Word Finder - viking

definition

One of the Scandinavian or other Northern European seafaring warriors that raided (and then settled) the British Isles and other parts of Europe in the 8th to the 11th centuries and, according to many historians, were the first Europeans to reach North America.

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(by extension) A stock character common in the fantasy genre, namely a barbarian, generally equipped with an axe or sword and a helmet adorned with horns.

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A Norseman (mediaeval Scandinavian).

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(mildly) An ethnic Swede, Norwegian, Dane, Icelander or Faroe Islander.

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A player on the Minnesota Vikings NFL team.

The viking ship had but one large and heavy square sail.

At the same time, the significance which the word " viking " has had in our language is due in part to a false etymology, connecting the word with " king "; the effect of which still remains in the customary pronunciation vi-king instead of vik-ing, now so much embedded in the language that it is a pedantry to try and change it.

But in every country alike the wave of viking conquest now begins to recede.

The viking ventured upon unknown waters in ships very ill-fitted for their work.

The next kings mentioned are Sigaf rid and Halfdane, who were sons of the great Viking leader Ragnarr Loobrok.

For the viking attacks in the 5th (or 6th) territory, our own country, the course of events is much clearer.

I also went on board a Viking ship which lay a short distance from the little craft.

The highlander and viking, products of the valleys raised high amid the mountains or half-drowned in the sea, are everywhere of kindred spirit.

The Viking raids were one of the determining causes of the establishment of the feudal monarchies of western Europe, but the untameable freebooters were themselves finally subdued by the Church.

The viking ships had a character apart.

In the end of the 9th century Iceland was colonized from Norway; and about 985 the intrepid viking, Eric the Red, discovered Greenland, and induced some of his Icelandic countrymen to settle on its inhospitable shores.

Professor Zimmer, in his examination of the story, sees reason to believe that the main incidents may repose on a genuine historic tradition, dating back to the 9th or 10th century, the period of Viking rule in Ireland.

The settlement of Normandy was the only permanent outcome of the Viking Age in France.

Ansgar preached in Denmark from 826 to 861, but it was not till after the subsidence of the Viking raids that Adaldag, archbishop of Hamburg, could open a new and successful mission, which resulted in the erection of the bishoprics of Schleswig, Ribe and Aarhus (c. 948), though the real conversion of Denmark must be dated from the baptism of King Harold Bluetooth (960).

For all record which we have, the Viking Age was inaugurated in A.D.

This course is followed in the history of the viking attacks on Ireland, the earliest of their continuous series of attacks.

The Danish attacks were repeated in 997, 99 8, 999 and in 1000 !Ethelred availed himself of the temporary absence of the Danes in Normandy to invade Cumberland, at that time a Viking stronghold.

The island takes its name from Hjalpand, a Norse viking.

The discovery of new lands in the West by the Norsemen came in the course of the great Scandinavian exodus of the 9th, 10th and firth centuries - the Viking Age - when Norsemen, Swedes and Danes swarmed over all Europe, conquering kingdoms and founding colonies.

These three salient facts are practically the sum of our knowledge of early Danish history previous to the Viking period.

But we must bear in mind that one very important consequence of the Viking raids was to annihilate the geographical remoteness which had hitherto separated Denmark from the Christian world.

We read of such a one that he went "a-viking" (fara i viking, ver y i viking, or very often fara, &c., vestan i viking).

Historians of the north have distinguished as the " Viking Age " (Vikingertiden) the time when the Scandinavian folk first by their widespread piracies brought themselves forcibly into the notice of all the Christian peoples of western Europe.

It is not probable that the largest viking ships had more than ro oars a side.

Keary, The Vikings in Western Europe (1891) is a history of the viking raids on all the western lands, but ends A.D.

Hence the connexion between Celt and Teuton as regards writing must go back to a period preceding the Viking inroads of the 8th century.

Though the independent occupation of the Danelagh by Viking invaders did not last for more than fifty years at the outside, the Danes left lasting marks of their presence in these territories.

On the continentthe main effect of the viking invasions was to dash the empire of Charles the Great into fragments, and to aid in producing the numberless petty states of feudal Europe.

In the years 892896 Alfred was assailed from many sides at once by viking fleets, of which the most important was that led by the great freebooter Hasting.

It might have been thought likely that the son of the pagan Sweyn would have turned out a mere hard-fighting viking.

He had persuaded Harold Hardrada, king of Norway, almost the last of the great viking adventurers, to take him as guide for a raid on England.

He held his own, despite the assaults of 1 great army gathered by Roderic the High King, and of a viking Fleet which came to help the conquered jarls of \Vaterford and Dublin.

His first military expedition, in alliance with the celebrated Jomsborg Viking, Palnatoke, was against his own father, who perished during the struggle (c. 986).

They had colonized the west in the viking times; they had " fought at Hafursfirth," helping their stay-at-home kinsmen against the centralization of the great head-king, who, when he had crushed opposition in Norway, followed up his victory by compelling them to flee or bow to his rule.

The stories of the Fomorians were doubtless suggested in part by the Viking invasions, but the origin of the Partholan legend has not been discovered.

These defects of the Irish military system were abundantly shown throughout the Viking period and also in Anglo-Norman times.

Turgeis apparently united the Viking forces, as he is styled the first king of the Norsemen in Ireland.

The king of Dublin exercised overlordship over the other Viking communities in the island, and thus became the most dangerous opponent of the ardri, with whom he was constantly at variance.

The king of Dublin was certainly the most commanding figure in Ireland in his day, and during his lifetime the Viking power was greatly extended.

About the year 920 a Viking named Tomrair, son of Elgi, had seized the lower Shannon and established himself in Limerick, from which point constant incursions were made into all parts of Munster.

Whatever co-ordination may have existed in the church of the 8th century was doubtless destroyed during the troubled period of the Viking invasions.

Probably after the viking days came in the conceptions of the last war of gods, and the end of all, and the theory of Odin All-Father as a kind of emperor in the heavenly world.

The extent and permanence of the Danish influence in Lincolnshire is still observable in the names of its towns and villages and in the local dialect, and, though about 918 the confederate boroughs were recaptured by Edward the Elder, in 993 a Viking fleet again entered the Humber and ravaged Lindsey, and in 1013 the district of the five boroughs acknowledged the supremacy of Sweyn.

The Normans were descendants from pagan viking adventurers who had settled in the Seine Valley in 911.

Just above the lock is the boatyard of J D Boat Services which is also a viking afloat hire base.

Give yourself a Viking name, learn the runic alphabet and get a certificate signed by Chief God, Odin.

As a gift King Canute returned some of the land that had been taken from the Bishops of Durham by his viking ancestors.

He learns that his family have a dark viking ancestry.

Keyword searches for words or simple phrases that describe your interest, for example, canals or viking burial.

Based on the remains of a huge house thought to be the seat of a viking chieftain.