1000 AD: A Tour of the Viking World // Vikings Documentary

This video is sponsored by Audible. Vikings fans, sign up for your free book using the link below. But more on that at the end of the video. In the summer of 986, a solitary trading vessel plied out into the deep waters of the North Atlantic. Dwarfed by immense columns of ice looming over the frosted seaways. Bombarded by waves as tall as the sky. Dishevelled, frozen to their very bones, and constantly wet from the salt and foam permeating the air, soddening even the hardy, waterproof animal pelts worn by the crew. The captain of the ship had promised a mighty reward once his men pulled into port, though that goal seemed ever remote to those unfortunate sailors. For the most part, they were Norwegians, hailing directly from the fjords and valleys their ancestors had inhabited for time immemorial. Though some likely hailed from the colonies in Scotland and Ireland, a few even Iceland, that vast open land of fiery mountains and frozen plains. These men were used to enduring the elements. They'd been journeying on the high seas since their early teens. This voyage however, had pushed them to the very limits of human endurance. Little did they know it at the time, but they may well have travelled farther than any other Europeans before them. The name of their leader was Bjarni Hjörljófsson, and several weeks before, he had promised his men a relatively easy journey to the new colony of Greenland. In truth, that newest addition to the Norse world was a frosted wasteland, named as such by its discoverer, the exiled Icelander Erik the Red, in order to attract the much-needed lifeblood of settlers from the other Norse lands. Now, long after they were supposed to have come into port, grumbles amongst some of the men had become standard. Murmurings on their lips, there was nothing green about this place, only a frozen grave. Perhaps the whisperings amongst some of the more devout crew members called for a sacrifice. Maybe they even thought of using the captain to appease the gods, and save their own lives. No place in Valhalla awaited those who drowned on the high seas. Finally, after weeks of isolation, with food and fresh water supplies running agonisingly low, one of the men spotted something on the horizon. A sight they had long hoped and prayed for. Drifting high up in the air above the horizon, riding the thermal waves of the Atlantic wind, a seagull, the telltale sign of land nearby. Salvation. Utilising their expert navigation techniques, honed through a lifetime at sea, and passed down from generation to generation since the beginning of time, the crew acted quickly, using the last ounces of their strength to follow the signs and row to land. Within a matter of hours, mountains were seen emerging from the mist of the horizon. Half delirious from hunger and cold, some of the men might have suggested that they looked like they were home. Others thought them back at Iceland. Yet Bjarni knew better. He hoped that this was the land his father had moved to. The green lands just beyond Iceland. Though he couldn't be sure. As they came closer to this mystery continent, the mountains rose up higher and higher, stretching upwards impossibly as far as the eye could see. And below them, the men gasped at the potential of the place. Timber. So much of it. Enough to build 10,000 ships. They weren't in Greenland at all. They'd bypassed it altogether. Taken south and westwards on a strong wind. They'd fallen off the map of the known world. Though they scarcely realised it at the time, as far as the medieval saga traditions are concerned, Bjarni and his men were the very first Europeans to arrive in North America. In time, the place would come to be called Vinland. Like Greenland before it, named in an auspicious attempt to attract settlers. Although the evidence suggests it really was a more hospitable place than Greenland. At least, it seemed that way. Until they met the natives. Skræligs, the saga writers call them. Native Americans. Their technology wasn't as advanced as the Europeans, but what they lacked in metal, they certainly made up for in courage and sheer numbers. Eventually, after a couple of aborted attempts at settlement, the existence of the Skræligs would in part seal the end for the Vinland colony. Bjarni and his men soon successfully arrived in Greenland, using the North American coastline to guide them there. Again, what they found wasn't particularly promising. Although, it did turn out that Greenland was a land almost entirely devoid of trees. Greenlanders would be back in North America, and soon. Most famously in the year 1000, under the famous explorer Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red. The first to establish a working colony in the place. As we shall see, this remarkable people