Ready for battle?

THERE'S nothing like inspiring a man with confidence to turn him into a fighter. And Ranulf's pre-battle pep-talk does nothing like inspire me with confidence.

"You're probably going to be terrified your first time," he says, his beefy Viking face grinning into mine. "It's a pretty horrifying thing when you've got the press of bodies all around you. People lose control of their functions. You can well imagine a young lad, his first time in battle, wetting himself with fear."

Yeah, thanks, Ranulf: just the kind of confidence-booster I need as I prepare to defend Jorvik against a raiding party of burly Scots. The Viking city in 975 AD is a fairly peaceable sort of place. The great days of the Viking marauders are mainly over, and Jorvik is not even an independent Viking kingdom any more, but part of Anglo-Saxon England under King Edward the Younger. Most of the population of Jorvik are still Vikings - but they are mainly a peaceful bunch, craftsmen and traders. So the prospect of fighting off a horde of howling Scots is fairly terrifying.

Thankfully, I'm not going to have to do it for real. Ranulf's real name - when he's not poncing around in a Viking costume - is Dave Vale. He's one of the 'professional historical interpreters' at the Jorvik museum, where he acts out the role of a 35-year-old retired professional Viking warrior. And today, in advance of next week's Jorvik Viking Festival, he's giving me a crash course in how to be a Viking soldier.

Not a proper warrior like him, however. I'm to take on the role of an ordinary Jorvik craftsman, Thorfast by name, who in times of war would have been required to serve 40 days a year as a part-time soldier in Ranulf's small band of fighters.

Thorfast probably wouldn't have been a very effective fighter. As a part-timer dragged away from his usual occupation as a craftsman, he would have been more used to carving delicate combs and bone pins out of antler and walrus tusk than killing people. He would have only received two hours of basic training in warfare. "In that time, he could have been taught a few techniques that would have kept him alive," says Dave. "But however much training he'd had, he'd still be an amateur soldier."

The most important thing for him to learn would have been to stick next to his companion in arms. Vikings fought in pairs, shoulder to shoulder - and your shoulder man would stay with you through thick and thin, Dave says, watching your back while you watched his.

"Any soldier will tell you that two men working together is the smallest, most effective unit you can get," he says, moustache bristling fiercely. Just how deep the bond between shoulder men could be was demonstrated by two skeletons in a Viking grave at Fishergate - the remains of two men lying with their arms around each-other. There was nothing sexual about it, Dave says: they were just brothers in arms, protecting each other in death as they had in life.

Somebody had to protect them: because part-time soldiers such as Thorfast didn't have much protection of any other kind. Dave talks me through my clothing: linen drawers and undershirt; scratchy woollen leggings and a woollen tunic that reaches to my knees; soft leather shoes made from a single piece of leather; 'winagers' or wraparound leg binders to stop my trouser legs flapping; a bone-handled belt; and a rough woollen cloak with a bone clasp. And finally, to complete the outfit, a soft cloth cap with a peak that falls forward on to my forehead, giving me an unmistakeably foolish look that could scarcely be less military. What about the helmet and chain-mail armour? I ask. Naah, says Dave cheerily. "You wouldn't have been able to afford them."

Thorfast would at least have had a heavy wooden shield with a metal boss that he'd have held on his left arm: and an eight-foot-long, metal-tipped ash spear.

In battle, Dave says, he and his brothers-in-arms would have stood shoulder to shoulder, left side forward, shields locked, spears angled above the shield wall to jab at the enemy.

But being dressed in little more than rough wool, they'd still have been vulnerable.

Ranulf would have been better equipped. As a professional Viking soldier he'd still, even in these more peaceful times, have been one of the most feared fighting men of the age. At 35, he would already have retired - Viking warriors were a bit like modern professional footballers in that they were already past their prime in their mid-30s, Dave says. He'd have been given a grant of land by his grateful lord, where he'd have kept his own long hall, with his own retainers; and he'd have spent much of his time hunting boar and wolves - a way of stopping his fighting skills from growing rusty without necessarily having to kill anyone.

Despite Ranulf's fierce appearance, Dave insists the Vikings' reputation for bloodthirsty savagery is unfair. Yes, it can't be denied that in their time they were great fighters, or that 200 years earlier, in 793, they had pillaged the holy island of Lindisfarne - an act as shocking in its day as the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. But the Vikings were pushed into it, Dave says.

How so? Eking out a living from the harsh Scandinavian soil was hard, he explains - so the Vikings relied for survival largely on maritime trade. Then Charlemagne came along and passed an edict banning trade between pagans (the Vikings) and Christians (much of the rest of Europe). The Vikings were left with little choice but to rob and pillage where once they had traded, and Lindisfarne - an extremely holy site - was probably deliberately chosen as a target to give Christians due warning of what they could expect.

The Vikings weren't naturally any more vicious than anyone else, however, he insists. Once York had been conquered in 866 AD and a Viking kingdom set up in northern England, trading links were resumed. It was a fairly peaceful time, and Viking craftsmen such as Thorfast could go back to doing what they did best; making bone pins and combs.

Except when they were called upon to fight off marauding Scots, of course.

The Jorvik Viking Festival runs from February 13-22. Ranulf and his warriors (Thorfast excluded) will be giving demonstrations of battle drill in St Sampson's Square on February 14 and 15, and February 21 and 22.

Updated: 09:35 Saturday, February 07, 2004