A NEW LIFE

 A NEW LIFE 

After the battle with the Mercians and Wessex in 867, Olaf decided that he wanted to live in Nottingham as his new permanent home. The area was under the rule of the Danes and was a fortified settlement under the Danelaw. He was not too worried about living among the Anglo-Saxons. 

In fact, he met his wife in Nottingham. Granted, he may have accidentally burned down her house during the raid, but she was fair and lovely. Her name was Mildritha and she understood some Norse as the Vikings have been settling down the area for some time. Olaf paid a price for his bride as he required a dowry to marry her. Luckily for Mildritha, being a Viking wife gave her some powers. Once she marries Olaf, she can own properly and sell her own items. She can even divorce Olaf if she wanted to. She would be working in a domestic discourse as her roles were to take care of their future family, prepare food, milk the cows, sew, and weave. 

Olaf and Mildritha's father finalized the marriage through legal negotiations. They have their wedding on a Friday, in honor of Frigga, the goddess of weddings. The celebration was filled with mead, ale, and meat, and an alliance of Anglo-Saxon and Norse culture mixed in the wedding. 

During his years of marriage, Olaf converted to Christianity under the influence of his wife (who was already a Christian woman). He occasionally practices his old pagan ways as a way to continue his Norse culture. Olaf and Mildritha would have seven children together: Halfdan, Ulf, Frida, Harald, Gunhild, Frida, and Sune. 

Olaf's children spoke an odd mixture of Norse and English, mainly using English as their form of communication. His sons would practice swordsmanship and learn shipbuilding to prepare themselves as Vikings. While his daughters would learn domestic tasks to prepare for marriage. 

credit: q-files 


Olaf becomes an important member of his community, taking up a leadership role. He lived comfortably in a longhouse, with his grazing cows, and flaxseed garden. His wife really enjoys making food out of vegetation, but Olaf preferred food from the sea whenever he can. 

Olaf enjoys his settled life with his family. However, when duties are called, he would often leave to help build armies against a new rising Anglo-Saxon Army under Alfred the Great as they tried to push the Vikings out of power. 


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Bibliography

 Primary Sources The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle . Trans. Dorothy Whitelock, David C. Douglas, and Susie I. Tucker. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961. The Annals of Ulster . Edited by Pádraig Bambury and Stephen Beechinor. CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts. https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T100001A/index.html.  Grammaticus, Saxo. Gesta Danorum: The History of the Danes . Edited by Karsten Friis-Jensen. Translated by Peter Fisher. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2015.  The War of Gaedhill with the Gaill or The Invasion of Ireland by the Danes and Other Norsemen . Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney . Secondary Sources  Ables, Richard. "English Logistics and Military Administration 871-1066: the Impact of The Viking Wars," in Military Aspects of Scandinavian Society in a European Perspective, AD 1-1300, 1997. Retrieved from https://deremilitari.org/2013/07/english-logistics-and-military-administration-871-1066-the-impact-of-the-viking-wars/.  Bidd...
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