Ivar the Boneless was of Danish pedigreed pagan blood. He arrived in England in 865 to meet up with his brothers – Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, Bjorn Ironside, Halfdan and Ubba – who had established winter camps on the island.
Their attention now was the conquest of England.
At the time England’s four Christian kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, and Wessex had already endured over 70 years of Viking attacks. But, East Anglia, Northumbria, and Mercia fell into the hands of the Danes and Wessex, under King Alfred the Great. These regions managed to remain independent and the king bravely defend his land against the Vikings.
Taking England
When Ivar took England, it wasn’t considered a settlement or expansion. It was war. After one of these war battles at Edington in 878 between Alfred and Guthrum, a peace treaty was signed. And a line was drawn from Chester to the mouth of the River Thames creating a north-south divide. Danish law took precedence in the north and thus the Danish Viking colony became known as Danelaw.
The capital of Danelaw became Eoforwic (Danish Jorvik), or York. Viking settlers flooded into the city, which was already one of the most important Anglo-Saxon centres in England. It was on an important trade route from the Baltic to Greenland. And it was here that materials and goods came into the land from all over the world.
York
The city of York boomed and was second only to London. Its population grew rapidly from 2,000 to 10,000 as it attracted people from all over the Viking territories. It was such an unusual settlement. It was not what the Vikings were used to in Scandinavia and other lands. But the Vikings told of York being a ‘strange experience’. It was a centre of manufacture, craft, and design, and trade and settlement just grew and grew.
Not all positive
But, this new city life had its downsides. Researchers have found eggs from intestinal parasites, which proves a serious lack of sanitation. This severely impacted life expectancy. 50% of the Viking women were dead by 35 and men were lucky to make it to 50.
By the second and third generations, the attacks on the locals turned to assimilation. Viking blood mixed with the Anglo-Saxons. This led to cultural fusion to give northern England a distinct character, still evident today.
Viking influence
Words such as ‘root’, ‘eggs’, ‘skirt’, ‘bag’, ‘sky’, ‘window’, ‘skin’, ‘leg’, ‘skull’, emotion words such as ‘angry’ and’ happy’, and verbs such as ‘give’, ‘take’, ‘get’ and ‘call’, all find their roots in the Viking language.
Place names had Norse influence too, wholly or partly. So, for example, Vikings gave place names ending in ‘by’ such as Whitby, Grimsby, Selby (‘by’ means a settlement, village or a farmstead).
The amazing Vikings impacted all aspects of life in Britain, and fused with the Anglo-Saxons of England, Their influence was also felt globally and they were utterly remarkable.
