In search of the Vikings

After a thousand years, the Vikings are still with us. As they storm the British Museum, Charles Emmerson asks re-enactors, archaeologists, tattooists and other fans one question: why?

By Charles Emmerson

In an unheated school hall, on a damp winter’s evening, a group of men are strapping on riot gear, unsheathing blunt steel swords, taking out long-handled Dane axes, and going at each other hammer and tongs.

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