Thanks for the background. From what you describe, none of these rules claimed to be on a secret mission to sail up rivers they never entered, or claimed to take friendly fire from drunken revelers during some pagan festival. Such things were never seared into their memories. That was back when candidates had some class.
LOL - just ordinary invaders, taking what they could get without apology. Scandinavia was overpopulated, odd as that seems nowadays.