Eric Bloodaxe

Eric Bloodaxe was an epic Viking Warrior, and he could certainly cut down his enemies, but was he as 'great' in reality as his romantic bad-boy legend? Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by historian John Sadler to discuss Eric Bloodaxe's brutal rise to power, his early displays of violent ambition, and how he earned his infamous nickname during a bloody raid in Scotland. They also revel in the sagas and historical records that shape Eric's legend, shedding light on the turbulent politics of medieval Scandinavia and England. More Gone Medieval episodes on the Vikings: https://shows.acast.com/gone-medieval/episodes/viking-travels https://shows.acast.com/gone-medieval/episodes/how-to-live-like-a-viking Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. It was edited by Jo Troy, the producer is Rob Weinberg. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Yarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:42Speaker 01

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• 2:47Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanaga and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots and murders that tell us who we really were

• 3:16Eleanor Janega?

  and how we got here.

• 3:26Eleanor Janega?

  10th century Norway, a world of unbridled ambition and bloodshed. Ragenhild the Mighty, wife of Harald Fairhair, the first king to unite his country, gives birth to a son. The boy Eric is destined for greatness from the start. But it is his own actions that will earn him a name that will echo through the ages.

• 3:54Eleanor Janega?

  Bloodaxe.

• 3:56Eleanor Janega?

  From his earliest years, Eric shows a fierce appetite for battle and conquest. When he turns 12, his father gives him five longships, each manned by a crew of hardened Norse warriors. With this small fleet, Eric set sail on his first expedition, eager to prove himself worthy of his royal blood.

• 4:20Eleanor Janega?

  For four long years, Eric and his men terrorized the coasts of the Baltic, Denmark, and Frisia. The young prince quickly gains a reputation for his brutal efficiency in battle and his merciless treatment of his enemies. But it is during a raid on the shores of Scotland that Eric will earn his infamous name. As the Norse longships approach the Scottish coast, the local defenders rally to repel the invaders. Eric is swift to lead his men into the fray. In the thick of battle, the young prince finds himself face-to-face with a towering Scottish warrior, rising high with his massive war axe.

• 5:05Eleanor Janega?

  With a primal roar, Eric swings his own axe in a deadly arc. The blade bites deep into his opponent's neck, nearly severing the man's head from his body. Blood sprays forth in a crimson fountain, drenching Eric and his weapon. As the Scottish warrior falls, Eric stands triumphant, his axe dripping red with the blood of his vanquished foe. Times to come will forever know Eric as Bloodaxe. The tale of his brutal victory spreads like wildfire among both his allies and his enemies. Some say that the nickname is given to him by his own men, in awe of their leader's ferocity.

• 5:50Eleanor Janega?

  Others claim it is whispered in fear by those who oppose him. Regardless of its origin, the name Bloodaxe becomes synonymous with Eric's ruthless determination and uncompromising approach to warfare. He embraces the epithet, using it to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies and inspire loyalty among his followers. As Eric continues his raids along the coasts of Ireland, Wales, and even as far as France, his reputation grows. He is no longer just a prince of Norway, but a legendary Viking warrior in his own right. Every victory, every conquered territory adds to the legend of Eric Bloodaxe.

• 6:35Eleanor Janega?

  But with great power come great enemies. As Eric returns to Norway to claim his father's throne, he finds that his path to kingship will be paved with the blood of his own kin. The name "Bloodaxe" will take on an even darker meaning, as Eric faces the greatest challenge of his life: securing his claim to the crown of Norway, no matter the cost. Well, that's how some versions of the legend of Eric's Bloodaxe go. Or at least how he might have got his name. Joining me today to find out more about Eric Bloodaxe, and maybe dispel some of the myths, is John Sadler. His new book, Eric Bloodaxe: The Viking I Shall Die Laughing,

• 7:19Eleanor Janega?

  is remarkably the first nonfiction account of Eric's life, offering illuminating insights into this legendary Viking. Welcome to Gone Medieval, John.

• 7:28Speaker 05

  And we're glad to be here.

• 7:29Eleanor Janega?

  I am excited for you to be here today, because we are doing one of those big names, which, for medieval historians, I think conjures up a lot of images. But if you simply say the name Eric Bloodaxe, I think non-historians prick their ears up right away. So can you just give us a kind of precis about where one gets a name like this? How do you get called Eric Bloodaxe and live to tell the tale?

• 7:57Speaker 05

  Well, I think one of the remarkable things about Eric is he managed to clock up 70 before he finally went down in his last battle, which is a pretty big age in those days. It would appear, a marvelous sort of comic strip title as Bloodaxe is, that it was Bloodaxe, and he got the name because of the number of his brothers that he killed. He had a lot of brothers. And to be fair, most of them were trying to kill him. When his father died, I think he left 19 sons altogether. And although their father, Harald Fairhough, was King of Norway, he was the first king, so there was no idea of primogeniture. There was no concept of a natural succession. Basically, it was last man standing. And Eric was determined he would be the last man standing.

• 8:37Eleanor Janega?

  Ah, it's, you know, a beautiful tradition and culture.

• 8:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:41Eleanor Janega?

  What can I say? I suppose that's an important distinction, though, because... Obviously, this seems fairly ruthless. However, it fundamentally just is the case that this particular society just didn't have the same social rules that we do now. And absolutely, fratricide was on the menu in this circumstance.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  Obviously, Scandinavian society was emerging from a period where there were, and if you look at the geography, particularly of Norway, there's only 3% of the land that can be cultivated. And the country split up by mountain ranges into a whole number of separate pockets. And for centuries, those little areas had all been ruled by their own local king. The local, the leading man and leading family of the area. And Viking society was very structured. You had like your royalty tier, you had your gentry tier, you had your not-quite-gentry tier, you had your freemen, and then you had basically all the rest, who didn't count. And the idea that one man, one king, would rule the whole country wasn't just novel.

