Original subtitles

(solemn music)

Narrator: This time, on "combat ships,"

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

The viking longship.

Williams: The key to their achievements was the ships,

Warships which allowed them to raid,

Cargo ships that allowed them to trade.

Narrator: They evolved from swift war canoes

To become the preeminent fighting machines of the age.

Rixson: Today, if we think of what's in 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.

Narrator: They were elegant, versatile and feared.

Sorensen: If you knew that when you saw a fleet

Of five, 10, 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.

Narrator: Longships carried terrifying warriors.

Naess: They will have weapons.

They will bang that sword against the shields.

They will be horrible people to meet,

And they will approach fast.

Narrator: The vikings

And their ships changed the course of history.

(solemn music)

(dramatic music)

Combat ships, fast, effective.

Lambert: The mission is pure james bond espionage.

Narrator: Deadly.

Sinisi: 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.

Narrator: They have changed the world.

Grove: Warships have been key factors in global history,

From the beginning of civilization to the present day.

(gun bangs)

Narrator: Thanks to clever design, raw firepower

And the heroism of their crews.

(plane whirs) (dramatic music)

(missiles whoosh)

(explosion roars)

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 rumors of dragons on the wing.

(thunder rumbles)

Then what they feared came to pass.

(dramatic rock music)

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.

Williams: 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.

Narrator: The english historian alcuin wrote soon

After the attack--

Alcuin: Never before has such terror appeared

In britain, nor was it thought that such an inroad

From the sea could be made.

Narrator: So who were the vikings,

These warriors whose name, over 1,000 years later,

Is still synonymous with violence, bloodshed and the sea?

Williams: 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.

Narrator: 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.

Williams: 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's much easier to get around by boat than by land.

Narrator: Forced into ships,

They were quick to realize the possibilities.

Sorensen: I think they were very astute people,

That they could see quite quickly, again,

Through this maritime network that they had,

That there was a much wider world out there.

And I think it's probably one

Of the most important aspects of the viking age,

That they were very much the 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.

Narrator: The vikings had dreams

Of exploration and conquest.

They needed a vessel to match, the longship.

Remarkably, some still survive.

(dramatic music)

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.

Naess: This viking ship was preserved

Like a tinned viking ship, really.

No one had seen anything like it.

It was even so well-preserved that, one day,

The archeologists found a bucket, like a huge bucket,

And in the bucket, there were apples,

And they were still red.

That's amazing.

Narrator: The features

That made it such an effective combat ship are also intact.

Most important is its shape.

The longship, a catchall term for all large viking vessels,

Has a shallow draft, meaning that very little

Of the hull was below the waterline.

This helped them move swiftly and in shallow water,

Deep into enemy territory.

Sorensen: In the beginning of the viking era,

It's really the speed at which they were able to attack,

That their ships just 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.

Williams: 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.

Narrator: 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 eighth 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 their 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 vikings museum in oslo has a second fine example

Of a viking shipwright's skill.

Excavated from another burial mound,

This is the gokstad ship.

(dramatic music)

Williams: The gokstad ship is probably fairly typical

Of the viking ships of the late ninth 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.

Narrator: And it was designed

To strike terror upon arrival.

Soransen: I think it probably would have been

An incredibly awe-inspiring and terrifying sight,

That we know from the historical depictions

That these ships were highly decorated.

Quite a few of them would have been painted.

And I think it probably would've just struck absolute terror

Into the hearts of people if you knew

That when you saw a fleet

Of five, 10, 15 ships coming around the headland,

And you knew that 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.

(solemn music)

Narrator: An 11th century account said--

Man: 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.

Narrator: The vikings carried

With them their most valuable possession,

Prized more than family,

A weapon that brought death and destruction.

(solemn music)

(gentle music)

The viking ships helped make them the dominant force

In europe for over 200 years.

Their shallow-draft 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.

(gentle string music)

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 favored by their viking ancestors, oak.

Dael: 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.

(dramatic music)

Narrator: The vikings didn't use saws for boat-building.

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.

Dael: You start out with small wedges,

And then you slowly change into bigger wedges.

You can see that most 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 really wide pieces of planking we get out here.

It's nearly 1 1/2 feet, something like that,

So it's a really big piece of oak.

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

Eighths and sixteenths, so in the end, you come out

With approximately this much piece of material,

And then you start chopping it down

With your ax, from there.

