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00:00Late summer, and under cover of darkness, a powerful armada is bearing down on the British
00:19mainland. It's one of the largest invasion forces to ever threaten our shores.
00:30But these aren't Spanish men of war. They're Norse longships. And this isn't English Channel.
00:40It's the west coast of Scotland. The Battle of Largs in 1263 was the last time Norse invaders
00:49fought on our soil. The final bloody twist in a relationship that was centuries old.
00:59This is the story of the Vikings in Scotland. It's a story of brutal violence and pitiless
01:06warfare. But it's also a story of new technology and exquisite art. Of how the Scotland we know
01:17today was formed, and how the Vikings were right at the heart of that change.
01:32My name is John Henderson. I'm an underwater archaeologist, and my work has taken me across
01:37the globe, exploring sunken cities and lost civilisations.
01:43That's quite a nice fight. We've got a base of a bow. I'm fascinated by how ancient peoples
01:50exploited the power of the sea. But there's one group that's always had a real personal
01:55draw for me. I grew up near the seaside town of Largs. It's a place that isn't exactly shy
02:05about its Viking past. But the truth behind the battle that was fought here has largely
02:11been forgotten. The Norse connection in Scotland lasted longer than anywhere else in the British
02:16Isles. Whole swathes of the country were effectively part of Scandinavia. But why did the Vikings
02:22come to Scotland in the first place? What lay behind an astonishing success? And how did
02:27their grip on their Scottish territories come to an end in such a dramatic way?
02:33To help answer these questions, I'm going to travel to the Vikings' fjord homeland, and
02:40learn some of the secrets of their boatbuilding technology.
02:43Can you see the other end yet? I'm going to explore mysterious Viking ruins.
02:49It's a massive engineering operation.
02:53And trace the route of the final invasion fleet.
03:01Because the Vikings never really went away. They didn't just disappear over the horizon.
03:06The Battle of Largs, 750 years ago, might have marked the beginning of the end for Norse
03:11power in Scotland. But the Viking influence remained. Part of a new nation. Part of us.
03:17I'm beginning my journey into Scotland's Viking past on the Isle of Skye. A team of archaeologists and
03:45divers are on their way to one of the most extraordinary Viking sites in the whole of Britain, and I've
03:51been invited to join them. I've spent a lot of my working life in boats. It's often the
03:58only practical way to get to some pretty remote spots.
04:02To begin to understand Viking Scotland, you really have to change the way you think about
04:06geography. It's only recently we've thought of the sea as a barrier. But for generations, going
04:13back to the Vikings and beyond, it was the sea that connected communities and people. For
04:18the Vikings, the sea was a superhighway.
04:24I've come here to Rowan Dunan to find out just how the Vikings came to rule Scotland's sea routes.
04:37Archaeologists have been visiting this secluded site for several years. But on this trip, they've brought a new box of technological
04:44tricks to help them explore it.
04:49This is a remote-controlled aerial drone. It's equipped with a digital camera and can manoeuvre
04:54high above the ground, taking highly detailed images.
04:58That's absolutely fantastic, what you've done there. I mean, the resolution you've managed
05:03to achieve. And just to get an aerial view of the whole site, you can really see the connection
05:07between the sea and the loch. It's brilliant.
05:10Yes, and this is a true artificial canal with built sides and cut rock. It's quite remarkable.
05:17It's a serious bit of engineering, isn't it? These people were doing something important.
05:20Yes, absolutely. It's certainly the oldest canal in Scotland, if not in Britain.
05:27But what was the purpose of this complex site? What exactly was going on here? Could the answers
05:38lie below the water?
05:43Yeah. Originally developed for the offshore oil industry, this is an advanced sonar rig.
05:57OK, good position. Just drop it in. It's a system I've used before in the Mediterranean,
06:05but this will be the first time it's been deployed in an archaeological site in Britain.
06:15Almost straight away, it's identifying some intriguing targets where the canal enters the loch.
06:22So the sonar is picking out these linear features of stones either side of the canal.
06:26Nature doesn't make right angles. See, that's very elbow-shaped. So I see this as a possible
06:33man-made structure. My most recent research project has been in a sunken city in Greece.
06:55The conditions in this cold Scottish loch couldn't be more different.
06:59This murky environment might be challenging, but it's ideal for preserving finds. Boat fragments
07:24recovered from the loch have been dated to over 1000 years ago.
07:27And it's not just Viking-era timber that survived.
