Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. Hi, 安瀾.

Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone.

So 安瀾, again, let me propose the topic.

Okay.

As you probably run out of topics.

Well. I haven't run out of topics, but I, you know, I'm a gentleman, I'll let you choose.

Yeah. This might be a little bit further away from Britain.

Ok.

So recently I've been reading some books about the stories of Vikings, 就是維京人. I know they're like northern Europe and all that. So...

Actually they’ve got a lot to do with Britain.

Okay. That's all the better. Let's talk about the Vikings.

Yes. So even though it was only for a few hundred years, they really, really influenced England and Britain.

They really did a number on you guys.

Yes, yeah.

But first of all, let's talk about the Vikings, who are they, they're just like, I don't know, northern Europeans.

Well. The Vikings come from present day, Scandinavia.

斯堪的納維亞。

Yep.

Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.

Sweden. Yeah. So they were Warriors, but also traders, explorers, and settlers.

Hang on, I thought they were, we call them 維京海盜. Do you actually say that Viking pirates?

No, we call them raiders.

Raiders. Like if you raid a village.

You raid a village.

Basically you rob them and you kill them.

Yeah, so the Vikings came to England as raiders. They just wanted money. And the Vikings were very, very good at it. So they used to come to England in long ships.

Those Viking ships that we see in like museums and stuff.

Yeah. The long ships were really fast. And it would allow them to strike quickly and then leave before the army comes to fight them.

So they're not just powerful, they're also very fast and agile.

That's the whole idea. And the first time they appeared was when they raided a monastery at a place called Lindisfarne.

Which is modern day...?

Ah, modern day northern England. It’s a small island off the coast of Northumbria.

It was a complete surprise. Nobody had ever heard of the Vikings, nobody had ever seen them before. The monks were all killed and they robbed the monastery and everyone was completely shocked and surprised.

That is another thing, right? I don't know about in English speaking world...

Yeah.

But all the Chinese like basically to us, they always are depicted as being really brutal, powerful but really brutal. Like you said who would raid a monastery? 這個是屬于修道院。

Yeah.

I didn't think they would have that much money there?

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes. Because back then religion is where the money was.

Exactly. So a monastery would have lots lots of money. They would have lots of gold. The local people wouldn't want to rob a monastery, because they were Christian. They were worried that if they steal from the church, they would go to hell. The Vikings...

didn't really care.

didn't really have that fear.

Yeah, because the Vikings were not Christians, they had their own belief.

They had their own belief. And many of the Viking gods, you probably know, like Thor.

Odin 奧丁. They have Norse lore, so they're governed like a completely different system of gods.

Exactly, after they raided England quite a few times, they wanted to settle in England and by the Mid 9th Century, large areas of England such as Northumbria, East Anglia and Mercia, which is pretty much the whole of northern England now were under Viking control, and this was known as the Dane lore.

The Dane, like Danish people like就是丹麥人.

Yeah.

But it's not specifically from Denmark, right? It's just Viking lore.

Yeah. So the Danes or the Vikings. Now the Dane lore was a region where there was Viking lore and customs and this really influenced English society. Some people say that is why there's such a difference between southern England and northern England, because northern England had a much longer period of Viking influence.

I remember once talking about the evolution or the history of English, the language.

Yeah.

The English is a dramatic language and it came from I don’t know like German, right?

German.

German, Dutch and also it's influenced by originally came from Denmark.

Yeah, but in English there are lots of words that come from old Norse like sky, egg, knife, window.

Ah. Is that why nowadays sometimes when you read or when you hear Scandinavian languages like Swedish or Norwegian or Danish, they’re very, very similar, but they have these words that are almost the same as English words?

Yeah. Exactly. That's where it comes from.

So it's the other way round. I always thought it's because they were influenced by English, but it’s... they influenced.

No, they influenced English. So for example, window in French and German is a completely different word.

Emm, that is true.