• 9:41Speaker 05

  It was an anathema to most of the regional groups, because the regional groups, like regions everywhere, didn't much care for each other. And they certainly weren't about to take orders from somebody from that side of the mountain. So Harald Fineh, who was a father, who was a man who set out on a mission to unite Norway as one kingdom, under him, of course, as king, had a pretty uphill struggle. And he was successful largely because he killed anybody who got in his way. And because he was so much feared by the end of his period of conquest, and he ruled for over 50 years. He was so feared that nobody actually dared raise a hand against him. But that didn't mean that the independent tendencies wouldn't arise once he died.

• 10:21Eleanor Janega?

  That's why I suppose that there is a great way of getting out in front of that is by showing that one is willing to kill one's own brothers. That does put you in pretty good standing for attempting to have a quite violent control over a disparate group of people who they themselves are quite violent. I mean, that just sort of is how society is working in these circumstances.

• 10:42Speaker 05

  It is. I mean, there's been an effort by some historians to kind of rehabilitate Vikings as basically farmers, traders, fishermen, seafarers, merchants, all of which they were. Great explorers, yes, great craftsmen, yes, but at the end of the day, doing excepting by in society, there's no getting away from it.

• 10:58Eleanor Janega?

  I agree. I was just going to say, one of my jokes about it is I always say, uh-huh, trading what?

• 11:03Speaker 05

  If you read any of the sagas, saga of Burton Neath, it's the sort of thing that Quentin Tarantino would love. It's a non-stop cycle of gratuitous sex and violence. It describes every blow, every cut, every thrust, excuse the pun. And it's clear that that's what the audience expected. That's what they revel in. They want to hear stories of bloodshed and violence and heroism. You know, not really understanding anything too fluffy.

• 11:29Eleanor Janega?

  You raise a good point here. So we have these sagas, which tell us rather a lot about Eric blood acts. What are the main distinctions between contemporary sources or saga-based sources? When we're attempting to find out about these individuals? Because the sagas really are kind of selling it, aren't they? They are the big blockbuster movies of the time.

• 11:49Speaker 05

  Sagas, if we talk about British newspapers, they're much more Daily Mail than they are Telegraph. They're sensational. They are stories. They were passed down initially by word of mouth around the fire. We'll never want to hear a ripping tale of a Viking-type hero. And for the most part, they weren't written down until centuries later, many of them by snorries girls from Iceland. And they may well have been changed and altered, added to and taken away from in that time. And it's a bit like talking about the Trojan War and saying Homer is the main source. Yes, he is, but we can't prove it. We can't prove any of it. It's a cracking tale and the level of detail tends to make you think there's a kernel of truth there. But you certainly can't prove it in terms of actual chronicle sources, contemporary records that would substantiate the story of Eric.

• 12:35Speaker 05

  These are very, very few and far between because the Vikings don't write about themselves. Others write about them, but they don't. And the others who are writing about them have generally just been duffed up by them or have their women stolen or their cattle stolen. The women they could live with, but the cattle, that's quite embarrassing. And not to mention the fact that church was just being trashed and their priests turned into slaves or dog food. So there tends to be a certain amount of bias against the Vikings, which in the circumstance is quite understandable. So again, we don't have a chronicle source. You don't have an Anglo-Saxon chronicle from the Vikings, which gives us a year-by-year, blow-by-blow account of what was going on. We simply don't have that. So what we have is a patchwork of saga sources, which have to be treated with extreme caution.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  And we have a number of chronicle sources which are referring to the Vikings, written about them, but not by them. And again, there's a lot of bias there. And indeed, a whole world of inaccuracy.

• 13:32Eleanor Janega?

  One of the issues is it's really seductive to kind of go down the root of looking at the sagas because they're fun. They do exactly what they're meant to do. But are there any near contemporary sources that talk about Eric at all? Or are we just interpolating from literary sources at this point?

• 13:52Speaker 05

  Eric, assuming Eric, the Eric of England is the Eric of Norway. Once it gets to England, there are references to his career in England, which really covers quite a short period, two very short bursts as king in the north, based at York, are written in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and a few other sources now, but they are very, very fleeting, these referrals. And whilst we might say, well, yeah, okay, these look like this could be pretty much accurate. It still doesn't tell us a lot. And it doesn't really give us any picture of the human Eric Bloodaxe. And the information that they give us sometimes is contradictory. And again, we are left in no small measure in the realm of heroic conjecture, try to piece the various bits together to get so many of the truth.

• 14:37Eleanor Janega?

  And that's why it's sort of disputed, why we have this question lingering about, is this Eric of Norway? Is this Eric of England? You know, because it's kind of murky, isn't it? The, the information that we do have, yeah.

• 14:49Speaker 05

  Is extremely murky. Some contemporary academics, writers like Professor Claire Danham, who's an extremely distinguished academic of this period, have expressed, not doubt, but they've pointed out that there was no actual hard evidence that tells us that Eric Bloodaxe of Norway was the same Eric as who ruled twice in Nathambria. The dates all fit, sort of. And it would seem likely that if I was Archbishop Wolfstand of Nathambria, the great power broker, if I was looking for somebody who could stand up to the power of the kings of Wessex, I'd want somebody with a proven track record, somebody who had a name and a reputation, which Eric certainly did have. And therefore. You say, well, there's no other Eric Bloodaxe being mentioned, so it must be the same guy.

• 15:34Speaker 05

  I don't think that's unreasonable. If I was in a court of law, I couldn't swear that this is the absolute truth, not by a law.

• 15:40Eleanor Janega?

  It's an interesting one, too, because when we start throwing Eric around in terms of his involvement in England, it's also an interesting one because in theory, he's not even the initial Norwegian connection over to the English, right? You know, we have, we think, correct me if I'm wrong, because I could be. We think that the initial son that is sent over is Harkon, who is kind of, I think-

• 16:07Speaker 05

  Harkon the Good, yeah.

• 16:08Eleanor Janega?

  Harkon the Good, great name, you know, their families contain multitudes. Everyone's got a good and everyone's got a blood axe, you know? So he kind of gets sent over by his father to be a fosterling to King Ethelstan, right? So what would that mean for Eric then? You know, your younger brother's sent off, here you are in Norway, which is a pretty sweet deal. You know, your dad has united it, but is there knock-on implications for him as a slightly older son?

