Dragon Lords: The History and Legends of Viking England, by Eleanor Parker

Abstract

‘Why did the Vikings come to England?’ Eleanor Parker’s monograph opens with the question that continues to spark debate. This book, however, does not aim to answer that question (the endnotes of Parker’s introduction direct the reader to various influential studies that do attempt this) but rather a different one, hitherto untreated to this extent: how did medieval English writers from the eleventh century onwards imagine and interpret the arrival and impact of Scandinavians in England? This book, then, is more about the people of medieval England than the Vikings; it explores the role of ‘the Danes’—as we are told the early medieval Scandinavians now popularly named ‘Vikings’ were commonly labelled (p. 2)—in the stories and legends of the regions they raided, settled and conquered. Parker is careful to note that it is these retrospective narratives and their relationship to regional cultures and identities, written decades or centuries after the...