Viking fascination

“The Vikings have always fascinated me – their seemingly endless energy, their drive to explore and conquer and their series of successes over so many years,” writes a Craigie regular.

“As I discover more about them, I never cease to be amazed at the vast extent of their conquests. I knew about the Danelaw in England and learned about their ventures into the heart of Europe by way of the great rivers. Even the Russians derive their name from a Viking tribe – the Rus. Vikings island-hopped by way of Iceland and Greenland to North America long before Columbus reached the Americas.

“I also read about the Norse kingdom of Sicily, with Christians and Moslems living side by side in peace for centuries. I also knew Norsemen from Sicily fought for William of Normandy at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

“What I did not know until recently was that William’s ancestor, Rollo, the conqueror of north-western France and the first Duke of Normandy, had actually embarked on his Normandy adventure from the Orkney Isles.

“A Viking from the Orkneys went on to conquer what is now Normandy and founded the dynasty which eventually defeated England’s Saxon king and made themselves kings of England!

“What a magnificent race the Vikings must have been, yet they integrated rather than imposed their language and their culture, so that their merging with the local population gave us Highland names such as MacSween and makes me wonder whether native Gaelic speakers surviving today in the Western Isles are mostly of Viking blood.”