Mr. Write's Page

A few years ago, I got serious about researching the Smith family tree, and I did much better than I expected. I was able to trace us back to a Danish Viking king born circa 760 AD. I stopped tracing there, but may continue at some point.

A Danish Viking 1,200 years ago. Awesome.

The truth is, I knew very little about the Vikings, beyond the fact that they were Scandinavian pirates who terrorized Europe for a time. So, like any red-blooded American, I did my research on the internet and learned some interesting stuff. Which, with luck, is accurate.

Historians mark the Viking Age as from about 790 AD to 1066 AD. Those were the Dark Ages in Europe, and most people lived in small groups — clans and fiefdoms that were subservient to, and more or less under the protection of, local strongmen.

Early on, many of the Norse clans became skilled sailors who ventured out in specialized longships. These highly-maneuverable vessels were equally at home on the open sea and in rivers and bays.

The Norsemen were aggressive and badass by nature, and they soon discovered that the coasts of Europe were dotted with cities and towns that were poorly defended and easy marks for plunder and piracy.

The word “vikingar,” by the way, means “pirates” in the early Scandinavian languages.

Numerous Viking raiding parties took to the sea, led by members of the strongman class. The longship crews primarily were farmers and other ordinary dudes attracted to the pirate life for the adventure and the booty.

History mentions other motivations, such as overpopulation and competition for farmland, but it makes sense that the primary cause was the presence of helpless victims, ripe for plundering.

Further, the Vikings probably made exploratory voyages to size things up before the major raiding began. But the first two known Viking raids of Britain were memorable.

In 789 AD, a group of Danish Vikings landed on the Isle of Portland, off the southern coast of England. They were met by a local official who assumed they were traders and told them they owed a business tax. The Vikings promptly killed him, plundered the island villages, and returned home with their spoils.

In 793 AD, Vikings from Norway raided an abbey on the island of Lindisfarne off the northeast coast of England. They carried away the church treasures, took some of the monks as slaves, and killed the rest.

Reportedly, the raid on the abbey gave rise to an Anglo-Saxon prayer: Free us from the fury of the Northmen, Lord.

Over the next couple of centuries, what began as hit-and-run raids evolved into conquests and colonization. Norsemen spread across Britain, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Normandy, Iceland, Greenland, and along the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.

Briefly, Vikings settled in Newfoundland and thus were the first Europeans to reach North America.

Not all of their intended victims were helpless. At various times, the Franks on the mainland, the Frisians on the North Sea, and some Anglo-Saxon tribes in the British Isles were able to repel the Viking raiders. In such cases, the Vikings simply raided elsewhere.

But the world was changing. Most of Scandinavia converted to Christianity, and clans across Europe were merging and evolving into nations. With fewer helpless victims around, the Viking threat subsided.

In effect, the Viking Age slowly sputtered out over several centuries. But many experts define its end as the historic year of 1066 AD.

In early 1066, the Anglo-Saxon King Harold repelled an invasion of England by a Viking force from Norway.

But Harold had little time to celebrate. Within months, the forces of the Duke of Normandy, AKA William the Conqueror, defeated Harold’s army at the Battle of Hastings, ushering in the Norman conquest of England.

Ironically, William the Conqueror was of Viking descent.