The Vikings are coming!

The outside world sees me as a respectable journalist, if there is such a thing. Inside, though, is a raging Viking battle-lord, lusting for battle, pillage and ravishment, unafraid to stalk the badlands of Bas Vegas at 11pm on a Friday night.

Down the years it has been necessary to suppress this tendency, but now we live in more enlightened times and it is much more acceptable to get in touch with your Viking side.

Whole armies, or rather hordes, of people now take part in historic re-enactments across Essex. Among them are the members of the Viking Society. There are roughly 1,000 of them, and roughly is the word.

Armed with fearsome axes and spears and sporting bristly beards, which are lethal weapons in themselves, they rampage across the English landscape spreading death and destruction. And the male warriors are almost as frightening.

Essex has its own county branch of the Vikings, Saebert’s Folc.

I was looking forward to bonding with this band of bloodthirsty hulks, but first I wanted to see them in action. Would I be man enough? Or would I prove a wimp who scuttled back to the safety of the 21st century at the first threat of even the mildest disembowelling?

The best place to see Saebert’s Folc in action is the annual re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings, 1066. The spectacle is played out on the actual site, at Battle, in Sussex, around October 14.

It attracts just about every medieval weekend warrior in southern England, including Vikings, even though they were technically not involved in this battle. Each warrior brandishes vital accessories – a sword, a shield, and a health and safety protocol.

My kit is a bit limited at this stage, so far I’ve only invested in a Viking helmet. Ideally I should also have a raven on my shoulder. Unfortunately, Ebay isn’t advertising any ravens at the moment, so I’ve had to settle for my basset hound Tessie.

We arrive in Hastings about 10am, bristling with bloodlust, but find no action, just a strangely tame and domestic scene. It consists of an encampment of medieval tents, and lots of people, sorry folk, cooking breakfast over campfires. They’re dressed in medieval sackcloth clothing, which is exactly like the tents, only more mobile.

Outside one of the tents, Len Seccombe, from Colchester, is stuffing intestines. This looks more like gory warrior stuff. A bit of human taxidermy? But no, Len is simply making sausages. “Sliced pork, leek, onion, apple juice, garlic, salt and pepper. We cook them over the campfire in the evening. Lovely.”

We wander off, disappointed. Outside another tent we find a group of Frenchmen. Being French, they are are already gathered round a trestle table, eating a breakfast of bread and snails, some of which furtively try to escape as we talk.

The Frenchmen explain they come over every year, because Hastings is the one contest France is always guaranteed to win.

Oddly, I’d always imagined that re-enactment was a specifically British eccentricity, but the French warriors put me right on this. “In France, tres beaucoup de reenacteurs. Also Belge, Italie, Australia. In Australia, very, ’ow you say, butch. All kill each other, ha, ha.”

This is not quite how I’d imagined re-enactment. Then I encounter Saebert’s Folc leader Lawrie Walton, 35, who straightens out a number of illusions.

Lawrie explains re-enactment is not just about fighting. “It’s about recreating history as authentically as possible,” he says. “The food, the clothing, the conditions, the medicine. Quite a lot of people don’t fight at all, but they enjoy other aspects – the camp life, the sociability, doing the research.”

Research? This is not the sort of effete word your average hairy Viking from Essex wants to hear. Happily, as the day wears on, things begin to get more belligerent. The warriors are helped into their chain mail and gauntlets by the campfire sissies. Amiable types like Lawrie are transformed in front of our eyes into scary, scowling warriors. This is more like it.

Unfortunately, Tessie and I are not allowed to take part in the battle. Tessie is barred because bassets hadn’t been invented in 1066 and I’m barred on a number of grounds. My Viking helmet is made of plastic and unlikely to resist an axe-stroke from a Frenchman, even one called Norman. Also I haven’t had any training.

“You need a certain level of competence, for the sake of safety,” says Lawrie. Or, as another warrior, Paul Blessing from Cressing Temple, puts it: “We all want to go back to work the next day still wearing a face.”

So Tessie, I, and the escaped snails watch the battle from the safety of the camp. The opposing sides line up on Senlac Hill and battle commences. It looks convincing enough – a seething mass of thrusting, slashing, slicing steel, and constant roars of rage.

It really does look as if every person there is hellbent on destruction, preferably of the other side. Lawrie had stressed authenticity. The fighting looked even more medievally authentic than the camp.

Yet at the end of the battle, when you might expect piles of dead chartered accountants, there had been just two minor injuries – a better result than Southend High Street on a Saturday night.

Two months later, I’m back with Saebert’s Folc, this time at Lawrie’s house in London Road, Leigh. Saebert’s Folc is holding its AGM.

Even Dark Age warriors have to discuss things like annual budgets. It seems the ideal place and time to find out about becoming a fully-fledged warrior. I learn, for instance, about the difference between “a rubbish Chinese-made sword at £80, and a handmade sword made by a Czech blacksmith for £200.”

I learn about the exploding popularity of re-enactment. Saebert’s Folc is typical. Set up just four years ago, it now has a membership of 25, rising fast. I learn you don’t need to be a 6ft muscle-man to slaughter loads of foes. One of Saebert’s most distinguished warriors is Heidi, who is slender and not much taller than Tessie when she’s standing on her back legs.

Above all, though, I learn about the great peril of re-enactment. A sword through the midriff? No, the real danger is of being bitten by the bug.

It’s a convivial scene at Laurie’s home, with the guests all gathered round the remains of an early Christmas dinner. The attractions of 21st century urban living are obvious. Why should anyone want to transport themselves back to the dangerous, smelly, disease-ridden age of Viking and Anglo-Saxon warriors? Yet, as I’ve found, the Dark Ages hold a powerful lure.

The most envied re-enactor in the room is probably Steve Hays, from Bethnal Green, who trades in swords and armour. “It’s not yet a full-time job, but that’s the ambition,” Steve says. “To be doing nothing but re-enactment stuff.”

Dom Walton, Lawrie’s wife, probably speaks for everyone when she says: “Every re-enactor wants to do it as a full-time job. We just love it so much we want to go on doing it all the time. We don’t want to go back to real life.”

To find out more, visit www.camulos.com/saebertsfolc. htm or www.saebertsfolc.org.uk or call Lawrie and Dom on 01702 712988.