Vikings – Their Lifestyle, conquests and the end of their epoch

Vikings settlement

Vikings – Their Lifestyle, conquests and the end of their epoch

The Vikings were warriors from northern Europe. They were also known as Norsemen or Northmen. They sailed the seas from the late AD 700s to the 1000s. They attacked many countries and took away much treasure. Their northern European neighbours gave them the name of Viking, which means ‘pirate'.

People ran and hid when they saw Viking ships coming. “From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us!” they prayed. The Vikings were daring, skillful sailors and frightening warriors. For 300 years, from ad 800 to 1100, they terrorized much of northern Europe.

Viking Lifestyle

The homeland of the Vikings was in the region that is now called Scandinavia. The region now contains the modern countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Vikings also settled peacefully on Iceland, Greenland and other islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. At home the Vikings were farmers. They belonged to clans, or large families, and were ruled by chiefs.

Vikings were good sailors. They used the position of the sun and the stars to find their way at sea. In about 1000 a Viking named Leif Eriksson sailed all the way to North America from Greenland.

The Vikings sailed in ships called longships made from the wood of oak trees. Those ships had a single mast with a square-shaped sail; 40 to 60 oarsmen provided additional power. Longships also had a tall and curved prow, or projecting front part, usually in the shape of a dragon.

The Vikings were also fierce warriors. The gods they worshipped were warriors, too. Their chief god was called Odin. Odin ruled over Valhalla, the heaven of the warriors.

Vikings welcomed death in battle because they believed that it would allow them to enter heaven. That belief made them fearless warriors. The Vikings buried their chiefs with the supplies they thought they would need to get to Valhalla – tools, weapons and even boats. Modern scientists have learned much about Viking life by examining Viking graves.

Sagas

Vikings liked storytelling, music, dance and poetry. They described their history through stories and songs about adventure, war heroes and gods. They told and sang their tales at weddings, funerals and feasts. Those stories came to be called sagas, a term that comes from the Icelandic word for story. They also played the fidla (a type of fiddle) and an instrument made from an animal horn.

During the 1100s and 1200s, the learned people of Iceland wrote down the sagas. Two important collections of sagas are the Elder (Poetic) Edda and the Younger (Prose) Edda. Today the sagas are a good source of information about Viking religion, philosophy and mythology.

Conquests

England

The Vikings first attacked England in the late AD 700s. In 865 a group of Danes (people from Denmark) conquered several English kingdoms. The English drove out the Danes in 954, but the Danes soon returned. The Danish king Canute I ruled England from 1016 to 1035 as a part of his Viking empire. England finally threw off Danish rule in 1042.

However, in 1066 the Normans conquered England. The Normans were descendants of Vikings who had settled in France. The name Norman means ‘Northman'.

The Western Seas and Ireland

The Vikings began to live in Iceland from about 900. They also spread to Greenland. In addition, they inhabited the Orkney Islands, the Faroe Islands, the Shetland Islands, the Hebrides and the Isle of Man.

Vikings invaded Ireland from 795 onwards. They founded kingdoms in Dublin, Limerick and Waterford. They threatened all of Ireland until 1014, when the Irish beat them in the Battle of Clontarf. Some Vikings continued to dominate parts of Ireland into the 1100s.

Eastern Europe

Some Vikings roamed eastwards. They attacked and looted the coasts of the Baltic Sea. After invading Russia, they moved far inland and mixed with the native people. The name Russia comes from a Viking word. Other Viking warriors served as mercenaries, or soldiers who worked for money, in Constantinople, which is the present-day city of Istanbul in Turkey.

End of the Viking epoch

After the 1000s the Vikings were no longer an independent group of warriors. Some mixed with the peoples of the lands that they conquered. Others settled down in their homelands. The homelands, too, became more stable. Eventually they each became a united, single country rather than collections of warring kingdoms.