Viking warfare

In the Old Norse written corpus, berserkers () were Scandinavian warriors who were said to have fought in a trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the modern English adjective berserk . Berserkers are attested to in numerous Old Norse sources.

Viking axe

flag, possibly totemic, used by various Viking rulers

Viking Age helmet discovered in 1943 in Gjermundbu, Norway

history of military technology from the Viking Age (793 AD – 1066 AD)

type of axe

thumb|right|Gunnar Hámundarson defends his house with an atgeir in [[Njáls saga.]] An atgeir was a type of polearm in use in Viking Age Scandinavia and Norse colonies in the British Isles and Iceland. The word atgeirr is older than the Viking Age, and cognates can be found in Old English and other Germanic dialects (atiger, setgare, aizger), deriving from the Germanic root gar, and is related to the Old Norse geirr, meaning spear.

series of raids in the last decades of the 9th century

Strandhogg in old Norse was a Viking tactic consisting of a coastal raid with the intention of capturing livestock and indigenous peoples for the slave trade. This tactic was enhanced by Viking longships' shallow draft.