Guthorm's Invasion of Wessex:
A New Chapter of Life for the Vikings

Upon leaving Wedmore, Guthorm and his men rejoined the Danes at Chippenham, and spent the rest of the summer there. Then they moved out of Wessex and spent the winter in Cirencester, in Danish Mercia. They stayed there until the autumn of 879. Were they planning another attack on Wessex? Were they waiting for more Danish reinforcements to join their army? No one knows what went on there during that year after the battle. Perhaps many options were discussed between Guthorm and his men. Maybe his warriors, grown smaller and smaller in number after the last year of fighting, were indeed ready to settle down as farmers.

Finally, in the autumn of 879, Guthorm and his men moved quietly away to East Anglia. It was here, in the lands the Vikings had already won years before, that they divided and began farming the rich land.

With Guthorm still a king of the raider-turned-farmer Danes, he too began a very different chapter in the story of his life as a Viking in England. Do you think he spent the rest of his years in peace as a farmer- king, or was he fated to meet up with Alfred again to make yet a new treaty for peace in England?