforms Normandy into a thriving economic proposition, a trading powerhouse and a bastion of agriculture. Charles the simple is vindicated, viking raids up the sin, cease or together. So seriously does Roolo take law and order, but he decrees farmers be able to leave their tools

in the fields at night. Anyone court stealing is to be hanged in public, and they are. As for the military alliance that was part of the deal, Roolo honours that too. In 923 he joins Charles in a war against Burgundy. Old Habits die hard. As with other Christian converts, the question remains as to whether Roolo's is a genuine spiritual rebirth, or just a flag of

convenience. On his deathbed, Roolo is said to have hedged his bets. Not wishing to be kept out of Valhalla,

to a turn for this barbarous act, he decrees that gold be distributed to the poor. The Lord appears to have been merciful. Roolo, count Roolo, is late to rest and wrong cathedral in 933, having lived well into his eighties. By the 11th century, the great

“appease of Normandy will become the most important in Western Christendom, just as the Irish ones”

had been before. Roolo's effect has been profound. So our best source is from a writer known as Dudo of Sankantal, who is writing at the Norman Ducal Court, starting in about the 990s. If we're looking at that, he is the mythical founder. He is the kind of the great individual who creates Normandy. It's not very historical, but it does reflect as how Roolo is remembered in later Normandy and he is remembered as this

person who was the start of everything. In Ireland, by the mid-10th century, the long ports have grown into many kingdoms,

“viking micro-states. Find when the Norsemen are behaving themselves, but not when they have”

ambition, and not when they are unable to keep their hands off Ireland's family silver. One such man is the King of Dublin, Olaf Citrixon. He's a Norsegale at 1.2 his King of Nathumbria over in England. The Irish call him Amlave Kudan, or Olaf Sandor. He will become in his own way, the last of the Eeverids. In the 970s, his periodic raiding into the Irish midlands is going to bring him into conflict

with high-king, male-shepel-makdomal, great-great-grandson of the original male.

To cut a long story short, a rather complicated one, male-the-second will defeat Olaf in battle.

“Olaf will flee to the Hebrideena island of Ionah to become a monk.”

But a strident male is not a welcome prospect to his Irish rivals, including a chieftain from the southwest. His name is Brian Borough. Brian Borough is an erudite soul, a man schooled in Latin and Greek and who can bash out of mean tune on a harp. But he is no shrinking violet. In the finest tradition, he is also a fearsome warrior.

Hailing from the powerful Delkassian clan, he will rise to become King of Munster.

As the 12th of 12 sons, it had seemed an unlikely proposition, but it is the Vikings who bear responsibility here, killing not just his brothers, but his father too. Needless to say, Brian is not predisposed to Norsemen, Nor skills or to be honest, Norse anything. It is his vowed intention to avenge his family and kick the Vikings out of Ireland once and for all. Over the long years of fighting, Borough has been a student of Viking fighting methods,

especially their use of sea power. To beat the Norsemen, he will play them at their own game.

He is the first Irish ruler to develop a navy, modeling his tactics on those used by his foe.

In 977, he defeats a Viking fleet at the mouth of the river Shannon. A year later, he sees his memory. But Brian's expansionism brings him into conflict with his neighbors, and of course, the Hiking male the second. It will be a long bloody struggle. But by 1996, Brian Borough will be in control of the whole of the South of Ireland. Male the second still with the title of Hiking, will be in control of the North. But bear with us, there's another male, male Morda. He's the King

of Lester, and he's not happy with this divying up of Ireland. Morda strikes up an alliance with the latest Viking King of Dublin. Sick Tricks silk beard. If it seems complicated, don't worry. In 1999, Brian takes Dublin, but he decides to leave Hiking rule intact there.

Church, Brian defeats the whole doubt province of Ulster. In 1011, at our mar, he signs himself

“not just Hiking, but Emperor Tour Scott Horton, King of the Gales.”

Peace, as ever, is a pipe dream. Silk beard has been busy fermenting descent, within months, Ulster and Lester will rise up. Morda's Lester will again rally to the Viking cause, along with Norse Gale mercenaries shipped in from the Scottish Highlands and Ireland. In 1014, Brian Borough will lead his man into the landmark Showdown, the battle of Clumtop, fought on the coast just north of Dublin. In what is nowadays one of the modern capital's

affluent suburbs. Sick-trick silk beard, King of Dublin, makes a symbolic stand.

“He will fight, in perhaps the last time ever, for a Viking, under the raven banner of Odin.”

Montef is by any account, a savage battle, a critical moment in the story of Ireland.

The 7,000 men of Brian are pitched against a 5,000 men of silk beard and his allies, in fighting that rages from dawn till dusk, 10,000 men will die. It will go down in history as the moment at which Brian finally, cautious the Norseman. United Ireland in the process is beloved harbour taken as the new national symbol. As with the legend of Alfred the Great, there is of course a degree of historical license to

“pride. That of the scholar, the warrior King, the quasi-saint, who delivers his people from evil.”

