The Vikings Attacked Islamic Spain Twice — Here's Why They Never Tried a Third Time

For nearly three centuries, no coast in Europe was safe from Norse raiders. Rouen burned. Nantes burned. Entire kingdoms learned to dread the sight of a longship on the horizon. Then, in 844, the same raiders sailed into the heart of Islamic Spain — and found an enemy unlike any they had faced before. This is the story of the sack of Seville, the trap at Tablada, and the fifteen years that followed, when the most feared warriors in Europe came back to test what they'd learned the hard way — and chose, for one of the only times in the entire Viking age, to walk away. Chapters 00:00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:23:16 A World Built for Raiding 00:05:54:21 The Emirate That Wasn't Supposed to Exist 00:11:27:22 The Ships and the Men 00:15:59:20 Testing the Coast 00:20:22:14 Up the Guadalquivir 00:24:21:05 Seven Days 00:29:14:00 Córdoba Wakes Up 00:34:08:00 The Trap at Tablada 00:37:47:24 The Battle 00:43:21:16 Fire on the River 00:46:32:19 The Reckoning 00:50:22:24 Building the Doctrine 00:54:16:09 The Vikings Return — And Learn Their Lesson Music: "Ambiment," "At Rest," "Plaint," "Parting of the Ways - Part 1," "On the Shore," "Clean Soul," "Private Reflection," "Heartbreaking," "Ascending the Vale" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/