The New Murrey and Blue blog

I have just discovered (not literally!) another famous hoard of Viking silver that was dug up in the bank of the River Ribble outside Cuerdale, near Preston, on 15th May, 1840. It is still the largest Viking hoard ever found outside Russia.  

Perhaps I should get a trowel and try my luck along the banks of the Severn, but with my luck, all I’d find would be the Severn Bore, just before it washed me away! 

Read more here and here.  

For a really in-depth account, go here. 

As a footnote, yesterday was the anniversary of the St Brice’s Day Massacre of Danes in England, in 1002. King Æthelred gave the order for the slaughter of ‘all the Danish men who were among the English race’. So the hoard seems to coincide with a period when the Danes weren’t very popular in England. I am not saying there is a direct link between the massacre and the burying of the hoard, but it is not entirely unlikely. To read more about the massacre, go here: https://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/st-brice%E2%80%99s-day-massacre