The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

by Neil Price

Mobile Viking bands fought the forces of the three imperial claimants, singly or sometimes in alliance. They also raided local municipalities and took on the militias, or just whatever ragtag defence the peasantry could muster in the face of indifferent central leadership. Vikings were also hired as mercenaries by any and all of these factions, to fight their civil enemies or even other Vikings; in many cases, the Scandinavians then pooled their forces to turn on their erstwhile employers. None of this took place in a vacuum of knowledge, nor was it a matter of haphazard reaction: the Vikings knew exactly what they were doing, where they were doing it, and who they might be likely to encounter in the process. This mastery of reconnaissance in depth—an awareness of the value to be placed on prior knowledge—showed throughout their campaigns in Frankia and later in England. The Viking commanders were active political agents, stirring the civil war to effect maximum destabilisation, which in turn fed the Scandinavians’ own twin objectives of moveable wealth in the form of plunder, and mobile labour through the taking of captives.