The Vikings were people from the lands we call Scandinavia – Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Viking means ‘pirate raid’ and ‘vikingr’ was used to describe a seaman or warrior who went on an expedition overseas. Some Vikings left their homelands and travelled to other countries to fight and steal treasure. Others settled in the new lands as farmers, craftsmen or traders. To begin with, the Vikings were pagans and worshipped many gods but eventually adopted Christianity.

In AD 787, the Vikings first raided southern England. The English called the invaders Danes or ‘Northmen’. More raids took place in the 8th century, when the Vikings attacked Scotland and other parts of Britain. In 793, Vikings attacked the Christian monastery at Lindisfarne, in Northumbria. They burnt churches and killed the priests, looting the gold and silver. By AD 874, the Vikings had conquered most English kingdoms.

The Vikings worshipped many Gods and Goddesses. The stories they told about gods, giants and monsters are known as ‘ Norse Myths’. They believed that the spirits of warriors who died would go to live in ‘Valhalla’, the Underworld, with Odin, the ruler of the gods. Warriors were cremated or buried in a ship along with their belongings. Ordinary people went to an underworld called ‘Hel’.

From about AD 700, the Vikings raided, traded with and explored Britain, Ireland, Spain and France. Some even went as far as Iceland and Greenland. Leif Erikson is thought to have landed in North America 500 years before Christopher Columbus. Danish Vikings went to France and founded ‘Normandy’. Viking traders were found as far east as Turkey.

The most famous of all Anglo-Saxon kings is Alfred the Great. Born in AD 849 and son to the King of Wessex, he became King of all England. Alfred is best known for fighting the Vikings. He built forts and walled towns, as well as setting up a part-time army ready to fight the Viking raiders. Later, he negotiated a peace with the Vikings and set up the Danelaw. Alfred was known as a just and fair ruler and is the only English King to have earned the title ‘Great’.

Alfred the Great stopped the Vikings taking over the whole of England and gave the Vikings the eastern side of Britain, which was called the ‘Danelaw’. In the 10th century, the English re-conquered much of the land held by the Vikings but in the early AD 1000s, England’s weak king, Ethelred gave the Vikings gold to stop their attacks on England. This money was called ‘Danegeld’.

During the Iron Age, the ‘Picti’, meaning ‘painted ones’ in Latin, made up the largest kingdom in Scotland. This ferocious tribe repelled the Roman conquest and stayed north of Hadrian’s Wall. Later, another tribe, the ‘Gaels’ invaded Scotland from Ireland and the two tribes combined. Scotland’s name came from ‘Scoti’, a term used by the Romans to describe the Gael pirates who raided Britannia in the 4th century.

The names of many places in Britain come from Saxon times. • Bury –‘fortified place’ • Ford –‘shallow river crossing’ • Ham –‘village’ • Hurst – ‘wooded hill’ • Mer – ‘lake’ • Ney - ‘island’ • Stead – ‘place’ • Stow – ‘meeting place’ • Ton – ‘farmstead’ • Wick – ‘farm’ • Worth – ‘enclosure’

Anglo-Saxon society was divided into 3 classes: the ‘Thanes’, who were the upper class; the ‘Churls’ the middle class and the slaves, called ‘Thralls’. In early Anglo-Saxon times, there were only about 1 million people in England and most of them lived in tiny villages. Some Saxons built wooden houses inside the walls of old Roman towns. Others cleared spaces in the forest to make room for fields and villages. They became simple farmers. The main worry was keeping a look-out for wolves, which lived in Britain at this time.

The Anglo-Saxons were highly skilled craft workers who produced beautiful jewellery made from different precious metals and stones. The jewellery was engraved with bird and animal shapes. Monks wrote manuscripts made of parchment and decorated the pages with beautiful designs and paintings. Early Anglo-Saxons wrote with letters called ‘runes’. They believed runes had magical powers. The Anglo-Saxons liked to play with words and wrote riddles.

Jarls were chieftains and aristocrats. The karls or freemen were the largest group of men and worked as farmers, fishermen and craftsmen. Freemen met at ‘The Thing’, which was an open-air Viking assembly where people settled problems. Only men could vote at ‘The Thing' but they often took their families with them. Women ran the Viking homestead and kept the keys to the chest holding the family valuables but also fought in battle.

In AD 597, king Athelbert of Kent was converted to Christianity by Augustine. Augustine founded a monastery at Canterbury. Christianity then gradually spread across England. In AD 793, ‘Northmen’ (Vikings) attacked the Christian monastery at Lindisfarne in Northumbria. There, they burned buildings, stole treasures, murdered monks and terrified everyone. Over time, the Vikings too, became Christians, but some Vikings continued to follow their old religion at the same time.

The Romans left Britain in AD 410 and then new invaders and settlers came in ships across the North Sea. They were called the Anglo Saxons and were a mixture of people from north Germany, Denmark and Holland. Some were invited by the British leaders to fight for them; others wanted their own new land to farm. Anglo-Saxons language, mixed with Latin is the source of modern English.

After Alfred the Great, English kings recaptured much of their land from the Vikings. Alfred’s grandson, Athelstan, regained the north, as far as Scotland. After AD 975, a weak king, Ethelred the Unready, lost England to Cnut, a Dane, who became king of England in 1016. But by 1042, the Anglo-Saxons were kings of England again and Edward the Confessor, Ethelred’s son, came to the throne.