Viking Lore

Here's some facts about the Vikings to get you started.  We'll expand this page as our game comes along and we get more interesting tidbits to share with you about the fascinating Viking people.

Have a Viking tidbit that you want to share?  Send your fact or bit of Viking legend off to [email protected]

The Viking Era

The Viking Era is generally considered to have begun late in the 8th century A.D. and continued until the defeat of the last great Viking king in 1066 in the North of England (though that same year England was conquered by a direct descendent of the Vikings).  This proud and adventurous people ranged as far East as Russia, having settled large parts of that vast territory, as far West as North America, establishing a short-lived colony in Newfoundland, and as far South as Arabia and North Africa.  

The Viking culture was a strong one that lives on into today.  The Vikings colonized the modern countries of Iceland and Greenland, where their culture still flourishes, and held settlements in Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Russia, Germany and North America.  They had their own artistic style, their own legal system, and a tradition of fine wood craftsmanship and ship building that influenced Europe for centuries to come.  

Who Were the Vikings?

The Vikings were a wide ranging people who made up a large part of what we now call Scandinavia.  Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland all were home to the first Vikings.  The Vikings, for reasons not fully understood, embarked on a series of far-reaching raids across several continents.  They eventually decided to create permanent settlements, and were absorbed into the local cultures of the peoples they once raided.  Eventually, the Vikings grew tired of their thirst for expansion and conquest and the Viking period came to an end, though their influence on history did not.  The French king, at the height of the Viking period, granted the Vikings a large parcel of land along the Northern French coast if they would just stop raiding his country.  The Vikings agreed, and the locals began to call them Normans, and the land became known as Normandy.  In 1066, William the Conqueror, arguably the last of the Viking raiders, conquered England only a few short weeks after the last true Viking King failed to do so.  The defending Saxon armies, exhausted by a second large-scale invasion, were unable to stop the Normans, who claimed the throne of England for William.  In 1944, the combined allied forces invaded the European mainland at the place which bears the name of the original Vikings who settled there so long ago- Normandy.

Viking Facts-

No, Vikings did not wear horned helmets.  

That is a myth that has managed to survive into the modern day....Which begs the question, if Vikings didn't wear horns on their helmets, why does the image of a horned helmet immediately conjure up visions of Viking warriors?  (And why does Ragnar, the hero of Rune wear a horned helmet?)  Well, we have Loki, the Viking god of mischief to blame for that.  You'll just have to play our game to see how Loki mucked things up so that today we all think of horns when we think of Vikings...

Most Vikings were in fact...farmers.

The average Viking, so often thought of as a huge brutish warrior with a great war axe in one hand and a wooden shield in the other was, in fact, typically a farmer or fisherman.  They worked hard to eek out a living in the harsh climes of Scandinavia, and only participated in raids, at least during the early Viking era, during part of the year.  When the Viking left his family, his wife and children were left behind to tend the fields and nets.  As raiding began to garner more riches for the individual Viking, more and more of these farmers and fishermen participated in the raids.  When settlements were founded, married warriors began sending for their families, while single warriors often took a local bride and started anew.  Since they were raised with the skills of farming and fishing, these fierce warriors were able to quickly adapt to a new life tending the fields or fishing new coasts after the conquest was over.

Look for more Viking facts as we expand this page!

Send mail to [email protected] with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright � 2000 Human Head Studios, Incorporated.
Last modified: 03/20/00