York, so good they named it Jorvik

The inhabitants of York are probably getting pretty used to the sight of Vikings by now. 

But that's because the annual Jorvik Viking Festival (11th to 19th February) is currently in full swing.

    

Each February the city celebrates its Norse heritage with a wide programme of events including a Beard Competition (open to children and ladies as well as men), living history, lectures, workshops, walks, quizzes and drama. 

City centre locations are used such as Barley Hall and the Jorvik Viking Centre, though the finale is sometimes held out of town at the Rawcliffe Country Park or the Racecourse, where there is more room to have a pitched battle re-enactment with the pyrotechnics to follow. 

Sadly the traditional boat-burning is no longer part of the event (for health and safety reasons). But they still have a decent battle or two.

York has an interesting name origin. The name is supposedly derived from the Brittonic name Eburākon (Latinised as Eboracum), a combination of eburos meaning 'yew tree' - and a suffix of ākon, meaning 'belonging to', or 'place of'. So, 'the place of the yew trees'.

A proposed alternative meaning is 'the settlement of (a man named) Eburos' - a Celtic personal name spelled variously in different documents as Eburus and Eburius - with the addition of wic, meaning 'village'. 

When the Danish army conquered the city in 866, it was renamed Jórvík, which gradually reduced to 'York' in the centuries after the Conquest, moving from the Middle English Yerk in the 14th century through Yourke in the 16th century to Yarke in the 17th century. The modern form York was first recorded in the 13th century. Many company and place names, such as the Ebor race meeting, refer to the Latinised Brittonic name.

So there you go.

Here's the website for the event.