Narrator: Then, as now,

The vikings knew their way around an ax.

Dael: So I'm just shaping off.

So it's the fine tuning.

The viking shipbuilders wasted nothing.

Naess: 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.

Narrator: 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.

Bigler: You need the blacksmith to make the nails,

To make the tools.

So they were not going to war.

They will be home and make the tools,

So other people can go to war.

There will be no viking ship without the blacksmith.

Narrator: 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.

Bigler: If the nails are too big, it will break the wood,

And if it's too small, there will come water inside.

Narrator: This process is unchanged in 1,000 years.

(solemn music)

Bigler: So I break it

And heat it again.

I put the nail in linseed oil.

It will make a kind of coating,

So it not rust so easy.

I put it in the water, just for cooling down.

(gentle music)

Narrator: 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.

Naess: 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 jewelry,

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 will 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.

Narrator: A viking warrior was rarely separated

From his weapon, even at sea.

Naess: You wouldn't leave your sword.

You will 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 with him all the time.

And now I'm touching this.

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

Narrator: 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--

Warrior: Take your daughter.

I would give a great deal of money

Before I should care to let my sword go.

Narrator: Vikings valued their weapons

And their ships so highly they never wanted

To be separated from them, even in death.

(gentle music)

For the vikings, their ships were a means of transport,

Both in life and in death.

Sorensen: 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.

Narrator: 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.

Williams: 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.

Naess: 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.

Narrator: Ships were more than just wood and nails.

Naess: They were the soul of the vikings, I would say.

A viking without a boat is not a viking (laughs).

I think that it was impossible for the vikings

To separate that real life and the 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.

Narrator: 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.

(dramatic music)

(gentle music)

A museum in denmark has proof that 1,000 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.

(solemn music)

(gentle music)

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.

(solemn music)

Kaul: This boat is designed as a swift war canoe,

Or we could actually call it a 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.

Narrator: The boat was clinker-built,

Out of overlapping planks, like the longship,

And sewn together with plant fiber.

Kaul: There's no metal parts in this boat.

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

But still, a little bit of water could penetrate

Alongside those plant fibers in the hole,

But that was no problem, because in each hole,

Around the plant fiber, we could see that some sort

Of organic fat material has been used

To make the build watertight.

But of course, during paddling, during sailing,

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

Narrator: 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 10 frames fixed across the width of the boat.

Each frame provided a seat for two men propelling the ship

With wooden paddles.

Kaul: 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.

Narrator: The men were a well-armed invading army.

Found with the boat were shields with a raised center

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.

Kaul: If you are in a fleet of, should we say, four or six

Of those boats, with up to 100 men or more,

You could make a surprise attack

By moving 100 kilometers per day.

Narrator: The captured hjortspring canoe is evidence

Of the bitter warfare

Between the ancient peoples of denmark.

1,000 years later,

Their viking descendants were still threatened

By their neighbors, and they had an effective

And ingenious method of deterring attackers.

(gentle music) (birds twittering)

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.

Sorensen: To protect the town from attack from the sea,

They took five worn-out ships

And essentially towed them out onto the fjord

And then intentionally scuttled them,

So they were sunk intentionally to block one

Of the sailing channels, to create a barrier

To stop attack from the sea.

Narrator: In the 1960s,

The ships that formed the blockade were recovered

And placed in a museum.

Sorensen: And we can see from the way

That they were deposited,

That three of the ships were deposited first,

And as they kind of fell apart,

The further two were deposited on top of them.

Narrator: 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.

Sorensen: So they would, more than likely,

Have been sailing in a combined fleet,

Where you would have had these long, narrow warships

And then also the ocean-going merchant ships,

Where you have much more room for supplies and equipment.

Narrator: 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.

(gentle music)

(dramatic music)

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

It's much sturdier, much broader across the beam,

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

Than you could with a longship,

And it requires a much smaller crew to sail it, too,

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

Narrator: The viking cargo ships carried a variety

Of goods to trade or to supply an army.

Jessen: 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,

And you name it, they probably carried it.

Narrator: 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.

(dramatic music)

Jessen: 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 fibers 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 found out, apart from boat handling,

There's also that it's a very seaworthy ship.

We can cross oceans with this one.

And 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.

Naess: They were incredible skilled people.

