Birth of an Empire

Birth of an Empire is the fourth episode in the Vikings season from Ubisoft's Echoes of History podcast series.

Description

10 years after the conquest and your very first victories, it's time to start building! It's time for setting down roots, from colonization to trade. But in England, some are still resistant, still fighting your presence...

Transcript

• Introduction: Assassin's Creed: Valhalla and Xbox present, Echoes of Valhalla: Life of Vikings, the podcast.
• Worker: Master! The frame is finished!
• Shipwright: Great! Raise the beams. Heave, heave!
• Narrator: It has been over ten years since the Great Army set foot on the British Isles.
• Worker: Heave-ho! Heave-ho! Come on! Put as much energy into this as you put into fighting your enemies!
• Narrator: We landed as invaders, we have also behaved as destroyers.
• Worker: Heave-ho! Heave-ho! Just a little more!
• Narrator: But the time had come for us to act as the elders. The first battles with the kingdom of Wessex had slowed the pace of our invasion. Despite Odin's protection, the Great Army was not invincible. It needed new blood to regain its strength. Reinforcements arrived in droves from overseas. Many warlords joined the adventure to seek land and fortune at the tip of their swords. Among them was the ambitious Guthrum.
• Guthrum: Greetings, Halfdan. It's good to see you again.
• Halfdan Ragnarsson: I would have preferred a more festive occasion, Guthrum.
• Guthrum: So, what they say is true: King Alfred of Wessex has routed your army.
• Halfdan Ragnarsson: By Odin, was only one defeat! We will take Wessex eventually.
• Guthrum: What I don't understand, Halfdan, is how he was able to beat you back.
• Halfdan Ragnarsson: It's because he's a great strategist. Alas, our strengths and weaknesses are no secret to him.
• Guthrum: I'll take care of him, he doesn't know me yet. I'll take him down!
• Halfdan Ragarsson: No, what we need is to become better strategists than he.
• Guthrum: And how do you plan on doing that?
• Halfdan Ragarsson: We need to take over Mercia. It will put us in a much better position to attack Wessex. Then, we will bring Alfred to his knees.
• Narrator: Thus began the invasion of Mercia. King Burgred called on Wessex for help, offering hard cash for their assistance. But this would not be enough to stop the assailants. Soon, the Danish wave would crash mercilessly through Mercia. Monasteries are pillaged, villages are burned, the royal villa at Tamworth is ransacked, leaving a pile of ruins in its stead as if a hurricane had hit it head-on. In a final desperate move, King Burgred wages battle in Repton, in vain. Following this rout, Burgred is driven from the throne and his kingdom is split up. The victors placed their lords at the head of small counties, thus creating a Danish confederation at the heart of the island of Britannia.
• Thierry Noël: The fall of Mercia in 873, 874—
• Narrator: —Thierry Noël, content and inspiration consultant at Ubisoft—
• Thierry Noël: —the Vikings used the dense network of rivers in the center of England to take control of the region. They cut off Mercia from its vital provisions as well as its contact with the rest of England. Using rivers as a means of attack is something we would use in the game so that the players can attack the way Vikings did.
• Narrator: After taking East Anglia, Northumbria, and now Mercia, our chiefs now hold the eastern and central parts of the island. Only Wessex still stands against us. The Kingdom of York is the jewel of our blooming empire. It divides the island into two parts and brings together a mosaic of Viking rulers under its jurisdiction. It would later be called Danelaw, meaning "territory that obeys Danish laws."
• Thierry Noël: York was a very important commercial center. You could find all kinds of merchandise there—an extraordinary hub for exchange. Archaeological digs have unearthed crafts from Africa and other far reaches of the world. So at that time, York is one of the centers of the world—certainly in the Viking world—demonstrating yet again how the Vikings were able to create international trade roads dotted with major hubs such as York and Dublin.
• Narrator: Halfdan is crowned King of York. He has visions of a massive, ever-expanding empire, even if this means fighting other Vikings.
• Guthrum: King Halfdan, are you sure about this?
• Halfdan Ragnarsson: Yes. Our kingdom is vast, but it must keep growing. The time has come to unite the kingdoms of York and Dublin.
• Guthrum: But the king of Dublin is also a Viking! He will never kneel before you.
• Halfdan Ragnarsson: Viking or not, he stands in my way! Listen, brothers and friends, the king of Dublin is still mortal. And if he refuses to bow before me, I will personally see to his end.
