Michael Scott Rohan dons his helmet to explore the various works that have been inspired by the marauding <\/p>
T<\/span>he name Viking awakens an immediate image in our minds. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Half terrifying, half comic, instantly recognisable even in cartoon caricatures like H\u00e4gar the Horrible or Stoick the Vast in Helen Cresswell\u2019s Dragon books \u2013 huge, hairy, violent, in the winged or horned helmets we know they never really wore, sporting real names like Eyolf the Foul and Thorolf Lousebeard, and yet somehow full of integrity, immensely courageous, outward-looking and indomitable. <\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s compelling and, like most caricatures, more than a little true; and it haunts our history.<\/span><\/p>\n Understandably so. In barely two centuries Viking ships came boiling out of Denmark, Norway and Sweden to occupy Iceland, Greenland, Normandy \u2013 hence the name \u2013 Russia, Ireland and Britain, where they settled most of Northern England and southern Scotland, becoming Christianised and absorbed. <\/span><\/p>\n They traded from the coast of North America to Byzantium, where they supplied the emperor\u2019s Varangian Guard. We owe them much of our language, four days of the week, and concepts ranging from democracy to law \u2013 a Viking word. And, not unnaturally, these overwhelming Norsemen have also invaded our music.<\/span><\/p>\n At first, unsurprisingly, it was as enemies. Probably their first appearance was a line that much-raided monks supposedly added to the liturgy: \u2018A furore Normannorum, domine, defende nos!\u2019 (From the wrath of the Norsemen, Lord deliver us!). But as the British increasingly celebrated their history, Norsemen made handy punchbags.<\/span><\/p>\nWho were the Vikings?<\/h3>\n
How did the Vikings have inspired music?<\/h2>\n