07:32Just here you can see the frost of a constructed wall. This is where the Vikings would have
07:40lost stones to construct a key for loading and unloading ships. It's a massive engineering operation.
07:53The Viking Dunan was clearly a site that was regularly used by ships.
07:58Enormous efforts went into constructing and maintaining it. But just what were the Vikings doing here?
08:05What purpose did this place serve?
08:06Well, I think it's been, at one stage in its career, a Viking raiding base, where the ships have been able to come
08:14right in through the canal here, up into the loch, where they would have been safe and secure over the winter
08:20for maintenance, for repair, and possibly they were building ships there as well.
08:25You get a sense standing here of a lost world. The nearest road is six kilometres away.
08:31We had to get here by boat.
08:33Yes. Now, it's a lovely deserted place, but to the people who lived and worked here,
08:39it was the centre of their universe. A place from which they could sally forth, free as birds,
08:45to raid wherever they wanted, coming back here to live in safety with their ships over the winter.
08:54Coming to this remote place has really brought home to me just how formidable the Vikings were.
09:02They were adaptable. They were tenacious. And they had the engineering skills to match their aggressive ambitions.
09:09Because outposts like Rowan Doonan were just the beginning. From these scattered beach heads,
09:18the rest of Scotland lay within the Vikings' grasp.
09:31The monastery island of Iona. This is where the Vikings burst into Scottish history,
09:38with sudden, shocking, apocalyptic violence.
09:48In the early morning of the 24th of July, 825, the unmistakable shapes of Viking longships
09:55were spotted approaching the island.
09:57The few monks that remained here knew exactly what would happen next.
10:12The community dedicated to the cult of St Columba was in ruins. For the past 30 years, Viking warbands had
10:20raided the island time and time again, stealing, burning and killing, so much so that it was virtually
10:27suicide to stay here. But suicide was something the remaining monks embraced. As the longships drew
10:34nearer, the leader of the surviving group, a man named Blomack, prepared his followers for martyrdom.
10:41The violent, cursed host came rushing through the open buildings, threatening cruel perils
10:51to the blessed men. And after slaying with mad savagery the rest of the brethren,
10:56they approached the Holy Father. But he stood firm and spoke to the barbarians in words such as these.
11:03I know nothing at all of the treasure you seek, where it is placed in the ground or in what hiding
11:09place it has concealed. But if, by Christ's permission, it were granted to me to know it,
11:16never would my lips relate it to thy ears. Hereupon the pious victim was torn from limb to limb.
11:36The account of Blomack's torture and death has been dismissed by some as Christian propaganda.
11:41But I think it's got the brutal ring of truth about it. Iona had been bled dry by previous raids,
11:48and you can almost sense the frustrated fury of Blomack's killers as they search for elusive treasure.
11:56For the Chroniclers, the Vikings were the ultimate other. Their identity was unclear, their motives
12:03inexplicable.
12:04All along the coastline of the British Isles, the Vikings descended like harbingers of doomsday.
12:16Just who were they? Where had they come from? And what did they want?
12:19Fjord country, western Norway.
12:40It's a breathtaking landscape of high mountains, plunging waterfalls and deep seaways.
12:45Travelling in the fjords, you can't help but be blown away by the sheer scale and raw beauty of the Viking homeland.
13:02There are many theories about what exactly the word Viking means.
13:05One of the most likely is that it comes from the word vic, meaning sea inlet.
13:10But this labyrinth of winding channels and hidden bays didn't just give these Viking sea raiders a name,
13:15it gave them a launch pad.
13:18At the end of the 8th century, the Vikings exploded onto the world map.
13:23Swedish Vikings travelled deep into Russia, establishing trade routes that extended to the Black Sea and beyond.
13:32From Denmark, Vikings raided eastern England, eventually carving out their own kingdom.
13:39But the Vikings who first descended in Scotland came from western Norway.
13:50Bergen, Norway's second city, and centre of fjord country.
13:56From here, the sea journey to Scotland is shorter than it is to the Norwegian capital, Oslo.
14:04It was from these western fjords that Vikings not only raided the Scottish and Irish coasts,
14:10but went on to eventually colonise the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland.
14:15They even gained a temporary foothold in North America.
14:18But geography doesn't explain everything.
14:22It doesn't explain why the Vikings decided to begin raiding in the first place.
14:32Until recently, the most widely held theory on why the Vikings set out was land hunger.
