VIKINGS - Misunderstood Gentlemen?

What's the first thing you think about when you hear the word Viking? Rape? Pillaging? Or perhaps farmers with intricate social values? Were the Vikings really as bad as we give them the rap for?

The word Viking actually means "a man that has left his home to travel abroad to profit", so essentially the word Viking is more resemblant to the word pirate. The interesting thing here is that most Vikings, weren't Vikings at all. It was only a small portion of people that actually went overseas to plunder and pillage. Most Vikings were farmers, fishermen or slaves, whereby the slaves became slaves due to outstanding debt or families would sell their daughters and sons to afford to feed themselves.

The Vikings also had a complex social structure whereby the women would be the only ones in practice to get a divorce. Getting a divorce was seen as a big embarrassment to the men as it showed that they were not appropriate carers.

Old school iron man -

This day, we learned lots more about Viking culture; they started learning archery from early age and would apparently at a "minimum" be able to shoot 120m according to this "Viking" (he was "only" able to shoot for about 60m):