So, I was watching the first episode of Time Team, which is about none other than Alfred the Great:

Time Team S01-E01 The Guerrilla Base of the King (Athelney, Somerset)

One thing which is really not emphasized at all, at least it wasn’t in my experience of secondary school education, is how much the entire Viking conflict was about religion.

Alfred became “Great” exactly because he won a religious war. A conflict between western (Catholic) Christianity and Norse paganism (strictly i suppose more properly polytheism.)