The Ancient Mariners: Forget the Horned Helmets: The Vikings Were Traders as Well as Raiders, Remaking Western Europe-And Sailing to America

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Looting! Raiding! Marauding! Yeah, it's a kick of a way to make a living, not to mention liven up a monotonous farming existence, but look at what it did to the poor, misunderstood Vikings. Some overwrought scribe writes in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that their A.D. 793 raid on Lindisfarne monastery in northeast England (considered the start of the Viking age) "miserably afflicted the inhabitants" with "fiery dragons... flying in the air" as "the heathen" engaged in "rapine and slaughter"--and the world forgets that the Vikings spurred urban development in northern Europe. And just because the Vikings realized how much portable wealth lay around (they extorted six tons of gold and silver bullion from the Parisians in 845), is that any reason to forget that they invented sails that tack into the wind? And, OK, the Vikings held nobles and churchmen for ransom, annihilated Tours and Orleans, occupied Chartres, plundered Bayeaux (nice tapestry) and Evreaux--but must the world therefore overlook the dandy little reindeer carvings they made? And did we mention Eric the Red, patron saint of all realtors who name cheap housing developments "Eden Estates"? Eric, exiled from Iceland after a murder or two, hoped to attract others to the godforsaken slab of ice he now called home. He named it Greenland.

Scholars have long labored to separate Viking reality from Viking legend, and …