14:37The steep-sided fjords contained very little farmland.
14:50As the population grew, it simply had nowhere to go.
14:54The only problem with that theory is that the Vikings who raided places like Iona weren't after land.
15:03The men who murdered Blomack weren't farmers who wanted to settle down and till the soil.
15:08So what was their motive?
15:10Like any good detective story, you just have to follow the money.
15:13Over the last century, the western fjords of Norway have given up some rare archaeological treasures
15:24that give a clue to why the people here first went raiding to Scotland.
15:30These are old silver coins. Very old silver coins. In fact, this one dates from 763 AD.
15:38But they're not from Norway. They're not even from Europe.
15:40These coins come from Baghdad, which from the middle of the 8th century,
15:44was the epicentre of a powerful and rich Islamic world.
15:49Baghdad merchants would pay hard cash for amber, furs and walrus ivory from Scandinavia.
15:56But the only problem was that the main trade routes for these goods bypassed the western fjords of Norway.
16:02And wanting to keep up with the Joneses, or rather the Johanssons,
16:06the chieftains of western Norway looked for their own source of silver.
16:10And they soon found it, not in the bazaars of Baghdad, but in the monasteries of the British Isles.
16:17The monastery St Columba founded on Iona might have been a deliberately simple and ascetic place.
16:36But like all monasteries, it accumulated wealth from its important patrons.
16:41Rich and undefended, these religious communities must have been irresistible targets for Viking raiders.
16:52The ultimate opportunity to get rich quick.
16:55These were brutal times in Scotland.
17:04Raiding and warfare between different groups was common.
17:08Violent death, a fact of life.
17:13Perhaps in some ways, the Vikings were no worse than anybody else.
17:16But what made them unusual was they had no qualms about attacking holy sites.
17:26Christian chroniclers called the Vikings heathens and gentiles.
17:31Instead of the cross, these pagan warriors were pendants shaped as Thor's hammer around their necks.
17:38Only people who worshipped the god of storms and thunder would dare desecrate Christ's church.
17:46And it wasn't just silver that brought the Vikings to Scotland's monasteries.
17:55There was another valuable commodity to be found in these scattered centres of worship and learning.
18:00Human beings.
18:01Human beings.
18:12The island of Inshmarnock, just off Bute in the Firth of Clyde.
18:22Today, it's uninhabited.
18:24But at the time of the first Viking raids, this place was home to a small monastic community.
18:31The island of Inshmarnock, the island of Inshmarnock, the island of Inshmarnock has come to light.
18:40Nothing remains of the original buildings.
18:44But recently, evocative traces of everyday monastic life in Inshmarnock have come to light.
18:49Like all monasteries, Inshmarnock wasn't just about prayer, it was about education.
19:00Young novices aged anywhere between seven and sixteen would have studied on this island,
19:05laboriously learning how to write Latin and Gaelic.
19:08But instead of paper or parchment, they would have used this stuff.
19:12Slate.
19:13And there's a lot of slate in Inshmarnock.
19:15The whole island is made of the stuff.
19:18I'm improvising with an old nail, but the students would have used a metal stylus to scratch the slate pieces.
19:24Actually, not that easy.
19:26But it was more than their ABCs that these young boys carved.
19:35A couple of years ago, archaeologists working on Inshmarnock uncovered two pieces of old slate.
19:40When they were joined together, they revealed an astonishing scene,
19:43and one that must have been part of the everyday world of the boy who carved it.
19:47The centuries haven't been kind to this picture, so we've had it blown up and enhanced digitally,
19:54so we can see better what's going on.
19:56A man has been roped by the neck, and he's been dragged by an armed warrior towards a longship.
20:02In front of them are the partial outlines of two other warriors wearing chain mail and carrying spears.
20:09What this childish doodle reveals is key to understanding why the Vikings came to Scotland.
20:15Slavery.
20:17The Vikings didn't invent slavery in Scotland, but they did turn it into a professional industry.
20:30Before the arrival of the Vikings, slavery was common amongst the different people who lived in Scotland.
20:39But slaves tended to be the byproduct of war, not its object.
20:43The Vikings changed all that. For them, capturing slaves and selling them on was part of a lucrative trade,
20:51and one which they developed on a mass scale. Slavery, not silver or land,
20:56was the real engine of early Viking Scotland.
20:59And Scotland's monasteries were the only targets for Viking slavers.
21:12Guarding the entrance to the River Clyde is the vast and imposing shape of Dumbarton Rock.
