The Early Medieval History of Axholme (AD 43-1066) | Riddles of the Isle Interview

What follows is an interview with the author Alex Harvey, who has just written and published a book about the Isle of Axholm in the early Middle Ages, something we're about to hear about at length in the interview that follows. If at any point you are overtaken by the overwhelming urge to buy this book, which I'm sure will happen, so have your credit cards at the ready, then I would say go to the description and have a look at the links. There is a special link for UK buyers and for those internationally, as it's available all over the world in true Viking Age fashion. In any case, I very much hope you enjoy this video and the interview with Alex. Welcome, everyone. As you can tell today, I am not alone. I am, in fact, joined by this very handsome young man in front of us. Hello there. Oh, perfect. And as you can see, we are going to be talking about his new book, which is very exciting. This is Alex Harvey. Alex, how are you doing? I'm very well. Thanks for having me on, Hilbert, my friend. Excellent. Now, I'm looking forward to talking to you, to picking your brain some more about this book, because it's all about the Isle of Axholm, which before I had met you, I had never heard about before. So could you maybe give us a little intro? Where is the Isle of Axholm? What is it? And is it even an island? I would love to. So for all viewers all around the world, the Isle of Axholm sounds a lot more exciting than it perhaps is today. The Isle is a small corner of a single county in northern England. The county is Lincolnshire. And in the northern corner, up in North Lincolnshire, just as the border gets onto South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, just below the River Humber, there is a place called the Isle of Axholm. Nobody really knows what county it's meant to be in. I think they're flip-flopped every now and then. And the locals, like myself, might feel a closer affinity to one of the other shires. But if you go back about a thousand years, prior to industrial drainage in the 17th century, you would have found a lovely marshy environment, which is where the name comes from. The Isle of Axholm actually means the island of watery island island. So there's three different language groups there. Just in case you forgot what it was. Oh, yeah, exactly. They didn't want to let you forget. So Ax, I think some linguists have worked out, might come from Old Welsh, Late British, relating to water, marshes, groves. Then you've got the middle element, which is E from Old English, island, and then home from Old Norse, the Viking language, also meaning island. Right. And that already sort of is a little bit of a spoiler, a little bit of a giveaway of what readers can expect in the book. Because you already mentioned we have Welsh and Brythonic Celtic language. You've mentioned Old English, of course, a West Germanic language. And you've mentioned Old Norse, which is a North Germanic language. So that's just a little flavour of all these different groups that come together on this island to give it its fascinating history and indeed its fascinating name and why it ends up being, you know, island, island, island, I suppose. So, yeah. I think it's what you call a stratified name because it's got these different layers of occupation, these different language groups, cultural groups that have mingled, merged and migrated all on the same spot. The isle's not very big now. I mean, it's a collection of basically low hills, flat fields. I believe there's over a dozen parishes and spread throughout these parishes are a number of small villages, one or two moderately sized towns. And of course, back in the day, back in the early medieval period, it would have been even more sparsely populated. Archaeological excavations have dug up the odd sunken featured building from the Anglo-Saxon period. But there's not really much in the way of habitation. And indeed, nobody really knew what was going on in the Isle of Axum prior to 1066. Right. Because, I mean, you've mentioned archaeology. And in the first part of the book, a lot of, in fact, in the first third of the book, it's more about looking at the actual toponomy, what the names are of the place to give you an insight. You mentioned a little bit that we don't really know what's going on in Axum at this time. Are there any historical sources, textual sources from the period that do go into it a little bit? Or could you use others in some way? Interesting question. Obviously, when you consult any historical documents, you're also looking for what isn't there as much as what is there. Axum, you won't find a written mention of it until well into the 12th century. So that's, of course, already long after the early medieval period has ended. But we know where the Isle of Axum is. It's part of Lincolnshire, which used to be roughly coterminous with the medieval kingdom of Lindsay, which is a minor Anglo-Saxon kingdom. So you can work out what's going on in Lindsay, especially in the northern corner next to the Humber, which obviously juts onto Mercia and Northumbria. And where these three meet is bang on the Isle of Axum. So you can extrapolate a lot of information from what's happening in those three locations and then use some parallel places