Brutal Facts About Vikings, The Scourge Of The North
The Vikings were raiders from Scandinavia who, during the period now called the Viking Age, terrorized coastal Europe for hundreds of years. Thanks in part to some fanciful representations, Vikings have a very specific image today—one that is sometimes accurate, and sometimes way off. Many stories of Viking brutality are disturbingly true, but their culture was far more nuanced than many people would assume.
Were they dirty or well kept? Did they actually wear those crazy horned helmets?
So much of what we know about their culture was either written by the people they were conquering, or simply fabricated by people hundreds of years after the Viking Age had ended, so it can be hard to separate fact from fiction.
But, underneath all the misconceptions, the Vikings were nonetheless an extremely fascinating people—and yes, they were still some of the most fearsome warriors in Europe's history.
Read on to learn to discover 42 brutal facts about the Vikings, the Scourge of the North.
Vikings Facts
1. That's No Merchant
The first recorded Viking raid on England was written about in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In 789 AD, a group of Norsemen landed on the Isle of Portland in Dorset. A royal official situated there mistook them for merchants, and he asked them to pay taxes on their goods. Instead, the Vikings murdered the man. This was before the English knew what to expect from the Vikings, but they'd soon learn that all too well.
2. The Law of the Danes
Danelaw refers to the regions of England that were forced to follow the laws that the Vikings implemented after their invasion. Originally, the term referred only to Viking law itself, but eventually "the Danelaw"
became a geographic term that referred to those parts of England that the Vikings controlled, specifically much of central England and the eastern coast, including modern-day Leicester, York, Cambridge, and Buckingham.
3. Treasure Hunters
One side effect of the Viking Age was that various treasure hoards were buried in England during the time period.
Some of these hoards were hidden by the English in an attempt to hide their riches from the invaders, while others were created by the Vikings themselves to protect the treasure that they looted from the country.
One of these hoards was discovered in 1862, and it contained a vast store of silver in the form of coins, ingots, and hacksilver.
