Discussion on the Vikings.

[The Wizard]

The Saxons came from what is today Northern Germany. There are still numerous states in the Federal Republic named after them (Niedersaken and Saksen itself); they are still a German people like any other, such as the Bavarians or Swabians.

The Angles came from what is today mainland Denmark, as did the Jutes. Northern mainland Denmark is still called Jutland, and has a markedly different character than that of the area of, say, Copenhagen.

On the Vikings: they were what they were -- Germanic tribesmen. The Vikings are, by the very fact that their appearance, customs and everything else about their culture was almost anachronous when they began their feared raids, the most famous exponent of the Germanic tribal culture that was dominant in mainland Europe during the Great Migrations.

What I see described by Sirex1, for instance, is pure Germanic warrior culture. No, the Vikings were not so very different from the Franks, Saxons, Alemanni, Goths, and all the other mighty tribes that have gone down in history as the most glorious of barbarians...