for DNA testing. Sadly for the legend, it turned out that it was not the skin of a
rampaging Viking, but that of an ordinary cow!
Another account of a flayed Viking comes from Worcester. It is said that, in
1041, king Harthacnut sent a taxcollector to the city, but the local citizens
were having none of it. They murdered the taxcollector and nailed his skin to
the door of the cathedral. Harthacnut’s attempt at retaliation failed–the troops
he sent to raid the city found that all the people had fled to an island in the
Severn, where they mounted a spirited defence. The town was sacked, but the
Danes were force to leave without exacting the king’s revenge.
In June 2009, on the Ridgeway near Weymouth in Dorset, a mass grave of
at least fiftyfour individuals was discovered by workmen. They all appeared
to be male, and executed some time between 910 and 1030, according to the
radiocarbon dates. The bodies had been dismembered, with separate piles of
skulls, ribs and legs arranged in the pit. It was a disused Roman quarry on the
parish boundary. Most of the dead men had been aged between about eighteen
to twentysix, though a handful were older, and all had been killed at the same
time with a sharp blade, probably a sword. They had been hacked to death,
each needing several blows to dispatch him. There were no traces of personal
belongings or clothes, so they had probably been stripped naked before burial.
Some of the skulls are missing–probably taken to display on stakes.
Their teeth (those of one individual had been filed with stripes, possibly
as a sign of courage) were analysed for information about their origin
(Figure 15). The answer that came back was that they were from
Scandinavia. These men were Vikings. In fact, it has been suggested that
they were a special‘hit squad’of Jomsvikings, named after their stronghold
DARK AGE CRIMESFigure 15. The filed teeth of a Jomsviking