Vi fick även en collectible.

Ellie och jag gick en lång runda idag, för att ta igen lite som vi missat den senaste tiden.

Efter denna långrunda, kom nästa vykort från Viking – Invasions.

The campaigning season of 871-872 saw Wessex face the Vikings no less than eight times. In May, Alfred fought his first battle as king at Wilton and managed to break their shieldwall and force them into a rout. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells us that the Saxons pursued their enemy in bad order, and the Vikings were able to regroup and counterattack, totally destroying Alfred’s army. 

The defeat was disastrous for Wessex and a bad start to Alfred’s reign. The Saxons were able to hang on until winter, and with the end of the campaigning season approaching, the exhausted Vikings agreed to negotiate a peace in exchange for a Danegeld payment. Though it was an expensive, humiliating, and short-term solution, it did get the Vikings off Wessex’s back for a few years. Ivar turned his attention to raiding in north Mercia, where it’s said he was killed sometime around 873.

In the early months of 878, the Vikings, now led by King Guthrum, broke the agreement and launched a surprise attack deep into the Wessex heartland. They killed almost all of Wessex’s horses, then, in a lightning campaign, conquered most of Wessex, hitting Chippenham first, then sacking Alfred’s capital, Winchester, then Exeter, and then occupying the rest of the countryside.

Alfred was forced to flee. Taking his few remaining followers, he headed to the forests and swamps of the Somerset levels, making his stronghold in Athelney, a low-lying, defensible island surrounded by marshes, reed beds, wet woodland and waterways. From here, he fought a bitter guerrilla war against the invaders, striking where they were weakest, and then disappearing back into the woods.

As he warred from the shadows, the bandit king’s legend grew, and Saxons from across Wessex and Mercia left their homes to join the fight. This period of Alfred’s reign was mythologised over the centuries, Alfred stepping into a sort of Robin Hood role; his band of Merry Men striking from the woods, defending helpless Saxons against their Viking oppressors. Among the many legends is the story of King Alfred’s cakes, which is known by all British schoolchildren. It goes something like this:

After the Viking ambush, Alfred fled into the Somerset woods. Bruised, exhausted and hungry, he came upon a little cottage in the middle of the woods. Inside was a little old woman, bent over her fire, cooking some oat cakes on a cast-iron griddle. The exhausted king asked if he could rest at her cottage, and the old lady agreed, as long as he kept an eye on the cakes as she went to the forest to gather wood. More used to fighting than baking, Alfred fell asleep, and the cakes burnt. When the old woman returned, she chased the king out of the house with a broomstick.

In early 878, the Vikings were handed a serious defeat by the Welsh of Dyfed, and then at the battle of Cynwit, Devonshire Saxons overcame Ragnar’s son Ubba, killing him in battle. After this, the sources suggest that the remaining sons of Ragnar were starting to quarrel with Guthrum’s faction. With Guthrum lacking the support of Ragnar’s sons, Alfred may have sensed opportunity, and, in May 878, he marched through the lush chalk hills of Wiltshire to a place known as Edington. This was the Saxons’ final chance to throw off the Great Heathen Army, and Alfred, as he rallied his men around Egbert’s Stone, must have known it was do-or-die: triumph here or become a footnote in the history of Viking Britain.

The battle was joined, and Alfred’s men came out on top. The Vikings suffered great losses and retreated to their fortress, where Alfred laid siege to a broken enemy. After two weeks, the torments of hunger and thirst became too much, and Guthrum sued for peace. Alfred agreed on two conditions: first, that the Vikings would retreat to Northumbria and East Anglia, and leave Wessex in peace. Second, that Guthrum and his men would forgo their Pagan gods and convert to Christianity. Guthrum accepted and took the new Christian name Aethelstan.

Alfred and Guthrum established new borders, with Alfred receiving Wessex and south Mercia, plus London. With these new lands, Alfred became the first king of a united Saxon kingdom, calling himself rex Angul-Saxonum, King of the Anglo-Saxons. Here, he paved the way for the eventual English nationality and state. Once again, the pressure of the Viking invasion led to a deepening of the Saxons’ sense of themselves as a single people, with a shared culture and political destiny. 

As Alfred’s reign entered its more peaceful years, a new Britain developed. Norse were a permanent presence now, part of the ethnic makeup of the Isles, just the same as the Saxons, Welsh, Scots, Picts and Irish. Over the next few years, Alfred and Guthrum would hammer out a series of treaties that would define the rights and equalities of Saxon and Norse, creating a new peace and a new era in the history of Britain.