from the far northern reaches of Europe, launched similar missions all over the world during this time. Ultimately, transforming what they found, and creating a truly interconnected northern European system for the first time. For many historians, at least in part, the basis for the modern world. The colony which Bjarni's father had emigrated to was small, but it was hardy. Its inhabitants, the hardiest of the hardy. Outcasts, or ambitious people whom Iceland either hadn't been enough for, or they had been exiled from for crime. There weren't as many people as there were in Iceland yet, but there was land aplenty. Most of those in Greenland had themselves originated in Iceland. If the sagas are to be believed, Leif's father, Erik, had emigrated to Iceland from Norway, after he was exiled for murder, before getting into a dispute and being exiled again. Mountains of fire and ice held sway there, a brutal and unforgiving land. Though one that would soon breed a hardy people too, out of the thralls taken from Ireland and the Scottish Isles. In time, it would be the last bastion of Norse culture, thriving well into the late medieval period, and writing down the stories we know today. Further west still, between Iceland and Britain, lay the Faroe Isles, a land of sealers and whalers. When the Norsemen first arrived here, they found world-ender Christian priests, huddling for warmth under rocks, for almost no vegetation grows on these isolated promontories. Those Christian priests had travelled there to escape the world, bringing their magic spells and crosiers with them, to emulate Christ by going to the nearest thing to a desert that they could find. Unfortunately for them, the world came looking on dragon-headed longboats. The Faroes lay just a few hundred miles off Norway. They were likely the first of the many island colonies to be taken by the Northmen, possibly inhabited as early as the 7th century. Yet it was only a matter of time before these early Vikings and settlers moved on in search of richer pastures. It wasn't Iceland that they went to, not yet anyway. The first place they went was a small archipelago of islands off the north coast of Britain. We know them as the Shetlands. Here, some Norsemen may have mixed with the natives, others replaced them, before pushing on further south over the generations to come. The next stepping stone in the gradually expanding Norwegian sea world were the Orkneys, dwelling place of the elusive Picts. Painted men the Romans called them, descendants of the Orkney was a land of ancient edifices, burial mounds, stone circles, and ancient gods. Though, it offered a similar landscape and lifestyle to that which the newcomers had originated from. Opinions remained divided as to the ultimate fate of the Orcadians. Whether they'd been enslaved, massacred, or integrated into a new society, is anyone's guess. Though, by Bjarni's day, the region was almost entirely Scandinavian in culture. So much so, that few even comprehended that these lands had once been entirely independent and a realm of their own. By the turn of the millennium, Orkney had been home to a semi-independent Viking state for well over a hundred years. The finances of its earls, the latest being Sigurd the Stout, heavily supplemented by near yearly raids of the Scottish mainland and the shores of the Irish sea. According to the Orkney Inga saga, written by an anonymous Icelander in around 1200, though nominally a Christian now, as was the new trend sweeping through the Norselands, Sigurd still terrified his enemies by fighting under a raven banner. A throwback to the pagan days of his ancestors. Times were changing however. Sigurd's son, Thorfinn the Mighty, born to a Scottish mother, though still ruling from a Viking island fortress, had almost as much in common with the Scots as he did with Norway. Only begrudgingly acknowledging Norwegian suzerainty when pushed into it, and heavily involving himself in mainland Scottish affairs in the early 11th century. Further south lay the Hebrides, the Western Isles of Scotland, another bastion of Norse culture, though one with more of a tinge of those that had come before. The Isles had once been a thriving centre of Gaelic culture, one of the most important in Northern Europe, in the wake of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The kingdom at the heart of it all was once known as Dal Riada. Countless fierce and bloody struggles had been fought there in the windswept valleys and archipelagos of the Sea Kingdom, for supremacy over the far north of Britain. Though by the 9th century, the latest newcomers to the region soon came out on top. By Bjarni's day, a uniquely Norse-scale culture had began to form on the Isles, one that would thrive well into the late medieval period, and to a certain extent, still exists