Shownotes Transcript
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Join me, Holly Frey, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin,
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We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here. 10th century Norway, a world of unbridled ambition and bloodshed.
Ragnhild the Mighty, wife of Harald Fairhair, the first king to unite his country, gives birth to a son. The boy, Erik, is destined for greatness from the start. But it is his own actions that will earn him a name that will echo through the ages: Bloodaxe. From his earliest years, Erik shows a fierce appetite for battle and conquest.
When he turns 12, his father gives him five longships, each manned by a crew of hardened Norse warriors. With this small fleet, Erik set sail on his first expedition, eager to prove himself worthy of his royal blood. For four long years, Erik and his men terrorized the coasts of the Baltic, Denmark, and Frisia. The young prince quickly gains a reputation for his brutal efficiency in battle and his merciless treatment of his enemies.
But it is during a raid on the shores of Scotland that Eric will earn his infamous name. As the Norse longships approach the Scottish coast, the local defenders rally to repel the invaders. Eric is swift to lead his men into the fray. In the thick of battle, the young prince finds himself face to face with a towering Scottish warrior, rising high with his massive war axe.
With a primal roar, Eric swings his own axe in a deadly arc. The blade bites deep into his opponent's neck, nearly severing the man's head from his body. Blood sprays forth in a crimson fountain, drenching Eric and his weapon. As the Scottish warrior falls, Eric stands triumphant, his axe dripping red with the blood of his vanquished foe. Times to come will forever know Eric as Blood Axe.
The tale of his brutal victory spreads like wildfire among both his allies and his enemies. Some say that the nickname is given to him by his own men, in awe of their leader's ferocity. Others claim it is whispered in fear by those who opposed him. Regardless of its origin, the name Bloodaxe becomes synonymous with Eric's ruthless determination and uncompromising approach to warfare.
He embraces the epithet, using it to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies and inspire loyalty among his followers. As Erik continues his raids along the coasts of Ireland, Wales, and even as far as France, his reputation grows. He is no longer just a Prince of Norway, but a legendary Viking warrior in his own right. Every victory, every conquered territory adds to the legend of Erik Bloodaxe.
But with great power come great enemies. As Erik returns to Norway to claim his father's throne, he finds that his path to kingship will be paved with the blood of his own kin. The name Bloodaxe will take on an even darker meaning as Erik faces the greatest challenge of his life: securing his claim to the crown of Norway, no matter the cost. Well, that's how some versions of the legend of Erik's Bloodaxe go. Or at least how he might have got his name.
Joining me today to find out more about Eric Bloodaxe and maybe dispel some of the myths is John Sadler. His new book, Eric Bloodaxe, The Viking, I Shall Die Laughing, is remarkably the first nonfiction account of Eric's life, offering illuminating insights into this legendary Viking.
Welcome to Gone Medieval, John. And we're glad to be here. I am excited for you to be here today because we are doing one of those big names, which for medieval historians, I think conjures up a lot of images. But if you simply say the name Eric Bloodaxe, I think non-historians prick their ears up right away. So can you just give us a kind of pressy about where one gets a name like this? How do you get
called Eric Bloodaxe and lived to tell the tale. Well, I think one of the remarkable things about Eric is he managed to clock up 70 before he finally went down in his last battle, which is a pretty big age in those days. It would appear a marvelous sort of comic strip title as Bloodaxe is,
that it was Blodaxer and he got the name because of the number of his brothers that he killed. He had a lot of brothers. At the fair, most of them were trying to kill him. When his father died, I think he left 19 sons altogether. And although their father, Harald Færhjell, was King of Norway, he was the first king. So there was no idea of primogeniture. There was no concept of a natural succession. Basically, it was last man standing. And it was determined he would be the last man standing.
It's a beautiful tradition and culture.
What can I say? I suppose that's an important distinction, though, because obviously this seems fairly ruthless. However, it fundamentally just is the case that this particular society just didn't have the same social rules that we do now. And absolutely, fratricide was on the menu in this circumstance. Obviously, Scandinavian society was emerging from a period where there were, and if you look at the geography, particularly of Norway, there's only 3% of the land can be cultivated.
And the country split up by mountain ranges into a whole number of separate pockets. And for centuries, those little areas had all been ruled by their own local king, the local, the leading man and leading family of the area. And Viking society was very structured. You had your royalty tier, you had your gentry tier, you had your not quite gentry tier.
You had your free men, and then you had basically all the rest, who didn't count. And the idea that one man, one king would rule the whole country wasn't just novel. It was an anathema to most of the regional groups because the regional groups, like regions everywhere, didn't much care for each other. And they certainly weren't about to take orders from somebody from that side of the mountain.
So, Harald Feiner, whose father was a man who set out on a mission to unite Norway as one kingdom, under him, of course, as king, had a pretty uphill struggle. And he was successful, largely because he killed anybody who got in his way, and because he was so much feared by the end of his period of conquest, and he ruled for over 50 years.
