As science progresses and archaeologists are forging new positive relationships with developers around Irish heritage, more secrets from Ireland’s Viking past are coming to light, and they are not...
Before surnames became commonplace, a method was needed to differentiate between two or more people with the same name. Many surnames in the English language today are a result of this - John Smith,...
Vikings are pretty trendy of late. Marvel’s Thor films, for example, gave Viking mythology the Hollywood treatment and plonked its characters in contemporary America. There have been multiple Viking...
The man who instigated the abolition of slavery in North America was born on March 23, 1734, in Thurso, a small fishing village on the north-east coast of Scotland. Arthur St. Clair would live a life...
More so than females, the male Norse explorers who took residence in Iceland more than 1,000 years were buried with their horses and new DNA evidence proves that the horses slaughtered to accompany...
King Egbert, later designated the first king of England, began his reign in the 9 th century, when England was fragmented into multiple small kingdoms and under attack by Norsemen. He was one of the...
Turf houses are a distinctive type of dwelling found in Iceland with origins dating back to the 9 th century AD, which are attributed to the country’s Nordic settlers. The development of turf houses...
The ancient Viking language of Elfdalian has been almost entirely wiped out, with an estimate of only 3,000 people in a tiny forest community in Sweden currently keeping it alive. Now, people fight...
What exactly inspired the 8th century Vikings of Scandinavia to sharpen their farming tools, to build ships and conquer Europe, has long been debated. However, a new study all but closes the case...
St. Mary's Collegiate Church is a stunning medieval church located in the 13 th century town of Youghal, in the eastern part of County Cork, the southernmost county of Ireland. When you enter the...
As science progresses and archaeologists are forging new positive relationships with developers around Irish heritage, more secrets from Ireland’s Viking past are coming to light, and they are not...
The ancient Norse were one of the few cultures to create a mythology that did not necessarily promise eternal life of any kind for the souls of the deceased. The world was believed to be heading...
The Vikings have been reputed to be remarkable seafarers who could fearlessly navigate their way through unknown oceans to invade unsuspecting communities along the North Sea and Atlantic Sea coasts...
Memories of the largest lava flood in the history of Iceland, recorded in an apocalyptic medieval poem, were used to drive the island's conversion to Christianity, new research suggests. A team of...
The mysterious origins of almost 300 violently broken bodies discovered in a mass grave in Derbyshire, England, are “the Viking Great Army!”, announced archeologist Cat Jarman this week. Jarman is...
By the 9th century, the Scandinavian sea nomads that had tormented the British coastline, had conquered parts of the land and assimilated cultures. They established the Danelaw, territories where...
In the late 8th century, a group of Scandinavian sea nomads took to the sea and tormented Europe and Asia through their terrible acts of piracy. Thankfully, by the early 9th century, their piracy...
By ThorNews We know from the sagas that Viking boys were trained in the art of war. The Viking’s success in killing and oppressing everyone who stood in their way was no accident: The warrior...
BY THORNEWS On a secluded Iron Age farm in Southern Norway, archaeological findings show that it was common to cultivate cannabis in the Viking Age . The question is how the Vikings used the fibers,...
BY THORNEWS “ Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race (…). The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies...
BY THORNEWS Scandinavian findings and a mass grave in Dorset, England, proves that some Viking males filed grooves into their front teeth and most likely filled them with pigment. Researchers are...
BY THORNEWS If you offended a Viking, a normal reaction would be to kill you on the spot. If the murder took place in daylight with witnesses present and without trying to hide his act, the...
BY THORNEWS In the Viking Age, the völvas (female shamans) were both feared and respected: they exercised seiðr (Norse magic) and were supposedly in direct contact with Odin, the Allfather. The word...
BY THORNEWS In the autumn of 834 AD, two elderly women were buried together in the magnificent Oseberg ship discovered in 1903 near Tønsberg in Vestfold, Southeast Norway. Ever since the ship was...
