The Viking Culture

People have a lot of misconceptions about Vikings like, they wore helmets with horns on them, and that they were always barbarians. These statements are not true. They actually were very clean people at home. Some were farmers, raiders, metalworkers or jewelers.

The name Viking originally comes from the Old Norse words meaning, “seamen”, and “expeditions”. These words describe the Vikings exactly. There were two kinds of boats that they used. Both of them were used for two different reasons. The first boat is called longships. That boat is actually the same design on both sides, which is an advantage so if you need to turn around there wouldn’t be a problem. This type of boat can be propelled by oars or by wind. Since the boat was so expertly designed in a way, they could travel fine in shallow waters. It was designed as a warship but was not actually used in wars. They simply transported the troops where they need to go. They were called dragon ships by their enemies because of the dragon shapes carved on both of their prows. The other boat that they used was called knarrs which were merchant ships. The way that they were designed was not like the longships. This ship was used to transport goods like crops and livestock. This was primarily designed to be propelled by wind but also can have rowers navigating it.

Even though the Vikings did not use their ships in war they did fight on land. They had a very chaotic unorganized fashion. The weapons that they used in battle were mostly swords, spears, and battle axes. They did enjoy fighting.

The Vikings did invent their own alphabet. They mostly used a type of stone to write on, that stone is called runestone.  The main things that were written on the stone were the purpose of the stone, who had erected it, and the relation of the raiser and the deceased. Now if the stone was not used upon someone who died then that last point would not be used.

The Vikings were originally pagans. They worshipped certain pantheon gods and goddesses. Now the gods that they worshipped does have a big impact on our modern day culture. The names of the gods that they worshipped were named Odin, Thor, and Freya. It seems like these names would not have a big impact in our world today but they really do. From these names came Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

So as you can see Vikings were not always barbarians but they also had good communities that were based on an agricultural civilization. They did like fighting and all but they did not act that way all the time. They actually expanded in many parts of the world during the Viking Age.