He was so afraid that nobody actually did raise a hand against him. But that didn't mean that the independent tendencies wouldn't arise once he died. That's why I suppose that there is a great way of getting out in front of that is by showing that one is willing to kill one's own brothers. That does put you in pretty good standing for attempting to have a quite...
violent control over a disparate group of people who they themselves are quite violent i mean that just sort of is how society is working in these circumstances is i mean there's been an effort by some historians to kind of rehabilitate vikings as basically farmers traders fishermen seafarers merchants all of which they were great explorers yes great craftsmen yes but at the end of the day they were an exceptionally violent society because they're getting away from it
I agree. I was just going to say one of my jokes about it. So I always say, uh-huh, trading what? If you read any of the sagas,
It's the sort of thing that Quentin Tarantino would love. It's a non-stop cycle of gratuitous sex and violence. It describes every blow, every cut, every thrust. And it's clear that that's what the audience is expecting. That's what they revel in. They want to hear stories of bloodshed and violence and heroism. They're not really interested in anything too fluffy.
You raise a good point here. So we have these sagas which tell us rather a lot about Eric Blood acts. What are the main distinctions between contemporary sources or saga-based sources when we're attempting to find out about these individuals? Because the sagas really are kind of selling it, aren't they? They are the big blockbuster movies of the time. Sagas, if we talk about British newspapers, are much more Daily Mail than they are Taylor Crowe.
they're sensational they are stories they were passed down initially by word of mouth around the fire whenever we wanted to hear a ripping tale of a viking type hero and for the most part they weren't written down until centuries later many of them by snorri's girls from iceland
And they may well have been changed and altered, added to and taken away from in that time. And it's a bit like talking about the Trojan War and saying Homer is the main source. Yes, he is. But we can't prove it. We can't prove any of it. It's a cracking tale. And the level of detail tends to make you think there's a kernel of truth there. But you certainly can't prove it. In terms of actual chronicle sources, contemporary records that would substantiate the story of Eric,
These are very, very few and far between because the Vikings don't write about themselves. Others write about them, but they don't. And the others who are writing about them have generally just been duffed up by them or have their women stolen or their cattle stolen. The women they can live with, but the cattle, that's quite embarrassing. And not to mention the fact that their church has just been trashed and their priests turned into slaves or dog food. So there tends to be a certain amount of bias against the Vikings, which in the circumstances is quite understandable. So again, we
We don't have a chronicle source. We don't have an Anglo-Saxon chronicle from the Vikings, which gives us a year-by-year, blow-by-blow account of what was going on. We simply don't have that. So what we have is a patriarch of saga sources, which have to be treated with extreme caution. And we have a number of chronicle sources which are referring to the Vikings, written about them, but not by them. And again, there's a lot of bias there, and indeed a whole world of inaccuracies.
One of the issues is it's really seductive to kind of go down the route of looking at the sagas because they're fun. They do exactly what they're meant to do. But are there any near contemporary sources that talk about Eric at all? Or are we just interpolating from literary sources at this point? Eric, assuming Eric, the Eric of England is the Eric of Norway. Once he gets to England, there are references to his career in England, which really covers quite a short period.
two very short bursts as King in the North based at York are written in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and a few other sources. But they are very, very fleeting, these referrals. And whilst we might say, well, yeah, okay, these look like this could be pretty much accurate, it still doesn't tell us a lot.
And it doesn't really give us any picture of the human Eric Bloodaxe. And the information that they give us sometimes is contradictory. And again, we are left in no small measure in the realm of heroic conjecture.
trying to piece the various bits together to get so many of the truth. And that's why it's sort of disputed why we have this question lingering about, is this Eric of Norway? Is this Eric of England? Because it's kind of murky, isn't it? The information that we do have. Yeah. It's extremely murky. Some contemporary academics, writers like Professor Claire Downham, who's an extremely distinguished academic of this period, have expressed no doubt, but they've pointed out
that there is no actual hard evidence that tells us that Erik Bloodaxe of Norway was the same Erik as who ruled twice in Northumbria. The dates all fit, sort of, and it would seem likely that if I was Archbishop Wulfstan of Northumbria, the great power broker, if I was looking for somebody who could stand up,
to the power of the Kings of Wessex, I'd want somebody with a proven track record, somebody who had a name and a reputation, which Eric certainly did have. And therefore you say, well, there's no other Eric Bloodaxe being mentioned, so it must be the same guy. I don't think that's unreasonable.
If I was in a court of law, I couldn't swear that this is the absolute truth, not by a long way. It's an interesting one too, because when we start throwing Erik around in terms of his involvement in England, it's also an interesting one because in theory, he's not even the initial Norwegian connection over to the English, right? You know, we have, we think, correct me if I'm wrong, because I could be, we think that
that the initial son that is sent over is Hakon, who is kind of, I think, Hakon the Good. Great name. You know, their families contain multitudes. Everyone's got a good and everyone's got a bloodhound.
So he kind of gets sent over by his father to be a fosterling to King Æthelstan. So what would that mean for Erik then? Your younger brother is sent off. Here you are in Norway, which is a pretty sweet deal. Your dad has united it. But is there knock-on implications for him as a slightly older son? Clearly. Erik is, of course, hoping to inherit his father's kingdom when his father dies.
