39 Facts About Vikings

Vikings is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia, who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and settled throughout parts of Europe.

The Vikings had a profound impact on the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, France, Estonia, and Kievan Rus'.

Expert sailors and navigators aboard their characteristic longships, Vikings established Norse settlements and governments in the British Isles, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, and the Baltic coast, as well as along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes across modern-day Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, where they were known as Varangians.

Current popular representations of the Vikings are typically based on cultural cliches and stereotypes, complicating modern appreciation of the Viking legacy.

Vikings were known as Ascomanni by the Germans for the ash wood of their boats, Dubgail and Finngail by the Irish, Lochlannaich by the Gaels, Dene by the Anglo-Saxons and Northmonn by the Frisians.

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Vikings used the Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea for sea routes to the south.

Normans were descendants of those Vikings who had been given feudal overlordship of areas in northern France, namely the Duchy of Normandy, in the 10th century.

Two Vikings even ascended to the throne of England, with Sweyn Forkbeard claiming the English throne in 1013 until 1014 and his son Cnut the Great being king of England between 1016 and 1035.

Vikings's was the mother of Sigismund III Vasa, King of Poland, King of Sweden, and Grand Duke of Finland.

The Vikings explored the northern islands and coasts of the North Atlantic, ventured south to North Africa, east to Kievan Rus, Constantinople, and the Middle East.

The Vikings—led by King Gudfred—destroyed the Obotrite city of Reric on the southern Baltic coast in 808 AD and transferred the merchants and traders to Hedeby.

The Annals of Ulster states that in 821 the Vikings plundered an Irish village and "carried off a great number of women into captivity".

Vikings themselves were expanding; although their motives are unclear, historians believe that scarce resources or a lack of mating opportunities were a factor.

Indirectly, the Vikings have left a window open onto their language, culture and activities, through many Old Norse place names and words found in their former sphere of influence.

Common words in everyday English language, such as leg, skin, dirt, sky, egg, kid, anger, window, husband, knife, bag, gift, glove, guest, wing, birth, law, gate, scab, skirt, root, skull, reindeer, happy, wrong, ugly, low, weak, loose, want, give, take, get, smile, guess, seem, hit, kick, scare, crawl, call, lift, both, they, them, and their, stem from the Old Norse of the Vikings and give an opportunity to understand their interactions with the people and cultures of the British Isles.

The burial practices of the Vikings were quite varied, from dug graves in the ground, to tumuli, sometimes including so-called ship burials.

Vikings built many unique types of watercraft, often used for more peaceful tasks.

Vikings's had the important roles of managing the farm's resources, conducting business, as well as child-rearing, although some of this would be shared with her husband.

Scandinavian Vikings were similar in appearance to modern Scandinavians; "their skin was fair and the hair color varied between blond, dark and reddish".

Certain livestock were typical and unique to the Vikings, including the Icelandic horse, Icelandic cattle, a plethora of sheep breeds, the Danish hen and the Danish goose.

Flax was a very important crop for the Vikings: it was used for oil extraction, food consumption and most importantly the production of linen.

The Vikings played several types of tafl games; hnefatafl, nitavl and the less common kvatrutafl.

The Vikings are known to have played instruments including harps, fiddles, lyres and lutes.

Vikings were relatively unusual for the time in their use of axes as a main battle weapon.

Warfare and violence of the Vikings were often motivated and fuelled by their beliefs in Norse religion, focusing on Thor and Odin, the gods of war and death.

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In combat, it is believed that the Vikings sometimes engaged in a disordered style of frenetic, furious fighting known as berserkergang, leading them to be termed berserkers.

Vikings established and engaged in extensive trading networks throughout the known world and had a profound influence on the economic development of Europe and Scandinavia.

Wool was very important as a domestic product for the Vikings, to produce warm clothing for the cold Scandinavian and Nordic climate, and for sails.

Not until the 1890s did scholars outside Scandinavia begin to seriously reassess the achievements of the Vikings, recognizing their artistry, technological skills, and seamanship.

An important early British contributor to the study of the Vikings was George Hickes, who published his Linguarum vett.

Fascination with the Vikings reached a peak during the so-called Viking revival in the late 18th and 19th centuries as a branch of Romantic nationalism.

Romanticised idea of the Vikings constructed in scholarly and popular circles in northwestern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries was a potent one, and the figure of the Viking became a familiar and malleable symbol in different contexts in the politics and political ideologies of 20th-century Europe.

The idealised view of the Vikings appealed to Germanic supremacists who transformed the figure of the Viking in accordance with the ideology of a Germanic master race.

Vikings appear in several books by the Danish American writer Poul Anderson, while British explorer, historian, and writer Tim Severin authored a trilogy of novels in 2005 about a young Viking adventurer Thorgils Leifsson, who travels around the world.

Vikings have served as an inspiration for numerous video games, such as The Lost Vikings, Age of Mythology, and For Honor .

Vikings are the lead focus of the 2020 video game Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which is set in 873 AD, and recounts an alternative history of the Viking invasion of Britain.

Vikings were often depicted with winged helmets and in other clothing taken from Classical antiquity, especially in depictions of Norse gods.

Image of wild-haired, dirty savages sometimes associated with the Vikings in popular culture is a distorted picture of reality.

Vikings's burial is the richest one in the whole cemetery, moreover, strontium analysis of his teeth enamel shows he was not local.