YORK'S Jorvik Viking Festival has got under way with a surprise proposal for one guest attending a wedding feast.

York man Jonathan Alderson, 29, took advantage of the Valentine's Day event at Merchant Taylors' Hall to drop down on one knee and produce a ring to propose to his girlfriend, Samantha Simpson, also 29 and from York. Amid rapturous cheers from their fellow wedding guests, she said 'yes.'

Festival Director Danielle Daglan said: "Weddings are always emotional occasions, but Jonathan had tipped us off about his intentions, so we were able to weave him into the evening's entertainment so that the proposal remained a complete surprise.

"That will certainly be one moment in their lives that Jonathan and Samantha will never forget, and who knows, they may well enjoy a Viking wedding of their own!"

The festival, the largest of its kind in Europe, is featuring events every day this week.

Encampments were set up in Kings Square and the Eye of York at the weekend, with a new feature being a 'steading' in the square featuring the type of livestock the Vikings would have kept, including sheep, pigs, a pony, a calf and poultry.

The week will culminate in a grand finale next Saturday evening, when more than 200 warriors will do battle in the Eye of York in a pyrotechnic-filled extravaganza representing the Norse myth of the first battle of the Gods.