Interesting article. I’m from an Indian family but I’ve lived almost my whole life in what was Danelaw so the Viking side of history is much more apparent to me.
Nice to know that the football chant of “Ingerland” is historically correct though.
Fife, where I live in Scotland, is often referred to as a Kingdom although if it ever was a kingdom it probably was at least 1200 years ago. I saw a sign at the weekend that made me smile:
I used to live in Ceredigion in Wales which despite being a mere county now almost perfectly maps to the 5^th century post-Roman kingdom. There's parts of Ceredigion which look pretty much the same as they've done for millennia, the mountain road between Rhayader and Aberystwyth has got to be one of Britain's best drives!
In last summer's heatwave I was walking home along the old roman routes in Anglia after having a problem with my bike, and with the full-on scorch we'd had all manner of encampments become visible in fields. I found the whole experience of walking in the shadows of people gone for thousands of years quite calming somehow, despite realising I was having to ration fluids and food given any shops you might have found were closed for lockdown.
Just south of Cambridge is the intersection between Icknield Way¹ and Ermine Street², and you hardly seem to be able to stick a trowel in the ground without finding a coin hoard in these parts. You can still walk large parts of it on footpaths and bridleways. Not as pretty as Wales, but nice nonetheless.
Nice to know that the football chant of “Ingerland” is historically correct though.