• Guthrum: Oh, listen to our king. Has he ever been wrong?
• Halfdan Ragnarsson: Follow me, and I promise Great Britain will be ours!
• Alban Gautier: The core Viking unit was not the Great Army.
• Narrator: Alban Gautier, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Caen.
• Alban Gautier: It was small groups of likely 100, 200, 300 warriors under the command of their chief, and these chiefs negotiated among themselves whether to ally or not.
• Narrator: Halfdan would never fulfill his dream of a huge empire. He died the following year as he tried to take the throne of the Viking Kingdom of Dublin. Guthrum asserts his authority as a warlord on the remains of the Great Army; he launches his new attacks against Wessex. But Alfred's army is able to repel each one. Guthrum is forced to negotiate with a highly-skilled king.
• Alfred: Well, Guthrum. You finally admitting defeat?
• Guthrum: I yield before your victory, oh, King Alfred!
• Alfred: Don't attempt to appease me, your words mean nothing!
• Guthrum: What do you mean to say?
• Alfred: Don't play dumb with me! I paid you to leave my kingdom by year's end. Yet you persisted in attacking me and provoking my armies.
• Guthrum: I beg to differ, it all depends on one's point of view.
• Alfred: Enough! I spent fortunes to get you and your pagan armies to stop pillaging my land, but you keep returning to ask for more money! I've more than understood! The only language you pagans understand is the language of the sword and blood.
• Guthrum: What will you do with me?
• Alfred: Nothing! Go back to Mercia, and stay there!
• Ryan Lavelle: And Alfred had to do another deal with the Vikings.
• Narrator: —Ryan Lavelle, professor of History of the Dark Ages at the University of Winchester—
• Ryan Lavelle: He had to give them hostages and pay them money, he got them to swear an oath. And Asser, Alfred's Welsh biographer, says that that oath was made using Christian relics. ^[citation needed] But the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is perhaps a little more honest and said that the Vikings swore on a holy ring. ^{[citation needed]}
• Narrator: Wessex stands up to the Great Army on its territory, but cannot prevent the Vikings from gaining a foothold on the island. More and more men and women travel from our homeland to settle here. Others come from Ireland or Frank regions. Thus, the settlers started mingling with the locals, who outnumbered them by far. Some Vikings took local women as wives.
• Thorvald's father: So, Wulfric, you did not seem too pleased with this union. Your daughter just married my son. You know that Thorvald is rich enough to support you and your descendants.
• Wulfric: Though I give my daughter's hand away in marriage, it does not mean that I trust you. Your reputation precedes you Danes, and I only hope that you will keep your word and offer protection against your own people, the Vikings.
• Lucie Malbos: When Vikings enter a host society, meaning a society that welcomes them in—
• Narrator: —Lucie Malbos, lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Poitiers—
• Lucie Malbos: —they adopt certain characteristics and traits from that society. For example, they'll dress in the fashion of that society, they wear certain clothing accessories and jewelry, adapting to the culture they're brought into without fully renouncing their former culture.
• Narrator: Christian manuscripts are full of harsh words against us, constantly referring to us as "pagans". However, given the number of monasteries that were ransacked, the monks' contempt is quite understandable. But religion is not an issue between locals and settlers in their everyday life. The goal of our invasion was never to impose our customs on them, let alone our gods. After all, we worship countless gods and goddesses, so why not leave some space for the Christian God? Would Odin and Thor really take umbrage at a Judean man who died on a cross?
• Lucie Malbos: By and large, the first Vikings to convert were elites and merchants, for example, those who had the most contact with the Christian world and who also had a good deal to gain from conversion.
• Thierry Noël: There's a form of conversation we think of as light conversation, which was called prima signatio. In order to enter a given market, one had to recognize the existence of the single God. The Vikings went about this, no questions asked.
• Narrator: Some Vikings set off to explore new horizons, but most settlers choose to take root on the island. Some become rich by trading leather, furs, walrus, ivory, and amber.
• Merchant: Come near, come near! Come and behold these jewels from the farthest reaches of the world.
