Vikings and the Norse World

What this quiz asks

• Viking longships crossed seas under a single big sail, but what else could drive them when the wind dropped?
• The Vikings came from the lands that are now which three modern countries?
• Which island monastery off the coast of England was raided in 793, an attack often seen as the start of the Viking Age?
• Which Norse explorer reached a land he called Vinland, in North America, around the year 1000?
• The runic alphabet used by the Vikings is called the futhark, after the sounds of its first six letters.
• Around 985, Erik the Red led Norse settlers to found colonies on which large island?
• What were the Norse warriors called who were said to fight in a wild, trance-like fury?
• Viking longships sat so shallow in the water that they could sail far up rivers and land right on beaches.
• Which region of France is named after the Viking settlers who were granted land there in 911?
• Which king of Wessex defeated a Viking army at the Battle of Edington in 878?
• What was the name for the money English kings paid Viking armies to stop them raiding?
• Select ALL of these everyday English words that were borrowed from the Old Norse of the Vikings.
• Did Norsemen serve as bodyguards to the Byzantine emperors in Constantinople?
• Iceland's parliament, first gathered by Norse settlers in 930, is known by what name?
• Where did King Harold of England defeat the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada in September 1066?
• Select ALL of these North Atlantic islands that were settled by Norse colonists.
• Which 11th-century Danish king ruled a North Sea empire that included England, Denmark and Norway?
• Order these moments of the Norse world from earliest to latest.
• L'Anse aux Meadows, the only widely accepted Norse site in North America, lies in which modern country?
• The Younger Futhark, the rune row of the Viking Age, had how many runes?