There is now an overwhelming amount of literature on the Viking Age in Britain. In acknowledging the debt I owe to all those scholars on whose work I have leant, I apologize for any errors of interpretation or fact. Any omission of credit on my part is inadvertent. I am grateful to Professor Sam Turner of the University of Newcastle Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, for affording me invaluable research facilities as a Visiting Fellow. I would particularly like to thank the following for their help or advice along the way: Werner Karrasch, the brilliant photographer at Roskilde Ship Museum; my cousin Anya, who introduced us; my old friend Jacqui Mulville; colleagues and friends in the Bernician Studies Group; Professor Diana Whaley for all sorts of help with language and place names; Peter Fitzgerald, for kindly showing me Ecgberht’s stone in Penselwood; and Paul Blinkhorn for acting as a ceramic fact-checker. My thanks also go to Dr Lynne Ballew for reading the text and making many invaluable suggestions for improving it. My editor, Richard Milbank, has been unfailingly encouraging, sympathetic and sharp-eyed. A book is only half a book until it has been through its publisher’s hands. The designers and production staff at Head of Zeus are similarly owed a great debt of gratitude for bringing Ælfred’s Britain to life with style. Finally, a thank you to the diggers: the archaeologists who tough it out in the field, who give us hope of drawing back the veil that hides our ancestors from us.