The Vikings were a Scandinavian people who were very active in Europe from the ninth to eleventh centuries as looters, traders, and settlers. The combination of population pressure and the ease with which they were able to raid/settle down is often cited as the reason why they left their homeland, the areas we now call Sweden, Norway and Denmark. They settled in England, Ireland (they founded Dublin), Iceland, France, Russia, Greenland, and even Canada, while raids took them to the Baltic, Spain, and the Mediterranean . 

Vikings in England 

The first recorded Viking raid into England was at Lindisfarne in 793 AD. They began to settle in 865, capturing East Anglia, Northumbria and related lands before fighting the kings of Wessex . Their areas of control fluctuated greatly over the next century until England was soft baseball jacket ruled by the invader Canute the Great in 1015; He is often considered one of the wisest and most accomplished kings of England. However, the Pre-Canute Ruler was restored in 1042 under Edward the Confessor, and the Viking age in England is considered to have ended with the Norman Conquest in 1066.

Vikings in America 

Vikings settled south and west of Greenland, believed to be in the years after 982 when Eric the Red, who had been outlawed from Iceland for three years, explored the area. The remains of more than 400 farms were found, but Greenland’s climate eventually became too cold for them and the settlement ended. Source literature has long referred to a settlement in Vinland, and recent archaeological discoveries of a brief settlement in Newfoundland, at L’Anse aux Meadows , have recently reached this conclusion. , although the subject remains controversial. 

Vikings of the East 

As well as raiding the Baltic, in the tenth century the Vikings settled in Novgorod, Kiev and other areas, merging with the local Slavic community to become the Rus, the Russians. It was through this eastward expansion that the Vikings made contact with the Byzantine Empire , fighting as mercenaries in Constantinople and forming the Emperor’s Varangian Guard, and even Baghdad.

Right and wrong 

The most famous “features” for modern readers are the longship and the helmet with the horns. Well, there are longboats, ‘Drakkars’ used for war and exploration. They use another craft, the Knarr, to trade. However, without a helmet with horns, that “characteristic” is completely false.

Ingstad’s search 

During the 1960s, the Ingstads used the 12th and 13th-century Vinland Sagas to find textual evidence of Viking landings on the North American continent and then conducted archaeological investigations along the coast. Canada. They eventually discovered the archaeological site of l’Anse aux Meadows (“Jellyfish Cove” in French), a Norse settlement on the coast of Newfoundland.

But there’s a problem – while the site was clearly built by the Vikings , some aspects of the site’s vicinity don’t match what the sagas describe.

Viking places in North America 

Three landmarks are placed in the Vinland sagas for places inhabited by Norse people on the North American continent:

Straumfjörðr is clearly the name of the Viking base camp: and there is no doubt that the archaeological ruins of L’Anse aux Meadows represent a significant occupation. Possibly, perhaps, Leifsbuðir also refers to L’Anse aux Meadows. Since L’Anse aux Meadows is the only Norse archaeological site discovered in Canada to date, it is a bit difficult to be certain of its name as Straumfjörðr: but, the Norse are only present on the continent for a decade, and it doesn’t look like there will be two camps of such importance. 

Looking for Vinland 

Since the original excavation was conducted by Ingstads, archaeologist and historian Birgitta Linderoth Wallace has been conducting investigations at l’Anse aux Meadows , part of the Parks Canada group that researched the site. One aspect she is working on is the term “Vinland” used in Norse chronicles to describe the general location of Leif Eriksson’s landing.

According to the Vinland sagas, (like most historical accounts), Leif Eriksson led a group of Norse men and a few women to adventure out of their established colonies on Greenland around 1000 AD. . The Norse say they landed in three separate places: Helluland, Markland and Vinland. Helluland, according to scholars, is probably Baffin Island; Markland (or Treeland), perhaps Labrador’s wooded coast; and Vinland is almost certainly Newfoundland and heading south.

The problem with identifying Vinland as Newfoundland is the name: Vinland means Wine Land in Old Norse, and there aren’t any grapes that grow today or at any time in Newfoundland. Ingstads, using the reports of Swedish philologist Sven Söderberg, believes that the word “Vinland” does not really mean “Wineland” but instead means “meadow”. Wallace’s research, supported by the majority of Söderberg philologists, indicates that the word could mean Wineland.

Seaway St. Lawrence?

Wallace argues that Vinland means “Wineland”, because Saint Lawrence Seaway may be included in the area name, where there are in fact a lot of grapes in the area. In addition, she cites generations of philologists who have rejected the translation of “pastureland”. If it is “Pastureland” then the word should be Vinjaland or Vinjarland, not Vinland. Furthermore, philologists argue, why name a new place “Pastureland”? The Norse had plenty of pastures elsewhere, but few truly great sources of grapes. Wine, not pasture, was of great importance in the old country, where Leif fully intended to skull baseball jersey develop a commercial network .

Bay of St. Lawrence is about 700 nautical miles from L’Anse aux Meadows or about half the distance back to Greenland; Wallace believes that the Fjord of Currents may be the northern entrance to the Leif called Vinland and Vinland including Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, nearly 1,000 km (620 mi) south of L’Anse aux Meadows. New Brunswick has and has abundant quantities of riverside grapes ( Vitis riparia ), frost grapes ( Vitis labrusca ) and fox grapes ( Vitis valpina ). Evidence that Leif’s crew reached these locations includes the presence of an avocado seed pod and a nut butter in the assembly at L’Anse aux Meadows — butternut is another plant that does not grow in Newfoundland but is also found in New Brunswick.