Guthorm's Invasion of Wessex - Related activities

Writing Chronicles

Guthorm's invasion of Wessex really happened. We know about it because people like Asser wrote about it in chronicles (like diaries) during or right after the time it happened. Other historians, many years later, also wrote about what they heard had happened from other people. And archaeologists are still at work in England using artifacts (pieces of pottery, weaponry, bone, and even cloth) they find buried in the dirt to find out more about the vikings in England.

Imagine you are one of the people below. Write a diary entry about what happened to Guthorm and his fighter-farmers after they settled in East Anglia. As one of the characters below, be sure to report on the evidence you used for your entry.

1. Alfred's biographer, Asser
2. An English woman who married one of the viking farmers
3. A viking pirate who just arrived from Denmark with a shipload of men
4. A monk from a small church in East Anglia
5. A modern-day researcher who has traveled all over East Anglia talking to people both young and old
6. An archaeologist at a dig in East Anglia in the year 2001