| A | B |
|---|
| Sagas | Old oral stories told by the Vikings that help us to understand the history of the Vikings. |
| Runes | Viking alphabet |
| Valhalla | The vikings believed that if they died in battle they would go to a great hall called Valhalla in the home of the Gods. Kind of like their version of heaven. |
| Scandinavia | A region in northern Europe that includes Norway, Sweden, and Denmark |
| Eric the Red | Viking explorer who was the first Viking explorer in Greenland. Eric the Red was born in Norway, but his family settled in western Iceland. Later Eric was exiled from Iceland and settled in Greenland. |
| Leif Ericsson | Son of Eric the Red; sometimes called Lucky was a Viking (Norse) explorer who was possibly the first European to sail to North America. He landed in a part of Canada now called Newfoundland (which he called Vinland). He did this around the year 1000 which was almost 500 years before Columbus. |
| Longship or Dragonship | The name for the Viking sailing vessels |
| Odin | King or chief of all of the Viking gods |
| Thor | God of lightning, thunder, rain, storms, and weather. |
| The Thing | The Viking assembly where Vikings were judged for crimes; similar to our courthouse and judge. |
| Newfoundland | Area of North America (Canada) that Leif Ericsson discovered 500 years prior to Columbus's arrival in the Americas. |
| Exile | To be kicked out of your homeland and sent away to live somewhere else. |
| Feudalism | Feudalism is the general term used to describe the political and military system of western Europe during the Middle Ages. At that time, there was no strong central government and little security, but feudalism fulfilled the basic need for justice and protection from warriors like the Vikings. This was the time period of knights, kings, queens, chivalry, and castle building.. |
| Christianity | Major world religion that many Vikings converted to near the end of the Viking era |
| Paganism | The belief in many gods (example: the Vikings were pagan when they believed in Thor, Odin, Frey, and Loki) |