• 16:36Speaker 05

  Clearly. Eric is, of course, hoping to inherit his father's kingdom when his father dies. And the evidence we can see suggested during the latter years of Freyhe's life, and he would be in his 80s by the time he died, so he was a big age. He shared the throne with Eric, which would suggest that he was grooming Eric to take over. Sending your youngest son, or younger son, to the court of his powerful monarchs, Ethelstan, was a sound political move. It means you're building a bridge between England, and Ethelstan was creating England at this time, at the same time as Harald has created Norway. So there's a certain logic there, but of course it goes back to bite Eric,

• 17:18Speaker 05

  because Ethelstan backs Harkon the Good when Harkon takes Eric on, and Eric simply can't compete with Ethelstan. And of course, Harkon the Good, it's called Harkon the Good because he probably wasn't as bad as Eric. That's, he's only called the Good, I think, by comparison. Harkon himself is a pretty tough customer. He's no pusher, and he, again, he rules Norway for a considerable period, and finally goes down in battle against Eric's sons some decades later. So I think what was in Harald's mind, as far as we can tell, when he sends Harkon away, he might have sent Harkon away. So Eric didn't feel the need to kill him himself. He was out of harm's way in that sense. At the same time, his would have been a very valuable diplomatic mission to the court of Athelstan, who was then one of Europe's most powerful monarchs.

• 18:04Eleanor Janega?

  Hakan comes back then, though, right? You know, because we have then the death of Athelstan and Hakan returns to Norway. What happens then? You know, you think, you know, you're Eric. You're like, great, this is fantastic. I'm co-ruling with my father. Here I am in Norway. And then suddenly your brother returns. What does this mean?

• 18:23Speaker 05

  It was not good news. It means you need to move on fairly rapidly because it seems that Eric, whatever gifts of rule, of monarchy, his father had, and how it wasn't just about brute force. He obviously understood diplomacy. He understood the need to make dynastic marriages, the need to bring the nobles on side if he's going to keep the whole job together. Eric doesn't seem to have understood this. Eric, as soon as his father dies, he's thrown into a period of warfare with his other brothers, whom he defeats. And then suddenly Hakan arrives back at a time when, whether he's actively supported by English arms, we don't know, possibly, most likely, Athelstan's giving him a pay chest. And the loyalty of the Norwegian lords is very much dependent on who's writing the cheque at that particular time. And it does appear that the Norwegian lords were chafing under the harsh rule of Eric,

• 19:08Speaker 05

  and Hakan appeared to be a safer option.

• 19:11Eleanor Janega?

  And I mean, I guess that's not a great way to show back up at your kind of bloodthirsty brother's court, right? Like, hey, I'm back from England. I've got all of this money, you know? Don't worry, this is not a threat to us, you and I. It might just be like, oh, it's great. As a foreign person myself, you know, whenever I return to my family, I bring a bag full of, you know, obscure and delight British treats, you know?

• 19:35Speaker 05

  Absolutely, yeah. The same thing. And I think what would have happened, of course, when, as soon as Harold died. Harker would have begun making overtures to the Norwegian princelings. Athelstan would have seen the opportunity to extend his own influence into Norway, and therefore would have provided him with substantial financial backing. And financial backing was the key. We know all those who became kings of Norway, people like Saint Olaf and Hal Tadradi, only made their bid when they had a significant war chest amassed. So really, it's geldkrieg, as the Germans would call it. Money is as important as men and arms.

• 20:12Eleanor Janega?

  So I think that there's also an important kind of note here as well, because your brother shows back up with all of this money. And that is in and of itself somewhat of an implicit threat within this society. And also, I think it's kind of important to know, you know, who is your brother? You know, your brother's been away in England. Do you actually know this guy? You know, it comes across much more as a threat in this particular social milieu. This isn't, you know, your brother who you played next to near the hearth all day. You know, this is a somewhat foreign person who can be read as, you know,

• 20:53Eleanor Janega?

  a direct threat to one's livelihood, if not their life, when he shows back up.

• 20:58Speaker 05

  Yes, it just has to look, if you could shake a bit, look at Richard III. When he says, "Speaks of his best clowns thou art next." Well, we all probably fight with our siblings, but royal brothers probably do so rather more than others, because the stakes are very high. And blood may be thicker than water, but gold generally is a good deal thicker than both. And the history of Scandinavia at this time keeps on showing, the guy with the big bucks has a good chance of coming out on top.

• 21:20Eleanor Janega?

  Fundamentally, Eric is the one who comes out on top in this. Whether or not there was an actual threat, Eric, how shall we say this politely? Eliminates his brother, we think?

• 21:31Speaker 05

  He does.

• 21:31Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah.

• 21:32Speaker 05

  But you may not apologize for it. It's them or him. It's, in fairness to Eric, yes, he was a pretty tough and utterly ruthless character, but he lived in a tough and ruthless age. If he hadn't turned on his brothers, they certainly would have done for him, probably would have tried to do for the time. And of course, once the king died, all the various power factions within the regions began to align. And maybe choose their own candidate. They'll probably choose the guy who thinks weakest because they they know they're going to get their own way under him. So it it becomes very, very complex. And this very fragile carapace of royalty which Harold has created simply falls apart. It's not been established long enough. The idea that one king will succeed another hasn't taken root. As far as the Norwegian Earls are concerned, they're waiting for him to die so they can revert back to square one.

• 22:18Eleanor Janega?

  Is he bringing a similar level of violence to the Earls, for example, as well?

• 22:22Speaker 05

  We don't know. That's the short answer. We do not know. We get a a reference to him winning a sea battle in the north of Norway, presumed against the rebellious Earls because the northern Earls tended to be particularly independently minded. And Eric has built up during his father's lifetime a reputation as a successful Viking, as a pirate effectively. Because Eric knows he has to build up his war chest as well. Because he knows when his father dies, there's going to be a fight. And therefore, the greater level of resources that he possesses, the stronger his position will be. So Eric probably, like most Vikings, has a spring cruise and an autumn cruise. It sounds very nice, but actually means he goes out and kills and rapes a village and takes slaves and attempts to build up the bank balance

• 23:07Speaker 05

  to its maximum point when you know you're going to need it. So Eric will have been aware from a fairly early age that he needs to have a significant cash deposit behind him.