And the evidence clearly suggested during the latter years of Fairhair's life, and he would be in his 80s by the time he died, so he was a big age, he shared the throne with Eric, which would suggest that he was grooming Eric to take over. Sending your youngest son, or younger son, to the court of as powerful a monarch as Athelstan was a sound political move. It means you're building a bridge between
between England and Athelstan was creating England at this time at the same time as Harald has created Norway so there's a certain logic there but of course it comes back to bite Eric because Athelstan backs Harkon the good when Harkon takes Eric on and Eric simply can't compete with Athelstan and of course Harkon the good is
It's called Harkin the Good because he probably wasn't as bad as Eric. He's only called the good, I think, by comparison. Harkin himself is a pretty tough customer. He's no pushover. And again, he rules Norway for a considerable period and finally goes down in battle against Eric's sons some decades later. So I think what was in Harold's mind, as far as we can tell, when he sends Harkin away, he might have sent Harkin away.
So Erich didn't feel the need to kill him himself. He was out of harm's way in that sense. At the same time, his would have been a very valuable diplomatic mission to the court of Wattelstein, who was then one of Europe's most powerful monarchs.
Hakon comes back then, though, right? You know, because we have then the death of Athelstan and Hakon returns to Norway. What happens then? You know, you think, you know, you're Erik. You're like, great, this is fantastic. I'm co-ruling with my father. Here I am in Norway. And then suddenly your brother returns. What does this mean? Well, it's not good news. It means you need to move on fairly rapidly because it seems that Erik, whatever gifts of rule, of monarchy his father had, and how it wasn't just about brute force.
He obviously understood diplomacy. He understood the need to make dynastic marriages, the need to bring the nobles on side if he's going to keep the whole job together. Erik doesn't seem to have understood this. Erik, as soon as his father dies, is thrown into a period of warfare with his other brothers, who he defeats. And then suddenly Harkin arrives back at a time when, whether he's actively supported by English arms, we don't know. Possibly. Most likely, Athelstan's given him a pay chest. And the loyalty of the Norwegian lords is very much dependent on who's writing the cheque.
at that particular time. And it does appear that the Norwegian Lords were chafing under the harsh rule of Erik, and Harkon appeared to be a safer option.
And I mean, I guess that's not a great way to show back up at your kind of bloodthirsty brother's court. Like, hey, I'm back from England. I've got all of this money. You know, don't worry. This is not a threat to us. You and I might just be like, oh, that's great. As a foreign person myself, you know, whenever I return to my family, I bring a bag full of, you know, obscure and delight British treats, you know. Absolutely.
The same thing. And I think what would have happened, of course, when as soon as Harald died, Harker would have begun making overtures to the Norwegian princelings. Athelstan would have seen the opportunity to extend his own influence into Norway and therefore would have provided him with substantial financial backing.
And financial backing was the key. We know all those who became kings of Norway, people like St. Olaf and Harald Hadradi, only made their bid when they had a significant war chest amassed. So really, it's
It's Geldkrieg, as the Germans would call it. Money is as important as men in arms. I think that there's also an important kind of note here as well, because your brother shows back up with all of this money, and that is in and of itself somewhat of an implicit threat within this society. And also, I think it's kind of important to know, you know, who is your brother? You know, your brother's been away in England. Do you actually know this guy? You know, it comes across...
much more as a threat in this particular social milieu. This isn't your brother who you played next to near the hearth all day. This is a somewhat foreign person.
who can be read as a direct threat to one's livelihood, if not their life, when he shows back up. Yes, so just look at Shakespeare. Look at Richard III when he speaks of his best, Clarence thou art next. Well, we all probably fight with our siblings, but Royal Brothers probably do so rather more than others because the state's
are very high. And blood may be thicker than water, but gold generally is a good deal thicker than both. And the history of Scandinavia at this time keeps on showing the guy with the big bucks has a good chance of coming out on top. Fundamentally, Eric is the one who comes out on top in this. Whether or not there was an actual threat, Eric, how shall we say this politely, eliminates his threat, we think. He does. Yeah. That's what I'm asking for it.
It's no more him. It's, in fairness to Eric, yes, he was a pretty tough and utterly ruthless character, but he lived in a tough and ruthless age. If he hadn't turned on his brothers, they certainly would have done for him. Probably would have tried to do for the time. And of course, once the king died, all the various power factions within the regions begin to align and maybe choose their own candidate. They'll probably choose the guy who they think is weakest because they know they're going to get their own way under him.
So it becomes very, very complex. And this very fragile carapace of royalty which Harold has created simply falls apart. It's not been established long enough. The idea that one king will succeed another hasn't taken root. As far as the Norwegian earls are concerned, they're waiting for him to die so they can revert back to square one. Is he bringing a similar level of violence to the earls, for example, as well? We don't know. That's the short answer. We do not know. We're
We get a reference to him winning a sea battle.
in the north of Norway, presumably against the rebellious earls, because the northern earls tended to be particularly independently minded. And Erik has built up, during his father's lifetime, a reputation as a successful Viking, as a pirate, effectively. Because Erik knows he has to build up his war chest as well. Because he knows when his father dies, there's going to be a fight. And therefore, the greater level of resources that he possesses,
the stronger his position will be. So Eric, probably like most Vikings, has a spring cruise and an autumn cruise. It sounds very nice, but actually means you go out and kill and rape a village and take slaves and attempt to build up the bank balance to its maximum point when you know you're going to need it. So Eric will have been aware from a fairly early age that he needs to have a significant cash deposit behind him.
