Monday Mail, 26th August 2013
Dear all, Just a quick mail to say that I'm back at work as of today. Lydia and I had a lovely holiday variously around the UK and in Norway. Probably Norway's most famous export over the years was the Vikings. For hundreds of years they raided the rest of Europe, raping and pillaging as they went. Yet in the 150 or so years from 1000 AD, these violent warriors did something extraordinary. They settled down and stopped raiding. Why? Because after hundreds of years of opposing Christianity, plundering monasteries and so on, they became Christians and instead of building warships, they started building stave churches, some of which still survive. Even today, modern Norwegian culture shows its Viking roots. Houses are still often made of wood rather than brick, and people's holiday homes are often accessible by boat rather than by road. Norwegian is clearly descended from the Old Norse that the Vikings spoke. Becoming Christians didn't make them less themselves or break