You’re standing on the deck of a Viking longship, somewhere in the middle of the North Atlantic. Nothing but gray sky, churning waves, and silence except for the creak of wood and the wind. The sun hasn’t been seen in days. No stars last night. No GPS. No compass. Just you, the sea, and a coastline thousands of miles away. And yet… somehow, they made it. Every time. The Vikings didn’t just stumble across Iceland, Greenland, and even parts of North America—they sailed there on purpose. And they did it over 500 years before Columbus, using nothing we’d consider modern navigation tools. So how?
This blog is on Vikings and for Vikings. Warriors and traders from Nordic countries reached as far as North America, leaving lasting marks of their presence everywhere. In battle, Vikings feared nothing, eager to join Odin in his hall. They knew that valkyries chose who would die and become one of the einherjar in Valhalla.
There’s something about Norse mythology that sticks with you—the raw power, the poetic darkness, the gods who aren’t perfect but feel real. And among all the legends, one figure stands out not for his thunder or war cries, but for his silent, swift movement across realms: Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse. Forget Pegasus. Forget any noble steed from other myths. Sleipnir isn’t just fast—he defies logic. Eight legs. A creature born from chaos, raised in legend, and ridden by the Allfather himself through life, death, and everything in between.
For ages, we thought of the Anglo-Saxons as shadowy figures—rough warriors in dirty cloaks, scratching out a living in some dark, backward corner of early England. Turns out? We got it all wrong. It wasn’t until a few astonishing discoveries came to light that we realized: these people weren’t just surviving—they were thriving, trading, fighting, and crafting like nobody’s business. Here are three finds that didn’t just add details to history… they rewrote the whole story.
Picture this: in the middle of a glittering, scheming, marble-slicked capital—Constantinople, jewel of the Byzantine world—stood a crew of towering, bearded foreigners, gripping axes big enough to split a man in two. These weren’t palace-born courtiers or local toughs. They were Vikings. Mercenaries. Outsiders. And for over two centuries, they were the only men the Emperor truly trusted with his life.
Copenhagen, celebrated for its contemporary allure, boasts a history that stretches back to the Viking Age, a legacy evident in its very essence. Long before it ascended to become Denmark’s sophisticated capital, the region thrived as a crucial meeting point for Norse merchants and warriors, its advantageous position on the Øresund Strait rendering it an organic focal point. While the city evolved from the 11th-century fishing village of Havn, its deep connection to the Viking era is truly revealed by the extraordinary archaeological discoveries. [continue reading…]
Can we know if our ancestors were Vikings? The short answer is yes, we can. DNA testing may trace Viking background in our genetic makeup. However, Nordic ancestry cannot be proven or disproven in all cases. A few years ago, when I first got interested in genetic genealogy, I thought that there might be some sort of Norse gene that all Vikings transmitted to all their descendants as a heritage. So you are either positive or negative for it. However, it’s not that simple. This tutorial will explain it all about genes and genetic testing for those who’d like to find out if they have Viking roots.
