Viking re-enactors come together for battle in Cockermouth

A Viking reenactment festival in West Cumbria is attracting visitors as far as Edinburgh and Manchester.

At Moorforge Viking Settlement, in Wigton, people are joining together to re-enact Viking battles, crafts and storytelling.

Terry Harvey-Chadwick, a Viking re-enactor attending the festival, said the region's rich Viking history is noticeable even today.

Mr Harvey-Chadwick said: "Most of the names like the fells and all the ghylls and loads and loads of the names of the landscape, and the towns and the villages are all viking names.

"This was heavily settles in the 10th and 11th century."

• Video report by Matthew Taylor.

The festival includes authentic Viking fighting which can be enjoyed by spectators.

Rafal Aawrzoinek, a Viking re-enactor, said: "The fight is very much realistic, we fight obviously with some rules to keep our lives intact but regardless of the rules, we hit hard we hit with full speed and power."

David Watson, the owner of Moorforge Viking Settlement, thinks people should be more aware of our viking heritage.

He said: "We know a lot about the romans and that they made grand structures and big roads and great things and big governments, which are very noticeable and rightly so.

"But the vikings are a thousand years later, they are much more recent history than the romans, yet people know a lot less about them."

The festival runs from Friday 2 September to Sunday 4 September.

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