today. Originally, the northern mainland had been dominated by a hardy, ancient people. Their might forged back during the days when the tendrils of Rome stretched all the way to their borders. Later still, when Rome fell, Irishmen made the short voyage across the sea and began to infringe on Pictish lands. Between the time the ships of the Norsemen finally arrived in the late 8th century, those Irishmen known as Scots merged with the mainland Picts until they eventually became one people. By Bjarni's time, at the turn of the millennium, this Scottish kingdom named Alba had been in existence for more than a century, and in just a few years under its King Malcolm II, sought to expand its power at the expense of its Anglo-Saxon neighbour. For this was the time of the first wars between the English and the Scots. Further south lay a haven for corsairs and traders. The Irish Sea, a homeland of Vikings for hundreds of years. In Bjarni's time, fleets of these fierce pirates, many of them Norse in culture, though for the most part born and bred on this side of Europe, ravaged all sides of the sea at will since the collapse of English sea power in the early reign of King Æthelred the Unready. The capital of this sea lay in the very centre. Like the Western Isles, a unique culture had once thrived here, though now it was a bastion for Norsemen, and later capital of the Kingdom of the Isles. Like Iceland, some of the earliest parliaments in the world, things were held here. Yet the native culture survived here too, in time creating a unique hybrid of Norse, Gael and Britain, and a unique language known as Manx. On the west side of the sea, sitting on the river Liffey, sat one of the most important Scandinavian seaports in the world. There, vessels from as far away as Spain, Sweden and the Baltic came into port to sell their wares. All manner of items came in from Central Asia, Northern Africa and the Middle East. As well as human cargo, for Dublin, named for the black pool it was founded on, was one of the primary slave markets in Europe. The rulers of Dublin had once been some of the most foremost in the British Isles, holding hegemony over the other Viking towns of Ireland, and several native Irish kingdoms too. Until finally, in 980, their long reigning king, veteran of Brunanpur, Olaf Citrixon, finally lost a significant battle at the Hill of Tara, the ceremonial ancient capital of the Irish Kings, which significantly reduced his power and the power of all Scandinavians in Ireland. There were other ports too, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Wexford being the most important, though Dublin always came out on top. The Irish king who had beaten Olaf on that day, was Mael Shucknail, High King of the O'Neill, the traditional holders of that title for five centuries, stretching back into the now mythic time of the 5th and 6th centuries. Though it wouldn't be him that would unite Ireland into a political whole, like had happened in England and Scotland, albeit briefly, for a new power was arising from the south, in the kingdom of Munster, and his name was Brian Boru. The age of Norse supremacy in Ireland was over, though fleets still crossed the sea to raid Wales, Northumbria and Wessex in the wake of the decentralisation of English power. There was no getting rid of them, and the descendants of Scandinavians there would remain a force to be reckoned with. Though for the most part, they now gradually integrated into Irish society, acting as soldiers, merchants and mercenaries, and above all else, the builders of Ireland's very first towns. One of the trade routes plied by those Irish Vikings had long been down the Atlantic seaboard to Iberia, where there could always be found eager buyers for slaves. For a time, close to two centuries before Bjarne's day, raiders had come down to Al-Andalus to forcibly take what they wanted, and furthermore, on at least one occasion, to raid deep into the Mediterranean, enslaving and plundering wherever they went. Though now, for the most part, Scandinavians only came as traders, the defence fleet of Al-Andalus being too much of a force to be reckoned with. The river systems of Francia had been an easier option, plied into by thousands of Vikings. Though these were mostly Danes, dens of them existed in Francia for more than a hundred years. Though eventually, the Northlands, formerly known as Neustria, had been formally ceded by the French to one of the most powerful amongst them, a giant of a man known as Rollo the Walker. Within a couple of generations, despite repeated attempts to dislodge them, these Vikings settled down to integrate into society. We know what follows as Normandy. Ruan, a haven for Viking merchants and warlords well into the 11th century, alongside Dublin and Jorvik, and despite its Christianity, was one of the