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Hello, everyone. I'm Olympia. Thank you for being here with me in this wonderful place called Lights Out Library. and I have a great story to tell you.

By the end of the 8th century, as medieval Europe was slowly emerging from the dark ages,

people from the Dark Ages.

People from the north by sea began to unexpectedly launch raids against coastal towns and villages.

Around the Baltic Sea and North Sea, within a few decades they ventured further, adventuring as far south as Spain,

North Africa, and the Mediterranean, and as far east as the Volga River. In some regions, they attacked and looted, disappearing as fast as they had arrived.

In other regions, they settled and explored, from the vast steps of what would become Russia

to the cold waters of the North Atlantic Ocean,

all the way to Iceland, Greenland, and America.

These people were Norsemen, that we also call Vikings.

We will examine where the term Viking originates from.

European chronicles of the time depicted these Norsemen with a mixture of fear and condemnation

because they were looters and merciless warriors.

They were also pagans,

at a time when many of the regions they attacked were populated by Christians.

The fear of the Norsemen only receded in the 11th century, as they had settled and assimilated in regions beyond their cradle in Scandinavia and progressively Christianized.

How Europeans came into contact with the Norsemen during the Middle Ages, strongly influenced historiography for a long time.

Indeed, centuries later, they were seen as mere barbarians until the beginning of a revival in the 18th and 19th centuries.

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