All language subtitles for Combat.Ships.S02E01.Viking.Longships.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BLOOM_track3_[eng]

This time
on Combat Ships...

The story of one of the world's
most effective war machines -

the Viking longship.

The key to their achievements
was the ships -

warships which
allowed them to raid,

cargo ships
that allowed them to trade.

They evolved from swift war canoes

to become the pre-eminent
fighting machines of the age.

Today, if we think of what's
at the forefront of technology,

we think, well,
spacecraft and airliners

and nuclear submarines and so on.

But go back 800 years,
it's the boat.

They were elegant,
versatile - and feared.

You knew that when you saw
a fleet of five, ten, 15 ships

coming around the headland,
and that they were sailing directly

for your little coastal settlement,
I think you would pack your bags

and head for the hills
as quickly as you could.

Longships carried terrifying warriors...

They will have weapons.

They will bang swords
against the shields.

They will be horrible people to meet

and they will approach fast.

The Vikings and their ships

changed the course of history.

Combat ships.

Fast... effective...

The mission is
pure James Bond espionage.

...deadly.

Japan is willing to throw the dice
to engage just about every aspect

of their military force
in a climactic decisive battle

to stop the United States.

They have changed the world...

Warships have been
key factors in global history

from the beginning of civilisation
to the present day.

...thanks to clever design...

...raw firepower...

and the heroism of their crews...

In the year 793,

the people of Northumberland,
in the North of England,

knew something terrible
was about to happen.

Storms and whirlwinds
filled the sky.

There were rumours
of dragons on the wing.

Then what they feared
came to pass.

From across the ocean,

a force of mighty warriors
appeared...

in large warships.

Their target was
the wealthy monastery

on the holy island of Lindisfarne.

The invaders captured or drowned
Lindisfarne's monks,

stole their treasure,
and desecrated their sanctuary.

The attackers were described
as "heathens" from a "pagan race".

They were the infamous, fearsome...

Vikings.

The attack on Lindisfarne

really shocked the Anglo Saxons.

And it's described very much

as God's judgment on the English

for their ungodly ways.

It's a really dramatic beginning

to what's known now
as the Viking Age.

The English historian
Alcuin wrote soon after the attack:

"Never before has such terror
appeared in Britain...

...nor was it thought that such an
inroad from the sea could be made."

So, who were the Vikings,

these warriors whose name,
over a thousand years later,

is still synonymous with violence,
bloodshed and the sea?

"Viking" actually meant,
in old Norse,

"pirate", "raider", "marauder",

so it's more of a job description,

but it's an easier label

than trying to give any sort of
ethnic status to these people.

The Vikings
came from Scandinavia -

the three territories
that we know today

as Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

It was the landscape of that region
that shaped their culture.

Denmark and Sweden
are made up of islands

and had dense, inaccessible forests.

"Norway", literally means,
the "Northern way",

the northern sailing route,

and it's one long coastline,
punctuated by fjords,

while the land itself
is broken up by mountains.

So it was much easier
to get around by boat than by land.

Forced into ships,

they were quick to realise
the possibilities.

I think they were
very astute people

who could see quite quickly,

through this
maritime network they had,

that there was
a much wider world out there.

It's probably one of the most
important aspects of the Viking Age

that they were very much
a people who looked outwards.

They are exceptionally
curious people

and exceptionally brave
in terms of where they want to go

with their ships and why.

The Vikings had dreams
of exploration and conquest.

They needed a vessel to match.

The longship.

Remarkably, some still survive.

This is the so-called Oseberg ship,

uncovered from a burial mound
south of Oslo in Norway, in 1904.

It's now in the capital's
Viking Ship Museum.

It is the oldest
Norwegian Viking ship.

95% of its original timbers survive.

This Viking ship was preserved
like a tinned Viking ship, really.

No one had seen anything like it.

It was so well preserved

that one day the archaeologists

found a bucket, like a huge bucket,

and in the bucket there were apples

and they were still red.

That's amazing.

The features that made it
such an effective combat ship

are also intact.

Most important is its shape.

The longship - a catch-all term
for all large Viking vessels -

has a shallow draught,

meaning that very little of the hull
was below the waterline.

This helped them move swiftly,
and in shallow water,

deep into enemy territory.