most significant of all Viking ports. In 991, the Pope attempted to mediate an alliance, or at least understanding, between the English king Æthelred the Unready and the Normans under their duke, Richard the Fearless. Yet, despite this, Richard apparently still preferred his Scandinavian cousins, allowing Viking ships to not only come into harbour at Ruan, but to openly trade their wares. Though Christian now, the lords of Normandy were well aware of their heritage. Some, notably on the rugged Cotentin Peninsula, home to Norse warlords originating in Ireland and Brittany, still spoke the language of their forefathers. For the most part though, Normans were forward-thinking, and in order to survive, began to adopt Frankish customs and marry Frankish princesses. Some however, married Danish princesses, and even called on Danish military support on occasion. Such as when Count Richard I stood on the verge of being wiped out, and relied on the support of the Danish king Harald Bluetooth. By the turn of the millennium, the Norman lords had begun to record their own histories, cementing their newfound Franco-Scandinavian culture, along with vicious suppression of any and all rebellions against their rule. One such rebellion, raised just after the death of the Duke in 996, during the transitional period to the rule of his young son Richard the Good, seems to have been fought with the aims of mitigating some of the harshest feudal laws put in place by the Norman rulers of the region. Yet, it wasn't to be. After a vicious bloodbath fought all over the county, once finally rounded up, the leaders of the rebellion suffered a variety of grim fates. Richard Steward, Rodolph of Avery, indiscriminately having hands and feet cut off, whilst others were blinded, impaled, and burned alive. Eventually, this unique fusion of Scandinavian and Frankish customs would coalesce to create one of the most effective fighting forces in the world. A unique enclave of adventurers and warriors who would transform lands from Italy, to Greece, to Palestine, and two generations after Bjarne's day, would conquer England. But that was in the future. In the late 10th century, England was beset by a more ancient foe. The Irish sea raiders weren't the only ones to capitalise on the newfound English weakness. Aethelred's reign had seen a resurgence of Viking attacks, this time led by kings. Illustrious figures such as Svein Forkbeard and Olaf Tryggvason. Yet, despite its divisions, England was still powerful and rich. Just after the millennium, launching an ultimately unsuccessful raid on Normandy in an attempt to bring the Duke Richard II to heel. For England, though fragmenting into societal chaos, on a good year, had far more resources to call on than Normandy. Originally seven distinct kingdoms, possessing a culture not too dissimilar to their Scandinavian cousins. In the mid 9th century, the Anglo-Saxons saw their lands invaded en masse, at first by small raiding parties, not long after the Norsemen first arrived in Ireland and Scotland to the north, but later by vast armadas led by rulers who called themselves Kings of the Sea. Those who invaded England from around 850 onwards, at first taking the outlying isles of Kent and Essex in the south-east, were mostly Danes. Some of whom were also active in Francia at the same time, where they infested the river systems. Unlike in Francia, the Danes had much more lasting success in England, very nearly wiping the Anglo-Saxons out for good. Only a valiant last stand by the men of Wessex and Mercia stemmed the tide, seeing just one kingdom in a rump state left behind by 878, and an island divided between Englishmen and Dane. It was the ensuing struggle, fought by one generation after another to reclaim the lands of the Danelaw, that saw the birth of a single Anglo-Saxon kingdom, reaching its heights in the 930s during the reign of the great King Athelstan, first to bear the title King of the English. Norsemen and Danes marched in his ranks alongside men from Mercia, Wessex and Kent, and though Northumbria relapsed in the 940s and 950s, seized by the Kings of Dublin, as well as for a time by Erik Bloodaxe, a rogue Norwegian prince, steeped in the Viking ancestry of his forefathers, by the 960s and 970s, the land was consolidated, reaching its apex under King Edgar the Peacemaker. His fleets, manned by Anglo-Danish sailors, descendants of the Great Heathen Army, traversed the British Isles and the Irish Sea, ending piracy there, and Edgar even standing as judge over the disputes of lesser kings. Rather than infringe on their Danish culture, English rule lent the Anglo-Scandinavian settlers of the Danelaw a newfound sense of stability and invulnerability to carry out their business without fear of attack, which they did on a massive scale, leading Jorvik to become one