Dr. Wayne Bartlett

They win this fight.

York, which is a hugely important place at the time, was the Viking Jorvik, had been the capital of the Viking kingdom before Northumbria had become assimilated into England.

So York is now open.

He forces the city to surrender on terms which are very favorable to him.

He thinks, oh, this is great.

I've got this victory.

You know, I'm just going to go and rest up for a few days and then I'll carry on, presumably head further south.

then become King of England.

So everything is going really, really well.

Won this crushing triumph.

Everything in the garden is rosy.

And Harold now seems to be, certainly could well be, you know, in a fairly short space of time, the next King of England.

So Fulford is a stunning victory, a crushing victory.

And that, Harold thinks, is that for the time being.

He did, and I think you can kind of put yourself quite easily in Harold's shoes here, because...

He's expecting to go into York later in the day, take the formal surrender of the city.

And the initial impression, so the saga suggests, is when he sees this big cloud of dust initially, he thinks it's all the officials from York coming out to greet him, saying, you know, OK, you're the boss now.

Come on in.

His army is there, apart from a part of it left back to guard the ships, which are a few miles away.

They seem to be having a pretty good time, presumably knocking back the mead a bit, if you like.