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• 27:03Eleanor Janega?

  He does a great job of consolidating wealth and consolidating power. You know, he's got a pretty good shot at having all these things because his father was great at that as well. Now, in your book, though, you talk a little bit about what it takes to be that kind of Viking, what it takes to be that kind of pirate, essentially. And you go into a lot of detail about the weapons that Eric would have been good at using. Oh, we've got a name like Eric Bloodaxe. Does that mean that this is a guy who has a preferred weapon of choice? You know, when he goes cruising, has he got an axe in his back pocket? Or is this, you know, a reference to something else that we don't quite understand here in the 21st century?

• 27:44Speaker 05

  Eric is almost certainly a great warrior. You have to be. The Vikings like great warriors. It's like Achilles and Hector. They follow the man who has the reputation, who is a great fighting man. He can't fake that. And because you're standing there in the front of the ship, you are the must-kill target in a sea battle or a land battle. So you've got to know what you're doing. You've got to be highly skilled with your weapons just to survive from day to day. And clearly, and the Eric's reputation therefore is not built on hot air or spin or social media. It's built on reality. He is a seriously tough customer. And yes, the name Bloodaxe would suggest that the axe, longhand Danish axe, may have been his favorite weapon.

• 28:25Speaker 05

  But a true Viking warrior would be expected to be equally at home with any of the main weapons. Spear, axe, say axe, sword, the whole arsenal. You had to be good with that because at any point you might end up using any or all of it.

• 28:37Eleanor Janega?

  So I mean, this is the, I guess, the sexy top things that we always talk about with Vikings. See, I'm as bad as a saga, right? I go right in and I'm like, tell me about the killing, John. I'd like to know about the guy.

• 28:49Eleanor Janega?

  But there, there is.

• 28:50Speaker 05

  Why do you want some Schwarzenegger, you know, yeah?

• 28:52Eleanor Janega?

  Exactly, you know? But at the same time, one has to admit that there is a kind of diplomatic background as well that it's happening. And one of the things that you've mentioned now is there are good marriages happening behind the scenes as well, which is so important and perhaps, perhaps less sexy, a little bit less attention gratic. Do we know anything about who Eric gets married off to as a result of all of this?

• 29:16Speaker 05

  Oh, yes, we do. His queen, much hated by the saga writers, is Gunnild. It was left to the view that the story and the other saga writers, the saga compilers were pretty misogynistic because they don't necessarily expect to have strong women around. And if she's a strong woman, she must be a witch. She's got to be a wrong. And it also means that Eric's excesses can be blamed on it, or blamed on his wife. Where we get to the point where in Egil's saga, where Egil is shipwrecked, of course, in Yorkshire and finds himself rather embarrassingly at Eric's tort. And of course, there's a lot of form between Eric and Egil. And Egil, certainly we know, according to his own saga, has killed one of Eric's sons. Gunnild of the Queen is all for cutting him, you know, cutting him into small pieces and feeding him to the fish. But Eric, in test, is reasonable.

• 30:00Speaker 05

  And Arim Bjorn, who is in deceiving behalf of Egil, is able to persuade the king to see reason. So Eric comes across as actually being not such an unreasonable vindictive type, where his wife is an absolute cow. And, and all the way through history, Pearl Gunnild gets down. She's in the legend, she's the daughter of a couple of wizards or whatever from the north, from Finland or somewhere. In reality, she was almost certainly a hierarchy Danish princess. So she was somebody of serious socioeconomic status, actually probably just a bit further up the ladder than Eric was. And, you know, she certainly was a loyal wife. And when Eric dies, she takes over the family business, if you like. And it's really, as a result of her leadership, that her sons eventually have a great look. It becomes king of Norway by killing his uncle, Harkonnen.

• 30:45Eleanor Janega?

  It's such an interesting thing because you get this, you get provided with a literary scapegoat. It's fantastic. You can then big up Eric Bloodaxe, the guy who's got to the throne through fratricide. By saying, oh yeah, you know, all the things you don't like, probably Gudmund Hjulda, probably that woman over there. Which is, ah, it's just, you know, it's convenient.

• 31:04Speaker 05

  So was Eric, is Eric Bloodaxe really just a head back to his man? You know, you don't know, maybe, maybe he only went cruising to get away from his wife.

• 31:11Eleanor Janega?

  Gentleman, am I right? Am I right? I mean, this is the thing, you would kind of want a woman like Gudmund Hjulda around, especially, you know, a well-connected Dane. You know, they've got tons of money. And here's Eric, in theory, the king of a newly united Norway. But we're talking about him being over in England. You don't just leave Norway, nicely united Norway, and go over to England for no particular reason. And we think he actually loses the crowd, right? Like after about a year of, of, of ruling himself, how does that come to be, do we think?

• 31:45Speaker 05

  When Eric is effectively dispersed of his brothers, those who are remaining in Norway. Harkonnen has clearly ceded the ground for his own return. Funded by Afghanistan School, possibly with English support, actual military support, we don't know. But he lands in Norway and the Norwegian Isles, who've had enough of Eric by this point and his harsh rule. They see him as clearly the son of his father. They side with Harkonnen. And Eric obviously reads the wind pretty carefully and thinks it's worth his time. I was somewhere else because I can't compete with this level of wealth and influence. Which is why he and his, all his loyal forces, he must have had a reasonable following, take to their ships. And apparently then make for the Orkneys, which makes sense because they're obviously Viking, they're Viking colony.

• 32:31Speaker 05

  And his father had a very strong connection with the ruling house in Norway. So that's an obvious first stop. And then what does Eric do to build up the war chest? Well, he continues where he left off. He goes back to Paris, to the family business.

• 32:43Eleanor Janega?

  You know, and fair enough, you've always got that to fall back on, right? Get on a ship and go somewhere. And if you have the means and the capability, you can make a new life for yourself. His presence is mentioned in Orkney. What do we know about this particular chapter of his life?

