In the year 1010, after nearly three decades of persistent raids by Danish and Norse Vikings,

the latest warlord to capitalise on England's weakness landed his retinue upon the eastern

shores of Britain. He'd already raided in Kent during the previous year, and now, after overwintering,

with little opposition, he sought to expand his operations to the north.

By the shores of the River Orwell, innumerable longboats glided into the river systems

of East Anglia to make landfall near Ipswich.

A few younger warriors, lightly armoured and eager, accompanied the host,

perhaps the sons and younger brothers of the more experienced men.

Though for the most part, this was an army made up of career soldiers.

Many of them hardened veterans of the most famous battles of the era. Brutal sea engagements such as Heomgavar and Svalda that took place far to the north,

astride the mountains and valleys of Norway. Not only were these battles politically

significant for the history of Scandinavia and Northern Europe as a whole, but due

to the increasing Christianisation of the region, they had already taken on a semi-mythical

quality by the year 1010.

The men of East Anglia by comparison, many of whom were themselves the Anglo-Danish descendants

of Vikings, had had enough of the near yearly harrying and raiding from the coasts, and now they came together to protect their homelands.

Under one of the most influential power brokers in the county, the Thane, Ulf Keitel, Snilinger, a large force of household warriors and third men from East Anglia

and the surrounding counties, came together to meet the Danes once and for all, to answer

their greed with English spears.

At a location named Ringmere Heath, somewhere in the Suffolk Lowlands, Ulf Keitel and his men caught the Danes unawares,

racing out of the mist to engage the Vikings in a brutal pitched battle.

In the ensuing fight, it soon became clear that the reputation of this Scandinavian

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