The Great Heathen Army, Part II

Shattering Shields and Staking Claims

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Mentions of violence against children and child death. Mentions of grievous bodily harm.

“A.D. 876 - …That same year Halfdan divided the land of the Northumbrians; so that they became afterwards their harrowers and their ploughers.” - The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (J.A. Giles and J. Ingram Translation)

In the winter of 873-874 CE, the better part of a decade after they first made landfall on the Island of Britain, the Scandinavian invading force known to contemporary sources as “The Great Heathen Army” or just “The Great Army” dug in for the winter in Derbyshire, at Repton, a small Anglo-Saxon settlement on the River Trent. This was nowhere near the first time that Vikings had overwintered in Britain, and the locals, despite their general disdain for the foreigners, were not unaccustomed to their presence. The Great Army quickly built fortifications that would protect both their camp and their ships; a D-shaped formation of earthen ramparts and timber bulwarks, ubiquitous to the long forts found throughout the Viking diaspora.