21:30In the 9th century, this was the centre of the kingdom of Strathclyde.
21:39You can see why the Strathclyders chose Dumbarton Rock as their capital.
21:43Its steep sides rise more than 70 metres from sea level. It must have seemed impregnable, except that it wasn't.
21:50In 870, Vikings arrived here and surrounded the fortress. The siege lasted for four months.
22:05Eventually, the water supply ran out and the stronghold was forced to surrender.
22:10The Vikings had hit the jackpot. So many captives had been taken here on Dumbarton Rock and the
22:21surrounding countryside that the Vikings needed 200 ships just to transport them all. Most ended
22:27up at the great slave market in Dublin. Others were sold on to merchants around the Irish Sea.
22:33Some may even have ended up as far afield as Spain or North Africa.
22:37And what made all of this possible was the Viking secret weapon. A new and terrifying invention, the longship.
22:51Nothing says Viking as much as the longship. It's become a potent image of myth and legend.
23:00But here, at a yard in south-west Norway, a group of experimental archaeologists are investigating
23:12the reality behind the longship. And they're doing it the hard way, building a boat from scratch,
23:18using only Viking-era tools and methods. What they're discovering is just how devastatingly effective
23:25the vessel was. The Viking longship of Scandinavia was a stealth weapon of its day. It was low,
23:32it was fast, it was maneuverable. You can roll that ship more or less silently. It shows a very low
23:38profile, a very low silhouette on the water. So these were the nuclear submarines, if you like, of the
23:44early historical period? Yeah, the connection is not too far-fetched. It was a major step forward,
23:48weapon-wise, military-wise, tactic-wise. What have you learnt in this project?
23:52Wow. Well, firstly, enormous respect for the craftsmanship that the Vikings put down.
23:59What we're doing here is copying, bit by bit, a 1,200-year construction down to the last details.
24:07And to see the quality of the hull and the quality of the construction, how the hull planks sort of fit
24:13like a symphony that turns into the trademark high crowd. It's beyond magical, actually.
24:22The secret of the longship's success lies in its refined hull construction. It's clinker-built,
24:30using overlapping planks to create the form, rather than relying on a heavy internal frame.
24:37This makes the boat light and flexible, able to survive the steep waves of the North Sea and Atlantic.
24:43Can you see the other end yet? I can see the end, yes.
24:49Though, maybe not my hammering technique.
24:53Yes. And now, it will be much harder.
24:59Dear God! Don't laugh quite slowly.
25:02Today is a big day at the yard. They're fitting the elaborately carved figurehead.
25:11Instead of the more familiar dragon's head, this is a coil and snake design.
25:15The researchers have discovered that the high-carved prow was often stowed on deck during sea voyages,
25:26and was only hoisted immediately before a raid to intimidate the enemy.
25:30I love ships and boats, and as an underwater archaeologist, I'm used to finding pieces of wreckage,
25:38and the odd bit of timber underwater. But to see an entire ancient ship like this take shape before
25:44my eyes is quite a privilege. You get a real sense of not only the workmanship that's gone into this,
25:50but also what the ship means as a symbol, what it would have said. If you saw one of these coming
25:54towards you and they'd raised their dragon prow, you knew you were in trouble.
26:04The all-conquering technology of the dragon ship brought new territories with an easy reach of
26:10the Vikings. Amongst their first targets, the Northern Isles of Scotland.
26:15By Longship, Shetland was just two days sail away from the western fjords of Norway. Orkney only a little further.
26:33By the 850s, the islands had been completely overrun by Viking raiders. But Orkney was much more than an armed camp.
26:45Geographically, politically and culturally, it was right at the centre of the Norse world,
26:51and it gave rise to a new breed of Viking. Part raider, part farmer.
26:58In the famous Orkney Inga saga, there's a fantastic description of one of these Vikings. A larger than
27:17life character called Svein Astleyfarsson. This is how Svein used to live. Winter he would spend at home,
27:26where he entertained more than 80 men at his own expense. In the spring, he had more than enough to occupy him,
27:32with a great deal of seed to sow, which he saw to carefully himself. Then, when that job was done,
27:38he would go off plundering in the Hebrides and in Ireland, on what he called his spring trip.
27:43Then, back home just after midsummer, where he stayed till the cornfields had been reaped and the grain was safely in.
27:49After that, he would go off raiding again and never come back until the first month of winter was ended.