• 32:59Speaker 05

  Again, it's a little bit fragmentary, to put it mildly, but we know there was a strong connection between his father and the Earls of Orkney, who were his father's nominees. And Eric, I imagine during his career of piracy, in the course of his father's lifetime, had built up a strong personal connection with the rulers of Orkney. There's no suggestion he went across to Orkney and conquered the place, or beat it up, or robbed a village. He was obviously welcomed there as an ally, a friend, and somebody who they knew quite well. Again, from his perspective, Orkney was a superb base for Viking activities. It exposed the whole coast of Scotland and England, and the coast of Ireland, which were another lucrative hunting ground for Viking pirates. So it was an obvious base for him to arrive at, and where he could watch what was happening

• 33:44Speaker 05

  in England, watch what was happening in Norway, and make the most of any opportunities which happened to arise.

• 33:50Eleanor Janega?

  This makes it a really reasonable refuge. And also, I guess it makes sense from our standpoint, if we understand that this is kind of a stepping stone on the way to Northumbria, you know, okay, you've been kicked out of Norway, but then you can go pull yourself together in Orkney, where, you know, you have friendly people. But of course, again, these are Vikings, they're going to want you to move on eventually. You don't want a guy of this caliber staying at your hearth forever. And we're pretty sure at this point, he then skips on over to Northumbria. What do we know about his initial stint there?

• 34:23Speaker 05

  It would appear that the background is Athelstan, after his great battle of Brunan Ber, wherever that was fought, in 937, had come close to realising his grandfather's vision of an englander, actually uniting the whole of England, actually Britain, under one ruler, normally himself. When Athelstan dies, however, his immediate successor is nowhere near as powerful as he was, and his confederation for a while falls apart because of the Northumbrians, who were themselves conquered by Vikings in 866. Eight six seven, now come to prefer a Norse ruler to a southern Englishman. They don't like the House of Wessex, they'd much rather have a northerner, a Norseman. And obviously by this time, the Norse and the Thumbrians, the bloodlines are so intermingled.

• 35:05Speaker 05

  You can't really say one or the other. What the Nathumbrians are about is their independence. That is the number one consideration because a short while before, the Thumbria was the leading Anglo-Saxon kingdom. The Thumbria had been immensely powerful, they'd gone back a lot, but northerners saw themselves as independent of the South. We still do.

• 35:24Eleanor Janega?

  Is there a difference in terms of how we see Viking rule shake out there as opposed to the Anglo-Saxons? Because I know the Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, this is a place that's incredibly powerful and important as a result of, you know, cattle primarily, you know, incredibly rich agricultural land. Is there a differentiation when you have Vikings come and take over? Or is it just kind of same old, same old, yes, we're still doing cattle farming, but also we go out Viking in the spring and autumn?

• 35:54Speaker 05

  The main change would be really when the Vikings arrive, when Ivar, the wonderfully, actually wonderfully named Ivar the Boneless, defeats Ayrland and takes over the Thumbrian at York. It's really a change of management. Most average Nathumbrian farmer wouldn't really know whether he's been ruled by a Viking or a Saxon. Probably wouldn't care, you're still paying taxes. And that's the main. So a lot of key manners, key positions and key properties would go to Norse to reward them for their service, which is what they come for in the first place. But then really, it's business as usual. The difference is Anglo-Saxon York, Yoffoic, is a pretty pale shadow of Roman Ivaricum. The population declines, it's a bit run down. We'd think of it as a bit of a shanty town compared to the Roman precedent.

• 36:34Speaker 05

  But the Vikings, Ivar and his successors, create this great trading emporium in Yorick. And the population and the wealth of York rapidly rises again because obviously they've got their links to the Norse kings in Dublin. They've got links to the Frankish court, they've got links to Scandinavia, they've got links to Spain, links all over Europe. And the Vikings are great traders. Yes, they're a pretty savage bunch of thugs, but they're also great traders. And we shouldn't forget, they're getting away from it. One of their main trades is human misery. They're slavers. They are slavers. It's nothing personal. It's just business smart, as they're concerned, but they deal in slaves. And obviously, reddish-haired, blue-eyed Irishman, a bit like yourself, actually, would be at a considerable premium in the slave markets in Paris

• 37:17Speaker 05

  or indeed across Istanbul or wherever. So they were businessmen as well as farmers. So the Saxons hadn't been as active commercially in terms of international trade as the Vikings were. So really Viking Age of the Thumbry was a bit of a boom time.

• 37:30Eleanor Janega?

  One way or another, they make things happen. It's easy to be critical of them, and I certainly am. But fundamentally, they've got great tech. They are able to move things around. They're able to make these connections. And I do think that there is, of course, a tendency for us to always say, okay, when Vikings show up, that's bad news. But in the case of Northumbria, I mean, really Norway's closer than London is. Culturally, you're going to feel more connected than you are to whatever's going on in the south.

• 37:56Speaker 05

  There is very much. I mean, there always was in Britain, I think, even back as far as the island. There was a kind of north-south divide, as there still is. And that was particularly cute at this time because the Northumbrians are desperate to avoid being controlled by the south. And part of that leadership is coming from the church. Archbishop Wollstone of York is the leading prelate in the north. He doesn't want to bend his knee to the Archbishop of Canterbury, not at all. The northern church, which controls many of the seas in what is now southern Scotland, is immensely wealthy and doesn't want to surrender that hegemony to somebody they've never met in Canterbury, who's talks in it, talks of a strange estuarial accent. So you don't really want to do that. And the Norsemen, who are now so integrated in terms of the bloodstock, really, they're the locals.

• 38:38Speaker 05

  By the time Eric comes across, the Norsemen are not foreigners. They're the locals, and they are to be preferred to the southerners, who are not locals.

• 38:47Eleanor Janega?

  Well, one way or another, you get Eric, right? This is how he shows up and he takes up this mantle. But this doesn't go unchallenged, shall we say. You know, it's not that, you know, everyone in the south says, oh, that's fine. They've got a new Viking in, so I guess we give up on Northumbria, right? He has to actually fend off rival claimants from the south and from Norway as well, correct?

