The Viking at Stamford Bridge, 1066 AD

"But there was one of the Norwegians who withstood the English folk, so that they could not pass over the bridge, nor complete the victory."
- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

In 1066, the Vikings took a break from wrecking shit, and got ambushed at a place called Stamford Bridge. The Vikings didn't even have a chance to get their armor on before they noticed a tremendous army of Saxons ready to kick some ass and possibly take names (which they would probably mispronounce).

Only one of the Norsemen was ready for combat--an insane, nameless berserker conjured up from some nightmarish backwater asshole of Hell.

The Saxons, seeing victory was just one frothing-at-the-mouth-berserker away, charged forward to dislodge him. This proved to be a mistake.

In the horrific carnage that ensued, countless Saxon soldiers were transformed into a continuous fountain of gore, his mighty axe blows cleaving shields and helmets like they were made out of deliciously-melty butter. Arrows, spears and swords were useless against him. He seemed incapable of feeling pain, or really any sensation other than an unstoppable mad desire to kill every single person on Earth.

Eventually, one enterprising Saxon warrior figured out that, like any good video game boss, the Viking hero had a weak point. The Saxon went upstream, floated a barrel into the river, jumped in and drifted down towards the bridge. As soon as he was below the scene of the battle, this cowardly douche canoe thrust his spear up between the planks, striking the Viking juggernaut in his lone weak point: the ball sack.

The Viking champion dropped down to his knees, as is to be expected from a guy who just took a piercing blow to the nads, and was subsequently cut down and probably used as firewood.

The Vikings were at an enormous disadvantage. Their army was divided in two; with some of their troops on the west side of the River Derwent and the bulk of their army on the east side. Their armor had not been brought with them, they had left them on the ships as they had not expected the English army to arrive so quickly.

The English force arrived, and annihilated the Vikings who fought a futile defence on the west side of the river. By the time the bulk of the English army had arrived, the Vikings on the west side were either dead or fleeing across the bridge. The English advance was then delayed by the need to pass through the choke-point presented by the bridge. A later folk story has it that a giant Norseman armed with an axe blocked the narrow crossing, and single handedly held up the entire Saxon army. He was only killed when an Englishman floated under the bridge in a barrel, and thrust his spear through the laths in the bridge, killing him.

Whatever the delay, this had allowed the bulk of the Norse army to form a shieldwall to face the English attack. Harold's army poured across the bridge, forming a line just short of the Norse army, locked shields and charged. Though the battle raged for hours, the Norse army's decision to leave their armour behind on the ships began to show; without their armour they were exposed to Saxon steel.

Eventually, the Norse army began to fragment and fracture, allowing the English troops to force their way in and break up the Norwegian shield wall. Completely outflanked, and their leaders, Tostig and Hardrada killed, the Norwegian army completely disintegrated and was almost annihilated.

In the later stages of the battle, the Norwegians were reinforced by troops who had been left behind to guard the ships at Ricall, led by Eystein Orri, Hardrada's daughter's fiancé. Some of his men were said to have collapsed and died due to exhaustion upon reaching the battlefield.

Their counter-attack, described in the Norwegian tradition as "Orri's Storm", briefly checked the English attack, but was soon overwhelmed, wiped out and Orri himself killed. The Norwegian army routed, pursued by the English army, some of the routers drowned in the rivers.

So many died in such a small area that the field was said to have been still whitened with bleached bones 50 years after the battle.

Z, you copypasted that from Cracked.

and mine copy pasted from a book hahaha