The Three Crowns of the Saxon Kings

Agreed. However, I suspect The Long Ships was made at the wrong time - audiences had become tired of historical epics by the early 60s. Had it been made 5 years earlier (or 20 years later, obviously with a different cast) things might have been different.

As enjoyable as it is, it's a shame the script isn't a little tighter - the floating bell being a case in point. Having it crash on the shoreline would have been a small change that would have improved the film. Not to mention tidying up the historical chronology!

Small alterations perhaps - I know it's meant to be just hockum - but the film would've been all the better for paying a little more attention to details.

The implication was that they all died going after the crowns. Fans of the LONG SHIPS novel series would have assumed the Viking monarch was Harald Bluetooth just as in the books. However, the movie implies that that their story takes place very late in the Viking Age and that their reigning monarch is really Harald Hardrada, who will be defeated and killed by the Saxons at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.