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Join me, Holly Frey, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin,
You'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on Our Skin. Listen to Our Skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He does a great job of consolidating wealth and consolidating power. You know, he's got a pretty good shot at having all these things because his father was great at that as well. Now, in your book, though, you talk a little bit about what it takes to be that kind of Viking, what it takes to be that kind of podcast.
pirate, essentially. And you go into a lot of detail about the weapons that Eric would have been good at using. Well, we've got a name like Eric Bloodaxe. Does that mean that this is a guy who has a preferred weapon of choice? You know, when he goes cruising, has he got an axe in his back pocket? Or is this, you know, a reference to something else that we don't quite understand here in the 21st century? Eric is almost certainly a great warrior.
You have to be. The Vikings like great warriors. It's like Achilles and Hector. They follow the man who has the reputation, who is a great fighting man. He can't fake that. And because you're standing there in the front of the ship, you are the must-kill target in a sea battle or a land battle. So you've got to know what you're doing.
You've got to be highly skilled with your weapons just to survive from day to day. And clearly, I think Eric's reputation, therefore, is not built on hot air or spin or social media. It's built on reality. He is a seriously tough customer. And yes, the name Blood Axe would suggest that the axe, long-handled Danish axe, may have been his favorite weapon. But a true Viking warrior would be expected to be equally athletic.
at home with any of the main weapons: spear, axe, saw, the whole arsenal. You have to be good with that because at any point you might end up using any or all of them. So I mean this is the, I guess, the sexy top things that we always talk about with Vikings. I'm as bad as a saga, right? I go right in and I'm like, "Tell me about the killing, John."
There is some Schwarzenegger, you know, yeah. Exactly, you know? But at the same time, one has to admit that there is a kind of diplomatic background as well that it's happening. And one of the things that you've mentioned now is there are good marriages happening behind the scenes as well, which is so important and perhaps less sexy, a little bit less attention grabbing. Do we know anything about who Eric gets married off to as a result of all of this? Oh, yes, we do. His queen.
much hated by the saga writers is Gunnhild. I was left with the view that the story and the other saga writers, the saga compilers, were pretty misogynistic because they don't necessarily expect to have strong women around. And if she's a strong woman, she must be a witch. She's got to be a wronged.
It also means that Erik's excesses can be blamed on his wife. Where we get to the point where in Egil's saga, where Egil is shipwrecked, of course, in Yorkshire and finds himself, rather embarrassingly, at Erik's court. And of course, there's a lot of form between Erik and Egil. And Egil, certainly we know, according to his own saga, has killed one of Erik's sons. Gunnhildr the Queen is all for cutting him into small pieces and feeding him to the fish. But Erik intends to be reasonable.
And Arimbjorn, who is in Siegfried and Beard of Egget, is able to persuade the king to see reason. So Erik comes across as actually not such an unreasonable, vindictive type, where his wife is an absolute cow. And all the way through history, Pearl Gunnhild gets damned. She's in the legends. She's the daughter of a couple of wizards or whatever from the north, from Finland or somewhere. In reality, she was almost certainly
a high-ranking Danish princess. So she was somebody of serious socioeconomic status, actually probably just a little bit further up the ladder than Eric was. And, you know, she certainly was a loyal wife. And when Eric dies, she takes over the family business, if you like. And it's really as a result of her leadership,
that her sons eventually have a great look and becomes king of Norway by killing his uncle, Harkon the Booth. It's such an interesting thing because you get this, you get provided with a literary scapegoat. It's fantastic. You can then big up Erik Bloodaxe, the guy who's got to the throne through fratricide, by saying, oh yeah, you know, all the things you don't like, probably Gunnhilda, probably that woman over there. Yes.
It's just, you know, it's convenient. So was Eric, is Eric Bledox really just a head-backed husband? You know, you don't know. Maybe he only went cruising to get away from his wife. Gentlemen, am I right? Am I right? I mean, this is the thing. You would kind of want a woman like Anilda O'Reilly, especially, you know, a well-connected Dane. You know, they've got
tons of money. And here's Erik, in theory, the king of a newly united Norway, but we're talking about him being over in England. You don't just leave Norway, a nicely united Norway, and go over to England for no particular reason. And we think he actually loses the crown, right? Like, after about a year of
ruling himself. How does that come to be, do we think? When Erik is effectively disposed of his brothers, those who are remaining in Norway, Harkon has clearly ceded the ground for his own return, funded by Athelstan's guild, possibly with English support, actual military support, we don't know. But he lands in Norway, and the Norwegian Jarls, who had never heard by this point, and his harsh rule, they see him as clearly the son of his father, they side with Harkon. And Erik
obviously reads the wind pretty carefully and thinks it's worth time I was somewhere else because I can't compete with this level of wealth and influence, which is why he and all his loyal forces, he must have had a reasonable following, take to their ships and
and apparently then make for the Orkneys, which makes sense because they're obviously Viking, they're a Viking colony. And his father had a very strong connection with the ruling house in Orkney. So that's an obvious first stop. And then what does Eric do to build up the war chest? Well, he continues where he left off. He goes back to Pirates, to the family business. You know, and fair enough. You've always got that to fall back on, right? Get on a ship,
and go somewhere. And if you have the means and the capability, you can make a new life for yourself. His presence is mentioned in Orkney. What do we know about this particular chapter of his life? Again, it's a little bit fragmentary to put it mildly, but we know there was a strong connection between his father and the earls of Orkney, who were his father's nominees. And Eric, I
I imagine during his career of piracy in the course of his father's lifetime, had built up a strong personal connection with the rulers of Orkney.
