Vikings

Vikings explored North America to find new land for their colonies.

What is America's favorite color? What is Germany's favorite color? The vikings were composed of individuals, and just as any group will have a multitude of likes and dislikes, so did the vikings.

Lief Erickson was indeed the first known European to land on America. Christopher Columbus was the first documented European to land on the Americas. When I say Americas I mean north, south, and central America.

Vikings are called "Vikings" because they were a group of Norse pirates. The Old Norse word for "pirate" or "raider" was "Viking." When they left home to go raiding, they were going "a viking," so that is the name they became known by.

Stapped to the side of the longship, at the gunwale, which afforded the Vikings some extra protection from wind and spray.

No, it didn't. The Romans were already there and initially fended off the Anglo-Saxons. In the fifth century, the Romans left Britain, so the next time the Anglo-Saxons attempted to invade Britain, they succeeded.

some myths and legends are

mintar

the labyrinth

gods

atlantis

mermaids

fairys

cerberus- the 3 headed dog

anything else u can add them to your answers

Eric the Red had three sons and one girl.

That's how they got around on the sea. It's no fun swimming from Denmark to England. Also, it helped them get to safety quickly after they had attacked someone.

the three modern countries which descended from vikings is Norway, Sweden and Denmark.

It's not safe to assume all place names ending in "-thorpe" have Viking origins because the word was also used by tribes from North Germany (Saxons).

So there are lots of names that are thorpe but most likely not Viking but Germanic (Angle, Saxon etc)

Torp was the Viking equivalent of similar Germanic words and had the same meaning of homestead.

Most English placenames with both thorpe and Viking connections are on the east side of the middle and north of England because the Viking influences were most often there. The best places to look are Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

Here are some arranged by county.

Lincolnshire

Scunthorpe is a town in Lincolnshire, England. Its name is pure Viking and derives from the Old Norse for Skuma's homestead.

Skellingthorpe is similar, and is pure Viking.

Others include Caythorpe.

Cleethorpes is a more recent name than Vikings.

Yorkshire

Thorpe-le-Street is a mix of Viking and Old English. The Street part means it was built on or near to an old road, most likely Roman.

Others include: Haisthorpe, Fraisthorpe, Ugthorpe, Foggathorpe (originally Fulcatorp)

A good way to tell them apart from the others is to look at modern Swedish or other Scandinavian languages and get a feel for the sound of words and names, then find similar sounding words with Thorpe as placenames.

Occupations may not be the right word for it.

Vikings were generally born into a lifestyle and taught the ways of their ancestors carrying on whatever tasks their family had been doing for generations whether that was warriors, merchants or farmers.

Vikings were known for exploration, colonization, and pirating, but also set up farming and fishing villages to support their raiding partys.

Leif Ericson.

flag, seat, sailing boot, and poles

They did find the entrance to Hell. They called it Hel. It's Hekla. That's in Iceland. Though they did sail to North America, (mainland America, Iceland actually is also largely in America) the Dead Sea, and famously through the Rivers of Russia, to the Caspian Sea. My Grandma once went to Hong Kong.. She bought me eating pins. Vikings never really denounced their right of vikingism. So Hong Kong if you like.

..This might help too? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vikings-Voyages.png

Leif Eriksson had a wife named Thorgunna.

they wore a long pinafore dress and a bandana and leather boots

No guns for at least a couple more centuries.

The Vikings originally had their own Gods, however, later they did alter to the Christian religion and became pagans, christians. They also adopted the Roman alphabet.

Yes, the Vikings were the first Europeans to settle in Canada.

No they did not worship dragons ...

The Norse Dragon Tradition

Dragons are common in Norse lore; we associate viking raiders with dragon headed ships. However this is slightly misleading because Norse lore made no distinction between dragons per se and serpents. A serpent was simply a dragon without wings.

In Nordic mythology, the figure of the dragon was often used as symbol of material greed, and harbringers of destruction, that is to say: they acquired a clearly negative symbolism, (unlike some aspects of the dragon in Eastern mythology). Clearly this makes them excellent figureheads for Viking raiders!

One of the most important Norse dragons is Nithhogr. This creature lives at the base of the world tree Yggdrasil and gnaws at the roots, attempting to destroy it. Nithhogr also devours the corpses of the dead.

The world serpent Jormungandr would also be classed as a dragon in Norse lore. Jormungandr - the Midgard serpent - lives in the waters curled in a circle round the world and biting his own tail.

Another well-known Norse dragon tale is that of Fafnir, who was turned into a dragon by his greed and who was slain by Siegfried.

The hero Scandanavian hero Beowulf also fought dragons. Some have classed grendel and his mother as dragons, however they are more usually considered to be some form of troll.

In medieval times, the Scandinavians described swimming dragons (sea serpents) and the Vikings placed carved dragon heads on the front of their ships to scare off the sea monsters. Indeed Hans Egede, Missionary to Greenland, drew a sketch of the "sea monster" he saw off the coast of Greenland in 1734. Numerous such stories have been recorded during the age of sailing ships.

There are Viking burial sites in Scotland- the Scar boat burial, for example.

The Vikings lived mainly in Scandinavia, they grew up there as did their fathers and grandfathers. Their ancestors moved to the area thousands of years previously when it would have been a little warmer. The hunting and fishing were good, so they stayed!
Later, when farming became the more reliable way to feed their families the population became larger. The good farmland was already owned so some of them moved to similar areas such as Iceland, Scotland, Northern England, Ireland and Greenland.
They had their own methods of farming and their own crops, to move to a warmer climate would have meant learning new skills with different crops, and they would have had to fight for the land in warmer areas. They did this in northern France and were given Normandy, but this was an exception.

Viking ships allowed vikings to travel far afield from their Scandinavian homeland. You can see reasons they may have wanted to do this here:

In the Wikipedia article, under viking expansion, the reasons that their boats were so effective are detailed in this part of the article:

"There were two distinct classes of Viking ships: the 'longship' (sometimes erroneously called "drakkar", a corruption of "dragon" in Norse) and the 'knarr'. The longship, intended for warfare and exploration, was designed for speed and agility, and was equipped with oars to complement the sail as well as making it able to navigate independently of the wind. The longship had a long and narrow hull, as well as a shallow draft, in order to facilitate landings and troop deployments in shallow water. The knarr was a dedicated merchant vessel designed to carry cargo. It was designed with a broader hull, deeper draft and limited number of oars (used primarily to maneuver in harbors and similar situations). One Viking innovation was the 'beitass', a spar mounted to the sail that allowed their ships to sail effectively against the wind.[20]"

I found this quotation in the Wikipedia article, under "ships".

Leif Erickson is 6' 4".