In the beginning
of the Viking era,

it's the speed at which
they were able to attack

that their ships gave them mobility
that was unheard of, essentially,

that they can just round a headland
in a fleet of ships

and sail right up onto the beach.

They can also go right up
rivers and sail deep inland.

That meant that they could
attack targets inland

in Britain and Ireland.

In France, they sailed all the way
up to Paris, up the Seine.

In Russia, again,

they're penetrating deep
into the river systems.

Soon they ventured even further -

to the Mediterranean
and the Middle East,

and west, across the North Atlantic.

Their raiding ships had to withstand
longer voyages - and combat at sea.

From the 8th century,

they were equipped
with a large sail,

which was supported by a massive
block of timber called the keelson.

It spread the weight of the mast

and the strain of the sail
when underway.

When there was no wind,
the crew would place oars

through holes
in the upper strakes, or planks.

Parts of the decking were kept loose

so weapons and plunder
could be stored underneath.

The Viking Museum in Oslo
has a second fine example

of a Viking shipwright's skill,

excavated from another burial mound.

This is the Gokstad ship.

The Gokstad ship
is probably fairly typical

of the Viking ships
of the late 9th century.

It's beautifully designed.

It's got enough carrying capacity
that it can carry supplies,

it can carry loot.

It's got oars for rowing,
when the wind's against you.

A single square sail
when the wind's with you.

So, it's versatile
in the way it could be used.

And it was designed
to strike terror upon arrival.

It would have been an incredibly
awe-inspiring and terrifying sight.

We know,
from the historical depictions,

that these ships
were highly decorated.

Quite a few of them
would have been painted.

I think it would have struck terror
into the hearts of people.

If you knew that, when you saw
a fleet of five, ten, 15 ships

coming around the headland,
they were full of warriors

and that they were sailing directly
for your little coastal settlement,

I think you would pack your bags
and head for the hills

as quickly as you could.

An 11th-century account said:

"Such was
the decoration of the ships,

that to those
who were looking from afar,

they seemed to be made
more of flame than of wood.

Here shone the gleam of weapons,

here the flame of hanging shields.

The ships alone would have
terrified the enemy,

even before the warriors
could move to join battle."

The Vikings carried with
them their most valuable possession,

prized more than family,

a weapon that brought
death and destruction.

The Vikings' ships helped make them

the dominant force in Europe
for over 200 years.

Their shallow-draught shape
was perfect for storming beaches.

Their construction made them strong
and versatile assault vessels.

The Oseberg and Gokstad ships -
now in a museum in Oslo -

like all Viking longships,
were "clinker-built".

That means constructed using
overlapping planks or strakes.

It was a highly successful
technique.

The Vikings laid the keel first.

It was often made
of a single piece of wood.

They built up overlapping planks
on either side of the keel,

then secured them with iron nails.

The shipwrights
fastened floor timbers

across the lower planks
to support the shape of the hull.

They then placed the keelson,
which holds the mast, in position.

Crossbeams known as "bites"
lock the sides together.

The Vikings cut oar holes
into the upper planks.

The mast and deck were fitted.

They then added a steering oar
to the right-hand side of the stern.

The word "starboard" derives
from this - "steering board".

In a workshop in the Viking Ship
Museum in Roskilde in Denmark,

a team of shipwrights
still make clinker-built ships

using traditional tools
and techniques.

They use the wood favoured
by their Viking ancestors - oak.

It has
the quality that it's strong,

but it's also durable against rot,

so it lasts for a long time.

It has acid in it, which is
resistant towards fungus and rot.

So it's both strong and durable.

The Vikings
didn't use saws for boatbuilding.

They cleaved -
that is split the trunks -

to keep the natural strength
of the wood.

It's possible to obtain 25 planks

from this single 200-year-old tree.

You start out with small wedges...

...and then you slowly change
into bigger wedges.

You can see that the moisture
of the wood is actually coming out.

There's already
quite a lot of pressure on.

This tree is 200 years plus,
210 years, approximately.

And it's... it's really wide pieces
of planking we get out here.

It's nearly one and a half feet,
something like that.

So, it's a really big piece of oak.

The plan with this oak
is to split it into quarters...

...8ths and 16ths,

so in the end, you come out with

approximately this much
piece of material

and then you start chopping it down
with your axe from there.