It's no suggestion he went across to Orkney and conquered the place or beat it up or robbed a village. He was obviously welcomed there as an ally, a friend, and somebody who they knew quite well. Again, from his perspective, Orkney was a superb base for Viking activities. It exposed the whole coast of Scotland and England and the coast of Ireland, which are another lucrative hunting ground for Viking pirates. So it was an obvious base for him to arrive at. And where he could watch what was happening in England, what
watch what was happening in Norway and make the most of any opportunities which happened to arise. This makes it a really reasonable refuge. And also, I guess it makes sense from our standpoint, if we understand that this is kind of a stepping stone on the way to Northumbria, you know, OK, you've been kicked out of Norway, but then you can go pull yourself together in Orkney where, you know, you have friendly people. But of course, again, these are Vikings. They're going to want you to move on eventually. You don't
a guy of this caliber staying at your hearth forever. And we're pretty sure at this point he then skips on over to Northumbria. What do we know about his...
initial stint there? It would appear that the background is that Athelstan, after his great battle of Brunanbur, wherever that was fought, in 937, had come close to realising his grandfather's vision of an Englander actually uniting the whole of England, actually Britain, under one ruler, normally himself. When Athelstan dies, however...
His immediate successor is nowhere near as powerful as he was, and his confederation for a while falls apart. Because the Northumbrians, who were themselves conquered by Vikings in 866-867, now come to prefer a Norse ruler to a southern Englishman. They don't like the House of Wessex, they'd much rather have a northerner,
a Norseman. And obviously by this time, the Norse and Northumbrians, the bloodlines are so intermingled, you can't really say one or the other. What the Northumbrians are about is their independence. That is the number one consideration because a short while before, Northumbria was the leading Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Northumbria had been immensely powerful. They'd gone back a lot, but Northerners saw themselves as independent of the South. We still do.
Is there a difference in terms of how we see Viking rules shake out there as opposed to the Anglo-Saxons? Because I know the Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, this is a place that's incredibly powerful and important as a result of cattle.
primarily, you know, incredibly rich agricultural land. Is there a differentiation when you have Vikings come and take over or is it just kind of same old, same old? Yes, we're still doing cattle farming, but also we go out Viking in the spring and autumn. The main change would be really when the Vikings arrive, when Ivar the Wonderful, actually wonderfully named Ivar the Boneless, defeats Ayela and takes over Northumberland at York. It's really
a change of management. Most average North American farmer wouldn't really know whether he's being ruled by a Viking or a Saxon. Probably wouldn't care. He was still paying taxes. That's the main. So a lot of key manners, key positions and key properties would go to North to reward them for their service, which is what they'd come for in the first place. But then really, it's business as usual. The difference is Anglo-Saxon New York, the Afarwick, is a pretty pale shadow
of Roman Ibarakum. The population declines, it's a bit run down. We'd think it was a bit of a shantytown compared to the Roman precedent. But the Vikings, Ivar and his successors, create this great trading emporium in Jumavik. And the population and the wealth of York rapidly rises again because obviously they've got their links to the Norse kings in Dublin. They've got links to the Frankish court. They've got links to Scandinavia. They've got links to Spain. Links all over Europe.
And the Vikings are great traders. Yes, they're a pretty savage bunch of thugs, but they're also great traders. And we shouldn't forget, no getting away from it, one of their main trades is human misery. They're slavers. They are slavers. It's nothing personal, it's just business as far as they're concerned, but they deal in slaves.
And obviously, reddish-haired, blue-eyed Irish women, a bit like yourself, actually, would be at a considerable premium in the slave markets in Paris or, indeed, across Istanbul or wherever. So they were businessmen as well as farmers. So the Saxons hadn't been as active commercially in terms of international trade as the Vikings were. So really, Viking Age in the Thumbrae was a bit of a boom time.
One way or another, they make things happen. It's easy to be critical of them, and I certainly am. But fundamentally, they've got great tech. They are able to move things around. They're able to make these connections. And I do think that there is, of course, a tendency for us to always say, OK, when Vikings show up, that's bad news. But in the case of Northumbria, I mean, really, Norway is closer than London is. Culturally, you're going to feel more connected than you are to whatever is going on in the South.
There is very much. I mean, there always was in Britain, I think, even back as far as the island is. There was a kind of North-South divide, as there still is. And that was particularly cute at this time because the Northumbrians are desperate to avoid being controlled by the South. And part of that leadership is coming from the church. Archbishop Wollstone of York is the leading prelate in the North. He doesn't want to bend his knee to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Not at all.
