The Vikings in Greenland and America (part 3 of 4) Part 1 (Erik the Red) is available here. The Greenland Vikings mounted several more expeditions to America.  These ranged in size and success.  But each showed the new world was a place of both potential and peril.  The scions of Erik the Red took the lead in most of these early adventures.   Thorvald’s Ill-fated Expedition (1002) The year after Leif’s return and Thorstein’s unsuccessful expedition, their brother Thorvald set out with one ship.  He found Vinland and chose a spot for a settlement. Thorvald and his men had not been there long when they caught three Native Americans spying on them.  When attempts at communication failed, Thorvald simply murdered the strangers.  The...

There are many different interpretations of what Vikings looked like. While some may be more verifiable than others, no single image matches the vast diversity of the Viking Age that spanned more than 250 years and inhabited more than a dozen geopolitical areas with a wide variety of different cultures and influences.  While there have been substantial archaeological finds and active scholarship, much of that world is lost to time.  It is a shame, then, that sometimes people let quarrels about what may or may not be “accurate” get in the way of their shared interests and appreciation.

The Vikings in Greenland and America, Part 2 (of 4)

...they explored the coast and several islands (most experts agree that these coastal finds were most likely Newfoundland, Nantucket, and/or the Labrador Coast of Canada).  Winter was coming, so the party built a longhouse from the abundant timber. 

The Vikings in Greenland and America, Part 1 (of 4)
Most assume that Erik was called "the Red" for his hair or for his ruddy complexion (the sagas do not explicitly say).  He may have been more aptly called "the Red" for his charisma, his fiery temper, or his bad habit of killing people.

Some graves in Norway and Sweden from the Vendel period and Viking Age contained the bones of falcons along with the high-status warriors interred there.  Archaeologists have found other graves and treasure hordes that contained small iron or copper bells that may be associated with falconry.  In addition to this material evidence, there are runestones that depict hunters with dogs and falcons, including those at Alstad, Toten (Norway), and Böksta, Uppland (Sweden).

Skalds were the poets of the Vikings, and poetry and storytelling were the most-prized art forms in Norse culture. Poetry was considered a gift of Odin, the Allfather chief god of the Vikings, and just being a skald made a person part of the jarl upper class in their society.

Many early Viking Christians seem to have just incorporated Christ into their cosmology rather than completely rejecting their old ways.  We find sayings in the sagas like, "On land I worship Christ, but at sea I worship Thor." 

It was late in the year 871 when the 23-year-old Alfred, newly-appointed king of the last free Saxon kingdom in Britain, sat down for peace talks with two sons of Ragnar Lothbrok and other leaders of the Great Heathen Army.  For young Alfred, it would be impossible not to feel intimidated by the situation.  Halfdan Ragnarson and his half-brother Ubba (or Hubba) were twice Alfred’s age and had ten times his experience.  Alfred had met these Viking champions three years before – but in 868 he had only been in the entourage of his older brother, King Aethelred, and they had been bargaining for the peace of neighboring Mercia and not Alfred’s own home of Wessex.  Now in 871, when...

Odin was the chief of the gods, but Thor may have been the most popular.  A few experts have postulated that this was because Odin demanded occasional human sacrifices while Thor did not, but the real reason for Thor's popularity is fairly obvious. While Odin was the Allfather, it was no real secret who his favorite children were. The men to which he was patron were kings, jarls, poets, and outlaws – individuals (rather than equal members of a community) who could see themselves in Odin's often-egocentric activities.  Thor, by contrast, was the great protector of all that was good, as the Vikings defined it.  Where Odin was wise, Thor was strong.  Where Odin was cunning, Thor was straightforward and stalwart. ...

Even today, Scotland has some of the highest amount of Viking Age Norse DNA of anywhere outside of Scandinavia.