27:57This, he called his autumn trip.
28:06Viking colonisation changed every aspect of life in the Northern Isles. Some of those changes were enduring.
28:12This is the Orkney Yole. The workhorse of the Islanders, this clinker-built double-ended vessel,
28:21has the Viking longboat in its design DNA.
28:29You'd be amazed at how much the Norse influenced the Yole. The obvious thing is the shape of the boat,
28:36but also the names have kept on. The bit of wood on the bottom of the keel is the keeldrite.
28:43The bits of wood for rubbing up and down on the beaches when they were hauled ashore is the dilsquads.
28:51The parts of the joints of the boat, so the honey spot and the hilly well. All Norwegian words that are still in use.
28:59It's something that survived for over a thousand years from the Norse traditions. It shows you a
29:04successful Norse boat building was. Yeah, they're obviously fit for purpose. And you'll find that
29:10out if you're in a course sea. The boat will look after you. You don't have to look after it.
29:21There are few places in Scotland where you can feel the Norse influence as strongly as here in Orkney.
29:26The names of these scattered islands, Papa Westray, Chapinsey, A.D., Egilsey, reads like a verse from an ancient saga.
29:40Sometimes it seems as if there isn't a square centimeter of this beautiful place
29:45that the Vikings didn't carve their names onto.
29:58Even Neolithic tombs, like Mays Howe, bear the marks of the Norsemen.
30:02In my day job as an underwater archaeologist, I'm used to scrambling about in the silt and sand
30:14to find buried fragments. But here, the archaeology is literally spelt out in front of your eyes.
30:23These markings are Norse graffiti. They might be hundreds of years old,
30:28but really it's not much different from something you would read sprayed on your local bus shelter.
30:33This one reads, Hermond Hardax carved these runes. While this one boasts,
30:39these runes were carved by the man most skilled in runes in the western oceans.
30:47And there's more raunchy stuff as well. This chamber would have originally been used by the Neolithic
30:52people to store the bones of their ancestors. But the Vikings appear to have found another use.
30:57The Norse graffiti at Mays Howe is great fun. But I think these scratches spell out more than just
31:21smutty messages or outlandish nicknames. I think they spell out an attitude.
31:35These people had swagger. They had self-belief.
31:38They had the kind of confidence that only generations of success can bring.
31:42The sporadic Viking raids at the end of the 8th century had developed into an unstoppable onslaught.
31:54No one seemed capable of turning back the Norse tide.
31:57In 839 AD, the Vikings crushed the Picts on the east coast. Less than 10 years later,
32:09they conquered the Gales on the west coast.
32:11All across Scotland, old kingdoms were crumbling. Populations were on the move.
32:25But out of the ashes of the Viking conquest, new alliances were being formed.
32:29Gaelic refugees, flooding eastward, found sanctuary in the remnants of the Pictish Kingdom.
32:37On mainland Scotland, a new culture emerged. A new nation was born.
32:42It was called Alba. And if you can trace the origins of modern Scotland anywhere,
32:49it's to this fugitive kingdom. A kingdom united in opposition to, and in fear of, the Vikings.
32:57But Alba wasn't the only kingdom being born. Across the mountains,
33:01the Norse were carving out a new and powerful land.
33:04To the Gaelic speakers of Alba, it was Inish Gaul, the land of the foreigners.
33:17This sprawling territory stretched from the northern tip of the Hebrides,
33:21through Argyll, the Clyde Islands, Kintyre, to the Isle of Man beyond.
33:26It sat right on the middle of the crucial sea routes, at a time when to rule the water was to rule the world.
33:42The future of these islands and these people, which way they faced, would determine the fate of Scotland.
33:48The Vikings and their descendants had put down roots.
34:01By 1000 AD, the Hebrides were as Norse-speaking as Orkney.
34:06But at the same time, a sea change was underway that would fundamentally affect Viking identity.
34:18The island of Iona is dotted with ancient grave slabs and stone crosses.
34:23Amongst them is a fragment of an inscription that speaks volumes.
34:31It's written in runes, and it's been carved on the edge of a stone with a Celtic cross on it.
34:37And it looks like it's been smashed.
34:39You might think that a marauding Viking has come in and vandalised the symbol of Christianity,
34:44and then to add insult to injury, he's carved his name on it.
34:48But nothing could be further from the truth.
34:50This isn't casual graffiti, like we've seen at Maze Howe.
34:54This is something quite different.
