VikingsVikings

My research

• The origins of the Vikings• Clothes• Long boats• Vikings settlements • Battle of clontarf

The origins

• The term Viking (from Old Norse víkingr) is customarily used to refer to the Norse (Scandinavian) explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century

Clothes

• Like most people in Europe at the time, the Vikings used wool more than anything else for making clothes. The Vikings brought sheep with them to the islands they settled in the North Atlantic for wool and meat. "The Faeroe Islands" even means "the Sheep islands". Clothes were spun and woven by the women. They also dyed the cloth with mineral and vegetable dyes of red, green, brown, yellow or blue.

• Linen was also used for clothes. Even today you can find Viking Age place names in Scandinavia like

Long boats

• Longships were naval vessels made and used by the Vikings from Scandinavia and Iceland for trade, commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age. The longship’s design evolved over many years, beginning in the Stone Age with the invention of the umiak and continuing up to the 9th century with the Nydam and Kvalsund ships. The longship appeared in its complete form between the 9th and 13th centuries. The character and appearance of these ships have been reflected in Scandinavian boat-building traditions until today. The average speed of Viking ships varied from ship to ship but lay in the range of 5–10 knots and the maximal speed of a longship under favorable conditions was around 15 knots

Vikings settlements

• Centuries before Christopher Columbus left Spain and discovered America, Viking raiders and Norse traders were already sailing across the cold and dangerous Atlantic. They settled in Iceland and Greenland and also a legendary place called Vinland. Icelandic sagas told of this rich land discovered and settled by Leif Eirikson. But nothing tangible was ever found proving that Vikings had landed on the shores of North America long before Columbus. Not until 1961, when dedicated Norwegian explorer and writer, Helge Ingstad,discovered the site of an ancient Viking colony at a solitary, wind-swept location in Newfoundland called L’Anse aux Meadows.

Battle of clontarf

•              As the dreaded Viking longboats cut sleekly toward the shore dimly outlined in the evening dusk, the lights of the Irish army’s distant campfires could be seen a mile or so inland.  The ruse had worked for Brodir of Man.  The Vikings had fooled Irish High King Brian Boru into thinking they had deserted their allies at the fortress of Dublin.

•                    In reality, the Vikings had simply sailed out of sight, to return in the darkness in hopes of catching the Irish unprepared for the enemy’s reappearance the next morning.  The Vikings also knew that the pious Brian would be loath to do battle on such a holy day as April 23, 1014, Good Friday.

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