Then, as now,

the Vikings knew
their way around an axe.

So I'm just shaping off.
So, it's the fine-tuning.

The Viking shipbuilders
wasted nothing.

They would use,
really, every part of the tree.

Where the branches were bending,

they would use exactly those bends

where they needed
this shape in the ship.

Working closely
with the Viking shipwright

on the construction of a longship
would be the blacksmith.

He was an integral part of
Viking society - in peace and war.

The planks that made up
the hulls of their combat ships

were fixed together
with thousands of nails.

As the hull would take
considerable punishment

from both the sea and the enemy -

it was vital
they were the right size.

In the Viking Museum in Oslo

is another example
of the blacksmith's art -

a weapon that was a key part
of the equipment on any longship.

It's a very typical Viking sword.

So I think that when this was new,

it will be a very beautiful sword.

And for a Viking,
a sword was more than a weapon.

It was also a piece of jewellery.

The most valuable possession
that you had.

It was something
that made you a man.

And if you were rich,
you will have several weapons.

And it was actually forbidden for
a free man not to have any weapon.

It's a society

where the strongest one wins.

I would say it's very terrifying
to live like that.

You live in fear.

The sword, it's beautiful,
it's fascinating,

it's really a symbol
of the Viking period.

But it is also a symbol
of a period based on violence.

A Viking warrior was
rarely separated from his weapon -

even at sea.

You wouldn't leave your sword.

You would have it
as close at hand as possible.

However, when you were working
on a ship as a crew member,

you might need to put it away

because it's big
and it's a bit clumsy.

So perhaps you will have it
in your chest.

You had a chest,
with some belongings

and you were also sitting
on that chest when you were rowing.

I can see this man,
and he loved this thing

perhaps even as high
as his family members.

It was a part of him and he loved it

and he carried it with him
all the time.

And now I'm touching this,

it gives us a link between me
and this unknown man.

An old Norse saga
reveals just how important

weapons were to the Vikings.

It tells the story
of a warrior's wife

who steals his sword -
nicknamed Footbiter -

and leaves their baby in its place.

Furious, the warrior chooses
his weapon over his child and says:

Take your daughter.

I would give a great deal of money

before I should care
to let my sword go!

Vikings valued their
weapons and their ships so highly,

they never wanted to be
separated from them.

Even in death...

For the Vikings,

their ships were a means of
transport both in life and in death.

I think we can be pretty confident

that ships had a major
symbolic meaning for the Vikings.

People are quite literally
using a ship

as a means of burial
to take them into the next life.

Some were buried
surrounded by stones

in the shape of a ship.

The more elite Vikings
were placed on a vessel

which was then covered with earth.

The Oseberg ship was a ship burial

with two surprising bodies on board.

Now, what's remarkable
about Oseberg, in particular,

is that
it's not, as you might expect,

the grave of a warrior king,

or great male war leader,

but the two skeletons buried
within it were both women.

It's very likely to be
the grave of a queen

and, perhaps, her handmaid
sacrificed alongside her,

in the way
that we sometimes associate

with male burials of the period.

They were buried in this ship
with a lot of belongings

and a lot
of animals that were offered

to follow
the two ladies in their grave

on the journey to the afterlife.

Ships were more
than just wood and nails.

They were the soul of the Vikings,
I would say.

A Viking without a boat,
is not a Viking.

I think that it was impossible
for the Vikings

to separate that real life
and practical use of a ship

and their dreams, and the mythology
and the way of living.

So, a teenager in the Viking period

would dream about
a wonderful ship and a voyage

just like a teenager today
would dream of a nice car.

Their ships were given nicknames

like "Oarsteed", "Surf Dragon"

and "Great Serpent".

Where did this tradition come from?

It turns out, the Vikings were not
the first Scandinavians

to go raiding at sea.

A museum in Denmark has proof

that a thousand years
before the Vikings,

ships played a major role

in the lives of Bronze-
and Iron-Age Scandinavians,

often at war with each other.

These carvings
show a community ritual

with a vessel being pulled
off the shore into the sea.

Further evidence of the importance
of ships in the Bronze Age

are these tiny gold boats,
found buried in a grave in Denmark.

The bows of ships even decorated
the helmets of Bronze-Age warriors.

