Welcome to the British History Podcast. My name is Jamie and this is episode 240, Viking

Road Show, Rollo Edition. This show is ad-free due to member support and is a way of thanking

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A massive fleet was off the coast of Kent, heading directly for Alfred's realm. It was

a fleet of 250 ships teaming with skilled, highly experienced raiders. But fleets don't

materialize out of thin air. They come from somewhere. And curiously, over the last 14

years, the scribes of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were actually giving the backstory to this

particular fleet. Because this fleet is the very same one that occupied Fulham in 879.

All the way back when Alfred had only just defeated Guathurum and his kingdom was stretched

too thin to be able to oust them.

And if you were reading the Chronicle without any idea of what was coming, the last dozen

or so years would have seemed a bit strange. Especially since there were many events in

the intervening years that deserved details, but were denied in lieu of the yearly travel

log of Olaf and his friends. But what the scribes appear to have been doing was foreshadowing.

I'll be it in a clumsy way. This fleet would turn out to be a massive threat to

classics, rivaling that of Half-Dan and even Guathurum. And while the scribes were apparently

tasked with being as frugal as possible with the ink budget, they still were doing their

best to emphasize the sheer level of danger that this fleet posed.

...