You may think that this heartfelt prayer has come down to us unchanged across centuries to give an accurate picture of the terror that the Vikings inspired in the Saxon people of England, but as evocative as it is, all of the evidence points to a more modern source - the phrase was used in the introduction of his book "The Vikings" by Johannes Brøndsted (Harmondsworth/Penguin, 1960), but there is no evidence for it before this time. Indeed, as the knowledge of historians and archaeologists improves year by year, the image of the Viking Age as a time of abrupt violence is becoming merely a footnote, and the enormous cultural heritage of what is known as the Viking Age is coming to the fore.
Please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
