Vikings

thumb| Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe. thumb|right| thumb|right| ~ thumb|right| ~ Quotes In this year [793] dire portents appeared over Northumbria and sorely frightened the people. They consisted of immense whirlwinds and flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine immediately followed those signs, and a little after that in the same year, on 8 June, the ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God's church on Lindisfarne, with plunder and slaughter. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Revised Translation, eds. Dorothy Whitelock and David C. Douglas and Susie I. Tucker (1961), p. 36 Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,Whose red-haired offspring ev’rywhere remains. Daniel Defoe, The True-born Englishman (1701) With Hengist, Saxons, Danes with Sueno came,In search of plunder, not in search of fame. Daniel Defoe, The True-born Englishman (1701) Lie still! Thy mother-land herself  Would know thee not again: no more  The Raven from the northern shoreHails the bold crew to push for pelf,  Though fire and blood and slaughter’d kings  ’Neath the black terror of his wings. Francis Turner Palgrave, "A Danish Barrow (On the East Devon Coast)", st. 3, in A Lyme Garland (1874) Thorkill and Thorston from Jutland cameTo torture us Saxons with sword and flame. George Walter Thornbury, "A Dorsetshire Legend", st. 1, in Historical & Legendary Ballads & Songs (1876) Bring me my armour, Sigurd,  I'll die as my fathers died,Not like a wolf in a shepherd's trap,  But in all a warrior's pride.Strike on the brazen targets,  And let our clarions ring;I'll meet this Death they talk of,  As a King should meet a King. George Walter Thornbury, "The Dying Viking" st. 1, in Historical & Legendary Ballads & Songs (1876) The Northmen are often said to have burst out of their coastal settlements in what is now Sweden, Norway, and Denmark at the end of the eighth century. The most famous account of their arrival into the Christian realms of the west comes from Britain. In 793 warriors appeared off the coast of Northumbria, leaped from their ships, and robbed the island of Lindisfarne, desecrating the monastery and murdering its brothers. This ferocious raid sent shock waves rippling out from Britain. When the news reached Charlemagne’s court in Aachen, Alcuin of York wrote to the king of Northumbria, deploring the fact that “the church of St Cuthbert is spattered with the blood of the priests of God, stripped of all its furnishing, exposed to the plundering of pagans.” He suggested to the king that he and his noblemen might mend their ways, starting by adopting more Christian haircuts and clothing styles. But it was too late for any of that. The Northmen had announced themselves as a major power in the western world. The next year, 794, raiders appeared on the other side of the British Isles, in the Hebrides. In 799 Vikings raided the monastery of Saint-Philibert at Noirmoutier, just to the south of the river Loire. Dan Jones, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages (2021) External links Category:History of Europe