It is not very often that a career in journalism can be considered the prudent option, but, aged 21 and faced with a choice between a master’s in journalism or medieval history, it seemed so. My chances of becoming the next Lucy Worsley were slim, and Old Norse is not often much use on a CV. Still, I’ve never been able to consider that particular sliding door quite shut.
Clinging to that other life, I have visited the burial mounds of Birka, on Lake Mälaren in Sweden, and Orkney’s Tomb of the Eagles, entered through a low, narrow passage with the aid of a skateboard placed under your stomach; Richard the Lionheart’s burial place at Fontevraud Abbey, France, and the Oseberg and Gokstad ships, more magnificent than any cathedral, in Oslo. In Stockholm I stared at strangely familiar Viking-age needles, made in bronze and iron.
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