like Frisia, which is our favourite, to find out what's... Everyone taking a shot who's listening here at the moment. Frisia mentioned right there. Frisia mentioned. Won't be the last. And that's another kind of liminal edge, marshy territory like the Isle of Axum. And it's much bigger and more is written about Frisia. So what's happening in Frisia in the same time period is similar to what was probably happening in the Isle of Axum. And one of the reasons why I wrote this book was because, I mean, like yourself, love the early medieval period. Frisia I stumbled into through my undergraduate dissertation several years ago. Fascinating subject. And, of course, there were Frisians migrating over to England as well, which is a fact largely obscured in your populist, more accessible mainstream history books. So I felt the need to kind of highlight that a little bit and also give something back to the Isle of Axum, which is where I grew up. There's a huge local history scene for the Isle. So I mentioned before that we don't know what was going on before 1066. We actually know absolutely loads about after 1066. There's some really important, impressive researchers like Marilyn Roberts, Robert Fish, Catherine Bullen, just to name a few. And they've written books, PhD theses, reports, newspaper articles, all investigating the post-Norman history of the Isle because that's really well documented. You've got royal families like the Moogreys. You've got Cornelius Vermoeden, who was a Dutch irrigator in the 17th century who changed the Isle from an isle into what it is today, which is flat, kind of canal-split land. And then, obviously, one of the more famous characters from the Isle of Axum is John Wesley, who founded Methodism, which is a branch of Christianity. So the last 1,000 years of the Isle of Axum are really well documented. And across all of these really good history books, they might have an introductory footnote or two, or maybe a prologue that briefly mentions what we know, what we don't know about pre-1066. But it's only like a paragraph, maybe a sentence or two. And I've written 347 pages on it. So there's definitely much more to say. I would highly recommend looking through the book for those personal connections because, as you say, you're an islander yourself. You grew up there. Quite a few details which spring out of personal recollections of different places or peculiar customs about the Isle. I was actually curious about that. There's one in particular, which you're probably anticipating already. Yeah, here we go. What exactly is Haxey Hood and what goes on there? The Haxey Hood is quite difficult to explain. It appeals to a certain type of crowd on January the 6th every year. So I believe it's like a 700-year-old festival. It's enjoyed by people who really like the local tradition. I mean, I think it's fascinating. I'd love to watch it, but I'm never in the area at the right time. But then there's quite a large crowd who just love drinking copious amounts and playing what is essentially a large rugby match between two villages. I mean, it's a lot of fun. I'm not sure anywhere else in England quite does it. So the point of the game is to basically get the hood, which sometimes it's a baton, I believe, that just represents the hood of Lady Mowgray, who's a 14th-century, I believe, royal who dropped her dress hood in the village of Haxey or near the village of Haxey. And the two opposing villages of Haxey and Westwoodside both compete to see who earns the hood that year. There's a whole scoreboard on the Wikipedia page of which pub the hood ended up in which year. I don't know who currently has it, but they hold it for the full year and then the next year round it's time for another pub to try and claim the fame. And just Google images of the Haxey hood, I mean, it can be very surprising when you see images and it's even more surprising when you watch it for yourself. But that is an interesting question because that's one of the high medieval slash late medieval historical elements of the isle that's really well documented. It's mentioned in a lot of history books. Like I said, it's one of the oldest folk traditions in England. Writing in the 1800s, Miss Mabel Peacock wrote for the Epworth Bells, which is one of the local papers, that she believed the Haxey hood didn't originate in the 14th century at all. And that legend of the hood had just become retroactively applied to what was probably an undefined, undisclosed Germanic myth associated with early versions of football. Just because it's so weird and it has parallels, I think, with French and Spanish examples, which I wouldn't be able to list off the top of my head. But it's a quirk of the isle and it joins a long list of many other quirks. I tried to write the book in a way that was celebratory of the isle as a place today, but also with a bit of whimsy, a bit of sarcasm. Because, you know, I grew up there. There's some things about the isle that are probably worth poking fun at, a bit of friendly banter. Some of these references, if anyone's from the isle, they might be very obvious when you read the book, or maybe they'll only appeal to my generation who grew up in the isle in the early 2000s. And then anyone who's not from the isle, hopefully these references make you think, I wonder if he's telling the truth. And they might make you want to visit. There's an Anglo-Saxon cross shaft that's definitely worth looking at. I did not expect that little segment to end with an Anglo-Saxon cross shaft, but there we go. I mean, it definitely made me interested to come and visit and to see what it's actually all about, this place. To refocus a little bit on the history, could you perhaps take us through in broad strokes from the early history? I believe there's a Roman presence already with some, weirdly, I had this image of sort of Star Wars Endor-like walkways. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that, and then tell about the Normans, 1066, the harrowing of the north. Could you go through that? Yeah, so there's been a few surveys. Some of them have been conducted with the recent power station near Kidby. Others, I think, were adjacent to the Flixborough excavations, which is a town just on the edge of the isle. There's what's believed to be across not just the isle, but also the Thornmores area, which is to the west, a collection of Neolithic trackways built beneath Bronze Age trackways, built beneath possibly Roman causeways, and then, of course, some scant evidence for early medieval trackways on top of them. Whether or not they were timber walkways or wood panelled, difficult to say. The peat only preserves so much. But life and travel in the early medieval isle was 100% tied to water. I mean, A, it's an island, but to get anywhere, you'd need either a boat or you'd have to wait for the tide to go down, because while the isle's not currently tide-locked, and God forbid it ever is again, the River Humber actually extended much wider than it does today. And the entire floodplain surrounding the isle would have been one with the Humber Wash. So at certain times of the day or in a year, it would have been much higher than others. So there'd have been times to cross these causeways, these trackways, and then times when it was best traversed with a boat. Now, earlier you mentioned written references to the isle, and obviously we basically don't have any to the isle specifically until after about the high medieval period. And I believe in Henry VIII's reign, there's a reference of someone traversing the isle specifically by boat because he mentions that you can get between all four rivers that make the island an island without touching a speck of dry land. And it was in quite a well-bottomed boat with a lot of cargo as well, so three, four meters deep. And it depends where you are, of course. Some areas of the isle have hills, others very low. So let's just hope global warming doesn't get any worse. Yeah, you know, Frisia and Aksum, both. I think that's in all of them. Yeah. Well, you mentioned Frisia. Obviously, longtime viewers of this channel will know of the Terpen and how Frisians constructed these artificial mounds and also made use of pre-existing hills to withstand the ebb and flow of the tide. Part of this was subsistence and a really good adaptation. And then, obviously, when you observe the external sources describing Frisia, they talk about pitiful souls who are forced to live on these tiny, muddy hills. And it's very similar in the isle of Aksum. You've got an area awash with the tide where the settlements are far and few between. And it would have led to a sense of isolation, of otherness, external forces looking in at what is essentially a huge fen with a few hills, probably thinking they're quite strange over there, which you get all over the early medieval world and in hagiographies, saintly poems, and so on. Do you think that has an influence on the culture of those living inside Aksum, that they're, dare I say, liminal? Absolutely. And again, here's where you observe your parallels. We have a lot more written about the Frisians than we do the isle of Aksum. And the Frisians, yes, they are sometimes viewed by externals as strange otherness, aliens. But to them, existing on the edge of all of these territories makes them central. As Neleka Isenaga best said, central because liminal. So they can traverse all of these different worlds, these different trading ports, and living at one with water, you'll have to become adept with boats and maritime travel, fishing, and even whaling. The isle of Aksum towards the end of the early medieval period is most likely an intense marine hinterland for the hunting of whales. A lot of that was found out through the Flixburgh excavations, which is a town just out of the isle. But that was a really productive Anglo-Saxon trading settlement with some evidence of monasticism. And it became very wealthy on whale hunting. That's super interesting, because I suppose some of the most famous Anglo-Saxon objects, like the Frank's casket, are made from, I think it's baleen, isn't it, which comes from whale? So who knows, perhaps that was sourced through the isle of Aksum. Well, perhaps. That's an interesting tangent, because there's a really good argument, I think it was put forward by Christopher Lovelock, again in the Flixburgh excavation reports, that describes how there's quite a focus on characters who appear in Lindsay's king list in the poems like Beowulf, Widsith, and a few others. And because there's a lot of evidence at Flixburgh for the writing and practising of monkish script, I think there's the single