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The Danish beliefs did not involve a strict moral code like Christianity. At times, this loose moral code allowed the Danes to be more playful than the Anglo-Saxons, but this lack of moral code also has a dark side. In one scene, the Danes killed the East Anglian king, Edmund, with a volley of arrows after he was captured. The Danes were testing whether Edmund's god was as powerful as he claimed. <ref>For more on Edmund, see: Pinner, R. (2015). <i>The Cult of St Edmond in Medieval East Anglia</i>. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press.</ref> Not only did this event occur, but Edmund was canonized for it. Other Anglo-Saxon leaders are shown as tortured and murdered when captured. The Danes were fairly ruthless when they captured Anglo leaders, but the accurately depicts that some would be spared if they cooperated with the Danes and provided them with food, silver and land.
Many of the urban places are historical and the names used in the series reflects their Anglo-Saxon names. For instance, London and Reading are two cities mentioned. Wessex's primary town was Winchester (Figure 1), where most of the Wessex kings held court which is depicted in the series.<ref>For more on Winchester in the Anglo-Saxon period, see: Legg, P. (2011). <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0752455206/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0752455206&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=481f9491450113fd66f98a4456c7bc68 Winchester: history you can see]</i>. Stroud: History.</ref> Winchester, in fact, was rival to London for a period as the capital of all of England.
Some of the terms used in the series were words prevalent at the time. This includes terms such as plowing a field having sexual connotations. Another term is <i>arseling</i>, used as a playful or sometimes mocking term of Uhtred by his friend Leofric, which also would have been a term used at the time meaning "from the ass."<ref>For more on Anglo-Saxon terms, see: Baker, P. S. (2012). <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/047065984X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=047065984X&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=9be15e3cc90a4d0002c6a94f24e5cb09 Introduction to Old English]</i> (3rd ed). Chichester, West Sussex ; Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.</ref> Such terms and expressions were, in fact, contemporary to the period.
