"Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now… Behold, the church of St Cuthbert, splattered with the blood of its priests, despoiled of all its ornaments… given up as prey to a pagan people." The religious scholar, Alcuin of York, writing in the late 8th century, had just experienced a bad case of the Vikings. Fiery dragons had been seen in the sky, followed by the arrival of raiders in longboats. For the next two centuries, the pattern of mayhem continued, and the caricature of the Viking as a kind of Scandinavian pillage idiot became thoroughly … Continue reading Rampaging Hordes – or Darlings of the Dark Ages?