• 39:09Speaker 05

  From Dublin particularly. The Dublin Vikings have their own agenda as far as the Thumbry. And Ivar, the bonus, had a strong connection to Ireland. So part of Eric's problem, he's not just facing opposition from the south and the other dead, the king. He's facing Olaf Gustafsson in Ireland, uh, who will use any means. The Vikings are not a united front by enemies. It's every man for himself. Uh, one Viking warlord will not necessarily make common cause with the other. He's quite like, you know, it's the old story. My enemy's enemy is automatically my friend. So Eric is in a pretty dodgy position. He's supported by the bishop, Archbishop, and the Nathumbrin Stoked Norse Gentry as long as he's viable. The Northerners are acutely aware, and Yadred makes them aware of how much more powerful Wessex actually is.

• 39:52Speaker 05

  And if they step out of line, he will, as he does, bring an army up and trash the place, just to remind them who's who's actually boss. That's what ends Eric's first tenure. He's actually successful in battle, defeats Yadred at Castle. But the fact is that the Sunnis have such overwhelming strength, one single victory doesn't matter. And eventually Wolfstad, who's an arch-pragmatist, gets the message and Eric is sent on his travels again for a while.

• 40:18Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, because he comes back, right? You know, we kind of have an interregnum and then Eric comes back. So what happens in the meantime? Do we know? Is it just kind of like, oh, well, we're we're trying again and then Eric goes and drums up more support? Or is that a little too simplistic?

• 40:33Speaker 05

  The events appeared to be quite straightforward, but the moves behind those events, I suspect, were long drawn out and extremely complicated. Olaf, when he comes back, is acceptable to Yadred because he's less of a threat than Eric. But clearly the Nathumbrins are still hankering after this independence. And therefore Wolfstad and the other Nathumbrin magnets, once again, when they've recovered their confidence, it's that after they kind of break down their resilience, which Yadred has infected on them, they get their spirit back. Northerners are good at that. And then they think, well, what the hell, Eric's our boy, we'll have him back. And he gets another two years.

• 41:06Eleanor Janega?

  And that is nothing to sneeze at. I think in a time that is as turbulent as this, kind of being brought back is a huge vote of confidence. Shows us kind of a rather a lot, not just about the violence inherent in the system, of course, but also about how confidences play out and how relationships. are made as well. So, you know, yeah, Eric is obviously a very, very powerful warrior, but he must have been a pretty all right guy as well, considering the various alternatives and the fact that people actually make a play for him. You know, this is our guy. We're going to get Eric back. Things were a little bit more settled under him.

• 41:40Speaker 05

  Well, by this time, he's in his late 60s. He's no spring chicken. That's a big age for the time, very big age. It's like me in your 80s or 90s now. And he, I think we tend to forget, or we're not aware of, the valuable connection he gets from Gunnhild. She's a daughter of the King of Denmark. And Denmark's had a settled monarchy for a very long time. The Danes are a powerful monarchial state. And having support, however it's expressed, from that quarter, clearly lends a fair bit of weight to any claim that Eric makes. He may be able to suggest the Nuthumbriens that it wouldn't be the first or the last, and he can draw on a Danish army to support him. Well, you know, it happens with Harald, or Viking, it happens with Harald, our daughter, in 1066. So, the idea that he might be able to draw up support from the wider Scandinavian world, not that long before

• 42:24Speaker 05

  Nute, of course, becomes Atlantic North European Emperor. So, there is always that carrot. Eric clearly has quite substantial warband, as long as he can pay them. And he has therefore a powerful following, who give him the colonel of any army he could raise. The Nuthumbriens have a favorite form about fielding armies. So, clearly the Nuthumbriens feel, in 952, that it's ripe, the time is ripe, to have him back and make another statement about their independence.

• 42:50Eleanor Janega?

  I suppose that really tells us a rather lot about Northumbria itself, not just about Eric as a person, but about the statecraft going on behind the scenes. You know, a name like Eric Bloodaxe, that's who you start paying attention to very quickly. But Northumbria is kind of, in its own way, a star of the show here. You know, there's a bunch of people that we don't know the names of, who are involved in really intricate statecraft. And Eric just kind of steals the show, because he's the guy they bring in.

• 43:18Speaker 05

  At the same time, when we talk about the Nuthumbria, the Nuthumbria doesn't just mean Northumberland or North Yorkshire the way it does today. There are two distinct regions, really from, say, the Tees, south and into Yorkshire, that's the Viking Kingdom. From the Tees northward up to the 5th That's the old Northumbria, which is not ruled by the Vikings. That's ruled by one of the House of Bambara, that's ruled by a Northumbrian Earl. And they're players as well, because they are players and they're obviously valuable allies either for the Northumbrians or for the Kings of Wessex, only for the Scots. The Scots are there as well. And then you've got the Irish Vikings, just to steal the mix. So Eric isn't likely to face his enemies coming at him from any one direction. They can come from any direction or all directions at once.

• 44:00Speaker 05

  So whoever is sitting in that throne in York, uh, he's in a pretty precarious position, which demands, it's not about brute force, it demands significant diplomatic and political skill just to keep you, you bum on the seat.

• 44:14Eleanor Janega?

  I mean, it's worth it though. It's a really rich kingdom. There's rather a lot that's going on, you know, fantastic trading, but fundamentally Eric ends up losing Northumbria because he dies, you know, he dies at seventy in the Battle of Stainmore. What do we know about this particular death? I mean, what is this guy doing out there in the first place?

• 44:39Speaker 05

  That's a very good question. I think I had to devote a very long chapter with a lot of ifs and buts and maybes in it. I think Eric had been deposed already. I don't think Stainmore is him hoeing from east to west to meet an enemy. I think it's him moving from west to east to reclaim Northumbria. And an alliance is formed against him of all of, of the Earl of Northumberland, all of whom once suspect are funded from Wessex. Yadward is playing a clever game this time. He's not going for brute force. He's going for skilled, cunning diplomacy and let the people do the dirty work for him. So he's not directly alienating the Northumbrians by trashing the place. He's allowing them to fight them among themselves effectively. And then when Eric is dead, he'll just say, well, guys, here I am. Nobody left, last man standing.

