History Video Blog #5

This video blog is divided in half so you can watch it in two installments. The first half is a sort of an introduction to the Vikings and the second half is a story about King Canute, king of Denmark and of England (d. 1035). I am so sorry about the length, and I will try to shorten things up from here on.

Some years ago I sat on a mission board that had missionaries in England. One night we were staying in the house of a missionary north of Cambridge. The house was old and rambling, with short doorways and passageways that never seemed to quit. It was not a huge house, but it was very interesting—and very old.

When Precious, my wife, and I commented on the apparent age and character of the house, the missionary told us that it was indeed very old. In fact, he said, the part of the house used as the dining room was the oldest part of the house, going back to the first part of the eleventh century. And the room had not always been the dining room. It was once the central room of the original building that was a hunting lodge used by King Canute.

King Canute, who ruled the English from 1016-1035, was not a Briton, nor was he Anglo-Saxon and thus not English at all. He was a Viking–a Dane. This was more than three decades before the famous Battle of Hastings in 1066 when the Normans conquered England and also changed the English language forever. And who were the Normans? Why Vikings of course! More about that mystery later. Here, in two parts, is the story. The flag about half-way along the continuum at the bottom of the frame is the dividing line:

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