of the foremost seaports in Europe. Archaeological excavations carried out here have uncovered not just coins and items from all over Eurasia, but mints to make coins too, a sign of the immense wealth and stability enjoyed here during the first half of the 10th century. Though ultimately it was precisely this success that was to be the downfall of the Anglo-Saxons. With no more lands to conquer, ambitious sons of lords could only inherit part of their father's lands, and no more. Factionalism, just like in Francia, a blight on the European mainland too, became rife. And then, right on cue, the Danes returned, this time led by a king. In the year 1000, at the same time as Leif Erikson and his men clung onto their settlement half a world away on the far side of the Atlantic, a brutal sea battle took place somewhere amidst the wild archipelagos of the Danish sea. Much had changed since the time of the Great Heathen Army 140 years before, where once, hundreds of petty chieftains, calling themselves kings, had ruled over spits of land from Dublin to Sweden. Now, in the Scandinavian mainland at least, just a handful held that title with any real authenticity. At the top of the pile sat just two men. The first was perhaps the more impressive of the two. Standing atop his flagship, the mighty Long Serpent, for the saga writers of 13th century Iceland, the greatest longship ever built, bedecked with glittering golden armour and scarlet cape, stood Olaf Tryggvason, King of Norway. A Christian now, due to the power the new faith from the south held the potential to bestow. Yet, a man who had been raiding on the high seas for decades, ravaging lands from Russia to Ireland ever since he was forced into exile as a boy. At this time, Tryggvason was attempting to convert the other northerners to Christianity. More often than not, at the tip of a sword. Often hideously torturing people who defied him in adhering to their pagan traditions. Before Tryggvason's time, Norway had still been divided into various petty kingdoms, the most important of which, situated around modern day Trondheim in the west of the country, held similar amounts of power to the crown lands of the south, ruled over by descendants of Harald Fairhair, the first unifier of Norway and Tryggvason's ancestor. These Jarls of Leid, staunch pagans, remained a perennial thorn in the side of Norwegian kings. In the year 1000, Tryggvason sailed north from the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. Perhaps after securing aid from the Slavic power brokers who ruled there. Waiting for him however, along with an armada of over 100 longships, was a man just as feared and respected throughout the Viking world, and his main rival for power. Svein Forkbeard, King of Denmark. By the year 1000, Denmark, the strongest and most populous of the Scandinavian kingdoms, was home to a number of small towns, the most important of which, Hedeby, jewel in the crown of the Danish kings, straddled the southeastern reaches of the Jutland peninsula, acting as an artery of trade from the Baltic through to the North Sea. According to later chroniclers such as Adam of Bremen, ships came into port here from all over Europe, including Greece and Spain, though unlike its brother ports at Jorvik, Ruan and Dublin, Hedeby's days were numbered. In a Viking world, there is always the threat of oblivion if the wrong political moves are made. In just a handful of decades, Hedeby would be wiped off the map by the vengeful Norwegian king, Harald Hardrada, after the Danes opposed his invasion attempts, never to be rebuilt, though other power centres remained at sites on the more defensible islands such as Roskilde. On paper, Svein had a much better pedigree than the charismatic and ruthless Olaf, being the grandson of Gorm the Old, first unifier of Denmark, and son of Harald Bluetooth, a man who having been taught the statecraft by Imperial Germany, had claimed authority over much of Norway in the previous decades. Bluetooth had built giant fortresses in Denmark to cement his authority, as well as re-fortifying the Great Daneburg against the South, though ultimately the Germans simply went round this in the early 10th century, before being thrown out again only after Denmark converted to Christianity. Though he was likely a Christian himself, Svein had masterly unified the resentments felt against Olaf throughout Scandinavia, into a resurgent pagan alliance of sorts. There in the frosted waters of the Baltic, Svein's ally Erik Haakonsson, the Jarl of Leyd, only second in power in Norway to Olaf, and possessor of a similarly famous longship, the Ironbeard, made a beeline for Olaf's ship. Finally, after slaughtering scores of men sent against him, the outnumbered and exhausted Tryggvarsson leapt from his vessel into the icy waters of the Baltic