34:56The runes are incomplete, but we can read,
34:59Cali, son of Olvia, has laid this stone over his brother, Fugle.
35:06So it was a Norseman that had commissioned this stone.
35:09He'd seen the Celtic cross design, and he wanted it for his brother.
35:13He'd then arranged for his brother to be buried on the island of Iona,
35:17the very island that had been ravaged by his ancestors.
35:21The Vikings had become Christians, and now Iona was their sacred ground.
35:32It was an astonishing transformation.
35:35Before the arrival of the Vikings, Iona had been at the epicentre of Christianity in Northern Britain.
35:48The Vikings had destroyed all that.
35:50But now, under the protection of its Norse rulers, Iona had risen again.
36:00A place of pilgrimage and sanctuary.
36:04The spiritual heart of Inish Gaul.
36:06The Vikings had stopped being Vikings.
36:11They were Christians now, not pagans.
36:14They were settlers now, not just hit and run raiders.
36:18And although the Norse-speaking peoples of Inish Gaul had deep roots in the Scandinavian world,
36:23they were very much their own people, with their own identity.
36:27This was a wealthy, sophisticated, connected culture.
36:34And from it came one of the most famous treasures of medieval Europe.
36:38The Lewis Chess Men.
36:44So these amazing pieces were actually found on a beach in Lewis.
36:47And the argument was that it was a merchant just passing through from somewhere else.
36:51That is what a lot of people have believed ever since the discovery.
36:56That these are such wonderful pieces, Lewis is such a remote part of the world,
37:01that clearly they don't belong.
37:03But that begs the question, where is Lewis remote from?
37:08Because Lewis was actually fairly central in the extended Scandinavian world.
37:13It was on the main trade routes that would take you from Greenland,
37:17where a lot of the walrus ivory to make these was coming from,
37:20back through Iceland, over to the west coast of Norway,
37:24which is a fairly likely place for these to be manufactured.
37:27And then down to Dublin and further afield.
37:31So Lewis was fairly centrally positioned.
37:34And on top of that, we do have evidence for important people,
37:40people of high status, living in Lewis.
37:44So it's not too difficult to imagine that there was somebody with money, resources,
37:50and status to have splendid gaming pieces like the ones in front of us.
37:54Well, I think probably like many people, one of my favourites is this little guy here,
37:58biting his shield.
37:59I agree with you on that, you know.
38:02It really is fantastic, isn't it?
38:04It's a reference to a cult in the Scandinavian world.
38:07The cult of the berserkers, guys who were so psyched up before they were into battle,
38:12that they had to bite the shields in order to hold themselves back.
38:16So what kind of force do you think the islands could have mustered at this period?
38:20If we're talking about all the islands, all the way from Lewis,
38:24right down to, and including the Isle of Man, 10,000 plus.
38:29Wow.
38:30And the ships to put them in.
38:33And as you can imagine, 10,000 guys like this, that was a very considerable power.
38:38For centuries, the military and naval might of Inish Gaul had given its inhabitants a kind of independence.
38:52Neither Norwegian nor Scottish, the Hebrideans straddled identities and allegiances,
38:58maintaining a foot in both camps while belonging to none.
39:03But as the 13th century dawned, that was no longer possible.
39:06Now, it was time to choose sides.
39:16When the Vikings first began raiding across the North Sea,
39:19there was no King of Norway and no King of Scotland.
39:26400 years later, both countries had been united under powerful and ambitious kings.
39:31Hawken IV of Norway and Alexander II of Scotland were born within a few years of each other.
39:40They came to the throne around the same time.
39:43And they were both absolutely determined to expand their authority.
39:47The problem was that both men regarded Inish Gaul as lying within their sphere of influence.
39:58And nowhere did the political fault line run deeper than amongst the islands of the Firth of Clyde.
40:04At the beginning of the 13th century, this was frontier territory.
40:11The mainland was Scottish, but the islands of Bute and Cumbria just over there were Norse.
40:17It was a war just waiting to happen.
40:19The struggle to control the Clyde Islands spiralled into a battle over the whole of Inish Gaul.
40:31Over the next decades, forces loyal to Alexander and Hawken fought a vicious running battle in the islands.
40:37But Alexander's obsession with winning the Hebrides was to prove fatal.
40:46In 1249, Alexander sailed up the west coast with a powerful fleet.
40:55It was the last journey he would ever make.
