Lecture: Burning Down the Longhouse with Dr. William Short

A typical weapon in the arsenal of Vikings was fire, and Vikings were said to destroy everything with fire and sword (að setja allt í bál og brand), a phrase still current in modern Icelandic. On November 16, 2024, Dr. William R. Short of Hurstwic will return to SCC&L to discuss the commonly used Viking-age battle tactic of attacking a man in his house by setting fire to the house. Hurstwic has just completed a major research project using experimental archaeology at the Viking house at Eiríksstaðir in Iceland. We built seven house structures, instrumented them with scientific apparatus, and then burned them down. Join us for this fascinating discussion that will talk about the tactic and why Viking warriors thought it to be a humane way to conduct battle, and about the results of our research on the tactic. We will have some of Dr. William Short’s books “Men of Terror” for sale Saturday, Nov 16th | 1pm | Free with registration Dr. William R. Short is the manager of Hurstwic, LLC, a Massachusetts-based organization that researches all aspects of Vikings, with a focus on Viking combat. Dr. Short’s most recent book is Men of Terror: a comprehensive analysis of Viking combat, which was the topic of a presentation at SCC&L in January, 2022.