So the Anglo Saxons obviously weren't very happy about this. And this led to hundreds of years of wars between the Anglo Saxons and the Vikings, and the most famous person during that time was King Alfred the Great.

這我好像聽說過, 據說什么阿爾弗雷德大帝是 the only King that was called the Great in English history.

Yeah. And I think that's because he said that himself, and the name stuck.

I see, King Alfred the Great.

But he did pretty well. So he successfully defended Wessex, which is in southern England and that was not conquered by the Vikings. And people now say that he was the one who led to a unified English Kingdom.

Because if he failed back then probably the entirety of England would have fallen under Viking control.

Exactly.

And back then even before the Vikings, each area of England had its own King. So southern England would have its own king, northern England, central England, so on. So he did things like fortified towns, build city walls around them. He was the one who built the first British navy and he also promoted education and law as well.

Sounds like a wise King.

He was a wise King. He didn't do too badly.

But when did a Viking age, the Viking age end?

Technically it came to an end in 1066.

Well, the Norman conquest.

The Norman conquest.

So basically one invader was replaced by another invader.

Yes.

I thought Normans were French.

They came from modern day Normandy, but the actual Normans were originally Vikings.

So, it's like Vikings got replaced by another group of Vikings.

Yeah. So you can say that the Viking age never really ended in the UK. Because our modern king, King Charles the third, his great, great... a few more greats, grandfather was actually a Viking leader.

Wow. So your King has got Viking blood.

Our King has Viking blood.

But I mean, European monarchs are always like that, right? It's a lot of mix and match and ...

Exactly.

Moving around.

And most of our aristocracy came from the Normans, so they are also technically Vikings. So it was a mixture of Viking and French culture.

Yeah.

So you could argue the Vikings, they have the last laugh. They were the ones that conquered Britain.

Can I just ask, so when British kids or English kids, when they were taught this part of history, ancient history in school...

Yes.

...how did they paint the Vikings? Were they painting the Vikings as the brutal, savage invaders or was it like part of our ancestors?

It was always brutal invaders.

So the image of a Viking was someone with a big beard carrying an axe.

Long hair.

Long hair.

Really beefy guy.

Really beefy, with horns in their helmet, but they didn't actually wear horns in their helmet. And that's the image of Vikings that we have nowadays.

But actually the Vikings were very clever traders. They were very clever explorers, they were the ones, they were the first Europeans to discover America.

Oh.

It's just that they then forgot about America.

Okay. I see. Yeah, you know when you think about stereotypical picture of a Viking, you think the Vikings as just a warrior race, they don't really seem to focus that much on culture or on trading. It's more like raid, raid, raid.

Yeah.

The whole pirate thing.

But they were traders. They go as far as Iraq and Iran. And I wouldn't be too surprised if some Vikings, one or two probably made it all the way to China.

Well, Brad was.... He's...

Well. He doesn't like a ....

Yeah, if you guys have listened to our the other parts, the other segments like Geek Time, Brad, he is American, but his ancestry is Viking, definitely Viking.

Yeah. His looks like a Viking as well.

He is a big guy. Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, and to end today's talk about Vikings. You know Wednesday?

Yes.

Wednesday, it came from, I think it came from Woden's day.

Woden's day.

Which is Odin's day, 奧丁. This is like in, I think in... Danish or in Swedish, the day is still called Onsdag, which is Odin's day.

Yeah. Absolutely.

So even that... because if you look at like French or Italian way of saying Wednesday is completely different.

Yeah.

So that is also sort of the, I don't know, if it's Viking influences or Norse language influence.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Maybe in the future we should talk about Norse lore.

I'd love to.

Interesting mythology up there.

If you want to hear some stories from Norse mythology, let us know in the comment section.

From the Vikings.

From the Vikings themselves.

All right. Leave us comment in the comment section if you're interested. Thank you, 安瀾 for coming to the show.

Thanks, Lulu. Thanks, everyone.

We'll see you next time.

Bye

Bye.