The second in a series of four historical detective stories
Written and presented by Michael Wood

Eric Bloodaxe: a name from fairy-tales; an image from a childhood adventure story. He was, in fact, twice king in York, the last ruler of an independent Northumbria.
Filmed in the autumnal colours and light of Northumberland and Cumbria, Michael Wood describes a deep-seated split between north and south, and re-creates the 'thought world' of a tenth-century war-lord.
After Athelstan's conquest of Britain, Northumbria longed for a king of their own, free from southern control. Eric's arrival on the English scene re-established that idea-a strong, powerful northern king. Formerly king pf Norway, Bloodaxe's lurid career and death were recorded in a lost chronicle written in York. Michael Wood has, for the first time, reconstructed that lost chronicle and, with it, the life of the most famous Viking of them all,

BBC Manchester
In Search of the Dark Ages, £8.95, from bookshops