This history was found on several pieces of Parchment, lodged in the basement of the Mukka Bingo Hall, East Anglia. It is loosely translated from the Norse dialect; Yellandshout. 

The tale began: It was a time of Epic tales being told by the campfire, of heroes and heroines, gods and demi-gods, bingo and Beserkerness.

Erik had led his battle-hardened men across to the shores of Brittania, fondled the cattle and carried off the women, and they now were settling down to a nice chill-out year in their wooden stockade just at the edge of the pine forest in Norseland. But there was something burrowing away in Erik’s mind. Something he came across in his last trip to Brittania. Something called IX-decimus Bingo. 90 number Bingo.  It was a game that had been played by Roman soldiers and auxiliaries of the Legion when they had conquered Britain, and been adopted by the natives left behind when Rome withdraw from its frontiers.

The thing was that Erik had had a go of the game with a Pagan Druid in a mystic circle off of Lindesfarne Island, and found it quite compelling. The stretched scroll marked with numbers that you placed stones on when the number was called was very simple, yet thrilling. Indeed, Pokerex, the Druid, had also found it exciting, mainly because Erik said if he didn’t win the game, Pokerex would be sent off to work in the Bronze mines of Lapland. Erik championed the game when he returned to Norseland, and it had spread among the tribes and grown steadily in popularity.

But Erik had given the game a distinctly Viking flavour. It was played in full battle gear, with his swarthy hairy followers (and that’s just the women) complete with winged and horned helms, breastplates, and copious amounts of mead. Erik was the Caller, and to give him his full title, was known as Erik, son of Thorgen, son of Tomas, Scourge of Brittania, Nemesis of the Druids, and Throaty Bellower of More than Fifty Numbers.

The winner of these games, the first person to get 12 numbers, was called Bingo Duzzen and could then claim property, slaves or weaponry from the stores at the back of village.  Disputes, by all accounts, were settled by one simple method. Single combat to the death. False calls of Bingo therefore seemed to be far and few between!

The scroll ends by saying that Erik then took his men, and the game, across a wide ocean, and taught the game to the native Indians on a huge land mass, which he called A Mare –Eka. But because the tribes there seemed to be very impatient, and wanted to get on with other things apart from playing Bingo, he only gave them numbers up to 75.

It is not known what became of Erik, and whether he ever returned to his homeland, but some say they have seen the ghost of a fearsome red-headed Viking warrior glowering from the darkened stage at the end of Bingo sessions in the Stockholm Gaumont....

Goodus Lukken!