They may not
have been called Vikings,

but these warriors
were formidable sea-raiders...

and they had
a combat ship of their own,

an ancestor of the longship.

This vessel is almost
2,500 years old

and was found in a peat bog

near Hjortspring in Denmark,
in 1921.

This was no shipwreck.

The Hjortspring boat
was captured by a Danish tribe,

who then filled it

with the vanquished enemy's
weapons and shields -

then deliberately sank it
as an offering to the gods.

This boat is designed

as a swift war canoe

or we could actually call it

an efficient landing craft.

It could swift go in on the shore

and since this boat is symmetrical,

it can actually leave the coast
very quickly.

The boat was clinker-built
out of overlapping planks -

like the longship -
and sewn together with plant fibre.

There's no metal parts
in this boat.

They are just sewn together
with 1,500 small holes.

But still a little bit of water
could penetrate

alongside these plant fibres
in the hole.

But that was no problem
because in each hole,

around the plant fibre,

we could see that some sort
of organic fat material

has been used
to make the boat watertight.

But, of course,
during paddling, during sailing,

you always had to put more
of this animal fat in the holes.

This organic construction
gave this boat an ability to bend,

but not break,
when moving through rough water.

It maintained
its overall shape and strength

thanks to ten frames
fixed across the width the boat.

Each frame
provided a seat for two men

propelling the ship
with wooden paddles.

It's quite interesting to see
that the paddles,

as they were found together
with the ship,

that they have
a little bit different size.

So one could actually say
that the paddles

were tailored
for each man of the crew.

The men were
a well-armed invading army.

Found with the boat
were shields with a raised centre

to protect the warrior's hand
as he went into battle,

spearheads and arrows -
some bent by impact,

others worn down by sharpening.

These warriors and their fast ships

would have been
a formidable invasion force.

The Vikings
used their impressive longships

to fight enemies overseas...
and each other.

This is the Roskilde Fjord
in Denmark.

By the year 1000,

the nearby town of Roskilde
was the capital of the Danish kings.

But it was vulnerable
to raids from the fjord

by hostile Norwegian fleets

and rival claimants
to the Danish throne.

To protect
the town from attack from the sea,

they took five
worn-out ships and towed them out

onto the fjord and scuttled them.

So they were sunk intentionally
to block one of the sailing channels

to create a barrier to stop
attack from the sea.

In the 1960s,

the ships that formed the blockade

were recovered
and placed in a museum.

We can see from the way
that they were deposited

that three ships
were deposited first

and then as they fell apart,

a further two
were deposited on top of them.

The ships found in
the fjord were a mixture of types -

warships, but also cargo vessels.

These were essential for any fleet
intent on plunder or invasion.

They would more than likely have
been sailing in a combined fleet

where you would have had
long, narrow warships

and also the ocean-going
merchant ships

where you have much more room
for supplies and equipment.

The Vikings called
these cargo ships "knarrs".

The museum at Roskilde
took the dimensions

of a knarr sunk in the fjord

and made a full-size replica,
christened "Ottar".

It's got a completely
different shape to the warship.

It's much sturdier
and much broader across the beam.

So, you can fill it up
with a lot more cargo

than you could with a longship

and it requires
a much smaller crew to sail it.

So, a much better alternative
for a trader or a merchant.

The Viking cargo ships
carried a variety of goods to trade

or to supply an army.

It can be either
anything from pottery

to... grain, to sheep and cattle.

It has been all kinds
of different cargo.

Anything from barrels of beer
and meat to salted pickled herring.

You name it,
they probably carried it.

Ottar was built
using authentic materials.

The hull is made of oak,
secured with iron nails,

and the ropes in the rigging
are made of hemp and horsehair.

You could compare it
to driving a very old vintage truck.

It's nice. It's not fast.

Everything is
a little more primitive.

Of course, all the materials
are natural fibres and wood.

So you need to know
a little more

of how to handle everything
on the boat.

On the other hand,
if you compare this ship,

which is from around 1030,

with a sailing cargo ship
from the 1850s, for example,

we handle quite similar.

So of a time span
of almost 800 years,

cargo sailing
didn't really change much.

What we've found out,
apart from boat handling,

is also that
it's a very seaworthy ship.

We can cross oceans with this one.

We've been across the North Sea.

