The viking age

The Viking Age is the name of the period between 793 and 1066 AD in Scandinavia and Britain, following the Germanic Iron Age (and the Vendel Age in Sweden).
During this period, the Vikings, Scandinavian warriors, leidangs and traders, raided and explored most parts of Europe, south-western Asia, northern Africa and north-eastern North America.
Apart from exploring Europe by way of its oceans and rivers with the aid of their advanced navigational skills and extending their trading routes across vast parts of the continent, they also engaged in warfare and looted and enslaved numerous Christian communities of Medieval Europe for centuries, contributing to the development of feudal systems in Europe, which included castles and barons (which were a defense against Viking raids).
Viking society was based on agriculture and trade with other peoples and placed great emphasis on the concept of honor both in combat and in the criminal justice system.
It is unknown what triggered the Vikings expansion and conquests, but historians have suggested that technological innovations imported from Mediterranean civilizations along with a milder climate led to population growth due to a long period of good crops. Another factor was the destruction of the Frisian fleet by Charlemagne around 785, which interrupted the flow of many trading goods from Central Europe to Scandinavia and led the Vikings to come looking for it themselves.
The beginning of the Viking Age is commonly given as 793, when Vikings raided the important British island monastery of Lindisfarne (although a minor incursion was recorded in 787); and the end of the Viking Age is traditionally marked by the failed invasion of England, attempted by Harald Hardrade, who was defeated by the Saxon king Harold Godwinson (himself an Anglicised Viking), in 1066. Godwinson himself was next defeated that same year by another Viking descendant, William, Duke of Normandy (Normandy had itself been acquired by Vikings (Normans) in 911).
The clinker-built longships used by the Scandinavians were uniquely suited to both deep and shallow waters, and thus extended the reach of Norse raiders, traders and settlers not only along coastlines, but also along the major river valleys of north-western Europe. Rurik also expanded to the east, and founded the first Russian state, with a capital at Novgorod, (which means, "new city"). According to one author, the word "Rus" originally meant "Viking raider", as distinct from the native slavic peoples.
Other Norse people, particularly those from the area that is now modern-day Sweden, continued south on Russian rivers to the Black Sea and then on to Constantinople (which had been established in 667 B.C., and was re-named Constantinople in 330 A.D. by Constantine the Great). Whenever these viking ships would run aground in shallow waters, the Vikings would reportedly turn them on their sides and drag them across the land, into deeper waters.
France, "the Kingdom of the Franks" (a Germanic tribe who settled in Gaul, after the fall of the Roman Empire, and whose famous King was Charlemagne, who had re-united the Kingdom by 771), was particularly hard-hit by these raiders, who could sail down the Seine River with near impunity. The region now known as Normandy (after the Viking "Norsemen, men from the north") was profoundly disrupted during this period.
In 911, the French king, Charles the Simple, was able to make an agreement with the Viking warleader Hrolf Ganger, later called Rollo. Charles gave Hrolf the title of duke, and granted him and his followers possession of Normandy. In return, Hrolf swore fealty to Charles, converted to Christianity, and undertook to defend the northern region of France against the incursions of other Viking groups.
The results were, in a historical sense, rather ironic: several generations later, the Norman descendants of these Viking settlers not only thereafter identified themselves as French, but carried the French language, and their variant of the French culture into England in 1066, after the Norman Conquest, and became the ruling aristocracy of Anglo-Saxon England. These Norman Viking descendants, although converting to Christianity, maintained their warlike nature, and eventually adopted chivalry, which joined learning to fight on horseback (like their Moorish enemies in Spain) with becoming knights or "holy warriors" of the Cross. One of their pass-times was jousting, or tournaments of armored knights fighting with lances (the Celtic "lancia") on horse-back.