Dagen började med att jag efter frukost tog mig an dagens halvmaraton träningspass, vilket innebar att springa 25-minuter i tempot 7:15/km. Jag gjorde detta på löpbandet.

Senare på eftermiddagen var Ellie och jag ute och gick augustis sista runda.

Efter dagens rundor, kom det ett vykort från Viking – Invasions.

In the chaos of the Viking invasions, the kingdom of Wessex, sitting in the southwest corner of England, became the only Saxon realm to put up serious resistance to the new threat. This was partly thanks to geography; the Wessex coast was spared the worst of the Viking sea raids, and their territory lay furthest from the Great Heathen Army’s advance. Furthermore, Wessex had proven its ability to defeat the Vikings in the field and had swallowed up the old kingdoms of Sussex and Kent, as well as superseding Mercia, its historical rival. It was also led by a competent king, Aethelred, and his younger brother Alfred, destined to succeed and surpass him. 

The advancing Vikings first struck Reading, a town just across the border, lying on the south bank of the River Thames. Here, the local earl was able to resist the first assault, and the Vikings retreated to a fortified camp 19 mi (30.5 km) to the southeast at Englefield. The ball was in the Wessex brothers’ court. They took the initiative and attacked.  Although they almost breached the fortifications, the Vikings fought “like wolves” and drove the Saxons back.

Aethelred and Alfred retreated east in good order to the Berkshire Downs, an area of rolling chalk hills near Reading. Bagsecg’s Viking army followed them, taking the Ridgeway, an ancient road that led straight over the top of the Downs into the heartland of Wessex. If their kingdom was to survive, the brothers needed to stop the invasion here, at a battleground that would be known later as Ashdown. 

No one knows exactly where the battle took place, but a good contender is between the Blewburton and Kingstanding Hills. At the top of Blewburton Hill is Blewburton Camp, an Iron Age hillfort with massive earthwork ramparts and ditches that still make a strong fortress. It’s believed that Aethelred camped his forces there, whilst Alfred camped at Kingstanding Hill, which may have provided him with a commanding view over the Norse army coming up the Ridgeway, and an opportunity to cut them off in a pincer movement as they advanced towards Aethelred’s shieldwall.

Asser tells us that on the day of the battle, the Viking Army formed into two divisions: one led by Bagsecg, the Viking king who had brought over the Great Summer Army, and the other by his jarls. The Wessex forces, enjoying a slight numerical advantage, copied them and drew their forces into shieldwalls. Alfred was to attack the earls, Aethelred the king.

The first part of the battle started in confusion – Aethelred refused to bring his forces to battle until he heard Mass in his tent, telling his frantic advisors that he was ‘not disposed to abandon the service of God for that of men’. But the Vikings were advancing, and Alfred realised that he could not wait any longer. He charged the enemy ‘with the rush of a wild boar’.

Just as Alfred’s soldiers crashed into the Viking shieldwall, Aethelred’s banners appeared on the other side of the hill. The two forces met, ‘the one side bent on evil, the other on fighting for life, and dear ones, and fatherland’. Again, they fought fiercely, and the Saxons came out on top. Bagsecg, along with most of his jarls, was slain on the battlefield. 

The Saxons pursued the enemy to Basing, hoping to end the invasion once and for all, but the Vikings won the fight and drove the Saxons back to Reading. That winter, another contingent of reinforcements arrived from Scandinavia, and the opportunity was lost. Despite their defeat at Ashdown, the Vikings still had the advantage.

A few months later, Aethelred, after a turbulent and certainly stressful five years on the throne, died. The Saxon tradition (loosely followed) was that brothers succeed brothers to the throne, and so Alfred was acclaimed king by the people of Wessex on 23 April 871. Now the young man, just 21 years old, will face his greatest test, as the Viking hordes turn their attention to the northwest and invade Mercia. In just a couple of months, the Mercian king flees to Rome, and the Vikings conquer the country. Wessex stands alone, and the Great Heathen Army is massing on its borders.

Idag var det så dags att fira Gabriels 12-års dag. Det blev till att sitta ute denna soliga dag.

När alla gästerna gått, begav en del av oss ut på en promenad. Gabriel testade sina nya inlines, medan Samuel cyklade.

Efter denna promenad grillades det!

Nu kom också den sista comic:en från The Conqueror Events – Avengers – The Infinity Gauntlet utmaning, samt slutcertifikatet efter slutförd utmaning.

Inte nog med det, så kom det en liten samlarbild från Vikings Invasions.