So we've been to Scotland
and Norway,

Germany, Poland, Sweden,

and I have no doubt that they have
been doing the same back then

with the same type of ship.

They were
incredibly skilled people.

They knew
how to live in their environment.

So when you started on a voyage,

you would know that the next point
will be this landmark

and they felt the nature,
the wind, the waves,

and they learned those things
by heart.

The existence of cargo ships

is evidence of a change
in Viking strategy

that occurred in the 9th century,

about 70 years after
the raid on Lindisfarne.

The Vikings wanted
a more permanent foothold

on the countries they plundered.

They wanted colonies...

which the cargo ships supplied.

Principal among these territories

was the rich and fertile land
of Britain.

In 865,
an intimidating force of Vikings

landed on the East Coast of England.

An ancient Anglo-Saxon
chronicle said:

"And the same year came
a large heathen army into England

and fixed their winter quarters
in East Anglia,

where they were soon horsed;

and the inhabitants
made peace with them."

The Vikings
weren't peaceful for long.

They swept through the Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia.

The kingdom of Wessex, named after
the West Saxons, stood defiant.

Its king was one of the most
famous in British History:

Alfred The Great.

What makes Alfred
stand out are two things:

his success as a military leader,

but he's also a cultural figure.

So, he's a learned man who
appreciates the value of education.

And in that respect, he's way ahead
of most kings of his time.

In 897, Viking ships
from East Anglia and Northumbria

attacked the Saxons
all along the South Coast of Wessex.

Alfred needed to do
something drastic to stop them.

He decided to build his own fleet
of warships to take on the invaders.

That decision would earn him
the nickname:

"the father of the English navy".

So what did Alfred's Anglo-Saxon
combat ships look like?

Clues lie in this 7th-century
burial mound at Sutton Hoo,

in the East of England.

It was built for the remains
of an Anglo-Saxon leader,

200 years before Alfred.

When archaeologists
excavated the mound in 1939,

they found the remains
of a large clinker-built vessel.

Gareth Williams is an expert
on the Sutton Hoo find.

The ship that was
buried in the mound

survived really only as
an impression in the soil.

The individual rivets survived

and then the marks
where the planks had been.

So, the wood itself is lost.

This metal sculpture
near the burial site

shows the size
of the Sutton Hoo ship.

A vessel like this would have been
primarily a troop transporter.

The crew that rode it would also
have been warriors on land.

And the chieftain or king
who was buried there

would have been their captain

both on the boat, almost certainly,
and in war.

The Sutton Hoo vessel shows

the Saxons knew
how to make combat ships.

But to stop the Vikings,
they'd have to make them bigger.

An Anglo-Saxon historian wrote:

"Then King Alfred gave orders

for building longships
against the Danish vessels,

which were full-nigh
twice as long as the others.

Some had 60 oars, some more,

and they were both
swifter and steadier,

and also higher than the others."

The ships were probably constructed

from oak trees
in the Wessex forests.

Once they were completed,

Alfred took the fight
to the Vikings.

In the 9th century, naval strategy
was almost non-existent.

Battles at sea
were more like battles on land.

They will start a battle
with throwing missiles,

throwing stones,

and then they will be
closer and closer

and so close that they can
jump into the ship of the enemy.

Height gave an advantage
for things like archery,

use of spears and stones
and other missiles.

And it also meant that,
striking down with swords and axes,

you've got that advantage.

So, the taller ships
would offer an advantage there.

It worked.

Alfred's navy won victories
against the Viking foe

and in the last years of his reign,
there were no major Viking attacks.

For the first time,
an English ruler had recognised

that a permanent fleet was necessary
for the defence of the realm.

That permanent fleet still exists...
although over the years,

the ships have looked
very different.

King Alfred's Saxon descendants

continued to use longships
to great effect,

taking the fight to the Vikings.

His grandson, Athelstan,

who is the first ruler
of the whole of England,

building on the success
of his father and grandfather,

raided as far as Scotland with
a fleet sailing up the East Coast

and projecting that military power
right round the British Isles.

He even called himself
King Of All Britain -

Rex Totius Britanniae.

Just over 100 years after Athelstan,

an English king faced
a new longship threat -

not from Scandinavia,
but much closer to home.

This invasion fleet
would change history forever.

