Thursday 29 January 2009

Lothar Hargason's Raid

The sleepy town of Dunham, the locals are nervous, they have heard of the raid at Hookton; they hope they will be spared ...

The vikings arrive. Lothar, brother to Harald Hargason, moves his ship up the estuary and into a side channel. Mooring up he sends out his scouts and orders his men to disembark.

The lookouts spot the vikings and run back as fast as they can to warn the village ...

The vikings put the first group of raiders ashore ...

Soon they are on their way to the village, skimishers take the lead while the main body follows, one group halts on a hill to act as a reserve and to counter any possible response from the fyrd.

The skirmishers near the village and start to attack the defenders ...

The abbot of the monastery and the lay brothers have armed themselves and entered the village to try and hold off the vikings. The men of the village have suffered heavy casualties and the abbot orders them to retire to the abbey church to protect the women and children.

The main body of the viking raiders approaches the village ....

The vikings get into what they are good at - pillaging. Meanwhile the abbot has formed the men up to protect the entrance to the abbey church.

The fyrd arrives somewhat tired, they have come hot foot from Hookton having picked up some extra men on the way to replace their losses. Beornwulf orders the horn to be sounded to let the villagers know they are here ...

The vikings start to return to their ship, with their plunder, as the fyrd nears the village ....

The fyrd try to envelope the vikings but they are too slow to deploy. The chase to the ship begins ...

The vikings get to their ship and start to re-embark, they moved too fast for the fyrd.

Beornwulf can only watch with dismay as another viking raiding ship sets sail after a successful raid. The fyrd had suffered minor casualties and a few vikings had been killed.

1 comment:

Fitz-Badger said...

I knew it was coming. It's the old "it's quiet out there. yeah, too quiet" trick. Second time I fell for it this month! lol

Nice battle report and excellent pictures as usual!