The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1984, Page 31

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
29
VIKINGS WALK AGAIN UNDER YORK
Dr. E. Leigh Syms obtained this material
from York, England
Beneath the concrete of a modem shop-
ping complex in the centre of York, a
thousand-year-old city is slowly coming
back to life.
This is Jorvik, the Viking city of York
and capital of the northern kingdom of the
Vikings, a city which is now stirring again
inside the Jorvik Viking Centre.
York and its countryside: land 183 metres
(300 feet) above sea level is stippled.
In the ninth century, when the Vikings
set about the conquest of England, York
was rich and the home of kings. The in-
vading armies from Scandinavia did not
take long to attack and conquer it. When
the flames and the violence had died down,
Jorvik’s new Viking rulers were swift to
rebuild the town, and streets of houses and
workshops began to thrive.
The most important area was bordered
by the River Foss on one side and the Ouse
on the other — easy to defend and close to
the river wharves where both longships and
trading vessels could off-load.
Coppergate
One of the main streets in this part of
town was called Coppergate. The Vikings
who lived here cured leather, shaped lovely
amber beads, and made wooden bowls and
cups — the coopers or cuppers who gave
their name to the street.
At that time Jorvik was one of a chain of
Viking ports stretching from the Medi-
terranean to the Near East and the heart of
Russia. Viking ships could be found all
over the known world with their cargoes of
furs, wines and silk.
To the monks who felt the edge of their
swords and saw the flames licking around
their holy churches the Vikings were brutal
barbarians. Many certainly were, but
others were simple merchants or craftsmen,
sea-travellers or home-lovers. The wharves
and streets must have buzzed with their
activity and clamorous voices.
Nowadays it is a different kind of travel-
ler that fills the streets of York — tourists
who pour in by the thousands each
summer. What brings them to York? One
reason must be its fascinating past. Modem
flats and factories seem to have passed
York by.
Instead, ancient buildings grace every
street comer and almost touch heads as
they bow across the street. The division
between past and present is so thin one
sometimes walks right through it, straight
into the Middle Ages.
Buried
But there is another past in York which
is not so easy to see or touch. This is the
past under our feet. Buried in the ground
the remains of houses and workshops of the
Vikings of a thousand years ago still exist,
along with the tools and cooking ware they
used, fragments of clothing and shoes,
animal bones, even fleas and bugs.
Usually these dissolve into dust before