Editing Viking Age (section)

== Background ==
[[File:Faroe stamp sheet 406-408 viking voyages.jpg|thumb|[[Faroe Islanders|Faroese]] stamps celebrating the Viking voyages in the North Atlantic]]
The Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were mainly pagans from the same area as present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. They also settled in the [[Faroe Islands]], Ireland, Iceland, peripheral Scotland ([[Caithness]], the [[Hebrides]] and the [[Northern Isles]]), Greenland, and Canada.

Their [[North Germanic languages|North Germanic language]], [[Old Norse]], became the precursor to present-day Scandinavian languages. By 801, a strong central authority appears to have been established in [[Jutland]], and the Danes were beginning to look beyond their own territory for land, trade, and plunder.

In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural boundaries. Communities remained independent of each other, unlike the situation in lowland Denmark. By 800, some 30 small kingdoms existed in Norway.

The sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world. In the eighth century, Scandinavians began to build ships of war and send them on raiding expeditions which started the Viking Age. The [[North Sea]] rovers were traders, colonisers, explorers, and plunderers who were notorious in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and other places in Europe for being brutal.