Lars Brownworth explains that Viking longships' extreme speed (70-120 miles/day) versus English armies' 10-20 miles/day let Vikings raid and vanish before defenders could respond, making them militarily terrifying. ✦ AI generated
Lars Brownworth · Lex Fridman · 2026-04-09 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 14:21
The Viking long ships could average 70 to 120 miles a day. So, they're just moving in super fast motion. They could hit a place, raid it, drag off whoever they wanted, and get away before you could get your army there. That's just absolutely terrifying.
verbatim transcript · starts at 14:21
14:21access to a good Roman road that was well maintained, which frankly there weren't tons of them, but they could average something like 10 to 15 miles per day- ... on a good day, if they didn't have a large baggage train to slow them down. If you had a cavalry unit that didn't have to travel with the army, they could average about 20 miles a day. The Viking long ships could average
14:4070 to 120 miles a day. So, they're just moving in super fast motion. They could hit a place, raid it, drag off whoever they wanted, and get away before you could get your army there. That's just absolutely terrifying. - What do you think it felt like for Alcuin and the monks to see the Viking ships on the horizon? Do you ever think about trying to put yourself in the mind of those folks
15:08and imagining... In that time, you don't have a full map of the world, right? And the oceans are not mapped, and you have a hazy conception of the world. And so out of the darkness from the ocean where you thought nothing can come, comes this terrifying, this brutal force. What do you think that felt like? - Honestly, I think it's the end of the world, and I don't think
15:34that's... I don't think they were wrong to think that. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says the night before Lindisfarne, the monks saw sheets of lightning in the sky in the shape of dragons. And this obviously meant to, you know, foreshadow the dragon ships coming up. I can't imagine the horror. It would shake my faith, I'm sure, to have these- these giant men jumping out of their ships with swords raised. And you're... What
16:02do you have? Your cross? - Were the Vikings aware of the fear that they had caused? So, did they use fear as a kind of weapon, or was this just a side consequence of their actions, or did they understand and use it? Like the Mongols, Genghis Khan, the Mongols used the fear and the terror on purpose- ... to increase the chance that they wouldn't have to avoid fights, basically.