A look back at the Viking Heroes (Short Biographies of Viking heroes).
This section is dedicated to the great Viking warriors, Monarchs and Norsemen who have inspired the sagas and played important roles in European History in general and Norse societies in particular.
Throughout this section, you will have a clear image of what the Norse mentality must have been like during the Viking Age. It also gives you a clear indication of what it must have been when they settled in in places like Iceland, Greenland, and Vineland.
The life of the Norseman was also one marked with confrontations and the quest to defend one’s honor at any cost. These small biographies complement what has been told about them throughout history. They were fearless, ambitious …show more content…
Without this type of environment, they probably would have never braved the Norse sea in order to raid, conquer and impose their culture. This is their stories, the stories of the Norse Heroes…
1-Leifur heppni Eiríksson or Leif Erikson (920 AD- 1020 AD)
(His story is told in the Eiríks saga and Grænlendinga saga).
He is best known as the first European to ever set foot in the new world. He explored Vinland in North America. When he heard rumors of new lands spotted to the West he decided to embark to this new destination with his followers. He asked his father who had been banned from Iceland for manslaughter to join the expedition because he believed him to be a lucky man , but after interpreting a fall from a horse as a bad omen, his father desisted.
He was described as wise and strong with a charisma that left no one indifferent. He fathered a son named Thorgil with a woman he met in the Hebrides. Ironically, after his first trip to Vinland, he started preaching Christianity to the Greenlanders. His father Erik was quite unhappy with his son’s devotion to the Christian faith, while his mother embraced the new religion and built a church called Thjóðhild’s …show more content…
4-Egill Skallagrímsson (910 AD- 990 AD)
(His story is told in the Egils saga).
In Egils saga he is described as a powerful farmer who was also a poet, a Viking, and a Chieftain. He was blacked haired and not the typical handsome man. The saga tells about his agility with weapons but also tells about the tragedies that affected his life, when older. One tragic event was when his youngest and favorite son Böðvar, drowned while sailing back home from an expedition to the trading center named Hvítárnes.
His life was also resumed by an easy will to kill and write poems as he is said to have written his first poem when he was three and to have committed his first murder when he was only seven. It was his status as an outlaw which perhaps led him to join raiding expeditions with others. He died of old age after killing the slave who helped him burry his treasure.
5-Gunnar Hámundarson (945 AD- 992 AD)
(His story is told in the Njáls
This section is dedicated to the great Viking warriors, Monarchs and Norsemen who have inspired the sagas and played important roles in European History in general and Norse societies in particular.
Throughout this section, you will have a clear image of what the Norse mentality must have been like during the Viking Age. It also gives you a clear indication of what it must have been when they settled in in places like Iceland, Greenland, and Vineland.
The life of the Norseman was also one marked with confrontations and the quest to defend one’s honor at any cost. These small biographies complement what has been told about them throughout history. They were fearless, ambitious …show more content…
Without this type of environment, they probably would have never braved the Norse sea in order to raid, conquer and impose their culture. This is their stories, the stories of the Norse Heroes…
1-Leifur heppni Eiríksson or Leif Erikson (920 AD- 1020 AD)
(His story is told in the Eiríks saga and Grænlendinga saga).
He is best known as the first European to ever set foot in the new world. He explored Vinland in North America. When he heard rumors of new lands spotted to the West he decided to embark to this new destination with his followers. He asked his father who had been banned from Iceland for manslaughter to join the expedition because he believed him to be a lucky man , but after interpreting a fall from a horse as a bad omen, his father desisted.
He was described as wise and strong with a charisma that left no one indifferent. He fathered a son named Thorgil with a woman he met in the Hebrides. Ironically, after his first trip to Vinland, he started preaching Christianity to the Greenlanders. His father Erik was quite unhappy with his son’s devotion to the Christian faith, while his mother embraced the new religion and built a church called Thjóðhild’s …show more content…
4-Egill Skallagrímsson (910 AD- 990 AD)
(His story is told in the Egils saga).
In Egils saga he is described as a powerful farmer who was also a poet, a Viking, and a Chieftain. He was blacked haired and not the typical handsome man. The saga tells about his agility with weapons but also tells about the tragedies that affected his life, when older. One tragic event was when his youngest and favorite son Böðvar, drowned while sailing back home from an expedition to the trading center named Hvítárnes.
His life was also resumed by an easy will to kill and write poems as he is said to have written his first poem when he was three and to have committed his first murder when he was only seven. It was his status as an outlaw which perhaps led him to join raiding expeditions with others. He died of old age after killing the slave who helped him burry his treasure.
5-Gunnar Hámundarson (945 AD- 992 AD)
(His story is told in the Njáls