We are the Vagabrothers.
And this is the Jordvik Viking Festival.
Look! An unsuspecting village.
Attack!
Good morning guys
from ablustery morning here in York
Right now we are walking down Shamble Street,
which is quite possible the coolest street in the world.
Yes, this is a very medieval city.
But it was founded by the Romans,
later taken over by the Vikings who named it Jorvik.
The Viking Festival is also called the Jorvik Viking Festival.
Today we're going to be dressing up and time-traveling
a couple hundred years into the past.
A thousand plus! Back in the day. Yeah.
It's going to be epic.
We're going to be dressed up as Vikings,
do a little bit of training,
and then quite possibily
go to battle.
We're going to dive right into the action.
So we'll get some press passes,
new outfit, then the Vikings.
Let's do it.
Viking
There's one left. Where did he go?
Check that out, guys.
That's my tunic, it looks like.
I see you're green with envy with my tunic here.
Yours is blue as blue balls.
Ahh
It feels good to be a Viking.
We have our tunics on now,
and it's time to
assume our roles for the day.
They've given us two different roles.
You'll notice that we don't have any weapons.
We are city traders.
And that's because after the Vikings came here,
they settled, stopped fighting, and became merchants.
York was a big trading city within the Viking Empire.
So now we'll tell you who we will be for the day.......
Sigwulf is a city trader.
Ah, come!
He has a stall in Coppergate.
He sells amber and small bits of jewelry
made from brass, which he paints to look like gold.
He's basically the city's biggest bull artist.
But he's dressed in his best wool tunic today
as King Canute is to be crowned.
This is Falstuf
He's a trader from Denmark.
He makes a good living in the city by selling furs
and the latest stylish trends from Northern Europe.
But in reality, he's just a hipster.
We're making our way up to the main market
to go do some trading
because the word "Viking" actually is closer
to the word "pirates."
People would not have called themselves Vikings
unless they were on raiding missions.
The ones who came here after conquering the city
stayed, became merchants,
and would have called themselves Danes.
Quick fact about the Viking ships.
When they were on raiding missions,
they would place these heads,
usually a dragon head or wolf head,
and these were thought to scare away the evil spirits
in an enemy land.
But then if they were in friendly waters,
they could remove it,
and that way they wouldn't be scaring away
the friendly spirits.
It's kind of cool.
Ready to trade your fake bronze?
Who said it's fake?
Fake gold, fake silver, you scam artist. Shhhh
Ready to make a pretty penny and then skedaddle
back to Denmark.
It's funny trying to think of all these people
in a normal work environment.
Like this could be the guy next to you in the cubicle?
But not this weekend.
Letting out the Viking.
And why do you do it?
For the beer.
And the fun.
And you can hit people with weapons.
Greetings.
Just met a girl who's going to teach us
a bit of Viking speak.
Every ninth word you speak is a Viking word.
They, them, theirs is Viking.
Sky, shirt, skirt.
Anger, fight, might.
Every ninth word is a Viking word.
It's pretty cool to find out the accent here of the north
of England, which is different than that of the south,
and there are many accents here in the U.K.,
is actually influenced a lot by these Viking
words and pronunciations.
That is, is case you're wondering what makes the
northern accent so different is partially because
of that Viking influence.
Scoll
Sweet.
Sweet like Frieda's warm bosoom.
All right, so we've been walking around
looking at the different merchants,
and now it's time for lunch.
No it's not. More specifically,
it's time an ale,
at a pub.
Beer is food.
Seriously though guys,
there's something about walking around all day in a
tunic and pretending to be living in another era.
I like it.
I have a feeling they drank a lot more back then, too.
More than the Vagabrothers?
Doubtful.
Can you tell us who you are and what we're about to do
right now?
I'm King Canute.
I am the new king
of England,
and this is my victory procession.
throughout the sreets of York.
All right, guys. Now we're in the heart of the troops.
Everyone's ready for battle.
The big one goes down in about 30 mins,
but first we have to march through the city,
and then we make it to Clifford's Tower where
the real battle begins.
Can you guys tell us a bit about what's going to happen
right now?
We're going to march down from here,
towards Clifford's Tower, terrorizing the general public
as we go.
When we get there, we're going to split into two sides,
as you see here.
The Saxons over there.
And then us Vikings and Canute's army over here.
We're going to clash three times on the final one.
Hopefully, we'll win.
Canute! Canute!
Everyone is just beating their swords.
Vikings are yelling, "Death to Saxons."
This is insane.
Well, guys, this is insane.
The entire town is pretty much shut down.
What can you do when you have hundreds
of Vikings and Saxons
armed to the teeth,
marching through the center of town?
Business stops. Everything stops
You get on the side of the road.
You can't help but watch.
We found the king of the Saxons.
Can we have a quick little interview?
How are you feeling about the battle today?
Very confident, very confident.
The Vikings are nothing but a bunch of fairly
well groomed beards.
Not a single one of them is a worshipper
of the true Christ.
Okay
What is your advantage of the battle today?
Spears, experience, discipline.
Drill, command, faith.
What's the strategy?
Smash them.
We'll attack hard and fast with our spears.
Move through them very quickly
as though a dose of salts [idiom: to go through your body quickly]
The battle is about to commence
We'll see you guys on the field.
Scildweall!!! [Old Norse: Shield Wall]
What happened out there?
I got gutted by this fierce guy...
...Big axe...
...I can barely keep my stomach in.
...I shall go to the halls with pride...
With Valhalla?
No... I'm a Christian
Are you Saxon?
Oh no. Sorry, man!
[Laughing]
And why do you think they have such a broad appeal
in the modern era, generally speaking?
Probably because they have had such an impact
upon culture.
Still use words that they used
The laws that we use are still based on the Danish
And the Norwegian laws that they brought across.
I'm a Viking. I've got red hair and blue eyes.
It's a definitive thing.
We're all from Northumberland, really.
So it's our heritage.
You can take into consideration, as well
in Northumberland the Vikings were 600 years.
The Romans were only there for 400.
The Vikings were there for 600.
Well guys,
that was our experience at Jorvik Viking Festival
So much fun. I had a blast.
But don't forget. This is only a part of our roadtrip
across the north of England.
So stay tuned for the rest of it.
If you liked the video,
don't forget to give it a thumbs-up,
share it with your friends,
and subscribe to Vagabrothers
for travel videos every week.
In the meantime, remember to stay curious,
keep exploring,
and we'll see you guys on the road.
Peace.
She's laughing in my face.
How am I supposed to be a scary Viking
when I'm being laughed at by an old woman?
You're dead, and so are you.
And you. Everyone is bloody dead!
Who would have known that in a thousand years
we would be the largest contributors
to UN Peace Building Conferences in the world.
But now, we're going to raid your monastery.
I want the gold.