The Northern Church, again, which controls many of the seas in what is now southern Scotland, is immensely wealthy and doesn't want to surrender that hegemony to somebody they've never met in Canterbury, who talks in it, talks with a strange estuarial accent. So you don't really want to do that. And the Norsemen who are now so integrated in terms of the bloodstock, really, they're the locals. By the time Eric comes across, the Norsemen are not foreigners. They're the locals. And they are to be preferred to the southerners who are not.
locals. Well, one way or another, you get Erik, right? This is how he shows up and he takes up this mantle. But this doesn't go unchallenged, shall we say? You know, it's not that everyone in the South says, oh, that's fine, they've got a new Viking in, so I guess we give up on Northumbria, right? He has to actually fend off rival claimants from the South and from Norway as well, correct? From Dublin particularly. The Dublin Vikings have their own agenda as far as Northumbria is concerned. And Ivar
The bone has had a strong connection to Ireland. So part of Eric's problem, he's not just facing opposition from the south and the other end, the king. He's facing Ralf Gustafsson in Ireland, who will use any means. The Vikings are not a united front by any means. It's every man for himself. One Viking warlord will not necessarily make common cause with the other. It's quite likely, and it's the old story, my enemy's enemy is automatically my friend. So Eric is in a pretty dodgy position. He's supported by the bishop, the archbishop.
and the Northumbrian Stoke Norse gentry as long as he's viable. The Northerners are acutely aware, and the Addered makes them aware, of how much more powerful Wessex actually is. And if they step out of line, he will, as he does, bring an army up
trash the place just to remind them who's actually boss. That's what ends Eric's first tenure. He's actually successful in battle. He defeats Yad at Castle. But the fact is that the Southerners have such overwhelming strength. One single victory doesn't matter. And eventually, Wulfstad, who's an arch-pragmatist, gets the message and Eric is sent on
on his travels again for a while. Yeah, because he comes back, right? You know, we kind of have an interregnum and then Erik comes back. So what happens in the meantime? Do we know? Is it just kind of like, oh, well, we're trying again and then Erik goes and drums up more support? Or is that a little too simplistic? The events appear to be quite straightforward, but the moves behind those events, I suspect, were long drawn out and extremely complicated. Olaf, when he comes back, is acceptable to Yadred because he's less of a threat
than Eric. But clearly the Northumbrians are still hankering after this independence. And therefore, Wollstan and the other Northumbrian magnates, once again, when they've recovered their confidence, after they kind of break down their resilience, which Yadrid has infected on them, they get their spirit back. Northerns are good at that. And then they think, well,
what the hell, Eric Sourboy will have him back. And he gets another two years. And that is nothing to sneeze at, I think. In a time that is as turbulent as this, kind of being brought back is a huge vote of confidence. Shows us kind of a rather a lot, not just about the violence inherent in the system, of course, but also about how confidences play out and how relationships are made as well. So, you know, yeah, Eric is obviously a very, very powerful warrior, but
He must have been a pretty all right guy as well, considering the various alternatives and the fact that people actually make a play for him. You know, this is our guy. We're going to get Eric back. Things were a little bit more settled under him. Well, by this time, he's in his late 60s. He's no spring chicken. That's a big age for the time.
Very big game. It's like being in your 80s or 90s now. And he, I think we tend to forget or we're not aware of, the valuable connection he gets from Gunnhild. She's a daughter of the king of Denmark. And Denmark's had a settled monarchy for a very long time. The Danes are a powerful monarchical state. And having support, however it's expressed...
from that quarter to your lens a fair bit of weight to any claim that Eric makes he may be able to suggest in the thumb bins that it wouldn't be the first or the last and he could draw on a Danish army to support him well you know that happens with Howard or Viking happens with Howard Hardrada in 1066 so the idea that he might be able to draw up support from the wider Scandinavian world not that long before Newt of course becomes Atlantic North European Emperor
So there is always that character. Eric clearly has quite a substantial war band, as long as he can pay them, and he has therefore a powerful following, who given the colonel of any army he could raise, the Northumbrians have a favour to form about fielding armies. So clearly the Northumbrians feel, in 952, that it's right, the time is right, to have him back and make another statement.
about their independence. I suppose that really tells us a rather a lot about Northumbria itself, not just about Eric as a person, but about the statecraft going on behind the scenes. You know, a name like Eric Bloodaxe, that's who you start paying attention to very quickly. But Northumbria is kind of in its own way a star of the show here. You know, there's a bunch of people that we don't know the names of who are involved in really intricate statecraft. And
Eric just kind of steals the show because he's the guy they bring in. At the same time, when we talk about Lothumbria...
Northumbria doesn't just mean Northumberland or North Yorkshire the way it does today. There are two distinct regions. Really from, say, the Tees south and into Yorkshire, that's the Viking kingdom. From the Tees northward up to the 34th, that's the old Northumbria, which is not ruled by the Vikings. That's ruled by one of the House of Bamber, that's ruled by a Northumbrian earl. And they're players as well, because they are players, and they are obviously valuable allies, either for the Northumbrians or for the kings of Wessex, or only for the Scots.
