Vikings in North Wales

Penmaenmawr Museum does a public lecture series. We might have got wind of it through the Neolithic axe day in summer. I hadn't attended any of them, but Neil had alerted me to the last on in this season's series: about Vikings in North Wales. He wanted to go! And it's right up my street as well.

We would come from our respective houses, so I drove to Penmaenmawr, parked on the High Street, and went to the museum. But it was closed! Oh dear. The lecture would not be in the actual museum? The presentation about Neolithic Axes has been in a different building! I quickly went to the website, and saw the talk was actually in community centre, a stone’s throw away from the museum. I went in and found a seat, and saved one for Neil. 

It turned out that he had gone to the venue where the presentation about the axes had been. So he was in the wrong place as well! But a different wrong place. We are a right pair. But I could tell him where to go. And he arrived shortly after the talk had started.

The speaker was a PhD student at Bangor University. Next year he should finish. And he had three years worth of data to talk about. I figured that would keep us entertained.

He started by saying that the conventional view was that there was no evidence whatsoever, or hardly any, that Vikings had been to North Wales. But he was there to convince us otherwise.

So what did he have? He started with written sources. There are some Welsh, Nordic and English sources that mention the Viking era in North Wales, and he told us how much mention that actually was of Vikings in Wales. There were a few! Sometimes just a reference to pagans, and these are then assumed to be Vikings. But sometimes named individuals: he mentioned a certain Gorm, an Ingrimundur, and the brothers Maccus and Guthfrith Haraldsson. Not much was known about the specifics of their whereabouts but they had clearly been in the area. Had they settled on Anglesey?

He also mentioned archaeological finds.. Sometimes, items associated with Viking culture are dug up. Baptismal fonts with Viking knotwork. A button. A piece of a horse’s harness. None actually proved that there were vikings here, but at least proof that at least their cultural influence had percolated. 

He also mentioned a burial in Llanbedrgoch, where two men seem to have been chucked in a ditch. One seems to have come from Norway. But his burial suggests he wasn't appreciated. Might he have been a slave? 

He also touched on toponyms that might be Viking. Maybe even Anglesey! He had found a reference to “Ongelsund” and he thought that was Anglesey. I found it a bit unexpected; generally, once you are an -øy, and you end up in the UK, you became an -ey like Bardsey. How would you go from sund to sey? 

He also discussed Iron Age fortifications. It can be difficult to find out who built them, but they would be a reasonable place to start digging. And he showed us geophys of a potential boat grave. He obviously didn’t tell us where that was. It would be great if it would be excavated, and turn out to be what it looks like in the blurry radar picture! 

That was pretty much it! Told with aplomb. I had enjoyed it. And then there was time for questions. There were several. My Ongelsund question was one of them. And one man offered that mention of ‘black peoples’ and ‘white peoples’, which had been mentioned in the context of pagan hordes, might be a reference to Norwegians and Danes, respectively. He said that in Irish sources, they were known as dark strangers and blonde strangers. Apparently, Danes are a lot more fair-haired than Norwegians. 

Then it was time to call it a day. We did a bit of after-talk chatting with other members of the audience. Neil knew several people there, and I enjoyed finally meeting them in the flesh. He had been talking about them!

The next series is not until October. But I think we will be back for more then!