Sist men inte minst, kom ett vykort från Ellie’s och min Harry Potter utmaning!

Efter denna runda kom det en ny comic från Avengers – Chaos Magic utmaningen.

Idag ville Ellie gå ca: 7 km, så jag plottade en runda, som verkade bli 7,8 km. Den gick över bron, förbi vattentornet, mot IKEA längs Pildammsvägen, för att ta höger vid PEAB-huset på Vintrievägen, där vi sedan tog höger igen där Vintrievägen fortsatte. Vi gick genom Vintrie och passerade Leif och Katjas hus, för att sedan ta oss till vänster upp mot cykelbanan längs med Lorensborgsgatan. Den följde vi tills vi kom under Elinelundsvägen, där vi gjorde en 180-graders sväng och följde cykelbanan på Elinelundsvägen tills vi passerat Hyllie kyrkogård. Där tog vi höger igen, passerade Hyllie skolan och tog oss hem via Östra Hyllievägen.

Det var varmt, men ganska skönt att promenera och vi såg ett och annat som vi inte sett tidigare.

Det blev till slut lite längre än planerat, men det innebar att vi fick vårt första vykort från Harry Potter – The prisoner of Azkaban.

The Leaky Cauldron is the oldest inn and pub in London, as well as a passage from the Muggle world to the wizarding one. The cozy ground floor serves food and drink, as well as offering passage to the Diagon Alley. The seemingly infinite corridor on the upper floor is lined with doors leading to shabby but warm rooms ready for any witch, wizard or magical creature in need of a bed.

Förutom detta vykort, kom det även ett i min egen VIKING – utmaning.

After the horrors of Lindisfarne, Viking raids continued across the British Isles. Our sources are scant for the Viking Age, but we do have one important contemporary account – the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Written, compiled, and updated over centuries by a variety of hands in Britain’s monasteries, the Chronicle traces the history of Britain and the Anglo-Saxon people year by year, from the landing of Julius Caesar in 55 BC to the first decades after the Norman conquest in 1066. The work is terse, bureaucratic, and often tedious to read. It’s also largely a summary, lacking the detail and drama that make for an engaging historical account. 

The written sources we have from the Viking side are far more entertaining and far less reliable. They come largely from the sagas – poems, mainly from Icelandic skalds (Viking poets) written in the 13th century, that describe famous Vikings and their great deeds. From these sagas, we have the tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, a fierce, heroic, and probably mythical Viking lord whose end will have consequences for the people of the British Isles that are still felt today.

Ragnar was born sometime in the early 9th century to the king of Sweden (or, in other sources, Denmark), Sigurd Ring. He lived the typical life of a Viking prince, gathering as many followers as he could, and building up a war chest by raiding and warring. During one of his adventures, he travelled with his men to Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea. Here lived a princess named Þóra, whom Ragnar wished to marry, and a great serpent, which had taken to terrorising the people, who could not raise arms against it.

Ragnar decided to kill the serpent. In preparation, he had ‘‘shaggy-breeches and a fur-coat (…) boiled in pitch” to protect him from the serpent’s poisonous blood. Then, he took with him a long spear, so that he could keep his distance from its sharp, curved fangs. 

Ragnar found the serpent on the beach, slithering around the strange chimney-shaped rock formations that litter that part of the Gotland coast. He rushed at it and plunged his long spear deep into its belly. As it thrashed and writhed, the spear’s head snapped off, and it spat its burning venom at Ragnar in revenge. The hero stood over the beast as it finally died, unharmed thanks to his pitch-soaked cloak and breeches.

The next day, the Jarl found the serpent dead and Ragnar’s spearhead embedded in its body. He called a thing (or parliament) of all the men on the island and asked each one if they possessed the broken spear. Ragnar presented his shaft, and the Jarl fitted the spearhead on top, proving to all that Ragnar had slain the serpent. He told the tale of the battle, and from that moment on, he was known as Lodbrok, or “hairy breeches”.  

The Jarl asked Ragnar to name his prize, and he replied that he wished to have Þóra’s hand in marriage. Ragnar and Þóra returned to the mainland, and had two sons before Þóra died of an illness. Driven by grief, Ragnar left his kingdom and travelled to Norway, where he met a peasant woman named Kraka (meaning ‘Crow’, known also in other sources as Aslaug), whose “hair was so long that it went down to the ground, and was as beautiful as the most beautiful silk”. All of Ragnar’s followers were entranced by this dark-haired beauty, and when he ordered them to make bread for a feast, the loaves came out burned, as none of the men could take their eyes off the beautiful Kraka as they worked. 