Sea, never to be seen again. The path was clear for Svein to unify the North, the first ruler to truly hold sway over the entirety of Norway and Denmark. The disparate realms of the Swedes were soon brought to heel too, and Svein could finally dedicate his time to England, finally conquering it in 1013, and forming a North Sea Empire for the first time in history. Ultimately, Svein would not live long enough to enjoy his newfound empire, dying after only a few weeks as King of England, though his young son Canute would carry the torch, inheriting his army, unifying the North, and ruling as a new Charlemagne. It wasn't just Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes who fought in Canute's armies. His mother may have been a Slavic princess, and when Canute conquered England in the early 11th century, significant contingents of Poles and Wends likely fought in his armies too. These mostly still-pagan fighters had long proven stalwart allies against their common foes to the south, in the form of the all-powerful and expansionist German Kingdom. And eventually, they stood side by side in the shield war, along with Saxon housecarls, Danish sailors, Swedish mercenaries, and Norwegian raiders. But this alliance between Poles and Norsemen goes back much further. It has long been known that early medieval Germany aided Denmark in its transformation to a modern, unified kingdom. But what isn't generally known, is the role that Scandinavians in turn had in state formation for their southern Slavic neighbours, most notably the patchwork of tribes that around the turn of the millennium would become the Kingdom of Poland. In the latter half of the 10th century, ruled over by Duke Misko, a powerful military leader known by some as the King of the North. Misko constructed vast fortresses all over his realm, and was said by one near-contemporary writer to have a force of 3,000 mounted warriors at his disposal, all equipped with the most up-to-date military equipment of the age. Recent archaeological finds in Poland have shed some light on the origins of some of these elite retainers of the Duke, with at least some of the origins of these swords for hire residing in Scandinavia, suggesting either Viking heritage or Polish warriors with a career in Scandinavia under their belts. Eventually, Poland under Misko's son, Boleslav, would join Sweden under Olaf Skotkunung, Denmark under Sweyn Forkbeard, and Norway under Olaf Tryggvarsson in converting to Christianity at around the same time, with coins minted during these kings reigns all looking remarkably similar, suggesting a linked-up cultural system. Despite what later chroniclers say to the contrary, Boleslav wasn't the only king to hold significant power in modern-day Poland. On the shores of the Baltic Sea resided at least one stronghold of Vikings, a mercenary band of warriors whose exploits later became the subject of their own saga, for this was the home of the Jomsvikings. But of course, Scandinavia wasn't just a land of fighters. For the most part, Norsemen were settlers, explorers, and traders first. In the 9th century, traders such as Ottir of Helogaland made expeditions far to the north, to the frozen White Sea at the edge of the Arctic Circle. There he found a land of polar bears, walruses, and Inuit reindeer herders. Others travelled to the far south along the Atlantic seaboard to the Iberian Peninsula and Africa beyond, to trade their slaves for the rich wares of the Islamic world. And yet more took the sea roads east to the far shores of the Baltic Sea. There they found a land of lakes and forests, a similar culture to the Norsemen, though a very different language, more similar to the Magyars who once ravaged East Francia, and now settled down in the Pannonian Basin to become the Hungarians, but not before launching their own Viking-esque raids far and wide throughout Europe. Finland, a near impenetrable place of frozen woodland, like Lapland to the north, a home to sorcerers and wizards. Perhaps a reference to the differing religious customs of the people here. This land, known as the Finnmark, remained largely depopulated during the Viking Age, though when Vikings did travel here in the sagas, such as the future Norwegian King Olaf Haraldsson allegedly did in his youth, they suffered some of their worst defeats at the hands of Finnish archers. It would be many centuries yet before towns and cities sprung up here in the harsh conditions, though Finns would leave their homeland to take up lucrative service in the warbands of Scandinavians. If you can't beat them, join them. By far the most numerous nationality besides Norwegians and Danes in Forkbeard and Knut's armies were Swedes. Large numbers of them would also find later service in the armies of the Norwegian King Olaf Haraldsson, hailed as a joining him as they