Being a Viking Berserker in the Great Heathen Army of AD 865 conjures up images of manly warriors battling the Anglo-Saxons as they marched across the English countryside
Putting then natives to the sword under the banner of Hvitserk, Ivar the Boneless, and Bjorn Ironside.
But of course ultimately Alfred the Great stopped them at the battle of Edington and saved England. However before that event the Viking Army marched over much of the country, including Repton in Derbyshire where they overwintered which is one of only a few places in England where a Viking winter camp has been located.
They even left a cemetery of sorts, when they buried their recent dead in a mass grave yard containing the remains of at least 264 individuals, one of which was the body of a warrior in the churchyard at Repton. It was unusual in one regard that made it stand out. He had been killed in the usual brutal manner of combat in that era, with two wounds in the skull, which were probably made by a spear, and cut marks on the spine that suggested he had been disembowelled after death. Also indications of a violent blow to the top of the thigh which very likely would have removed his genitals.
So in his burial pit, as well as the usual sword, and a small Thor's hammer - the sign of the Viking god Thor - the body had been buried with a boar's tusk found between the legs of his skeleton. It appears that his friends had made an attempt to make his body complete before his trip to Valhalla, the Viking afterlife by giving him a new willy bone.
So we know this guy wasn't Ivar The Boneless
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| Viking Warriors Of The Great heathen Army Rampaged Across The Land |
Putting then natives to the sword under the banner of Hvitserk, Ivar the Boneless, and Bjorn Ironside.
But of course ultimately Alfred the Great stopped them at the battle of Edington and saved England. However before that event the Viking Army marched over much of the country, including Repton in Derbyshire where they overwintered which is one of only a few places in England where a Viking winter camp has been located.
They even left a cemetery of sorts, when they buried their recent dead in a mass grave yard containing the remains of at least 264 individuals, one of which was the body of a warrior in the churchyard at Repton. It was unusual in one regard that made it stand out. He had been killed in the usual brutal manner of combat in that era, with two wounds in the skull, which were probably made by a spear, and cut marks on the spine that suggested he had been disembowelled after death. Also indications of a violent blow to the top of the thigh which very likely would have removed his genitals.
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| Ivar The Not Boneless |
So in his burial pit, as well as the usual sword, and a small Thor's hammer - the sign of the Viking god Thor - the body had been buried with a boar's tusk found between the legs of his skeleton. It appears that his friends had made an attempt to make his body complete before his trip to Valhalla, the Viking afterlife by giving him a new willy bone.
So we know this guy wasn't Ivar The Boneless
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