The Norse ravaged much of Europe for centuries. They were also cosmopolitan explorers who followed trade winds into the Far East
We used to think of the time of the vikings, the three long centuries from around 750 to 1050 CE, as an age of expansion, when the Scandinavian peoples burst out upon an unsuspecting world with fire and sword. Over the past 40 years or so, that picture has become much more nuanced, as we see the poets, traders and settlers alongside the stereotypical raiders (who were nonetheless real) that most people imagine when they think of the vikings. However, our view of these events has recently changed. We no longer see an outward impulse of intention and process, but a much more haphazard and varied diaspora of Norse peoples, in which individuals with their own motives and missions shift across the northern world. What does that diaspora look like? A settler on Orkney might divide the year between fishing and overseas piracy. A wealthy woman in a Swedish town might sponsor raids in the west. A person in Arctic Fennoscandia might span the very different worlds of the Norse and Saami. Another might journey deep into the rivers of Eurasia, only to die in the oasis of Khwarezm (in todayâs Uzbekistan), but his companions would return to Scandinavia with the news. The âNorseâ voyages to North America would be crewed by people who included Icelanders, Greenlanders, a Turk, and two Scots. All these are taken from archaeological or textual sources, and serve as but a few examples of what the diaspora really meant. This was also a fluid time of reciprocal movement involving immigration into Scandinavia as well as movement away. The viking presence in Europe is well known, extending east to Constantinople and the rivers of western Russia and Ukraine, alongside the settlement of the North Atlantic islands and ultimately a landfall on the coast of Newfoundland. But a key question remains: how far did that diaspora extend, especially to the south and east? How far did the vikings really travel?
5 May 2025



