The Scots are there as well. And then you've got the Irish Vikings, just to steal the mix. So, Eric isn't likely to face his enemies coming at him from any one direction. They can come from any direction, or all directions, at once. So, whoever is sitting in that throne in York, he's in a
pretty precarious position which demands it's not about brute force it demands significant diplomatic and political skill just to keep your bum on the seat I mean it's worth it though it's a really rich kingdom there's rather a lot that's going on you know fantastic trading but fundamentally Eric ends up
losing Northumbria because he dies. He dies at 70 in the Battle of Stainmore. What do we know about this particular death? I mean, what is this guy doing out there in the first place? That's a very good question. I think I had to write a very long chapter with a lot of ifs and buts and maybes in it. I think Eric
had been deposed already. I don't think Stenmore is him hurrying from east to west to meet an enemy. I think it's him moving from west to east to reclaim Northumbria. And an alliance is formed against him of Olaf, of the Earl of Northumberland, all of whom one suspects are funded from Wessex. Yadvid is playing a clever game this time. He's not going for brute force. He's going for skilled, cunning diplomacy and letting the people do the dirty work for him. So he's not directly alienating the Northumbrians by trashing the place.
He's allowing them to fight among themselves effectively. And then when Eric is dead, he'll just say, well, guys, here I am. Nobody left. Last man standing. So I'm suggesting that the Adred is probably behind the coalition that is formed to resist Eric. The route across Stainmore was a sure and certain road from east to west. It was the Roman road. There's still plenty of Roman remains along the road. If...
eric has been forced out of northumbria if he has gone west to recruit men from possibly the weir or city from cumbria or indeed from ireland or wait mean forces coming in from scotland depending how far this checkbook will go at this time he amasses a force marching eastwards from west to east up the state of our class where he's intercepted somewhere near the head of the pass the battle ensues and he and his forces are overwhelmed he's probably outnumbered but
But he decides, because he's a gambler, Eric, at the end of the day, he decides his reputation, his ferocity, his name is enough, and he'll fight his way through. And he's quite made it. Exactly the exact historical power would be King Olaf in, what was it, 1035, at the Battle of Stiklestadt. He knows the odds are against him.
Who thinks about the hell? I'll have a go anyway. Because I've always won in the past. That makes sense. Because if you're in an incredibly strong position, you know, if you're hanging out in York and you've got rather a lot of power and money behind you, there's no way that you're out at Stainmore, you know, swinging an axe around at 70 years old. It's...
likely I would imagine that something is forced to your hand. There's no point in you being on the battlefield if things are fairly stable. I mean, even given the fairly patchy political nature of England at the time. That's right. I think we have, we read about early English histories being, you know, one battle after another. Medieval generals
from this relatively early period, armors would avoid battle if they possibly could. Nobody wanted to fight in a battle unless he had to, or unless he was certain of winning. He would only fight if he thought there was a damn good chance he was going to win. Because once you commit your forces to battle, you actually lose all control. Because once you're in the front line, there's no way you can control the flow of the battle. You have no radio, you've got no comms, and you don't get an overview. There's no way you can actually gauge what's happening on the flanks if you're in the center. If you stand back from the battle line, there's no way, look at him. Yeah,
he's not really one of us. So you're expected to be this kind of Homeric figure leading from the front, in the front line, which makes controlling a battle, we don't know how many, what the numbers are, probably not that great. So Eric, I think, has got to be pretty desperate almost and knows this is his last chance. If he can break
This confederation of enemies ranged against him. He can break them in now and stay, but he's bomb-proof. Do we know who actually killed him? I mean, this is a pretty big head to take, or is this simply a fog of war sort of situation? The man who gets the credit is Earl Machis, who was the Jarl of Thumbria at that time. But in the heat of battle, exactly who is killing who is almost impossible. In the movies, it's always, you know, it's always this great fight between the two heroes. It never happens like that. The line breaks and you simply get rolled over. So exactly who...
which group of men struck Eric down, we don't know.
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is generally taken by marking the end of the independent kingdom of Northumbria and that the kings of Wessex now extend their influence really all the way to the Scottish borders.
and the Earl of Lothumbria becomes a servant of the kings of Wessex. And remember, of course, at that point, 954, there's no border between England and Scotland the way we understand it now. Lothumbrian influence extends as far north as the Firth of Forth, and the border's not fixed till 1018, and the Battle of Carham, when the Tweed becomes the light. So, really, the death of Eric is always taken as, and rightly, I think, taken as, marking the end of an independent kingdom.
Norse stroke and a thumbling kingdom in the North. That's it. The North is now part of England, whether like it or not.
And this is one of the things that makes this story, I don't know, from my standpoint, kind of sad. I like the independent North, whatever. Call me a romantic and you'll be all right. Yeah, why not? But, you know, I think that Eric gets held up at this point as a fairly romantic figure, despite the fact that, you know, he's this big bloodthirsty Viking, you know, he's independent. He's a really good
warrior, he's courageous, but how much of that is just us getting taken in by the various chronicles and sagas, right? Because a lot of what we know about him comes out of the Chronicle of Edgelund. Is this reliable or, you know, again, is this my romanticism and longing for Northumbria coloring my views? It's very difficult to say. In a thousand years since, all of a thousand years, the Vikings who've had many makeovers
And yes, everybody I know who's ever had their DNA tested has had it tested to see if they've got Viking blood. Yeah. Now, 30 years ago, for a while, the most popular movie hero was Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator, the psychopathic robot. And, you know, because in a way, these characters, it's the Achilles type character, the rogue warrior, the great hero.