Contrasting essay

The ancient vikings were too powerfull in their times because was not just all that big bears with large swords, was the creativity of their clothes, of all kind of ships and longships full of warriors and thousands of treasures, and in that times the most important thing was to show the power with fighting and winning diferent battles and wars but getting lands with hundreds of war-slaves just to improve their kingdom and get it bigger; but in other way, nowadays is really too much people living around the world, it can be said that our civilization is totally dependement of the technology and that has being creating or changing our feelings, behaviours,etc, because we can´t live without it, thats why now we are more clever, and we came to the world just to continue the "big chain", but with the time we are killing our world and every second is being faster, so who really knows that we are people civilizated??

Odin

Odin is the chief divinity of the Norse pantheon, the foremost of the Aesir. Odin is a son of Bor and Bestla. He is called Alfadir, Allfather, for he is indeed father of the gods. With Frigg he is the father of Balder, Hod, and Hermod. He fathered Thor on the goddess Jord; and the giantess Grid became the mother of Vidar.
Odin is a god of war and death, but also the god of poetry and wisdom. He hung for nine days, pierced by his own spear, on the world tree. Here he learned nine powerful songs, and eighteen runes. Odin can make the dead speak to question the wisest amongst them. His hall in Asgard is Valaskjalf ("shelf of the slain") where his throne Hlidskjalf is located.
From this throne he observes all that happens in the nine worlds.
The tidings are brought to him by his two raven Huginn and Muninn. He also resides in Valhalla, where the slain warriors are taken.
Odin's attributes are the spear Gungnir, which never misses its target, the ring Draupnir, from which every ninth night eight new rings appear, and his eight-footed steed Sleipnir. He is accompanied by the wolves Freki and Geri, to whom he gives his food for he himself consumes nothing but wine. Odin has only one eye, which blazes like the sun. His other eye he traded for a drink from the Well of Wisdom, and gained immense knowledge. On the day of the final battle, Odin will be killed by the wolf Fenrir.

Aesir

In old Norse Mythology the Aesir are the principal gods of the pantheon. They include many of the major figures, Odin, Frigg, Thor, Balder and Tyr.
A second clan of gods, the Vanir, is also mentioned in the Norse mythos. The god Njord and his children, Freyr and Freyja, are the most prominent Vanir gods who join the Aesir as hostages after a war between Aesir and Vanir. The Vanir appear to have mainly been connected with cultivation and fertility, the Aesir with power and war in the duality of mythology.
Mythology follows the patterns of birth, death, and rebirth in the alchemy of time and consciousness created by the patterns of Sacred Geometry - the Golden Ratio. The formula, which creates the lessons are about duality, with the godd and goddess pantheons, as well as the human DNA experience.

Religion

The age of conversion
The Viking Age was a period of considerable religious change in Scandinavia. Part of the popular image of the Vikings is that they were all pagans, with a hatred of the Christian Church, but this view is very misleading. It is true that almost the entire population of Scandinavia was pagan at the beginning of the Viking Age, but the Vikings had many gods, and it was no problem for them to accept the Christian god alongside their own. Most scholars today believe that Viking attacks on Christian churches had nothing to do with religion, but more to do with the fact that monasteries were typically both wealthy and poorly defended, making them an easy target for plunder.
The Vikings came into contact with Christianity through their raids, and when they settled in lands with a Christian population, they adopted Christianity quite quickly. This was true in Normandy, Ireland, and throughout the British Isles. Although contemporary accounts say little about this, we can see it in the archaeological evidence. Pagans buried their dead with grave goods, but Christians normally didn't, and this makes it relatively easy to spot the change in religion.
As well as conversion abroad, the Viking Age also saw a gradual conversion in Scandinavia itself, as Anglo-Saxon and German missionaries arrived to convert the pagans. By the mid-11th century, Christianity was well established in Denmark and most of Norway. Although there was a temporary conversion in Sweden in the early 11th century, it wasn't until the mid-12th century that Christianity became established there. As part of the process of conversion the Christians took over traditional pagan sites. A good example of this can be seen at Gamle Uppsala in Sweden, where the remains of an early church stand alongside a series of huge pagan burial mounds.