By the 11th century,
the Viking longship

had been the most feared combat ship
in Europe for over 200 years.

King Alfred of Wessex
had been one of the few kings

who had successfully halted
the Viking advance.

180 years after his death,

another fleet
of enemy longships appeared

off the South Coast of England.

The fleet was larger than anything
Alfred could have imagined.

Once more, longships would change
the course of history.

The year was 1066.

It was a Norman invasion fleet,

sailing from France
under the command

of Duke William of Normandy.

His ships would have been
familiar to any Viking -

with good reason.

The word "Norman" is just another
variant on "Norseman" or "Northman".

They were Vikings who came from

Scandinavia in the late 9th century

and rather than attacking
North-western France,

they started to settle in an area
of North-western France

that, by the early 10th century was
known as Normania or Normandy,

the land of the Norsemen.

William of Normandy believed

he had a claim
to the English throne.

Standing in his way
was Harold Godwinson

who had been crowned king
in London on 6th January, 1066.

He's going
to have to depose Harold

and that means this
astonishingly reckless undertaking,

which is to invade England,

to assemble an Armada
and pull off the kind of feat

that they know hasn't been achieved
since the time of Julius Caesar

a thousand years before.

The problem for the Normans

is that although
they started off as Vikings

and were masters of the sea,

in the meantime,
they've acclimatised and gone native

and now they're all about castles,
cavalry, crossbows...

...not so much about ships.

The difficulty is they have
to get across the Channel...

and for that they need old-school
Scandinavian Viking know-how.

William had to put
a force together very quickly

before Harold could
consolidate his power.

A record of the Norman invasion
commissioned by William's family -

known as the Bayeux Tapestry -

depicts the Norman shipwrights
chopping down trees

and building boats from scratch.

If you look at the kind of ships
depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry,

they look exactly like
the kind of ships

that you have
as a classical Viking Age ship.

And the tools that are
used in the boat building sequences

at the beginning of the tapestry,

they're the same kind of tools that
you find in Viking Age excavation.

William's fleet included
troop carriers for about 8,000 men.

The tapestry shows his longships
were loaded with horses.

William's cavalry
was key to his battle plan.

This is the era
of the mounted knight.

The ships were
custom fitted for the job.

Horses don't like to go
across the sea.

They must've led those horses
onto specially constructed stalls

on those boats
to stop them from panicking.

But however many they had - whether
it was 1,000 or 2,000 horses,

it gave them that critical edge
in the conflict that followed.

William's fleet
would have consisted of many ships

like the sturdy knarr trading vessel
found in Roskilde -

specially designed
for carrying cargo long distances.

On the 28th September, 1066,

the Norman longships
appeared on the horizon

off the coast of Pevensey,
in Sussex, in the South of England.

To anyone stood here
on the beach at Pevensey,

you imagine 700 sails,
hostile sails,

suddenly on the horizon.

You are going to be
running for the hills.

Three days
after William landed here,

Harold - who had been fighting
another rival claimant to the throne

200 miles to the north -

headed south to face him.

They met at Hastings
on 14th October, 1066.

Williams's strategy was clear.

For William it's critical
that Harold dies that day.

This is not a war of attrition.

This is a decapitation strategy.

Harold is King.
William wishes to replace him.

There's no room
for negotiation there.

During the day-long battle,

the longships' cargo of horses
prove decisive.

It was undoubtedly
worth the effort and the difficulty

of trying to get those horses
across the Channel

because this is something
that was very seldom done.

Harold is killed at Hastings...

some believe
by an arrow in the eye...

paving the way for William
to achieve something

that none of
his Viking ancestors could -

the conquest of England.

Yet 1066 marks the end of an era.

William saw himself
not as a Viking warrior,

but as a Norman knight.

Generally, it's accepted
that the Battle of Hastings

and the Norman invasion
marks the end of the Viking Age.

Here they lose
their political dominance

and their political influence

and society begins to evolve again
into a feudal Anglo-Norman society.

The Viking era may have ended,

but their superb combat
shipbuilding skills were not lost.

In the ninth century,
the Vikings had settled

in the Scottish islands
of The Hebrides,

Orkney and Shetland.

Over the years, as they assimilated
with the native Scots,

a new type
of clinker-built boat emerged

that would outlast the longship
by 500 years.

