Got Vikings in Your Family History? A Surprising Number of People Do!

Long before the world had Spiderman and Wonder Woman, many people’s idea of superheroes looked like larger-than-life Viking warriors. These remarkable people seemed to have been everywhere in the ancient world, conquering and pillaging before settling down in a myriad of locations. They left their genes behind in children with light eyes and light hair, and they left place names, runic writing, extremely advanced artisanal skill sets, and long-buried treasure in a stunning number of places.

As the young folks in your life don their Halloween costumes this year, let’s look back at these precursors to our Marvel heroes to see who they were and how they affected all of modern history, including many of our own families.

First, the when and who . . .

Vikings ruled the Old World for about three hundred years, from roughly the end of the eighth century to the conquest of Britain in 1066. They were sea raiders and intrepid adventurers who originated in today’s Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Those from Denmark mostly raided and settled in the British Isles and along the coastline of Europe. Swedish Vikings went inland, sailing on the rivers across Russia clear to Turkey and Asia, and the Norwegians kept going west on the Atlantic Ocean until they reached what is today Canada. 

They were pagans, worshiping a variety of gods, and living in tribes. They spoke Norse, which is a Germanic language, and believed in absolutes: black/white; good/evil; honor/shame. Much of the land they called home was not suitable for farming, so plundering and raiding became a way of life. Europe had been badly weakened by the fall of the Roman Empire, and those with wealth had settled along the coastlines, making for easy pickings by Viking pirates. Interestingly, the word víkingr is Old Norse for “pirate,” and it was used as a verb, as in “They would go a-viking.”

Vikings were physically imposing and thoroughly adapted to life at sea. They became excellent businessmen as they roamed the globe, and their skills at ship design and building were unparalleled. Modern archeology has revealed that Vikings were literally all over the planet. They have been traced west to Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland, east across Russia to the Caspian Sea, from which they headed south to Baghdad and through the Mediterranean, and everywhere along the coasts of Britain and Ireland. We know they went south through Ukraine to the Black Sea and, again, south to the Mediterranean, and they sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar and back north along the coasts of Spain, Portugal, and France. The important thing, though, is they didn’t just sail by; many times, they stayed.  (Graphic above: Viking ship, c. 1920, public domain)

Since they were able to invade and raid with impunity, they colonized at will. They took up residence in the Orkneys, Shetlands, and Hebrides, islands that today are part of Scotland. They turned Ireland into a base for trading and took control of the port cities of Limerick and Cork. Their base was on the River Liffey, a place that became today’s Dublin. They conquered much of England, settling in Jorvik, now York, which, under Viking rule, prospered as a center of international trade.

Vikings in Sweden were called Svear, and modern-day Sweden, called Sverige, is named for them. They lived north of Stockholm, and for hundreds of years, they freely raided the Baltic coast. By the ninth century, they were sailing the Volga and Dnieper Rivers, and by 860, they had attacked Constantinople, today’s Istanbul. Those who stayed were called Rus, based on the Finnish term for Swedes, Ruotsi. They eventually founded the first Russian state, near Kiev in Ukraine, and, as you probably guessed, gave their name to Russia. Today, red-haired, light-eyed children are common in some areas settled by those Swedish invaders. 

As we’ve mentioned for the past two posts, October is a busy month for celebrations, and, as we approach the end of the month, having Columbus Day behind us and Halloween ahead, we recognize Vikings as unheralded heroes. Of course, we now know that Columbus did not “discover” America; it had been populated for centuries when he accidentally stumbled upon it. It is fairly certain, though, that Vikings landed on the shores of the St. Lawrence River almost five hundred years earlier than Columbus. Unlike later explorers, the Vikings had no gunpowder, and they were outnumbered and outfought by Native Americans, so, after just a few decades, the Vikings abandoned their small settlements in North America. 

But they left the rest of the western world with a strong foundation for continued growth and prosperity, and they still dazzle us with their ability to sail thousands of miles in small wooden ships with no maps, guidebooks, or technical instruments. So, if you have red or blond-haired, light-eyed individuals in your family from Russia, Italy, Turkey, or practically anywhere else, you likely have a Viking or two in your family tree. If you find a Halloween costume depicting a Viking warrior, wear it with pride. Only don’t put on those goofy horned helmets; Vikings really did NOT wear them!

(Most of the information for this post comes from “In Search of Vikings,” by Priit J. Vesilind, National Geographic Magazine, volume 197, no. 5, May 2000, pgs. 2–27.)

(Replica Viking helmet, from an exhibit in Seattle, Washington, photo taken by Joe Mabel, 24 November 2018, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/The_Vikings_Begin_01_-_replica_Viking_helmet.jpg)

More to Read Online:

“Vikings,” updated 7 June 2019, History.com, https://www.history.com/topics/exploration/vikings-history

“The Complete History of the Vikings,” by David Nikel, Life in Norway, https://www.lifeinnorway.net/history-of-the-vikings/

“Viking,” Encyclopedia Britannica, updated 23 August 2022, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Viking-people