HISTORY......orcs?

That's fantastic mamie I will ask if it is still in print.
yes - the cooks recipes it sounds like.
Was that working for the family or the NT mamie?
Have you been back?

I always felt I had Viking ancestors, having red hair and being born in the North East

I was working for the bloke that ran the caff. Pre National Trust I think. The recipe book was from people living on the estate and round about. I keep it for the Bara Brith recipe. My OH had a hot dog van on the Llanberis pass that year. People were for ever asking the way to Beddgelert apart from one family who wanted to go to Betelgeuse. He said they were unlikely to get there in a Ford Anglia.

We went back in the 1970s when the children were small. Not since though.

Love the Ford Anglia bit Mamie!

Oh you'll never get to heaven, in an old Ford car
Cos an old Ford car won't go that far.

How about this?
www.museumwales.ac.uk/cy/1934/

Evidently there were other waves of Vikings. Not many red heads around these parts now.
You'd probably find the inside looking smarter mamie - at least the parts on public view. But there are something like 300 rooms apparently.

Strangely enough there are a few red beards in this bit of Normandy. I have also read that there are four Viking place names in Basse Normandie. I reckon Ouistreham might be one?

Oistreham does sound right doesn't it? Easterham? Yes, The Vikings were immigrants to Normandy [Nor' man dy] Northmen. I heard they had to wait a year before they got their benefits though, so came came to UK [it was a soft touch!] Any local who derided their long ginger hair or beard got an axe through their nut [ hence....... gingernuts!]

Swansea was also a Viking colony Sweyne's Eyot. (Swenyn's little island at the river mouth, I think)

They founded Dublin, too.

...and they became Kings of Sicily and Antioch. Travelled cross country through Russia to Byzantium, mainly trading but not averse to pillage if all else failed as well.

Yes there was a Norman kingdom in the middle east wasn't there. i learned so much from Sharon Penman who was recommended by GN.

Anyone read "The Long Ships" by Frans Bengtsson ?
Good rollicking Viking tale and fairly accurate historically I think.

Wonder, though, if they were called Orcs too!