It would prove to be a small,
but effective, combat ship.

This is a replica of a Scottish
vessel known as a "birlinn".

For 800 hundred years,

the birlinn was the predominant
vessel in the West of Scotland.

Any Viking would have recognised
its design and construction.

Clinker-built ships were ideal
for the Scottish seas.

I think we have to say
that clinker-built technology

arrived with the Norse
and was tremendously popular

because the flexible, supple boats

which it allowed to create,

were perfectly suited
to the rough West Coast waters.

The hull is designed

to move
through the water very quickly

and with a good following wind

and a well-managed sail,

they are very fast and nimble boats.

The basic principle is
that when the wind was behind you,

you could use the sail,
but when the wind was against you,

you really needed to use the oars,
and the oars were very, very handy,

for manoeuvring the ship
at close quarters

and up rivers and onto beaches,
for beaching it.

Birlinns tended to be
smaller than longships,

as the West of Scotland lacked
the resources to make bigger boats.

We should always regard birlinns
as being very homemade.

In other words, you probably
made everything you possibly could

from locally resourced timbers,

and things like heather roots
and things like that for ropes.

So, low tech effective, functional,
cheap, did the job.

There was one key difference

between the Viking longship
and the Scottish vessels.

By the 12th century,
the Viking longship steering oar

had been replaced by a rudder
fixed to the back of the ship.

It made steering simpler
and sharp turns much easier.

Right up until the 17th century,
the birlinn was the boat of choice

for the chiefs
of the Scottish network of families

known as the clans -
from the Gaelic word for "children".

Clans such as the MacDonalds
and the MacRuaris were often at war

as they battled
for regional supremacy.

The clan chief, as the Norwegian
chiefs in the days and the sagas,

was always keen to impress.

A lot of this is about bling,

it's about making sure people
see your status:

"Look at the woodwork on my boat.
Look at the lines of my ship."

Viking and Anglo-Saxon naval tactics

also lived on
in the birlinns and their crews.

The commonest way
they were used for combat

would be to get close
to the ships of the opposition,

lash the two vessels together -
or more than two vessels together -

and then get engaged in close,

hand-to-hand combat
with swords and axes.

At the end of the day, though, if
you've got a boat with 60 men aboard

and you're attacking a boat
with 20 men aboard,

it's just a numbers game.

If you can get alongside
and get men overboard, that's it.

Game up.

One of the reasons
the birlinn survived so long

was because it was
a superb troop transporter.

From the early 13th century onwards,

when the Scottish clans
weren't fighting each other,

they were happy to take the money
of Irish chiefs

as mercenaries in their wars
against each other or the English.

Fleets of birlinns took the Scots

across the ocean to Ireland.

Their ships were far superior
to anything the Irish possessed.

The birlinn essentially
is their vehicle of choice.

This is the articulated lorry.

This is what takes them to where
they need to be, and quickly,

and gets them away
if time gets tight.

It must have been
an amazing sight

to see 100 or more of these vessels,
often quite big boats.

Some of them could be
60 and 70 feet long,

with 100 men onboard.

So it would have been
an extraordinary sight.

Although birlinns
disappeared in the 17th century,

this legacy of the Viking longship
lives on into the 21st.

Every year in Shetland,
in the North of Scotland,

islanders celebrate
their Viking heritage...

and burn a ship.

The burning vessel is a powerful
reminder of the significance

of the one of the most influential
combat ships of all.

The longship is
the iconic symbol of the Viking Age.

It took warriors across the oceans
to trade... and raid.

Longships helped
bring about a victory

that changed the face of history.

The story of these vessels
reveals a people

who were often violent and bloody,

but also expert craftsmen.

People ask me, "What do you think

is the most fascinating thing
about the Vikings?"

And I think it was their willingness
to take risks

to see what was on the other side,
to be curious.

I think the biggest
misunderstanding is

that they were just these
kind of mindless brutes

who just hopped in their ships
and sailed off and caused chaos.

They were incredibly adaptable.

And that they had an incredibly
global perspective that,

when you think about a time
when most people probably never left

their own village or travelled much
more than five miles down the road,

that kind of
sense of adventure and...

that very open approach
they had to life

and to what they could
get out of it,

I think that's
an eternally fascinating theme.

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