Who were the Vikings?

The word Viking was used for sea raiders. Most people at home in Norway, Sweden and Denmark were farmers, fishers and craftspeople who also traded. The Viking Age is usually dated from 793 CE, when raiders attacked the monastery on Lindisfarne in north-east England, to about 1066 CE.

Their longships were their secret. They were long and shallow, so they could cross open sea and also slide up rivers and onto beaches. Viking sailors had no magnetic compass. They steered by the sun, the stars, birds and the colour of the water, and knew compass directions such as north and west from the sky.

Vikings did not only raid. They traded furs, amber and iron, and travelled as far as Constantinople and Baghdad. They settled in parts of Britain and Ireland, in Normandy in France, and on the Atlantic islands. Iceland was settled around 870. Around 1000 CE, Leif Erikson's crew built a small camp at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, which means Vikings reached North America about 500 years before Columbus.

At home, people met at a Thing, an assembly where free men and women could discuss laws and settle quarrels. They told long stories called sagas and wrote in runes, an alphabet of straight lines that was easy to carve. Their gods included Odin, Thor and Freya. Our days Wednesday and Thursday are named after Woden (Odin) and Thor.

In England the Vikings controlled an area called the Danelaw. The Viking Age ended as kingdoms grew stronger, and Christianity spread through Scandinavia. Read how castles later shaped life in the Middle Ages.

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