biggest assemblage of Anglo-Saxon stylee in one place in the entire country, in Flixburgh, that maybe all of these manuscripts were produced or had a bit of authorial guidance from monks in Lindsay, in Flixburgh. Maybe some of those monks were from the isle. So that's a large part of the book, and the research was extrapolating nearby geographic areas. So Flixburgh's excavation reports are brilliant. I think they're all available for free, so I highly recommend anyone reads all 1,500 pages. But it doesn't really talk about where the agricultural hinterlands would be, because obviously the focus is on Flixburgh. And that's where an analysis of the isle comes up. In understanding Flixburgh, you are understanding the early medieval isle of Axum, and how the two are connected. And of course, the early medieval world was ever-connected, through trade, through mixing of cultures. And it's in these entrepots, in these middle areas, where the greatest connections appear. So we've talked a bit about the Anglo-Saxon period, the kingdom of Lindsay. It's then conquered by, is it the Mercians and the, I think, the Northumbrians get involved. Yeah, it's assimilated sometime during the reign of King Aethelfrith of Northumbria, which ends in about 617. So at the start of the 7th century, Lindsay ceases to be fully autonomous. But it's believed to have maintained a bit of independence while under Northumbrian overlordship, as a client kingdom. But then when Mercia takes it over, in about 679, it's juggled back and forth. Well, parts of Lindsay definitely are juggled back and forth, the isle chief among them. But it just becomes like an unnamed petty state by that point. And I think it just becomes seen as part of Northumbria or part of Mercia. But it's probable that it still had some insular independence, because chiefly Lindsay was never creating any chronicle, like Northumbria was with Bede. So I guess it shares that with Mercia. Most of the sources are just describing it from external viewpoints. And do we have somewhat of an image of what came before this period? So this sort of describes a little bit the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy, so where we have all these various kingdoms, even though we might problematise that a little bit here, because, well, Lindsay was also its own kingdom before this period. But before it's coalesced, we, of course, have the Romans who are building their Star Wars walkways around the area. And then after they leave, do we have an idea of what's going on in the isle? And what kind of sources of evidence can we use for that period where we don't have a lot of written records? So part of that comes from certain readings of legendary sources, like poems that relate or mention characters that also appear in Lindsay's king list, because surprisingly, contained in some of the manuscripts of the Anglian collection, which is a cluster of all of these Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and their history of kings, like who reigned over which dates, Lindsay is contained within that. Annoyingly, there's no dates attached to any of the names and they're probably not in order. They kind of appear in alliterative duos, so I'm probably making the names up, but it's like Bedder Bubbing followed by Bubba Biscopping, Bubba the Kin of Biscop, Biscop the Kin of Bedder. It's a little Forrest Gump, isn't it, with Bubba? Yeah, but it sounds nice. And obviously when you're speaking that out loud in the mead hall, describing who ruled over this kingdom, it's got a nice flair to it. Whether or not it's accurate, in the right order, whether or not any or some of these people are even real, difficult to say. Some of the earlier names, or the names that first appear on the list, also appear in Beowulf, in the Finsburg Fragment, in the Lament of Daor, in Weedsith, which are all these migration period epics and poems that were written down obviously much later, towards the end of the early medieval period, but their rhythm and their style is believed by most scholars to be of much earlier origin. I don't know why I'm telling you, you're the expert on this as well. You'll know much more about these poems than me. But crisscrossing throughout all these works are characters like Finn, the Kin of Folkewold, Winter, Wodning, Giet, and they all appear in the Lindsay genealogy. What does that tell us? Were these people real? I don't know. I wouldn't say so. They're kind of like idealised folk heroes or really cool ancestors. So the fact that they appear in the Lindsay ancestral list tells me that either the writers of Lindsay, who wrote their portion of the list, or more likely whoever was writing about Lindsay, saw to it that, yeah, they like those ancestors. They have a certain affinity with these ancestors. And why is that? Well, numerous theories can be launched from that starting point. But it all leads again to these trans-North Sea connections, linking Lincolnshire almost as a frontier zone with Sweden, with Frisia, with Denmark. I mean, you say, why am I explaining this? But I think it's a very important point to explain because I think a lot of people that maybe haven't looked at the early Middle Ages so much, they know, OK, what does a historian do? They look at texts. But, I mean, for our period, I mean, we wouldn't get very far if we