Viking

The Vikings were a warlike seafaring people that originated in Scandinavia and roamed throughout Europe during the Dark Ages, plundering and destroying, but also partaking in peaceful trade. They also made many settlements, to places as far flung as Russia, Sicily, England, Iceland, and what is now Canada. In most places they assimilated, and their descendants can still be found in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

While the term is now used to generally mean the pirate raiders of Northern Europe, the term used to only indicate the northmen from the fjords of Norway, as "vik", in Old Norse language, meant "inlet", thus "those from the inlets".