Marauders …

… Things Strange and Admirable | The Russell Kirk Center. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The name Viking (from Old Norse víkingr, marauder or pirate), according to Shippey, was not an ethnicity—Vikings strictly speaking were Scandinavian—but as he says, “a job description.” Raiding, looting, raping, and killing summed up the requirements. Especially killing. In dealing out death the Vikings were superlative. If Danes or Norwegians were farmers or fisherman rather than warriors and pillagers, then they were not Vikings. This distinction is quite useful particularly at the various intersections of literature and history in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and England during the Viking Age (roughly 793 to 1066 A.D.).