In the ninth century, Vikings carried out raids on the Christian north and Muslim south of the Iberian peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal), going on to attack North Africa, southern Francia and Italy and perhaps sailing as far as Byzantium. A ...

In 1997, journalist and history buff W. Hodding Carter, along with a band of amateur sailers, set out to retrace Leif Eriksson's journey to North America. They sailed in a handmade ship modeled after a traditional Viking "knarr." It was the first ...

"Most navigators have heard of Viking sunstones, but few realize they are more than legend. Leif Karlsen has brought them to life. He shows us how they work-now, and a thousand years ago-and what it was that led the Viking navigators to develop ...

How was the Norse Navigator able to shape his course across the North Atlantic long before the invention of the magnetic compass? This book tells the story of the Viking Sun Compass and how it allowed the Vikings to sail across the Atlantic. In ...

History of the Vikings, their way of life, and discoveries of Viking artifacts.

Excavations at L'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland have revealed the presence of the Vikings around AD 1000. But was this the mysterious Vinland (land of grapevines) which, according to the Icelandic sagas, Leif Eriksson discovered almost ...

Were the Vikings, as an early description had it, a 'valiant, wrathful, foreign, purely pagan people' who swept in from the sea to plunder and slaughter? Or in the words of a Manx folksong, "war-wolves keen in hungry quest', who lived and died by ...

"Oh, Lord, save us from the rage of the Nordic people." –Ninth-century French prayer One moment they were a mere speck on the sea; the next, a murderous force slashing its way into unprotected monasteries and villages; routing proud armies; and ...

An illustrated study of the northern peoples and kingdoms of Ireland, Greenland, Britain, and Christian Europe and their culture, society and livelihood. Illustrations.