Ask someone (0) TO draw a Viking, the 'fearsome' Scandinavian warrior and 1 will probably begin with a horned helmet and an axe. The Vikings were raiders, it is true, but they were 2 explorers, settlers, traders and mercenaries.
The earliest Viking raids occurred in the 9th century, possibly as a response 3 the aggressive growth of Christian Europe to the south. Coastal communities were 4 prey and at the time there were few vessels able to combat a Viking longship.
Initially, the raiders would return home after every raid, but they gradually began to fortify and 5 on new lands, establishing territories in England, France, Iceland and Greenland. The Normans of northern France were a Viking community before successfully invading England in the 11th century.
There is ample evidence that Vikings reached as 6 as Baghdad to the East and Newfoundland to the West. Three hundred years of exploration and trade 7 about big changes in the culture of Scandinavia, and by the end of the 'Viking Age' the newly formed kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden and Norway were ready to take their 8 amongst the established nations of Europe.