Product Description
An in-depth look at the Viking settlers from Norway who arrived on the Wirral peninsula. 1100 years ago a group of Viking settlers from Norway arrived somewhere between Vestri-Kirkjubur (West Kirby) and Melr (Meols) on the shores of north Wirral - a small peninsula lying between the Rivers Dee and Mersey - having been driven out of Ireland. This initiated a mass migration of their fellow countrymen into the area and soon they had established a community with a clearly defined border, its own leader, its own language, a trading port, and at its center a place of assembly or government - the Thing at A ingvollr (Thingwall). This community was answerable to nobody else: the English, the Welsh, the Dublin Norse, the Isle of Man, Iceland, and not even Norway. The Wirral Norse settlement therefore satisfied all the criteria of an independent, self-governing Viking State - albeit a mini one!This book, written by Wirral-exile and scientist Steve Harding, is about these people, why they left Norway, where they settled, their religion, their pastimes - such as horse-racing at Irby and rock-climbing at Wallasey - and the legends that have been attributed to them - including the awesome Thor's Stone at 'Thorsteinn's farmstead'. Wirral was also probably witness to one of the greatest battles in the history of the British Isles - Brunanburh.
