Vikings! The word conjures up images of wild, barbaric, sea faring men, intent on setting their mark on their less warlike neighbours with fire and sword. From the land of ice and giants, they swept across Europe like a forest fire pillaging and destroying all in their path.
             These pages are about the Vikings, those famous Scandinavian plunderers and.....
             The Viking homelands consisted of the three present-day Scandinavian kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, together with part of Finland.
             Welcome adventurers, in this phase of your journey you will learn of Viking heritage and language you may have heard before but did not really know what was meant, by these strange words and sayings.
             What Europeans considered a "New World" was in fact home to Native people for over 15,000 years before the first Europeans landed on the eastern shores of North America. Around AD 1000, the medieval Norse (Vikings) established the first European settlement, on the northern coast of Newfoundland, but they only stayed for a brief period.
             Winters are long and can be extremely cold in Scandinavia, particularly in Norway and Sweden. Snow and ice lasts for months. The Vikings lived spread out in tiny villages and the houses were built in shelter along the coastal fjords. Soil and fishing were often good at such sites, and the harbours secured.
             The pagan Scandinavians acknowledged a pantheon of gods and spirits which could be called on in different situations. Sometimes Viking chiefs could act as intermediaries with the gods. The stories of the creation and end of the world according to
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