As a psychology undergraduate (currently "resting" between years!) I've studied the importance of language to culture, and so looking back it now seems obvious that we were taking on board aspects of Viking culture, simply by our linguistic heritage. For example one interpretation of my family name is derived from the way the Anglo-Saxons remarked on the Northmen's Golden hair!

I never really took an active interest in all things Nordic until one evening several years ago I happened to be watching a documentary series on the English Language (see the 'Dialect' page for the full story!) that sparked a mild interest in things Nordic. After several museum visits and reading a few books I was now more aware of the links between the place of my birth and Scandinavia, but didn't feel the need to take my research any further.

One of the most, probably the most, important events in my life took place during the summer of 1996, when I met my wife-to-be, Charlotta. She is Swedish, and as I began to learn Swedish myself I found more and more Yorkshire dialect words or phrases popping up in modern Swedish.

Later that Summer Charlotta took me to Sweden for the first time. Over four years later it's still hard to express adequately the changes that came over me during that visit. On setting foot on Scandinavian soil I had this almost immediate and powerful sense of homecoming, of belonging. My deeper love of the Viking age was sparked during those first 2 weeks up in the North. I began to research more, and the end product is the progress from the mild interest of the early 90s to the semi-obsession we see today!