They knew how to live in their environment.

So when you started on a voyage,

You would know that next point will be this landmark,

And they felt the nature, the wind, the waves,

And they learned those things by heart.

Narrator: The existence of cargo ships is evidence

Of a change in viking strategy

That occurred in the ninth 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--

Man 2: 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.

Narrator: 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.

Williams: 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.

Narrator: 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 seventh-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 archeologists 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.

Williams: 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.

Narrator: This metal sculpture, near the burial site,

Shows the size of the sutton hoo ship.

Williams: 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.

Narrator: 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--

Historian: 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.

Narrator: 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 ninth century,

Naval strategy was almost non-existent.

(dramatic music)

Battles at sea were more like battles on land.

Naess: They will start a battle with throwing missiles,

Throwing stones, and then they will be closer and closer

And so close that they could jump

Into the ship of the enemy.

Williams: 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.

Narrator: It worked.

Alfred's navy won victories against the vikings foe.

And in the last years of his reign,

There were no major vikings attacks.

For the first time, an english ruler had recognized

That a permanent fleet was necessary

For the defense 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.

Williams: 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 bratanniae.

Narrator: 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.

(dramatic music)

(helmet thuds)

(dramatic music)

Sailing towards England

From France was a norman invasion fleet,

Under the command of duke william of normandy.

His ships would have been familiar to any viking,

With good reason.

Morris: The word norman is just another variant

On norseman or northman.

They were vikings who came from scandinavia

In the late ninth century,

And rather than attacking northwestern France,

They started to settle in an area of northwestern France

That by the early 10th century was known

As normania, or normandy, the land of the norsemen.

(dramatic music)

Narrator: 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 the 6th of January, 1066.

Morris: He's gonna 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, 1,000 years before.

(solemn music)

Narrator: 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.

Sorensen: If you look at the kind of ships

That are depicted on the bayeux tapestry,

They look exactly like the kind of ships that you have

As a classical viking age ship, and also the kind of 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.

(solemn music)

Narrator: 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.

Morris: They must have led those horses

On to specially constructed stalls on those boats,

To stop them from panicking.

But I think, however many they had,

Whether it was 1,000 or 2,000 horses,

It gave them that critical edge

In the conflict that followed.

Narrator: William's fleet would have consisted

Of many ships, like the sturdy knarr trading vessel,

Found at roskilde.

(dramatic music)

On the 28th of September, 1066,

The norman longships appeared on the horizon,

Off the coast of pevensey,

In sussex in the south of England.

Morris: To anyone stood here on the beach at pevensey,

You imagine 700 sails, hostile sails,

Suddenly on the horizon,

You are gonna be running for the hills.

Narrator: 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 the 14th of October, 1066.

During the daylong battle,

The longships' cargo of horses proved decisive.

Morris: It was undoubtedly worth the effort

And the difficulty of trying to get those horses

Across the channel, 'cause this is something

That was very seldom done.

Narrator: 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 vikings warrior,

But as a norman knight.

Sorensen: Generally, it's accepted that

The battle of hastings

And the norman invasion marks the end of the viking age.

It's here where they lose their political dominance

And their political influence, and society kind of begins

To evolve again into a feudal anglo-norman society.

Narrator: 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.

(solemn music)

For 800 years, the birlinn was the predominant vessel

In the west of scotland.

Any viking would have recognized

Its design and construction.

Clinker-built ships were ideal for the scottish seas.

Rixson: I think we have to say

That clinker-built technology arrived with the norse

And was tremendously popular, because the flexible,

Supple boats, which allowed to create,

Were perfectly suited to the rough west coast waters.

Murray: 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 oar,

So the oars were very, very handy

For maneuvering the ship at close quarters

And up rivers and onto beaches for beaching it.

Narrator: There was one key difference

Between the viking longship and the scottish vessels.

By the 12th century,

The viking longship's 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.

Rixson: The clan chief, as the norwegian chiefs,

In the days and the sagas, was always keen to impress.

And 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.

Narrator: Viking and anglo -saxon naval tactics also lived

On in the birlinns and their crews.

Murray: 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.

Narrator: 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.

Murray: 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 on board.

(energetic rock music)

Narrator: 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 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.

Naess: 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.

They were curious.

Sorensen: 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 traveled 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 kind of an eternally fascinating thing.

(dramatic music)