Sound ships and unmatched navigation skills help the Vikings to make long voyages. Over the next three centuries, the Vikings attack sites all over Europe. Viking seamen from Scandinavia raid the monastery of Lindisfarne in Great Britain and Ireland. They live in small remote villages, isolated from one another and from developments elsewhere in Europe. The Slavs move westward into Bohemia and Pannonia, pushed by the Avars to the east. Vendel art features animals perhaps adapted from myth. The ancient Scandinavians invent extraordinary creatures such as the eight-legged horse of Odin, the wise ravens that sit on his shoulder, and the Midgard serpent that encircles the earth and bites its own tail. The heroic dead, it is believed, go to Valhalla, where they fight every day and feast every night until Ragnarok, the day of destruction, which the gods anticipate with fatalistic resignation. Freyr, whose emblems are the boar and the ship, is the god of fertility. Thor, the smith who maintains order with his thundering hammer, is the favorite god of farmers and craftsmen. ![]() ![]() The chief of the Norse gods, Odin, is a warrior and a prophet, the patron of aristocrats and poets. Their mythology reflects their way of life in a land of harsh conditions, sparse settlement, and limited resources. The Vendel culture of Scandinavia develops on the outskirts of the crumbling Roman empire.
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