marched to their deaths against Knut, chanting pagan songs of old. These men were descended from the Vendel culture. Very little is known about this elusive, pre-literate period, though incredible amounts of archaeological evidence remains, arguably more so than the Viking Age. Interestingly, when these helmets were made, they are very similar to those found at Sutton Hoo in England, perhaps signifying a linked-up cultural sphere in the 5th and 6th centuries following the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Yet Sweden was by no means a unified land. The lake area of the Swedish uplands were separated from the south of modern-day Sweden by vast tracts of wild forest and wilderness. For this was the land of the Geats, legendary homeland to the Goths, and home to the eponymous hero of the Beowulf legend of later Anglo-Saxon England. By the turn of the millennium, the Geats and the Swedes had waged ceaseless, yet mostly unrecorded wars against one another within the dark forests and groves for hundreds of years. By the year 1000, a dynasty of Swedish kings had to a certain extent unified the country, though their power was still limited by independent-minded nobles, perhaps best exemplified by their complete inability to push Christianity upon the people, unlike in Norway and Denmark. Despite many of the best warriors hailing from this kingdom, the latest king of the Swedes, Olaf Skotkunung, whose name may in fact translate as rent-paying king, owed his crown to his neighbouring monarchs, legitimised simply by his affiliation with the other Scandinavian kings. Despite Olaf converting to Christianity, just like the other kings of the north, such was the decentralised nature and remoteness of his state, that Sweden would remain largely pagan until the 12th century. Further to the east lay a harsh and unforgiving land of forests and groves. There, a collection of fiercely pagan clans resided within the mysterious land. Scandinavians had headed across the Baltic for centuries in search of slaves and plunder, but found little in terms of riches, nor any towns to speak of. The ancestors of today's Latvians and Estonians were a hardy folk, and fought tooth and nail against anyone who came their way. One of the earliest accounts we have of the Baltic coasts is from a trader who frequented the court of King Alfred the Great, Wulfstan of Hedeby, and it seems likely that trade links and cultural exchange flourished for centuries. In the year 1000, the Njáls saga records a raid into the modern day Baltic states by a certain Icelander named Gunnar Hammondarsson, just one of innumerable such literary accounts. As far as the sagas are concerned at least, the realm Gunnar and his men entered was populated by sea rovers, near indiscernible to those found in Scandinavia. Perhaps due to its proximity to Sweden, the island of Saramea is thought to have been the wealthiest county of ancient Estonia, and was the home of notorious Estonian pirates, often called the Eastern Vikings, for hundreds of years to come. More recently, pre-Viking age burials known as the Salm ships have been found in Estonia's Sov Peninsula, lending further support to the multitudes of Baltic peoples found in the sagas, fighting in Viking warbands alongside Finns, Sami, Welshmen, Scots, and Irishmen to name a few. Though when Scandinavia proper converted to Christianity, these links would fairly quickly be severed. When the descendants of Vikings fought their crusades in the centuries to come, they were fought against these Baltic peoples. During the Viking age, the Swedes had much more luck to the south. Beginning in the 9th century, just as Norsemen arrived in Britain from the port at Starae Ladoga on the shores of Lake Ladoga, their longships plied further south still, into the wild river systems of Eastern Europe. There they found marshlands, forests, and plains. And people. Fiercely independent, and split into a multitude of tribes and clans. Sir Calibur the Arabs called them. We know them as Slavs. Those opportunistic Swedes who plied the river systems were only the hardiest. Tattooed brutal warriors, they subjugated and enslaved some of the locals, and intermarried with others. By Bjarni's day, a unique culture had long been forged, and those distant ancestors for the most part had become Slavicised. For this was the Kievan Rus. Though their kinsmen from the north were always welcome, marriage alliances were frequent between Rus and Scandinavian, and countless princes and magnates from either area, when exiled, fled to kinsmen in the other, only to return at a later date accompanied by significant forces of Scandinavian swords for hire. Mostly Swedes, who as time went on, would become known as Varangians, or pledge givers. Though the Rus began worshipping Slavic gods, such as Perun, the deity of