In fact, Brian Borough goes one further than Alfred, achieving something else to secure his legend, a martyr's death, perishing on the battlefield, though not quite in the manner you might imagine. It's April 23rd, 10, 14, good Friday. It's been a momentous day, a bloody one. At the shore of Bodys' Bob on the tide, on land the fields of cluntafus strewn with corpses, savage dismembered, a viscerated. Though beaten, there is still Viking units of foot,

a one led by a warlord named Brodia will not accept defeat. If he is to exit this drama stage left, then he will do so with the biggest scope of all. In their victory, it seems Brian's man have let their guard down, and so amid the chaos and in the twilight, Brodia leads his hitman through Brian's lines. At the rear, on a piece of high ground they see it. Brian Borough's tent, edging round the borders they creep up, ambition the guards and slitting their

thrones. But inside, this is not how Brodia imagined it. All he finds is an old man, at least 70 years old. Years alone, frail, as a long-white beard and his kneeling half blind beside his bed,

and is clasped in prayer. Brodia assumes him at first to be a priest, but then he realizes,

this is Brian Borough. Vikings are not given to sentiment. Rodia slays Brian anyway. Some say he swings his axe to decapitate him. It's a cruel conclusion to the life of Brian, an ignoble act against an old man on the part of his killer. So second is a rival Viking it is said, a man named Oof that he will later slice Brodia's stomach open. He will force him to walk in circles round a tree,

holding his own spilled guts until he dies.

The winner in the story is male shaknolda second, hedging his beds,

armies slaughtered each other. Now he will again be hiking.

“But the truth is, with the rise of the North Gales, what does kicking the Vikings out of Ireland”

actually mean? It is hard to tell anymore just where the Irish end and the North begin. After a presence on the island for some 200 years, Norse Gales sit as Viking kings. There are Norse mercenaries on both sides. Even silkbeard's Odin banner seems to touch the Atrical, a waving of a football scar for an old team. A Viking by tradition, silkbeard is in fact a fit generation Norse Gale. To muddy the waters even further, he is also married to Brian Boru's daughter,

Slania. Soon after the battle he goes on a pilgrimage to Rome and returns to found

“Dublin's Christchurch, Ireland's first cathedral. For better, for worse, the blood of the Vikings”

their Scandinavian DNA is deeply embedded in the Irish story. Today there are many surnames that suggest Viking heritage. Cotta, Jennings, Helpin, McMahonans, Hendrick, Broderick, or Rook amongst others. McCalliff, that means son of Olaugh. Locklin, Higgins, they mean quite literally Viking. And dark foreigner and Galeg is Odewal contracted along the way to Doyle. To similar story over in Normandy, if you're a French person by the name of Angoof,

Humphua, Osmo, Gomo, or Eva, meaning Eva. And many more besides, you most likely have Nordic

roots. Normandy will become a powerful medieval kingdom. It will usher in an age of feudalism,

imposing castles, knights in armour, and the trappings of what we traditionally associate with the Middle Ages. But its Viking maritime heritage will remain to the fore. Norman Feets, like the North Man of Old, will sweep into the Mediterranean. In 1130, they will establish a colony in Sicily. It will evolve into the kingdom of the two Siciles, a significant Italian state. Normans, too, will be at the vanguard of the Crusades to the Holy Land. The old Vikings

“will become defenders of the new faith. Dublin, meanwhile, will rise as one of the most important”

commercial hubs of the age. It's much and plus dominated by Norse Gales. They essentially form modern Ireland, I know if we have any Irish listeners, they might get upset at that, but all I mean by that is they found Dublin and a lot of the major cities as well

and give it kind of this organization. The Viking bases in Ireland that become the first towns

that link Ireland into the northern arch of trade that leads all the way over to the Kaspian Sea in the Black Sea, the Caliphate of Baghdad and the Empire of Byzantium, those towns grew up during the Viking age. The genesis of those towns was the interactions between the native Irish and Scandinavian traders. The Norse Gales have a signature piece of jewelry, the Ringpin Roach. It will become a fashion item right across the Viking world, a perennial archaeological artifact found as far

a field as North America. But there is always that sinister side to the commercial reach. That

is peak. Dublin is slave central, an international exchange for human cargo. Something that would have been antithetical to its patron saint, Patrick, who was himself dragged to Ireland in bondage. Let's go back to Rolo. When Rolo dies in 933, the rule of Normandy passes to his son, William Long Sword. In 1066, his great-grandson, the new Duke of Normandy, also called William, will cast his gaze across the English channel. For there, in Anglo-Saxon England, a succession crisis is brewing,

to the English throne. In the next episode,

“banished from Iceland, a criminal named Eric the Red puts to see. He will discover new land and”

found a spin-off colony, Greenland. But it's his son, Leaf, who will push Viking exploration

to the limit. He will arrive on the shores of North America. That's next time.

“You can listen to the next two episodes of real Vikings right now, without waiting and without”

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“K-E. Really, right, Neer. Hello, this is Neer. It's time to get to the right moment.”

To get to the cafe, to get to our place or to the right. To the right.