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Viking Age swords were common in battles and raids. They were used as a secondary weapon when fighting had fallen out of formation or their primary weapon was damaged. While there were many variations of swords, the Vikings used double-edged swords, often with blades 90 centimetres long and 15 centimetres wide. [2]
The first known account of a Viking raid in Anglo-Saxon England comes from 789, when three ships from Hordaland (in modern Norway) landed in the Isle of Portland on the southern coast of Wessex. When approached by Beaduheard , the royal reeve from Dorchester , whose job it was to identify all foreign merchants entering the kingdom, they killed him.
The opportunity for rich pickings drew other Vikings to the area, and by the end of the decade all the main rivers of West Francia were being patrolled by Viking fleets. [34] In 862, the West Frankish king responded to the Vikings, fortifying his towns and defending his rivers, making it difficult for the Vikings to raid inland.
The Viking raids were, however, the first to be documented by eyewitnesses, and they were much larger in scale and frequency than in previous times. [88] Vikings themselves were expanding; although their motives are unclear, historians believe that scarce resources or a lack of mating opportunities were a factor. [91]
Viking expansion was the historical movement which led Norse explorers, traders and warriors, the latter known in modern scholarship as Vikings, to sail most of the North Atlantic, reaching south as far as North Africa and east as far as Russia, and through the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople and the Middle East, acting as looters, traders, colonists and mercenaries.
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The first recorded Viking raid in Irish history occurred in AD 795 when Vikings, possibly from Norway [10] looted the island of Lambay. [note 4] This was followed by a raid on the coast of Brega in 798, and raids on the coast of Connacht in 807. [11] These early Viking raids were generally small in scale and quick.
The Vikings have more in common with teams that missed the playoffs than made them, and yet they'll host a first-round playoff game.