Viking heritage

I've never understood this statue which is located outside the Northumberland County Council offices in Morpeth. It's of a Viking raider. They certainly marauded up and down the Northumberland coast in the centuries prior to the Norman invasion in 1066 but there doesn't appear to be a lot left of their contribution to Northumberland unlike say the Romans or the Normans (who I suppose were descended from the Vikings)
I think it probably says more about the time the statue was created (in the early 1920s) and who presented it. It had been located in one of the many small stately homes in Northumberland until the mid 70s when it was given to the Council by some titled family or other.