• 45:22Speaker 05

  So I'm suggesting that Yadward is probably behind the coalition that is formed to resist Eric. The route across Stainmore was a sure and certain road from east to west. It was the Roman road, still plenty of Roman remains along the road. If Eric has been forced out of Northumbria, if he has gone west to recruit men from possibly the Wirral city from Cumbria or indeed from Ireland. Or wait, main forces coming in from Scotland, depending how far his checkbook will go at this time. He amasses a force marching eastwards from west to east up the Stainmore Pass, where he's intercepted somewhere near the head of the pass. A battle ensues and he and his forces are overwhelmed. He's probably outnumbered, but he decides, because he's a gambler, Eric, at the end of the day, he decides his reputation, his ferocity, his name is enough and he'll

• 46:07Speaker 05

  fight his way through. And he's right, maybe. Exactly, the exact historical power would be King Olaf, in was it ten thirty five, at the Battle of Stikelstadt. He knows the odds are against him. Who thinks about the hell? I'll have a go anyway. Because I've always won in the past.

• 46:22Eleanor Janega?

  That makes sense, because if you're in an incredibly strong position, you know, if you're hanging out in York and you've got rather a lot of power and money behind you, there's no way that you're out at Stainmore, you know, swinging an axe around at seventy years old. It's likely, I would imagine, that something is forced to your hand. There's no point in you being on the battlefield if things are fairly stable. I mean, even given the fairly patchy political nature of England at the time.

• 46:51Speaker 05

  That's right. I think we have, we read about early English histories being, you know, one battle after another. Medieval generals from this relatively early period onwards would avoid battle if they possibly could. Nobody wanted to fight in a battle unless he had to, unless he was certain of winning. He would only fight if he thought there was a damn good chance he was going to win. Because once you commit your forces to battle, you actually lose all control. Because once you're in the front line, there's no way you can control the flow of the battle. You have no radio, you've got no comms, and you don't get an overview. There's no way you can actually gauge what's happening on the flanks if you're in the centre. If you stand back from the battle line, there's no way, you know, look at him. Yeah, you know, he's not really one of us. So you're expected to be this kind of Homeric figure, leading from the front, in the front line, which makes controlling a battle, and don't know how many, what the numbers are, probably not that

• 47:35Speaker 05

  great. So Eric, I think, has got to be pretty desperate almost, and knows this is his last chance. If he can break this confederation of enemies arranged against him, he can break them in now at Stainmore, he's bombproof.

• 47:46Eleanor Janega?

  Do we know who actually killed him? I mean, this is a pretty big head to take, or is this a simply a fog of war sort of situation?

• 47:53Speaker 05

  The man who gets the credit is El Machis, who was the Yard of the Thumber at that time. But in the heat of battle, exactly who is killing who is almost impossible. In the movies, it's always, you know, it's always this great fight between the two heroes. Never happens like that. The line breaks and you simply get rolled over. So exactly who, oh, which group of men struck Eric down? We don't know.

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• 50:08Eleanor Janega?

  One way or another, he's dead. It's a good innings. 70 years is nothing to sneeze at in general, let alone if you're a Viking. But what are the implications for Northumbria after Eric is actually dead? Does this mean that it's kind of absorbed more with the more northern part of Northumbria? How does this shake out?

• 50:26Speaker 05

  Really, the death of Eric is generally taken as marking the end of the independent kingdom of Northumbria. And that the kings of Wessex now extend their influence, really all the way to the Scottish borders. And the Earl of Northumbria becomes a servant of the kings of Wessex. And remember, of course, at that point, 954, there's no border between England and Scotland the way we understand it now. The Thumbrian influence extends as far north as the 3rd and 4th, and the border's not fixed until 1018, in the Battle of Carm, when the tweed becomes the light. So really, the death of Eric is always taken as in right, I think, taken as marking the end of an independent Norse-stroke Northumbrian kingdom in the north. That's it.

• 51:10Speaker 05

  The north is now part of England, whether they like it or not.

• 51:12Eleanor Janega?

  And this is one of the things that makes this story, I don't know, from my standpoint, kind of sad. I like the independent north, whatever. Call me a romantic and you'll be all right.

• 51:21Speaker 05

  Why not?

• 51:22Eleanor Janega?

  But, you know, I think that Eric gets held up at this point as a fairly romantic figure, despite the fact that, you know, he's this big, bloodthirsty Viking, you know? He's independent, he's a really good warrior, he's courageous. But how much of that is just us getting taken in by the various chronicles and sagas, right? Because a lot of what we know about him comes out of the Chronicle of Edgelland. Is this reliable? Or, you know, again, is this my romanticism and longing for Northumbria coloring my views?

• 51:57Speaker 05

  It's very difficult to see. In 1,000 years since, or 1,000 years, the Vikings have had many makeovers. And yes, everybody I know who's ever had the DNA tested has had it tested to see if they got Viking blood. Yeah, thirty years ago, for a while, the most popular movie hero was Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator, the psychopathic robot. And yet, you know, because, in a way, these characters, it's the Achilles-type character, the rogue warrior, the great hero, who, if nothing else, is not deficient in courage, certainly, and who squares up to his enemies and beats them in a fair fight, who is a great warrior. Still has a resonance today. We like these type of characters. Richard III is a lot more popular than his brother Edward IV, and he was, you know, Cardy's would tell me, he wasn't a bad guy, it was

• 52:41Speaker 05

  a really, very, very nice book. And he was just unlucky with the number of people who had to die around him. That, we like the bad boys. Bad boys are fun. Jesse James is fun. Butch Cassidy is fun. All the nice guys of history are not necessarily that, they're not exciting. They might do, the Dr. Livingston, these people, you know, they're great, like Martin Luther Sivers, all the rest, John Wesley's, they're nice people, they do a lot of good, but yeah, they're bloody boring, really. You didn't go and bash anybody.

