In 797AD the Vikings broke the ice with Ireland by attacking the Island of Lambay off of Ireland's Eastern coast. Ireland had great trouble with the Vikings and several areas of land were taken over time. Around 840-841AD some of the Scandinavians (another name for the Vikings, coming from the land they lived in, Scandinavia) arrived under a leader the Irish named Turgeis. They settled, founding the modern day city of Dublin. They controlled the most land of all the Vikings in Ireland, but they would lose this city in 902AD. They regained it by 917AD, only to lose it and the rest of Ireland before a century had passed. In 1002AD an Irishman named Brian Boru defeated the Vikings and became king of Ireland. In 1014AD the final Vikings in Ireland were defeated and driven out at the battle of Clontarf. Brian Boru died in the battle.

In the meantime, England was still under constant threat. This was a different kind of warfare than armies fighting each other. For many years the Vikings would only make one or two raids a year. This meant that odds were that you would be safe in your town or monastery, but it kept England in a dark and scary time, always fearing the barbarians from across the sea. Monasteries became more defensive with walls and plans for defense. In Ireland the monks began to build tall towers called Round Towers. The doors of these towers were built ten feet above the ground with a ladder to get up. This way if raiders were spotted they would put all of the valuables in the tower, grab some food, and hide away. The Viking raids were usually too quick to allow time for a siege and besides, even if there were many of them or they had time, it wasn’t the Vikings' way to attack a strongly defended place, but rather to strike at the weak points, namely the monasteries and small villages.

In 865AD a large army of Danes landed in Northern England. The Danes were from one of the three main Viking homelands: Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. All three of these were (and are) part of Scandinavia. The Danes invaded the North and took much of the land to settle in. They began to move south but were defeated by the English King Alfred, who fought with them from 878AD to 886AD. They were not driven out of England, however, and remained living in the part of the land they were given when they negotiated with Alfred at the end of the war. The Saxons wouldn’t regain all of England until 954AD.

While England and Ireland desperately held off the attacks of the Norsemen (Another name for the Vikings!) the Norsemen kept busy. They began to spread everywhere! If their boats could go there they went. As early as 844AD they arrived in Spain and attacked Seville. They were defeated and the remainder escaped with some of their booty but several more raids reached Spain, each one bigger and bigger. As time went on the Vikings began traveling in bigger groups, no longer a few ships, but now dozens of ships, often bringing over one hundred longships on one raiding expedition.

Paris, France, was attacked four times in fifty years and was sacked three of those four times. The first attack came in 845AD and the last, unsuccessful attack came in 885AD.

A group of Vikings known as the Rus Vikings founded the cities of Novgorod in 862AD and Kiev in 879AD in Russia. These same Vikings attacked the impregnable city of Constantinople in 860AD and again in 941AD. Although they did not take the city it shows how far their reach had become.

Between 859AD and 900AD the Vikings continued to raid along the Mediterranean coast.

In the early 980sAD a Viking leader named Erik the Red discovered Greenland. He began to settle there. Iceland was also a thriving Viking land by now. In 930AD the Vikings had formed a democracy in Thingvellir, Iceland, showing that they were not all brutes as they have appeared in history, but were capable of ruling justly and lived normal lives at home. It is the same with many peoples. Just as the Arabs appeared to be bloodthirsty invaders, conquering everything in sight, and later the Mongols would become the terror out of the East, in reality these people were still people. They still lived life in their homelands, growing food and taking care of the necessary things life required of them. They did not live only to kill.

The Vikings originally were pagans, having many different gods, some of the more widely known ones being Odin, Thor, and Loki. However, by the end of the first millennium Christianity began to impact the Nordic culture. Their peoples, and leaders, began to convert to Christianity.

At the same time that Christianity was beginning to impact the Vikings one of their most famous discoveries took place. A Viking leader named Leif Eriksson, son of Erik the Red, stumbled on a vast land that he called Vinland because of the richness of the land. It is not certain that Leif was the first to discover this land but he has generally become known as the man who brought back the reports, causing further voyages to be made. What Leif had discovered was none other than North America! Leif the Lucky, as he came to be called, returned home with the news. Several voyages were made, but fighting with the natives broke out several times. Within fifteen years, in 1015AD, the Vikings abandoned Vinland and that fertile land sank deep into the realm of history, not to re-emerge for nearly five hundred more years.

Back in England Danish King Svein Forkbeard arrived in England around 1013AD with an army bent on conquest. By 1014AD Forkbeard was king of England. He did not live long, but his son, Canute (Knut), took his position as king in 1016AD. Canute also gained Norway and became king of the empire of England, Denmark, and Norway. He was a greatly loved king, known as Canute the Great. He was a Christian king as well. One of the most famous tales of Canute is told of how he grew weary of his people claiming that he was the greatest king, unbeatable and all-powerful. None could resist him, or argue with his will. “Even the ocean obeys your will!” cried one peasant. The king did not like to be placed so high, so he decided to show how much power he had. His throne was brought down to the seashore and sitting in it he commanded the rising tide, in the name of the king of that land, to halt and not wet the garments or limbs of its king. He continued to command the water and still it continued to rise. Finally, with water about his throne, he jumped up and cried,

“Let all men know henceforth that the power of kings is an empty and foolish thing, and that no one is in very truth worthy to bear this name of King, saving Him only whose bidding the earth and sea and all that is in them is obey and according to everlasting laws.”

It is further said that after this speech Canute the Great never wore his crown again, but placed it on the head of the image of the crucified Christ.

In 1035AD Canute the Great died and Edward the Confessor became king in 1042AD. Edward was a Saxon but was supported by the Danes. He had lived many years in the Viking lands of Normandy, land in northern France that had been given to the Norsemen many years before. Edward the Confessor was followed by Harold Godwinson, a Saxon elected by the people. This election angered William Duke of Normandy, who had hoped to inherit the crown of England. He still claimed the throne. At this time Harold Hardraada (also spelled Hardrada) had become king of Norway, and he desired the crown of England as well. Therefore Harold Hardraada gathered an army and set sail for Northern England. King Harold Godwinson met the Vikings at the battle of Stamford Bridge on September 25th, 1066AD. The Vikings were defeated and their king was slain in the battle. However, King Harold Godwinson’s victory was short lived, for returning to the South he found William of Normandy already on the shores of England. Thus the famous battle of Hastings took place on October 14th, 1066AD, in which King Harold Godwinson lost his life and King William the Conqueror became king of England. This victory largely marks the end of the Viking age. Raiding continued but for the most part the Vikings were out of the spotlight.

During their time the Vikings had impacted places all over the world with their raids and attacks. From Spain to Constantinople and all over the Mediterranean Europe had felt the fear of the Norsemen. Rumor and report stated that the Vikings had been seen as far as Baghdad, Northern Africa and even Northern India. Nothing stopped these people from getting where they set out to go. They discovered America simply because they got in their ships and sailed to Iceland, then pushed on to Greenland and inevitably ended up hitting North America. Their pursuit for riches and plunder was endless. And yet, they were not a purely barbaric people. Their leaders and lifestyle held their tribes and peoples together through great hardship. Christianity took hold and spread through their people. And it is not to be forgotten that ultimately they impacted the world, not the least, through their conquest of England, that country which would now rise to become one of the greatest powers of the world.