looked at texts about this period because, well, this time from 400s, 500s, next to nothing is being written down. So we have to look at much later sources, for example, Bede, who I'm sure we'll get on to, and indeed also to look at forms of writing that we don't recognise as being history, such as poetry, even though in the poetry or genealogies, as we've got into, can contain a lot of information that can shed a light on perhaps not always what exactly happened in the 400s, 500s, but how people in the maybe 600s, 700s, 800s thought about what happened in those early centuries. Exactly. It's a different perception of time. And through that, it's kind of a different perception of space and their placement in the landscape, their relationship with their ancestors. Did they think their ancestors were long dead? Did they lament over the cooler good old days? Back when times were nice. Or did they think of the past as this weird, untamed legendary time with dragons and trolls? Or three or four of those at once, perhaps. Exactly, or all of them. And everyone would have had their own opinion. So we're really dealing with kind of fragments, whatever's written down. But you do raise a very interesting point, and part of the reason why this book was so fun to write and so challenging, yet rewarding, is because of the nature of the early medieval period, especially when you're dealing with an area that has next to no written information. You have to go interdisciplinary. So you can't just consult the archaeology, because for a lot of people, that can be very dry. Not for me. I'm an archaeologist. I love different layers of clay, different colours. But some people will already be asleep, drooling on their keyboard at the mere mention of that. So you can't just focus on the archaeology. I won't be slagging off pottery in my ears. But you get the archaeology, which forms the foundation. It's the physical evidence. I believe I used the phrase, the meat and gravy of history. It's the bones. Yeah, definitely. You see where my allegiances lie. But then above archaeology, you need that historical context, that framework, which comes from the study of the text, as you say. But texts are riddled with biases, especially for our period. They're coming from a number of opposing viewpoints. Some of them are just made up, but they contain the odd sentence that, hey, hold on, this one might be real. And then to even analyse the language, the sentence structure, the linguistics, you have to consult the lingo, the toponomy, the place names. So the book is structured in reverse order from what I just said. It starts with the places and names. Then it goes on to the chronicles, the kings, the important events that affected this period and the legends associated with it. And then to ground all that together, you've got the archaeology, like metal-detected finds. Well, the ones that were reported anyway. I'm sure there are loads more currently undocumented. And then sites nearby or within the isle that can build up that context even wider. And then I married all three of those disciplines for the final chapter. That's a very long chronological overview from pre-Roman just about all the way up to just after the Norman conquest. And that is the fun of the early medieval period for me. I had a lovely chat with author Max Adams about this, who's much more famous than I am. But we both share that affinity for this marriage of different sources of information and how rewarding that can be. And so do you, of course. Yeah, except I'm nowhere near published. But Max Adams, he has written King in the North before the John Snow hype, I would like to add, and a recent book on Roman Britain as well as a few others. So he's very much looking at this time period indeed. And I remember sitting down with him quite a few years ago and he said, and indeed his books all begin first with the physical geography. He says, you've really got to get into that physical geography before you begin to understand anything about the history. And that's what I really liked about Riddles of the Isle is that you begin with looking at the place names. Most history books would begin with your second chapter, would begin with what can we tell from textual sources because that's how historians are trained. That's what historians do. They look at the texts, they try and construct these narratives. But because you've actually started with the place names, we get a completely different view, a different light shining on various peoples, various cultures, various events that are not talked about in the sources. And as we've discussed, the written sources are really quite lacking, both geographically and temporally, for early medieval Isle of Axholm. There's not much writing, well, no writing going on there on the Isle of Axholm and there's not many people writing about them either. And so you have to look from multiple perspectives. Something I'd like to ask about a little bit are the Brythonic speakers in the Isle of Axholm and whether you can tell us a little bit about them and perhaps why some more of their place names are preserved on the Isle of Axholm as opposed to certain other areas in England. I think it all comes down to, again, the island nature of Axholm. The village I'm from, Belton, obviously the suffix there, T-O-N, comes