who, if nothing else, is not deficient in courage, certainly, and who squares up to his enemies and beats them in a fair fight, who is a great warrior. Dale has a resonance today. We like these type of characters. Richard III is a lot more popular than his brother, Edward IV. And he was, you know, Cardinal would tell me he wasn't a bad guy. He was really a very, very nice book. And he was just unlucky with the number of people who had to die around him. We like the bad boys. Bad boys are fun. Jesse James is fun. Butch Cassidy's fun. All the nice guys of history.
are not necessarily that exciting. They might do the adopted livingston, these people, you know, they're great. They can manage their mother's raises, all the rest.
john wesley's they're nice people that do a lot of good but yeah they're bloody boring really you can't bash anybody yeah kids in the backyard are not going to be playing i don't know charles the fourth and establishing churches everywhere you know they want to they want to be a viking they want to hit each other with sticks you know yeah i think that you're absolutely bang on here there is this this tendency for us to put all of our eggs into the heroic basket and i
And certainly I think we can all agree that Eric Blundax is this big heroic figure. But do you think he's an actually successful ruler or is he just dramatic? Well, if you look at it, he was king in all of a very short time. King in the Thumbia twice for two very short times in a 70-year career. So no, he's not a successful ruler. He's not a successful statesman. He is an epic warrior. He's certainly a triad. He's still trying in 70. And he clearly commanded a lot of respect and regard from his contemporaries. He was clearly...
superb material for the saga writers and he fulfills the romantic image of the Vikings' barber. If you look at the statue of Leif Erikson next to the cathedral in Reykjavik, he doesn't look anything like Leif Erikson. Leif Erikson was short and fat.
He was short, fat, rather squat. But the guy in this statue looks like Kirk Douglas. You know, he's square jawed, lantern jawed. He looks really ready for anything. He looks like a heroic figure. But come on, the end of the Vikings, in the duel, are you hoping for Tony Curtis or Kirk Douglas to win? You want Kirk Douglas to win. I do. He doesn't, but never mind, because he can't, he's a bad boy. But somehow...
he's a more tired of character. Absolutely. And I think one of the reasons why we end up talking about Eric as well is he's able to kind of pop up in movies and in TV and in works of fiction because we've got this story about him. And he does, right? Like, you know, you're like, oh, here's Eric, like in some film about the Vikings, you know, this sort of thing. I mean, the Victorians obviously were great romantics. They loved romantic stories. And in Victorian times, there was a lot of...
interest in Norse forebears, this idea of a heroic age of Norsemen. And then, of course, that gets hijacked in the 1930s by the Nazis, again, who use this great Nordic imagery to support their own warped beliefs in weird and completely mad racial theories. So you can cast the Vikings in a number of moons and
It's easy because the Vikings folded to so many molds and they didn't have a mold for themselves. They were just what they were, what they were, what they did. It was the way they were. They didn't necessarily think about it. That was their world. And they then proved over the years to be quite malleable heroes as well as being coming up. They're shippling. These astonishing craft that they built. And they sailed them across the world's ocean. You know, they discovered Iceland. They probably discovered Iceland, discovered Greenland, sailed to the Americas. Wow. Yeah.
That's pretty impressive. You know, there's a reason why we talk about them. And, you know, even me as kind of, I guess, I'm Viking agnostic, you know, because I'm...
at times incredibly impressed by them and I really love them. And at times I am really horrified by what they do. So, you know, I think Eric Bloodaxe is one of these guys who just encapsulates all of that. You know, he's got the best and the worst of everything. He's bringing the dramatic action that we want to see and giving us these stories. You know, we're gossiping about him a thousand years after his death. You know, one way or another, whether or not he's successful, he's fun to talk about. He's fun to think about.
One of the most successful TV series in the last, what, 10 years has been Vikings. And the main character
played by travis remill who's very good looking is ragnar lothbrook who may or may not have existed and from whom eric did obviously claim descent because he's the archetypal vital ancestor and no he wasn't a very nice man he was a savage if you had been on lindisfarne in 793s if it was he or whoever trashed lindisfarne uh you know if you switch on the television and you look at the the pictures of dumbed and terrified refugees and horror of gaza and other places that's what
This is what it would look like. So we shouldn't get too carried away by glorifying these guys. If you are on the receiving end of their interest, then there's nothing heroic about them at all.
they were bad guys and they did terrible things. That's history, baby! That's the entire point of doing it, you know, is we take these horrible things and these difficult people and we synthesize the information and we tell the stories from a safer move. It allows us this ability to romanticize and to hypothesize and you need that remove, I think, because otherwise you do get bogged down in the human misery that
That is endemic. If you think, in terms of propaganda, what is the most successful movie from the Scottish Nationalist Party point of view ever made, it's Braveheart. You watch Braveheart. It is complete tosh. There are a lot of people who take it as gospel. And Mel Gibson's version of William Wallace, which was very cleverly constructed, becomes the norm. Now, the reality was, William Wallace wasn't Australian.
He was probably a foot taller than Mel Gibson. He probably hated the English even less than Mel Gibson. And it would mean seeing dead wearing a skirt. Even today, that film's made, what, 95, 30 years old. It's become iconic because it gives us a bit of history.
that we enjoy. This is the beauty of Eric Bloodaxe and why I think he makes such a wonderful subject for all of us. And I guess I can't thank you enough for coming on and complicating the easy heroic picture. You know, I do love good gossip about a Viking. What can I say? Thanks to John Sadler and to you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit.
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