The 'Vikings' have been chased from Largs for yet another year and their all weather exterior ply dwellings have been unscrewed and put in storage. It's a pity their 'portaloos' have been removed, a much needed addition to Largs on a public holiday.

After such a hectic week perhaps this amusing little story may be of some light relief?

  Up-Helly-Aa!

“Just picture it” he exclaimed with gloomy relish. “Being wakened in the middle of the night by the sound of axes splintering your door to matchwood; a savage horde pouring into the house, looting and smashing everything in sight, cursing like maniacs, your wife and daughters carried off like sacks flung over their shoulders-“

“These VAT men have excessive powers”, I murmured sympathetically.

“Don’t be daft!” he said irritably. “I’m talking about the Vikings – the greatest scourge mankind has ever known”.

“What about Jeremy Paxsman?”

“Of course if you are going to be flippant about it-“

At this point I remembered that it was coming up to his round: a walk out in high dudgeon would be very much against my interests. It was time to apply some soft soap.

“No, No”, I said hastily. “I take the Vikings very seriously indeed. Do tell me more”.

I set down my empty pint mug on the counter with an ostentatious clatter and glanced suggestively towards it, but he took no notice. Instead he began to prose on about some tenth century hooligan called Svein Fork-Beard who had apparently inflicted all kinds of nameless nastiness upon maidens in the Home Counties. Frankly I suppose he had a point. To chaps of my generation, the spectacle of tall Scandinavians with flaxen plaids running, screaming, along Largs beach can only be good news; one forgets that, to our ancestors, it was generally bad news. No doubt about it, those Norsemen were rough characters; you only had to remember watching Magnus Magnusson grilling some hapless Mastermind contender on the Life and Times of Ethelred the Unready to get a chill whiff of the Icelandic Sagas. So my companion’s indignations were clearly justified, but that didn’t alter the fact that he was neglecting his social obligations, as the empty glass in front of me reproachfully testified.

“I’ll bet”, I remarked, interrupting his enthusiastic account of Viking burial customs, “I’ll bet they used to go in for some prodigious carousing”,

“Yes indeed a feast could last a week-“

“With buckets of mead, I suppose?” I put in carelessly.

“No not mead. Beer”.

“Thanks very much, I’ll have one for the road since you are offering”.

“Eh? Oh, I see. Two pints please”.

With a foaming tankard in my hand I was able to face the history lecture with renewed fortitude. After all it could have been worse; I remember the time when he was heavily into Iron Age agricultural implements. So I listened patiently while he explained that eating the death-cap mushroom caused a certain class of Nordic degenerate to go berserk

“They couldn’t feel pain, they behaved like beasts!”

“Yes I’ve seen a few survivors of the species at Cappielow”. But he paid no attention. He was raving on about some berk called Harald Bluetooth.

“A spot of fluoride in the water might have worked wonders for him”, I observed.

This drew no response either. He was off on another tangent, talking about Up-Helly-Aa, which I assumed to be the exclamation uttered by Eric Bloodaxe at the moment his horned helmet was cloven in two in 954.

“Of course”, I said with elaborate carelessness, “I happen to have Viking ancestry”.

That stopped him in his tracks. “Really? How interesting! Tell me about it”.

“Well my earliest recorded ancestor, Olaf Knucklestrailer, was part of a raiding party which harried Port Glasgow – at that time a very primitive settlement”. (So, what’s changed? you might well ask). “In return for five hogsheads of mead and a sack-full of prune stones, the Norse leader, Sitric Skullsplinter (I was getting to be marvelously fluent in this idiom) gave him as much land as he could soak in Picktish blood between dawn and dusk”.

“Yes, Yes! Go on”.

To my delight, I saw that he was taking notes.

“Well, his grandson, in the best tradition of opportunists, married the local Viking Heiress, Ulrica Scrubbersdottir-“

“I’ll need to get the spelling of these names later on”, he interrupted anxiously, I can’t make out their derivations from your pronunciation. Sorry”.

I resumed my saga.

“Anyway a couple of generations later, the two families quarreled and my forebear, Ragnar Chequebouncersson”, (I saw him give me a startled glance) “poured sugar into the outboard motor on the longboat belonging to his enemy Snorri Poolswinner-“

With a snarl of rage he threw down his pencil and notebook.

“Absolutely typical!” he yelled. “You have no respect for history or culture! You make me sick”.

He downed the remainder of his pint and vanished from the pub like snow off Offas Dyke. I shrugged my shoulders philosophically; after all, it had been getting perilously close to my round. Anyway, I could live without the Vikings. Every one he had mentioned was clearly a homicidal maniac, with the exception of Halfdan of the Wide Embrace, who sounded disturbingly limp-wristed. Mind you, the carousing side of their life style sounded quite appealing. I beckoned to the barman.

“Yes?”

“A drinking horn full of Odin’s Ale”, I commanded. “Tonight I shall make wassail!”

Anon