from T-U-N, Old English for enclosure, village, settlement, so on. But the prefix B-E-L, many people have argued about what that means. There's going to be a brilliant linguistic overview of the Isle coming out. Catherine Bullen, it's her PhD thesis. So that's going to be fascinating. She's got that arcane knowledge that only toponomists have, which the rest of us can only wish that we could muster. But for my sake, Belton, there's a cluster of place names that all start with the B-E-L prefix, clearly from Brittonic. What does it mean? Is it relating to a long-lost landscape feature? That wouldn't surprise me because there's a lot of evidence for forests, different courses of rivers, dried lakes, through the different layers of peaks, from the peak cutting in and around the Isle. So the landscape has changed significantly. Or is it from a person or a deity? Very difficult to say. Obviously, there's a lot of characters that have similar names, like Belly Mao. Forgive me if I'm mispronouncing anything. I think from old Welsh genealogies. Does he have a link with the Brittonic speakers in the Isle of Acton? Does he have a link elsewhere, east of Wales? Most likely. And then you get on to some of the more physical aspects. So there are, to use Belton again as an example, there's a really cool Brittonic talk that was found on the Portable Antiquities Scheme. But in the discussion for the object, it's made in what's kind of like a native slash late Roman style. I'm paraphrasing. But it's clearly been then tampered with and changed shape, maybe being given a new purpose by maybe perhaps a different migrating cultural group that has different ideas on how to dress. And so they are... Or perhaps the same one. Sorry, if I may jump in. Perhaps the same culture from which it was made who are suddenly changing their own fashion to fit something that's more current. Exactly. Depending on how you want to view that period, of course. But very interesting find. Well, I'm very much in the camp that the Dark Ages, to use that phrase, was a lot more peaceful than it seems by reading the text, which is obviously why you go into the lingo and the objects. And a great discussion in the book kind of goes into who is living on the isle. Are these just successive waves of immigration that stamp out all that remained beforehand? Or is this an insular group, you know, with a bit of migration that's changing with the times? They're changing with the prestige model of a new language. They're changing their dress, trading different items. There's definitely a big Scandinavian element to the place names when you get into the 9th century. And one of the most interesting ways of assessing the Scandinavian impact is, again, to look at the wider context. So the Great Heathen Army, they invade England in 865. They go up and down the country. And the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tracks their movements really well. Professor Dawn Hadley and Julian Richards, they've published loads of work mapping the movements of the Great Heathen Army. You've got the really big Viking camp at Torksey, which is south of the isle. And we know, of course, before that, they were in York, and they were in the River Humber. Right in the middle is the Isle of Axum. And that is proven by the archaeology as probably being a transitory landing point. So halfway through these locations. I believe that's contained in Shane MacLeod's Between the Winter Camps, which is in the Viking Camps book that just came out this year. Another read I'd highly recommend. I still need to get my hands on it. I think Christian Coymans has also got something in there they found in the Netherlands recently. Yeah, and he goes into the whole angle about siege works and roaming family groups near Paris and the continental lowlands. Fascinating book. Yeah, definitely. I'll be careful not to segue too much from the topic at hand. Yeah, we could talk about anything, I'm sure. Genuinely. So it was important for me to write my first book on the Isle of Axum. As mentioned, it's an interesting little place. I'm from there. My grandma is a really keen local historian. She's traced the family tree way back and so have a few others in the past. So she, in many ways, inspired me to get into history, I think, at a young age, subconsciously at first. Probably didn't realise her influence, but where I am now, I feel it's important to mention the Isle of Axum, maybe a little bit when relevant in all of these historical works that I do. So I wrote Riddles of the Isle first, but on the topic of Vikings, and I love them so much, definitely one of the main reasons I got into history and archaeology, I mentioned the Isle of Axum extensively in a much bigger book that's coming out next year called Forgotten Vikings. So that's going to be published by Amberley. So that's a much bigger entry, I guess, in the book universe, bookverse of all these connected early medieval stories and investigations. But yeah, I think the Isle of Axum has been a neglected part of early medieval England for quite a long time, and I'm really happy that I've taken the first stab at opening that wound and having a feel around, seeing what happens. And if any of the research, or all of the research within the book is wrong or based on false assumptions, brilliant, because that