40:57King Alexander dreamed a dream and thought that three men came to him and inquired whether he meant to invade the Hebrides.
41:07Alexander answered that he certainly proposed to subject the islands.
41:12The spirits bade him go back and told him that no other measure would turn out to his advantage.
41:18The king related his dream and many advised him to return.
41:22But the king would not, and a little after, was seized with a disorder and died.
41:37In Norway, King Hawken could now turn his attention to some of the other Norse colonies.
41:44In 1261, the Norse community in Greenland acknowledged him as king.
41:49The following year, the independent-minded colony of Iceland also submitted.
41:58The Norwegian kingdom was now at the height of its power.
42:01This is Hawken's Hall in Bergen.
42:17When it was completed in 1261, it was one of the largest and most imposing buildings in the whole of Norway.
42:23For Hawken, the completion of this architectural wonder must have felt like the crown and glory in a career which had seen the Norwegian kingdom grow larger and more powerful than ever before.
42:37He must have felt supremely confident.
42:40But this was also the exact moment that a new king of Scotland made his move in the Norse territories in the Hebrides.
42:46Like father, like son, Alexander III wasn't content with diplomacy.
42:59The 21-year-old king backed up his claim on Inishgal with a brutal show of force.
43:09Ordering armed raids deep into Norse-speaking areas.
43:12This wasn't just a land grab.
43:20This was ethnic cleansing.
43:22They burned villages and churches, and they killed great numbers both of men and women.
43:32The Scots had even taken the small children and, raising them up on the points of their spears, shook them,
43:40till they fell down to their hands when they threw them away lifeless on the ground.
43:45This was an outrage which Hawken couldn't ignore.
44:03In the spring of 1263, a large fleet left the Norwegian coast.
44:08At its head was the flagship of King Hawken himself.
44:15Hawken was a battle-hardened veteran.
44:19But at the age of 59, he was already an old man by the standards of his day.
44:24His son Magnus had voiced concerns about him taking personal command of the fleet.
44:28But for Hawken, this was unfinished business.
44:31The chance to crush Scottish ambitions in the Hebrides, once and for all.
44:40Hawken had enormous military resources he could call on.
44:46He didn't hesitate to send out the order.
44:52In Orkney, his already powerful fleet was joined by local forces.
44:57It must have seemed an invincible armada.
45:02But already, there were ominous signs.
45:04While King Hawken lay in Ronaldsville, a great darkness drew over the sun, so that only a little ring was bright round the sun.
45:15And it continued so for some hours.
45:18In the Middle Ages, everybody knew that solar eclipses were powerful omens.
45:26But did this particular sign in the sky spell disaster for the Scots?
45:31Or was it Hawken's expedition that was doomed to failure?
45:44Hawken led his fleet down through the Hebrides.
45:47In the Middle Ages.
45:48Island by island, territory by territory, he demanded and received the allegiance of the Lords of Inishgal.
45:58Troops and vessels swelled Hawken's invasion fleet.
46:02By the time he reached the disputed territories of the Firth of Clyde, he had 120 ships and up to 20,000 men under his command.
46:14It was a force that rivaled the Spanish armada over 300 years later.
46:22But if Alexander, King of the Scots, was daunted by Hawken's show of force, he showed no sign.
46:29It was a reversal of the usual stereotypes.
46:32The young man, patient and wily.
46:36The old man, hot-headed and given to impulse.
46:44Alexander, based just down the coast in Ayr, settled in for a waiting game.
46:48He knew he stood no chance of defeating Hawken at sea.
46:51But if he could just stall long enough, then the autumn weather might do what his own naval forces couldn't.
47:01Hawken sent envoys to demand that Alexander withdraw his claim.
47:07Alexander spun out the negotiations.
47:09Furious, Hawken decided to ratchet up the pressure and sent part of his fleet to attack along Loch Long and Loch Lomond.
47:21Meanwhile, he moved his main force inshore near Largs.
47:28He was now just a stone's throw away from the mainland itself.
47:32Still, Alexander held his nerve.
47:35Then, on the 1st of October, the weather broke.
47:47The storm was so sudden and so powerful that survivors could only imagine that it had been conjured up by sorcery.
47:54Hawken's fleet was scattered with several ships driven ashore right under the noses of the local militia.
48:15The next morning, Hawken managed to get ashore with a thousand men to salvage the ships and their cargo.
48:21That was when the Scots pounced.
48:32Hawken's bodyguard got the king back to the safety of the fleet.
