What made London Bridge fall down?
The falling London Bridge referred to in the song was the first crossing point of the River Thames. The song is probably based on a historical event. In the eleventh century, both the Germans ~ Saxons ~ and the Scandinavians were fighting over control of England. London belonged to the Danes in 1014. Enter the Vikings… So King Ethelred and the invading Vikings, led my Olaf the Norseman, came up with a plan. In the Still of the Night… One story is that Olaf sailed up the Thames with his fleet of longboats. For the Norsemen ~ who considered rivers as their highways, rather than as barriers ~ the bridge was in the way, and needed to be removed. That’s just what Olaf did. He had the piers of the bridge tied to his ships. Then, following the tide and rowing downstream, Olaf and the Vikings pulled the bridge down.
