The Norse of the Viking Age could read and write and used a non-standardised alphabet, called runor, built upon sound values. While there are few remains of runic writing on paper from the Viking era, thousands of stones with runic inscriptions have been found where Vikings lived. They are usually in memory of the dead, though not necessarily placed at graves. The use of runor survived into the 15th century, used in parallel with the Latin alphabet. But they weren’t all bad, bloodthirsty and violent - they also settled with their families and farmed the landpeacefully for many years. There was no employment, as such, during Viking times. People were mostly farmers, craftsmen, and traders. Women milked cows to make cheese and spun, wove, and sewed clothes. They travelled over the sea in longships, which are long, narrow wooden boats that could be sailed in both deep and shallow water.

Vikings navigated using bearing dials; astronomy; lodestones, sunstones and by releasing captured birds when they thought they were near land. Jomsborg was a semi-legendary Viking stronghold at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea (medieval Wendland, modern Pomerania), that existed between the 960s and 1043. Its inhabitants were known as Jomsvikings. Jomsborg's exact location, or its existence, has not yet been established, though it is often maintained that Jomsborg was somewhere on the islands of the Oder estuary. [119] End of the Viking Age

The last known people to use the Runic alphabet were an isolated group of people known as the Elfdalians, that lived in the locality of Älvdalen in the Swedish province of Dalarna. They spoke the language of Elfdalian, the language unique to Älvdalen. The Elfdalian language differentiates itself from the other Scandinavian languages as it evolved much closer to Old Norse. The people of Älvdalen stopped using runes as late as the 1920s. Usage of runes therefore survived longer in Älvdalen than anywhere else in the world. [154] The last known record of the Elfdalian Runes is from 1929; they are a variant of the Dalecarlian runes, runic inscriptions that were also found in Dalarna. Christianity had taken root in Denmark and Norway with the establishment of dioceses in the 11th century, and the new religion was beginning to organise and assert itself more effectively in Sweden. Foreign churchmen and native elites were energetic in furthering the interests of Christianity, which was now no longer operating only on a missionary footing, and old ideologies and lifestyles were transforming. By 1103, the first archbishopric was founded in Scandinavia, at Lund, Scania, then part of Denmark. The assimilation of the nascent Scandinavian kingdoms into the cultural mainstream of European Christendom altered the aspirations of Scandinavian rulers and of Scandinavians able to travel overseas, and changed their relations with their neighbours.

Great trading settlements included Jorvik; Novgorod and Kiev in modern day Russia; as well as Birka in Sweden; Kaupang in Norway and Hedeby in Germany (then Denmark). Trades routes stretched at least as far as Constantinople (Istanbul – then called Mikkelgard by Vikings) and Jerusalem.Vikings made soap from Conkers and if you book a Viking Visit, the children will have the opportunity to handle some! Nintendo trademarked the phrase “It’s on like Donkey Kong” in 2010. Daniel Radcliffe was allergic to his Harry Potter glasses.

The Old Norse feminine víking (as in the phrase fara í víking) may originally have been a long-distance sea journey characterised by the shifting of rowers, and a víkingr (masculine gender) would originally have been a participant on such a sea journey. In that case, the idea behind it seems to be that the tired rower moves aside on the thwart when he is relieved by the rested rower. This implies that the word Viking was not originally connected to Scandinavian seafarers, but assumed this meaning when the Scandinavians began to dominate the seas. [26] Even the word vikingr did not necessarily possess negative overtones, nor was it always associated with violence, and only in the post-Viking age would negative overtones be attached to the word. [30] Medieval usage It has been suggested that the word viking may be derived from the name of the historical Norwegian district of Víkin, meaning "a person from Víkin", but people from the Viken area were called víkverir, ('Vík dwellers'), not "Viking", in Old Norse manuscripts. The explanation could explain only the masculine grammatical gender ( víkingr) and not the feminine ( víking); the masculine is more easily derived from the feminine than the other way around. [23] [24] [25] Christopher Columbus is usually credited as being the European who discovered the 'New World', however, it was a Viking explorer (called Leif Erikson) who beat him to it by 500 years! After Knut’s death, his two sons succeeded him, but both were dead by 1042 and Edward the Confessor, son of the previous (non-Danish) king, returned from exile and regained the English throne from the Danes. Upon his death (without heirs) in 1066, Harold Godwinesson, the son of Edward’s most powerful noble, laid claim to the throne. Harold’s army was able to defeat an invasion led by the last great Viking king–Harald Hardrada of Norway–at Stamford Bridge, near York, but fell to the forces of William, Duke of Normandy (himself a descendant of Scandinavian settlers in northern France) just weeks later. Crowned king of England on Christmas Day in 1066, William managed to retain the crown against further Danish challenges. End of the Viking Age

We are still discovering hoards of coins today, believed to have been buried in panic after the Great Viking Army invaded in 865 AD. The word Viking means ‘a pirate raid’, which is a fitting name as they were fearsome warriors and oftenraided monasteries for treasure.