48:39But on the shore, the Norsemen were collapsing in disarray.
48:42Those on the beach imagined they were routed.
48:46Some, therefore, leaped into their boats and pushed off from the land.
48:51Others jumped into the transport.
48:54Their companions called upon them to return.
48:57And some returned.
48:58Though few, many boats went down.
49:02Finally, a long ship managed to get ashore to reinforce the beleaguered rear guard.
49:19The Norsemen made a stand.
49:21The Scots retreated.
49:23The Battle of Largs petered out into a long distance and sporadic shooting match.
49:27Neither side had won.
49:40There was no decisive victory.
49:42Just the usual grim reckoning of warfare.
49:58But if the skirmish fought on the Clyde coast didn't decide anything,
50:02then the aftermath would.
50:15Over the following days, there was a window in the weather.
50:18Hawken's men returned to the shore to retrieve the dead and burn the stranded boats.
50:22But what would the king's next move be?
50:36Hawken's options were actually very limited.
50:39Winter was approaching.
50:41Supplies were running low.
50:43His men were getting restless.
50:45At a council of war, Hawken agreed that the fleet should disperse and the troops returned to their scattered homes.
51:00He himself would overwinter in the Norse stronghold of Orkney.
51:05In the spring, he would reassemble his forces and wreak bloody revenge on Alexander.
51:10Publicly, Hawken was impatient for a rematch.
51:19But privately, he was perhaps relieved to reach the safe haven of Orkney.
51:34Hawken was nearly 60 years old.
51:36He'd been king for 46 years.
51:39Quite simply, he was exhausted.
51:47The king was tired.
51:51He was sick.
51:55He probably knew he was dying.
51:57Here, at the cathedral in Kirkwall, Hawken visited the shrine of Saint Magnus.
52:11It was the pious action of a man who knew the end was near.
52:15An obsession with the Hebrides had already destroyed a Scottish king, Alexander II.
52:31Now it claimed the life of a Norwegian one.
52:34On the 16th of December 1263, Hawken IV died.
52:39Hawken was buried here in Saint Magnus Cathedral.
52:47Then, in the early spring, his body was disinterred and taken back to Norway.
52:54Hawken was the last Norwegian king to mount a military assault in Scotland.
53:06His son, Magnus Lawmender, wasn't interested in continuing the fight.
53:21Magnus had his own problems at home to deal with.
53:23Better peace with honour than a draining foreign war.
53:27Better cash on the table than blood on the ground.
53:34For nearly five centuries, longships had set sail from the western coast of Norway
53:39to raid, trade and colonise in Scotland.
53:44Kingdom had been pitted against kingdom.
53:48People against people.
53:53It was a history of slaughter and slavery.
53:58But also of rich cultural exchange and artistic marvels.
54:04In the end though, all that was nothing compared to cold, hard cash.
54:11Inish Gaul was up for sale.
54:23In 1266, Magnus accepted an offer of 4,000 marks from Alexander.
54:29And renounced Norway's claim on the islands.
54:32Forever.
54:33The Norse age was coming to an end.
54:44And for the descendants of the Vikings and the Hebrides, things were beginning to change too.
54:48Although the Battle of Largs had not affected their culture or their identity,
54:52it was to Scotland, not to Norway, that they now looked for royal protection.
54:58The long, slow process of becoming Scots had begun.
55:01Over the next few centuries, Inish Gaul, the land of the foreigners,
55:19would become the heartland of a new Gallic power.
55:21But it was a power that owed everything to its Norse ancestors.
55:30An archipelago bound together by the sea and the ships that sailed on it.
55:40The Viking crews that once launched hit-and-run raids from bases like Ruandunan and Skye,
55:46were part of a long and epic history.
55:52Of course, there was enormous brutality and destruction.
55:56You can't just wish it away.
56:01But in places like these, you get a glimpse of something else.
56:11Today, Scottish islands like Skye might sit on the outer rim of Europe.
56:15But in the age of the Norsemen, they were right at the centre of things.
56:20They were at the centre of a network of contacts that were beginning to criss-cross the globe.
56:26The Vikings were pushing the boundaries of the known world.
56:29And I like to think that that questing, inquisitive spirit is part of what makes us,
56:35as an island people, who we are today.
56:45And they were in the east.
56:47It was a wonder of what makes us, as watching that.
56:49That being a 100-year-oldiad
57:02has opened into f.'sana'éstory.
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