Austlend

Austlend is a Dark Age Reenactment Group based out of North and South Carolina. We are a Member of The Vikings Vinland (US & CANADA) reenactment & living history organization as well as our Mother group The Vikings

Our primary orientation (cultural identity) is Anglo-Dane, though we have Swedes, Saxons, Irish

mercernaries and even a Rus trader in our group.  We cover basically, the Swyen Forkbeard and

Canute (Cnut Sweynsson) period of 1013-1026.  We are in the (fictional) coastal trading village

of Austlend, East Anglia.

This time frame allows us to re-enact three specific, significant battltes (though with others we

can do battles of any period up to the "real end" of the Viking Age in 1263 -NOT 1066.  The

fights we will concentrate on are:

The Battle of Clontarf  April 23, 1014 (Good Friday)  - actually a Irish vs. Hiberno-Norse fight

The Battle of Ashingdon OCtober 18, 1016  - when Canute won England

The Battle of the Helgea (Holy River) 1026 - Canute  secures Norway and Sweden to himself

In the 870s a massive force of vikings (predominately Danes) - know as the Great Heathern 

Army - invaded England.  The result was that in 880 as treaty was reached between viking

leader, King Guthrum, and Alfred (the Great) Wessex and Englisc leader.  The areas of East

Anglia, the Five Boroughs and Northumbria became the DANELAW.  This became an area of

settlement and intermarriage, including over the following years part of western London

known as Ravenscroft.

Recent historians have associated Friday the 13th with a late event in the Middle Ages:

However, 305 years before this on St. Brice's Day, November 13 (which was a FRIDAY), 1002,

the Englisc monarch, Ethelred Unred (the Unready) ordered the killing of Danes living in England.

Many, including the sister of Swyen Forkbeard, were massacred.  This is the mostly likely the

origin of Firday the 13th as unlucky, not the Templar purge.

         For revenge Forkbeard invaded England in 1003-1004, but left after being paid Danegeld.

However, he re-invaded in 1013 intent on conquest and crown.  Two viking leaders, Thorkell

the Tall and Olaf the Stout, who had stayed in the Danelaw after earlier invasions, served

Ethelred Unred for the bounty he paid them.  They did manage to protect London from

Forkbeard's forces, but all of the Danelaw and most of England accepted him as sovereign.

He died on  Candlemas Day, in February 1014.  His army pledged support to his young

son Canute, but he decided to return to Denmark to solidify his position.  He would return

to England in 1015 fighting the Wessex and Mercian forces.   After the Battle of Ashingdon,

Canute and Edmund Ironside, the Englisc ruler, signed a treaty.  The agreement included

that whomever survived the longest would gain the "whole" land of England.  Canute did,

as Ironside's died a few months later.  Canute then married Emma of Normandy, in 1017,

the widow of Ethelred.

 The site is still in it's construction phase (reconstruction technically).  We've had some new interesting members join over the last year and as soon as all the bio's are finished i'll have them displayed with pictures link from the site.

But, in the meantime please see photos of past events and some of our Viking allies.