Vikings

The **Vikings** were Scandinavian people from Northern Europe who were known as great seamen and warriors. The Scandinavian countries include Norway, Sweden and Denmark. From the 8th to the 11th centuries, they travelled to Europe in their longships. They attacked and later settled in what are now Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
## Background 
The people of the far north, later called Vikings, were first noticed by the Romans around the year 100 BC, when the Cimbri and the Teutons moved into southern Gaul. Why the Vikings began raiding is not clear. A popular theory is that the population had grown so much that there was not enough food to feed everyone. The earliest raiders did not seem to want to move out of Scandinavia. They turned to looting and returning home. The raids were possible because the Vikings were master boat builders. They made flat-bottomed boats ideal for journeys up rivers. Many monasteries were on the rivers and were raided.   Raiding was easy and became more and more popular among the Vikings. The later Viking raids in the late 10th century and the early 11th century were led by kings.  The Vikings who settled in Kyiv formed the first Russian state, Kievan Rus'.

## Exploration 
The Vikings travelled through Russia, the Mediterranean Sea, Southern Europe, northern Africa and southwestern Asia. Some Vikings sailed across the Atlantic Ocean via Iceland and Greenland and may have explored places in North America. The ruins of a Viking settlement have been found at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada.

Archaeologists used radiocarbon dating to find out how old the settlement was. Their tests gave them a range of dates from about AD 700 to 1000.

## Language 
Some English words and many place names come from the North Germanic languages such as Norse. For example, the words *skirt* and *shirt* came from the word *skyrta*, meaning a tunic. As English changed, the semantics altered to give the separate words 'skirt' and 'shirt' we know today. *Skin* came from the Norse word *skinn*, which meant to strip the meat off something. Some placenames in the areas that the Vikings conquered are still used. For example, places in Yorkshire end with *thwaite*, which means "clearing"; with *dale*, which means "valley"; and *thorpe*, which means "new village", such as Scunthorpe.

## Religion 
The Anglo-Saxons called the Vikings pagans for worshipping many gods. Viking gods belonged to two groups of gods in Norse mythology: the Aesir and the Vanir. 

The pagan Vikings were exposed to Christianity from the beginning of the Viking Age. They were surrounded by Christian countries. Early Christian missionaries were either enslaved or put to death. The Vikings came into contact with Christianity when they raided other areas around them. Many Vikings used the Thors hammer as their religious symbol. When Vikings settled in Christian areas, they converted to Christianity. There are still headstones in England with both a cross and a hammer. Perhaps, they thought that it was better to please both gods. Scandinavia, their homeland, was slower to change to the Christian religion. By the mid-11th century, most of Norway and Denmark had converted. Sweden was converted by the mid-12th century.

## Related pages 
* Viking Age
* Kievan Rus'
* Varangians

## Notes 
## References
## Other websites 
* BBC: History of Vikings
* Borg Viking museum, Norway 
* The Viking Network
* Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah, by James E. Montgomery, with full translation of Ibn Fadlan