Still buzzing after our visit to Norway, we packed the car on a Friday afternoon in late June. This time, as well as our tents and living history equipment, we also packed two very excited children. They've always loved going away to re-create history at the weekend (they've been doing it since birth), but this trip was going to be very special. In 865, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles tell us, a large host of Vikings landed at Thanet in Kent. So far, The Viking Age in Britain & I

After exploring Oslo, we returned to Vestfold and visited historic Tonsberg - perhaps Norway's first city, thought to have been founded in Viking Age by Harold Fairhair, whose grandmother may have been buried in the Oseberg Ship. The Slottsfjells Museum in Tonsberg hosts the fourth of Norway's surviving Viking Age Ship. Unlike Tune, Gokstad and Oseberg, the Klastad Ship was not discovered as part of burial, instead it appears to have been a domestic ship which was carrying qu

The next stop on our Viking Adventure was the Midgard Vikingsenter at Borre, which gave it's name to the Borre Art Style which flourished from the late 800s to the late 900s. Like the rest of the Viking Age Art Styles, it didn't necessarily originate in the place it's named after - it's just that the art style was first recognised on some harness mounts (left) discovered in one of the Borre Burial Mounds, excavated in 1852. Still, with examples of Borre Art in Irish Sea Zone

This first post is long over-due, partly because I've been so busy, but also because I'm my own worst critic and it's been such I long time since I've had to write anything other people might read! I've been involved in re-enactment for many years now, and my one regret was that I'd never been on a longship. I'm no stranger to rowing small boats with Cluaran, but where larger craft have been involved in an event, it had normally been part of a re-enactment battle displays an