thunder. For many, these were simply the same gods, with different names. The Rus traded with the Volga Bulgas, distant kinsmen to the Bulgarians, who had now become Christian and mostly been subjugated by the Eastern Romans. After a lengthy, brutal conflict, in part caused by the Rus leader, Svatislav, now resembling a steppe khan more than a Viking warlord. Soon enough, the Rus would convert too, with their ruler Vladimir converting to Christianity in 986. Like moths to a flame, these Rus and Swedish warriors had long been drawn to the richest and oldest state in Europe. Ancient Rome never fell in the East, it merely relocated to Constantinople. They knew it as Miklagard, the Great City, a metropolis of hundreds of thousands, during a time when most of Europe's cities numbered no more than 5,000, and in Scandinavia, much less than that. But between the Rus and the Romans lay a vast, open sea, and above that, a wild steppe land, populated by a people perhaps even more fierce than the Rus. Steppe Riders. For Christian writers, the descendants of Gog and Magog, the horsemen of the apocalypse. The Pechenegs had once been subjects to a vast conglomeration of semi-sedentary steppe tribes, themselves descendants of a once mighty empire that had spanned the entire steppe from China to Europe, the Khazar Khagans. Though now their power had been shattered, largely through the actions of the Rus prince Svatislav, whose rampage across the north of the Black Sea saw their subject peoples, the Pechenegs and the Oghuz Turks, ancestors of the Seljuks, escape from their suzerainty. The destruction of the Khazars gave the Rus access to a new area, one they had already plied into previously, but could now do so even more, the Caspian Sea, the land they knew as Circland. For hundreds of years, Scandinavian adventurers had made the long journey down through the river systems of Eastern Europe to trade slaves and furs for the silver of the Islamic world. We know this from the staggeringly enormous amounts of Abbasid coins found in places such as Gotland and the Swedish uplands, but what happened when the Arabs didn't want to trade with the men who'd lugged their ships all the way down to their shores? By the turn of the millennium, the silver supply of the once mighty Caliphate had largely dried up, and with it had gone much of the trade. But of course, the Scandinavians had other ways of acquiring wealth. At this time, the southern and western shores of the Caspian Sea were controlled by breakaway Islamic dynasties, most notably the soon-to-be all-powerful Samanid Empire, and it was they who bore the brunt of Viking aggression once Abbasid silver dried up in the 10th century. And beyond that, for the most hardy of travellers, lay an even greater city than Constantinople. Perhaps numbering close to a million people in its prime, arguably the mirror image of Miklagard, the beating heart of the once mighty Abbasid Caliphate, Baghdad. From there, the road went even further east, into Central Asia and the trade cities of the Silk Road, Samarkand, Bukhara and Merv, huge metropolises, far larger than any in Europe. Coins from here show up as far away as Northumbria, illustrating the trade links between these disparate lands. And beyond that, one could travel all the way to China. Runestones in Sweden record journeys well into the 11th century. Some hardy Swedes, such as Ingvar the Far-Traveled, became embroiled in wars on the eastern side of the Byzantine Empire. In the nation of Georgia, and beyond into the Middle East, smaller, unrecorded expeditions surely must have occurred too. Though, just like the Bulgarians before them, the Rus more and more came into the cultural sphere of the great city, as the years went by increasingly seeking to gain access to its riches through diplomacy rather than war. By the turn of the millennium, in one of the most momentous events in history, a force of 8,000 Rus entered the service of the Emperor Basil II. Their descendants would continue to serve Byzantine Emperors well into the late medieval period, defending the great city they had once sought to conquer until its final defeat at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453. Before the Viking Age, post-Roman Europe was inward-looking. After it, lands from North America to China were linked up into a singular economic system, the most wide-reaching since the fall of Rome. The Viking Age continued near-seamlessly into the Crusades, and eventually the opening up of Europe into a truly global world system for the first time in history. I'm often asked where I find the information that goes into my videos, and there's a very simple answer. Books, books, and more books. And for me, there's nothing better than getting stuck into a great audiobook. 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