Mazimma in the small Moroccan state of Nekor was sacked, and occupied for eight days
according to al-Bakri. Two of the royal women – Amaar-rahaman and Kanula – were
captured, and a large ransom was paid by the emir of Córdoba for their return (Morales
Romero 2004 a: 66 – 7 ). The Vikings then crossed back to Spain and ravaged Andalucia
and Murcia, before harrying northwards along the Mediterranean coast. Many settle-
ments were attacked in Valencia, including Orihuela, and the Balearic islands of
Formentera, Ibiza, Majorca and Minorca were all raided. The fleet then continued
north-eastwards into southern Frankish territory, assaulting monasteries and towns in
Roussillon and burning Norbonne, before wintering in the marshy fastnesses of the
Camargue.
In the spring of 860 , Hásteinn and Bjo ̨rn entered the Rhône, sacking Nîmes and
Arles before continuing upriver to Valence. Here the Vikings met with the most
organised resistance they had encountered since the defence of Seville, and therefore
turned back to the sea and eastwards towards Italy. With ships so fully laden with
plunder that they sat low in the water, at last the Scandinavians reached Rome and
achieved their prize – or so they thought, and one must imagine their consternation in
finding that they had sacked Luna (modern Lucca) by mistake. For a time the fleet sailed
inland up the River Arno to attack Pisa and Fiesole, but they soon returned to the open
water.
After this, the movements of the Vikings are uncertain. There are some indications
that they sailed beyond Italy into the eastern Mediterranean (they do not seem to have
attempted an assault on Rome after all), but the next confirmed report of them is a year
later in 861 , when the Vikings tried to pass the Straits of Gibraltar a second time. In
contrast to the previous occasion, they found a Muslim fleet waiting for them. The battle
went against the Scandinavians and a great many Viking ships were destroyed before
they managed to break through the blockade to the Atlantic. With two-thirds of their
vessels gone, Hásteinn and Bjo ̨rn turned north for the Loire and home, pausing only in
Pamplona for one last raid. Here they captured the local regent, King García, and then
ransomed him for the vast sum of 70 , 000 gold pieces. When it emerged that not all the
money was forthcoming, they released him but kept his children as hostages (Morales
Romero 2004 a: 68 , with references to the numerous Arab sources that mention this
episode). In the spring of 862 , after nearly three years on campaign, the Viking fleet
returned to its base in France.
The voyage seems to have taken on a truly epic quality in the minds of succeeding
generations of Scandinavians, a process that no doubt began very early as the survivors’
tales grew in the telling; a later Hiberno-Norse saga eloquently built on the facts to
create a myth of heroic endeavour. However, there must also have been much more
tangible evidence of the raid, not least in the fabulous wealth gained by the admittedly
relatively few survivors. At least some of the Vikings who participated in the campaign
moved on from the Loire and took their spoils with them, and even the final sea battle
near Gibraltar may not have been a complete loss, because the Irish chronicler Duald
Mac-Fuirbis records that ‘after that the Norsemen brought a great host of Moors in
captivity with them to Ireland... long were these blue men in Ireland’.
After the great raid of 859 – 62 , Scandinavian contacts with Spain again seem to have
tailed off to almost nothing, and this time it would be nearly a century before the attacks
were renewed. Even though the above-mentioned possibility of trade cannot be dis-
counted, the degree of disorder that the Vikings brought to the already troubled affairs
–– Neil Price––