Lyrics: Socand1ce
Music: Socand1ce
Arranger: Socand1ce
n the last century, Vikings have been perceived in num
erous different ways – vilified as conquerors and rom
anticised as adventurers. How Vikings have been employed
in nation-building is a topic of some interest.
In English, Vikings are also known as Norse or Norseme
n. Their language greatly influenced English, with the no
uns, ‘Hell’, ‘husband’, ‘law’, and ‘window’, and the verbs
, ‘blunder’, ‘snub’, ‘take’, and ‘want’, all coming from Ol
d Norse. However, the origins of the word ‘Viking’, itself,
are obscure: it may mean ‘a Scandinavian pirate’, or it m
ay refer to ‘an inlet’, or a place called Vik, in modem-da
y Norway, from where the pirates came. These various na
mes – Vikings, Norse, or Norsemen, and doubts about the
very word ‘Viking’ suggest historical confusion.
Loosely speaking, the Viking Age endured from the late ei
ghth to the mid-eleventh centuries. Vikings sailed to Englan
d in AD 793 to storm coastal monasteries, and subsequentl
y, large swathes of England fell under Viking rule – indeed
several Viking kings sat on the