ESTONIA - Scandinavia - page 1045

nial). Each warrior specialized in a particular kind of warfare: sword, spear,
battle-axe, or bow-and-arrow. At the battle's crucial moment, the Vikings
might send in their secret weapon—the so-called berserkers . These warriors
attacked with a seemingly superhuman (and possibly drug-induced) frenzy,
scaring the leotards off their enemies and giving us our English word “ber-
serk.”
Despite their reputation as ruthless pirates, most Vikings were settlers who
established towns, married the locals, farmed the land, hunted in the forests,
and traded with their neighbors. They spread Scandinavian culture and rune
stones far and wide. In Northern France, the region of “Normandy” was
settled by the “North-men.” Eric the Red, a Norwegian Viking, was an early
settler in Iceland, and his son Leif Eriksson sailed as far as the coast of North
America around A.D. 1000.
TothedismayofRomanCatholicbishops,whiletherestofEuropebecame
Christian, the Vikings held onto their pagan gods, many of whom were, like
themselves, warriors: Odin, the king of the gods (who gave us our word for
Wednesday), and Thor with his hammer, the god of war (and of Thursday).
Believing in an afterlife, the Vikings buried their dead ceremonially along
with their possessions. Some were interred beneath large mounds of dirt (such
as the Gamla Uppsala burial mounds described on here ) . Others were laid to
rest in ships that were buried underground, or in graves marked with stones
placed upright in the shape of a full-size ship.