• 53:07Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, kids in the backyard are not going to be playing, I don't know, Charles the Fourth and establishing churches everywhere, you know, they want to be a Viking, they want to hit each other with sticks, you know, yeah. I think that you're absolutely bang on here. There is this tendency for us to put all of our eggs into the heroic basket. And certainly, I think we can all agree that Eric Bloodaxe is this big heroic figure. But do you think he's an actually successful ruler, or is he just dramatic?

• 53:34Speaker 05

  Well, if you look at him, he was king in all of a very short time. King of the Thumby twice, the two very short times in a career. So, no, he's not a successful ruler. He's not a successful statesman. He is an epic warrior. He's certainly a trier, he's still trying some deep. And he clearly commanded a lot of respect and regard from his contemporaries. He was clearly superb material for the saga writers. And he fulfills the romantic image of the Visayas Babae. If you look at the statue of Lyv Erikson next to the cathedral in Reykjavik, he doesn't look anything like Lyv Erikson. Lyv Erikson was short and fat. He was short, fat, rather squat. But the guy in the statue looks like Douglass, you know, square jaw, lantern jaw. He looks really ready for anything. He looks like a hero.

• 54:19Speaker 05

  Forget it. Come on, the end of the Vikings in the deal. Are you hoping for Tonic as so Kirk goes to win? You want Kirk goes to win? I do. He doesn't, but no, Mike, because he can't. He's a bad boy. But somehow he's a more tired of character.

• 54:30Eleanor Janega?

  Absolutely. And I think one of the reasons why we end up talking about Eric as well is he's able to kind of pop up in movies and in TV and in works of fiction because we've got this story about him. And he does, right? Like, you know, you're like, oh, here's Eric, like in some film about the Vikings, you know, this sort of thing.

• 54:48Speaker 05

  And the Victorians obviously were great romantics. They loved romantic stories. And in Victorian times, there was a lot of interest in Norse forbears, this idea of a heroic age of Norsemen. And then, of course, that gets hijacked in the 1930s by the Nazis. Again, who use these great Nordic imagery to support their own warped beliefs in weird and completely mad racial theories. So you can cast the Vikings in a number of moulds. And it's easy because the Vikings fall into so many moulds. And they didn't have a mould for themselves. They were just what they were, what they were, what they did. It was the way they were. They didn't necessarily think about it. That was their world. And they then proved over the years to be quite malleable heroes.

• 55:34Speaker 05

  As well as being coming up their shipbuilding, these astonishing craft that they built. And they sailed him across the world's ocean, you know, they discovered Iceland, or probably just go and Iceland, discovered Greenland. They sailed to the Americas. Wow, that's pretty impressive.

• 55:47Eleanor Janega?

  You know, there's a reason why we talk about them and, you know, even me as kind of, I guess, I'm Viking agnostic, you know, because I'm at times incredibly impressed by them and I really love them. And at times I am really horrified by what they do. So, you know, I think Eric Bloodaxe is one of these guys who just encapsulates all of that. You know, he's got the best and the worst of everything. He's bringing the dramatic action that we want to see and giving us these stories. You know, we're gossiping about him a thousand years after his death, you know, one way or another, whether or not he's successful. He's fun to talk about. He's fun to think about.

• 56:25Speaker 05

  One of the most successful TV series in the last, what, 10 years has been Vikings. And the main character, played by Travis Fennell, who's very good looking, is Ragnar Lothbrok, who may or may not have existed, and from whom Eric did obviously claim descent because he's the archetypal vital ancestor. And no, he wasn't a very nice man. He was a savage. If you had been on Lindisfarne in seven nine threes, if it was he, or whoever trashed Lindisfarne, you know, if you switch on the television, you look at the pictures of doomed and terrified refugees and the horror of Gaza and other places. That's what Lindisfarne looked like. So we shouldn't get too carried away by glorifying these guys. If you were on the receiving end of their interest, then there's nothing you wrote about them at all. They were bad guys and they did terrible things.

• 57:08Eleanor Janega?

  That's history, baby, right? Like, that's the kind of

• 57:11Speaker 05

  That is history.

• 57:12Eleanor Janega?

  That's the entire point of doing it, you know, is we take these horrible things and these difficult people and we synthesize the information and we tell the stories from a safer move. It allows us this ability to romanticize and to hypothesize. And you need that remove, I think, because otherwise you do get bogged down in the the human misery that that is endemic.

• 57:35Speaker 05

  If you think was, if in terms of propaganda, what is the most successful movie from the Scottish National Party point of view ever made? It's Braveheart. You watch Braveheart. It is complete tosh.

• 57:46Eleanor Janega?

  It is.

• 57:47Speaker 05

  There are a lot of people who take it as gospel. And Mel Gibson's version of William Wallace, which is very cleverly constructed, becomes the norm. Now, the reality was William Wallace wasn't Australian.

• 57:59Eleanor Janega?

  No.

• 58:01Speaker 05

  He was a foot taller than Mel Gibson. He probably hated the English even less than Mel Gibson. And who would mean seen dead wearing a skirt? Even today, that film's made, what, ninety five, thirty years old? It's become iconic because it gives us a view of history that we enjoy.

• 58:14Eleanor Janega?

  This is the the beauty of Eric Bludak's and why I think he makes such a wonderful subject for all of us. And I guess I can't thank you enough for coming on and complicating the easy heroic picture. You know, I do love a good gossip about a Viking. What can I say?

• 58:32Eleanor Janega?

  Thanks to John Sadler and to you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including my recent series, Meet the Normans, and ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments, suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

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• 59:40Speaker 01

  Hi, everyone. It's Katie Couric. And on my podcast, Next Question, we love stories about how women are taking control of their lives. They are increasingly leading financial decisions in their households, yet many say they don't feel fully prepared for the long-term financial choices ahead. Real confidence comes from knowing your financial future is protected, whatever happens. Pacific Life has helped generations protect what matters today and prepare for tomorrow with life insurance and lifetime income solutions. It's a promise Pacific Life has kept for nearly 160 years, so its customers can keep theirs.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Ask a financial professional about how Pacific Life can help you create a more confident financial future. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska; and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.