• Buyer: Hmm, that's nice. How much for this bracelet?
• Merchant: I see you have a good eye. It's the finest goldsmith work.
• Buyer: Really?
• Merchant: And that's to say nothing of the stone encrusted in it.
• Buyer: Are you sure these are precious stones?
• Merchant: Oh-ho, look at how they sparkle. You'll make your wife, or your mistress, the happiest woman on Earth.
• Buyer: Hmm, how much?
• Narrator: But the easiest way to get rich is to trade in humans, the most precious of all goods. Capturing slaves required strength. And we know a thing or two about strength. Before our arrival, the slave trade was dwindling in Britannia as it was on the continent. But we were not bound to Christian laws. For the Viking, all men are not created equal. Far from it, we see slaves are things that masters can deal with as they please for all kinds of chores and even sacrifices.
• Völva: Take this dagger in your mortal flesh. Pierce the darkness of our memory. Witness the infinity of time. Shed the pain of your sacrificed body. Your spirit opens to a new world. Thanks to the dagger, you will accompany your master to Odin's palace. Thanks to the dagger, serve him for eternity.
• Lucie Malbos: Slavery existed in Scandinavian society, as it did just about everywhere at that time. There were basic slaves, who did anything and everything and who had no specialized knowledge or any particular value, and then there were very valuable slaves, with highly specialized knowledge in a trade such as blacksmithing.
• Thierry Noël: We know that the women of Iceland were a slave population brought from modern day England, Scotland, and Ireland to Iceland. Over time, they assimilated with the Vikings and gave birth to the people of Iceland.
• Narrator: Hostilities had flared up again with the Kingdom of Wessex. Wessex here, Wessex there, our chiefs were obsessed, just as we Vikings have become an obsession for King Alfred.
• Alfred: Hear me, you who have remained faithful: the Viking have settled on our land. Stand up to them every possible way you may find! This fight will take patience and cunning; let them be the first to make mistakes. And be ready to rise up and march to drive them out once and for all!
• Alban Gautier: Alfred is king of the only Anglo-Saxon kingdom that has not been destroyed by the Great Army. Late in the year 877, Guthrum made an attempt to kidnap him, which he managed to escape, going into hiding in the marshes of Somerset for several months. From there, it seems that he was able to send messages in order to raise an army and lead an attack against Guthrum and his men.
• Narrator: After a series of skirmishes, the great battle was finally fought. Guthrum leads the Danish troops against Alfred of Wessex's forces. The two armies face off on the battlefield. Tensions are high, as the warriors on both sides sense that the outcome will be decisive. It is a brutal fight which rages on nearly all day long. Alfred's army is better organized and forms a wall of shields that waves of Viking warriors come crashing onto without breaching. The assailants are cut to pieces. Alfred prevails and chases what is left of the opposing forces to Chippenham fortress. Following the battle, the Viking return to Danelaw. They remain confined there, as defeat has left the men demoralized, the Kingdom of Wessex proved an impregnable fortress, and King Alfred a formidable adversary. Our empire appears as it always has: a giant with clay feet. Even proud Guthrum decides to bow down and convert to the victor's religion. He is baptized at Wedmore, with Alfred serving as his godfather in an interesting twist of fate...
• Ryan Lavelle: Following the Battle of Ethandun, and the baptism of the Viking leader Guthrum and his men at one of the West Saxon royal estates in Somerset, Alfred was able to establish a peace treaty that was perhaps more long lasting than previous peace treaties because Alfred was establishing his Viking enemy as another Anglo-Saxon king rather than as a Viking sea-king. So Guthrum was, effectively, being given license by Alfred to rule over the kingdom of the East Angles.
• Narrator: On the heels of this victory, and with renewed moral leadership, Alfred arises as a defense against the Viking. He has now become a threat to our kingdom. Our chiefs have dreamt of a Viking empire, but were we instead witnessing the birth of our enemy's empire?

Cast

(By order of appearance, host indicated with italics)

• Bibi Jacob as Narrator
• Uncredited as Guthrum, Halfdan Ragnarsson
• Thierry Noël as himself
• Prof. Alban Gautier as himself
• Uncredited as Alfred
• Prof. Ryan Lavelle as himself
• Prof. Lucie Malbos as herself
• Hannah Rutherford as Völva