gets a discussion going. And research is about these new questions, these new arguments, these discussions, and so on. So, you know, bring it on. Riddles of the Isle 2, if anyone wants to write that. Yeah, or perhaps attempting to answer a riddle of the Isle or something along those lines, who knows? But this book, obviously, we're here to talk about riddles of the Isle rather than Forgotten Vikings. But if I could just, for my own curiosity's sake, ask about this. The Vikings seem pretty remembered currently. You know, they're kind of everywhere we go from, you know, American football teams, TV shows, you know, underwear ads. We can't get enough of them. Can't get enough of them. So which ones have been forgotten? Which Vikings are you talking about? So the main reason why I wanted to write that book is because I'm a big student of the Viking Age. A lot of my teachers have been huge Viking Age experts. Steve Ashby, for one. Dawn Hadley, who I just mentioned. So I've been absorbing Viking Age knowledge for the better part of five, six years and before I went to university as well. A lot that's in academia is fascinating. Really interesting. There's a lot of really cool emerging theories. There's changes in the current paradigm. A lot of kind of up-and-coming academic ideas. And then some of my own theories that maybe are a little bit out there. Some of them are piecing together new strands. But importantly, you know, not much of that is out in the mainstream. And academia for me and research, and I suppose this shows a bit of my museum background, is all about accessibility. It's about sharing and providing this information for everyone so that you can get more research. It's kind of like a snowball effect. The more people that read something, the more ideas that will be had. You'll get a lot of probably silly ideas, but you'll get some good ones as well. Some diamonds in the rough. So Forgotten Vikings is, I guess, like Riddles of the Isle. It's shedding light on some of the lesser-known aspects and angles of the Viking Age, looking at it from new perspectives. You and I, you know, people who study this period will probably have heard of most of them. But maybe there'll be some new arguments in there. And then people who are perhaps less familiar, who just read the mainstream Viking history book every now and then, but want to know more or get interested in the period, then hopefully, you know, that appeals to them as well. I'm really excited for that one to come out as well because that will be number two. Who knows from there? You and me both. I mean, it sounds like a very interesting topic to go into. And I'd love to have you back for another interview when you are so far with this second book. Yeah, count me in. Yeah, absolutely. I love writing. I wrote Riddles of the Isle because I was in the car in March of this year, coming back from Chester. And obviously, Chester's got loads of history. So I was inspired. I work in a museum anyway. So I love history. I love writing, reading about history. And I was lamenting what I should do with my free time outside of work. You can always game. You can practice some hobbies. But, you know, you want to do something a bit more fulfilling. And my lovely wife said, why don't you just write a history book? Stop talking about it. Just write a book. So, okay, I will. And I remember she actually said, when I ploughed through like the first draft of the Isle of Axum book over about two months, she said, no, I meant one that, you know, might appeal to more people. The Isle of Axum. So then I wrote the Forgotten Vikings one straight after that. So, you know, both audiences are covered there. But writing academically, which I've done through uni, and then writing in a more populist, mainstream style, they're very different beasts. I think it's important to marry the two together. So I've taken a lot of inspiration from some of my favourite authors, like Max Adams, who said some really encouraging words to me. Thomas Williams as well is another one. These are very, very learned scholars, but they've bridged that gap into the mainstream world to kind of enlighten people about these lesser known historical topics. Neil Price is, of course, a big one for the Vikings as well. But then, you know, innumerable scholars who have digested their material over the years. You mentioned Christian earlier. He's another big name. So, yeah, thank you to all of those. I think in all my acknowledgement sections, they're just going to get longer and longer. You're definitely mentioned in the Vikings one. I can guarantee you that. So we have your wife to thank for both this book and the next book coming. Exactly. If it was slightly harsh criticism after you've just read this fantastic book. She doesn't know what beast she's unleashed. Yeah, here it is. But now, you know, the writing bug has bit me. So who knows what's next? I'm already drafted some plans. Excellent. I'm super looking forward to it. Wow. For people's reactions to this one, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and learned so much. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's written in a very engaging style. There's something in there for academics. I mean, I certainly learned a lot of new things by looking at it, particularly about the Isle, but also approaches that we can take to understanding this history. And I think if you're looking to dip your toes into the early medieval period, then this is really an essential read. What would you want someone to take away from reading Riddles of the Isle? If there was one key message that you could give to someone about this book, what would that be? I think it would have to be the same message that I've tagged onto the end of a few conference papers that I've done throughout 2023. So while writing the book, obviously it opened up a lot of research avenues. Some were spin-offs, some tied back into the book. But I attended a few conferences this summer, and I turned parts of the book into these slideshows and presentations and lectures. And I always ended it with, you know, above all else, I hope that this book has revealed that if you really nail down and focus on just one small piece of the world, the country, the early medieval period, you can get so much out of it. And imagine if everyone tried to solve the riddles of their own parish, their own village, their own bit of county. And this applies to other countries as well. Imagine the map that we could then build up, the conversations we could have, the research that could emerge. So obviously for me, I think, yeah, if it could inspire someone to do their own riddles, to answer their own questions, then that would be more than enough. But I really appreciate what you said about appealing more generally to the early medieval period and early medieval England and Europe more broadly. It's definitely not just for people who want to know about the Isle. Like I've tried to illustrate through this talk, there's been all these connections to the Isle, and a lot of important historical events and characters seem to converge near this one location. Read more to find out, I guess. Perfect. Sorry. To any people who live in North Lincolnshire or are from the Isle or don't mind visiting, on November the 25th between 10 to 12 in the morning at the lovely cafe called Belton Coffee House in my hometown, there will be a book launch event, probably a few little comments from myself, maybe a small lecture, and opportunities to have your book signed, which sounds surreal to me because I'm a nobody. No, you're not anymore. Maybe they'll be worth something. You're an ex-nobody. You've been well and truly put on the map with this book. If you're in the neighborhood of the Sacred Isle, then definitely go along. It was Belton Coffee House on the 28th of November? 25th. 25th of November. The day Doctor Who comes back. Ah, okay. For our British listeners, then that's when to be there. What a lovely note to end on, that people can unlock the riddles or even just pose the riddles, pose the questions of their local area and the history behind it and to start on their own research adventures as you have done for the Isle of Axel. I think that's a really nice sentiment with which to leave people. Good luck to any researchers. It can be a really compelling, fun journey, writing not even a book. You don't have to do what I did and write a whole book, even writing a short little article or just an investigative blog post looking into one area. It can be really rewarding, and you never know the connections you'll make. I'm really grateful specifically to my publisher, Jane Moffat, who turned this Word document into a book. In many ways it's kick-started what I hope is a long journey in this field, and also all of the people who helped contribute throughout that journey. A lot of locals, like Dan Edwards of D&K Accounting, a local business in the Isle, and also my good friend Paul Stein. Even an Australian poet, Ian Reid, helped contribute. These connections you make through researching. It can be a way to bring people together, mirroring those early medieval trade connections. One for the ages right there. Alex, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you for writing this amazing book. Links in the description below for where you can get your hands on your very own precious copy of this amazing, what I'm sure will be a bestseller. I would highly recommend doing so. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for Alex Harvey and Future Forgotten Vikings. More books about the early Middle Ages coming soon. Thank you very much, Alex. Thank you very much. See you soon. Cheers. Ta-ra. Do you need any more reason to get this as a Sinterklaas present, or as a Christmas present, or just a, screw it, I deserve to have an interesting new book present? If so, the links are in the description below. It would mean a lot to me if you could help Alex out with his first publication in the popular domain. He's a very good friend of mine, very interested in the early Middle Ages, and really, I meant what I said. I'm not being paid to do this. I genuinely think it's a very good book and that people should read it for their own satisfaction and to find out more about this really interesting period. If you do, and if you could, please do leave a review on the various publishing pages where this book is available and let Alex know that you came from the channel to rep the history with Hilbert fans. In any case, thank you all very much for watching. Thank you to Alex for his time and for writing this great book, and I hope to see you all again soon in the next one.