Vikings: Valhalla's Danelaw Explained (History & What Happened To It)
Warning: SPOILERS for Vikings: Valhalla.
The Danelaw is an important real life location featured in Netflix’s Vikings: Valhalla that left many viewers wondering just what happened to the place many Dane and Norse people once called home. The show depicts its own story while sprinkling in historical events, focusing in on both real and fictional locations spread across several European countries. The opening scenes of the Vikings spin-off featured the unforgettable St. Brice’s Day Massacre, essentially showing what would be Valhalla’s own version of the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones. The historical events used in the show are portrayed in a way that is out of order from how it happened in real life, so it’s difficult to draw straight lines between what occurred in the actual Danelaw and Valhalla’s Danelaw.
During the Viking era, country borders were redrawn and redrawn again battle after battle. By the start of Valhalla, which begins in the year 1002, the Danes had been living in the Danelaw for quite some time, with one resident noting: “We’ve been here so long, many of us no longer remember our own language.” It is after this observation that the command is given to begin what became known as the St. Brice’s Day Massacre, a plan orchestrated by Aethelred, who is married to Emma of Normandy, a descendant of Rollo, in an effort by the Anglo-Saxons to eliminate all the Danes who resided there in retaliation for the constant onslaught of Viking raids committed against England.
Related: Vikings: Valhalla — Did Leif’s London Bridge Plan Really Happen?
The Danelaw included a large swath of land in the north and eastern regions of England in which the laws of the Danes prevailed over the Anglo-Saxons, the boundaries of which
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