Vikings

Lindisfarne

The raid of 8 June 793 is regarded as the start of the Viking Age. The monastery stood on a tidal island off the coast.

💡 Did you know? Lindisfarne gave its name to one of the most splendid illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Longship

With its shallow draught it could sail the open sea, travel up rivers and land straight on a beach.

💡 Did you know? Because some longships carried a dragon’s head on the prow, they are often called dragon ships today.

Berserker

The sagas describe them howling, biting their shields and seeming to feel no pain.

💡 Did you know? The name is usually explained as “bear shirt”, a warrior clad in bearskin.

Runes

In the Viking Age the Younger Futhark with only 16 characters was used. Sweden alone has thousands of runestones.

💡 Did you know? The alphabet is named after its first six characters: f, u, th, a, r, k.

Althing

The free men met every summer at Þingvellir to settle disputes and pass laws.

💡 Did you know? Around the year 1000 the Althing decided that Iceland would become Christian.

Valhalla

In Odin’s hall the fallen were to fight every day and feast every evening, until the final battle.

💡 Did you know? A ship burial with weapons was meant to ease the dead person’s journey to the other world.

Thor

The thunder god protected people and gods from the giants. His hammer became a sign of good luck.

💡 Did you know? A casting mould from Denmark shows that one smith made crosses and Thor’s hammers side by side.

Hedeby

Near Schleswig, it lay conveniently between the North Sea and the Baltic. Goods from all over Europe changed hands here.

💡 Did you know? Hedeby was destroyed by Slavs around 1066; its remains are now a World Heritage Site.

Normandy

Charles the Simple gave him the area around Rouen so that he would defend it against other Vikings.

💡 Did you know? Rollo’s descendant William the Conqueror conquered England in 1066.

L’Anse aux Meadows

Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad discovered the remains of the houses in 1960. It is the only confirmed Viking site in America.

💡 Did you know? Tree rings in the worked wood show that trees were felled there in the year 1021.

Ragnar Lodbrok

Whether he really existed is unclear. The sagas have him die in a snake pit of the king of Northumbria.

💡 Did you know? His nickname means “hairy breeches”: he is said to have worn them against a dragon’s bite.

Harald Bluetooth

In the 10th century the king united Denmark and was baptised, as the great runestone at Jelling records.

💡 Did you know? The Bluetooth logo combines his initials H and B in runes.

1066

His defeat by the English king Harold Godwinson is seen as the end of the Viking Age.

💡 Did you know? Only a few weeks later the victor lost his crown and his life at Hastings.

Varangians

The Norsemen reached the Black Sea by way of the Russian rivers. In Constantinople they were considered especially loyal.

💡 Did you know? In the Hagia Sophia a Viking named Halfdan scratched his name in runes into a balustrade.

York

A Danish army captured the city in 866. It became the capital of a Viking kingdom in the north of England.

💡 Did you know? Many place names ending in “-by” in northern England, such as Whitby or Grimsby, recall Danish settlers.

Dublin

The Vikings beached their ships at the mouth of the Liffey. The place became one of Europe’s largest slave markets.

💡 Did you know? The name goes back to the Irish “Dubh Linn”, the “black pool”.