Viking legacy of 8th century: Mighty seafarers who raided and traded across North Europe

With more and more Viking treasures and ships being unearthed, here’s all you need to know about these mighty seafarers.

1 The Vikings were Norse seafarers, who, during the late eighth to late 11th centuries, raided and traded from their Northern European homelands across wide areas of Europe, and explored westwards to Iceland, and Greenland.

2. The name ‘Viking’ means ‘a pirate raid’.


3. Vikings sailed the seas trading goods to buy silver, silks and spices to bring back to their homes.

4. The first Viking raid recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was around 787AD. It was the start of a fierce struggle between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings.

5. The Vikings were expert boat builders and sailors. Keels — central spines along boats’ bottoms — made their 16 to 37 metre ‘longboats’ easy to steer, and because these were designed to float high in the water, landing on beaches was easy.

6. Today, signs of the Viking legacy can be found mostly in the Scandinavian origins of some vocabulary and placenames in the areas in which they settled, including northern England, Scotland and Russia. In Iceland, the Vikings left an extensive body of literature, the Icelandic sagas, in which they celebrated the greatest victories of their glorious past.