We have arrived at the museum ,please mind your head while getting down.   WELCOME TO THE VIKING TRADE                                   This  page  consists of info on the Viking trade and Raid as well . So scroll on down --~~                    The word "Vikings" has been used to identify all the people who lived in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in early medieval times. They earned the name "Vikings", and the bad reputation that went with it, because in old Norse, the word Viking meant "pirate", a reference to their raiding and pillaging of settlements across Europe at the turn of the ninth century.   TRADE                                     The mobility of their shallow draft vessels allowed the Vikings to travel far up the rivers which flow into the seas surrounding the European continent.  The Swedes seem to have specialized in trading down the river systems from the Baltic into central Europe and so to Constantinople.  They called the place “Mikla­gard”, literally “The Great City”.  From this trade route, luxury goods like silk and spices were brought north and sold in specialist trading communities .              And from this one can assume that  "Mikla-gard" (as they called it) was the main trading partner of the Vikings and traded in goods like spices ,cloth especially silk , they also imported items like wine and other drinks of that time .To the Vikings Constantinople was also a place to repair damaged  boats and buy raw materials like wood for the construction of ships.                        Norwegian and Danish Vikings tended to look more to the west.  They traded and raided around the western seaboard of Europe and its islands.  It was the Norwegians who explored and settled Iceland, Greenland and finally North America.  There is now no doubt that there was a Viking settlement in Labrador.  However,  it is not clear as to what items they traded in. It is believed  that when Leif Erikson went to North America, he did so knowing that it was there.  It was likely that the expedition went there for wood more than from the pure spirit of exploration.                                       It is fun to speculate, though, on a report that Cortez brought back.  He said he was initially welcomed by the inhabitants of South America as a representative of those pale-skinned seafarers who had visited that part of the world centuries before .…….           RAIDING                   It must have seemed like a continuing nightmare to the largely peaceful settlements around the coasts of Europe and its islands.  Suddenly, in the closing years of the eighth century, the Viking raids began.  They often came in on the morning sea mists, their shallow-draft vessels creeping quietly through the river reeds or sliding silently up on sandy beaches.  Quickly, the raiding party would assemble and work its way inland.  Their early targets were the churches and monasteries, looking for silver, gold and slaves.  Soon, these were depleted and the raiders attention turned to the more mundane victims of farm and village.                 As the years slipped by, so the sea raiders came more and more often.  Sometimes, they would stay over-winter and gradually the raids turned into settlements.  At one time, most of England was under the Viking heel and they called this part of the country the Danelaw.              Around the turn of the millennium there followed a period of state - organised invasion.  Hundreds of ships would turn up regularly each year with thousands of men.  They were intent upon making Britain politically part of Scandinavia and they could only be bought off with ever increasing sums of Danegeld, as it became known.  20,000 pounds weight of silver was a not unusual sum and it proved a crippling load on the economy of the English state.                                     Eventually, in 1016, the English Witan turned to Knut, king of Denmark and asked him to become king of England.  He proved to be a good king and spent much of his early reign giving law, set­tling the affairs of ravaged parts of the kingdom and re-settling them.  For instance, there is some evidence that he spent a whole year in the Isle of Wight, setting things to rights there.                        Substantially, the reign of Knut (or Canute) represented a de­crease in Viking military incursions into England, although there were sporadic raids around the coast for some time.  The last great fete of Scandinavian arms in this country was in 1066, when king Harold Godwinsson, last Saxon king of the English, brought King Harald Hardrada of Norway to open battle at Stamford Bridge near York.  In a decisive victory, King Harold broke the power of the Scandinavian kings to wage overseas war on a large scale.  It was the last serious attempt by a Scandinavian nation to take over the English state.       Our Last Stop On Our Journey Will Be To come back to this museum tomorrow to learn about The Viking Warships and Navy.