The Cyber-Encyclopedia

Viking

A Viking is one of the Norse (Scandinavian) explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century. These Norsemen used their famed longships to travel as far east as Constantinople and the Volga River in Russia, and as far west as Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. This period of Viking expansion is known as the Viking Age, and forms a major part of the medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles and Europe in general. A romanticized picture of Vikings as Germanic nobl savages emerged in the 17th century, and especially during the Victorian era Viking revival, in Britain taking the form of Septentrionalism, in Germany that of "Wagnerian" pathos or even Germanic mysticism, and in the Scandinavian countries that of Romantic nationalism or Scandinavism. These cliché depictions in contemporary popular culture are often ironised to the effect of presenting Vikings as cartoonish characters.

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