Ragnar married Kraka, who bore him a son named Ivar. The Saga tells us he was born with cartilage instead of bones, and so was named ‘Boneless’. Then came Ubba, Hvitserk, and Sigurd. As they grew up, the brothers accompanied their father on raids, fighting the Finns in the north, who shot like lightning across the snowdrifts, firing arrows from their skis. Then, braving the Saxons’ shieldwalls, and sailing the Volga, plundering the villages of the far-off Rus.

Ivar could not walk and had to be carried around on wooden staves, but he quickly showed himself the most fearsome and cunning of Ragnar’s sons. He led raids on the Saxons and Irish, sacking their monasteries, carrying off their women, treasure, and livestock, and becoming like his father – a terror to his enemies, and an inspiration for the Skalds’ poems all across the Norse lands.

One year, Ragnar set off to raid the Saxon lands and came into conflict with Aella, the king of Northumbria. Aella was a blasphemous and tyrannical ruler who was said to have won his kingdom by usurping the rightful king, and plundering monasteries, taking their lands and wealth for himself. Ragnar fought a battle against the Northumbrians and was defeated and captured. He was brought before the Saxon king and stripped of his tar-soaked coat and breeches. Then, he was bound and thrown into a pit of poisonous snakes that bit and tormented him until he died in agony. 

News of Ragnar’s death travelled across the rainswept Northern seas until it arrived at the longhouses of Ivar and his brothers. They sent a call across their lands, asking their many allies to join a great army they would take to strike at the hearts of their father’s murderers and carve out kingdoms for themselves.

That’s a pretty tall story that I just told you. Can we really believe that Ragnar slew a dragon? Did Aella really have a pit of snakes ready and waiting? Where did he even get the snakes from – did he have a team of his men collect them? How long would that take in cold, gloomy England? Or did he buy them? And if so, then why? Just to have in case he needed to give a legendary Viking an end that just happened to mirror his rise?

In truth, Ragnar’s saga is a myth. It’s a good story that helps us fill the gaps in our knowledge about a time when little was written down. The tale helps us explain why, in 865, a huge Viking warfleet arrived on the shores of East Anglia. It helps us make narrative sense of a great transition; that the Vikings were now more than raiders; they were invaders. This was the Great Heathen Army, and they were about to ravage Britain, settle the lands, and, as the Saxons began to unify against them, go some way in creating the Anglo-Saxon identity that would eventually form the English people.

Det kom även en ny Collectible från Chaos Magic utmaningen.

Regnet föll när jag var på väg bort till Ellie kl. 10:00, men efter att jag kommit dit upphörde regnandet och vi var på väg på vår promenad.

Tanken var att ta oss rakt ner mot havet, för att sedan svänga vänster och promenera längs stranden och sedan ta oss igenom Hammars Park och sedan tillbaka mot Ellie.

Så blev det!

Inte nog med att jag klarade utmaningen ”Helgpromenad i Juni” i Garmin appen, fick jag även nästa Comic från Hulk Smash.

Ellie och jag hade bestämt oss för att gå minst 5 km idag, då det var en av mina utmaningar i min Garmin app, så då gjorde vi det.

Efter denna runda, kom det en hel del vykort, collectibles och andra besked.

I vår Harry Potter – Prisoner of Azkaban kom följande:

Dessutom kom den tredje Collectiblen från Avengers – Hulk Smash.

Dessutom kom det tredje vykortet.

Using Dr. Doom’s time machine, rebels from the future transport Hulk into their time, hoping that he will be one to rid them of Maestro, or rather, Bruce Banner from the future! As advised by Rick Jones from the future, the Hulk comes face-to-face with his old, ruthless counterpart. The two are a match for power, and the older version has the advantage of already knowing his younger self’s moves. In the end, Hulk teleports Maestro into the past, at the exact moment in which the original Bruce Banner became Hulk, getting him killed by the gamma bomb.

I min Vikings – Invasion kom följande Collectible:

Yggdrasil and Odin’s Ordeal

To the Norse, the cosmos lies on the boughs of a great ash tree called Yggdrasil. All nine realms exist nestled in ints branches and roots. From the frozen wastes of Hel to the respiendent halls of Asgard. From the howling wilderness of Jotunheim to the realm of Midgard, home to us mortals.

Strax efter hemkomst, då vi avslutat Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, bestämde vi oss för att anmäla oss till nästa i ordningen: Prisoner of Azkaban.

129 km skall vi avverka på ett år!