Why did the Vikings Become Marauders?
Introduction
The Vikings lived over 1000 years ago in the Scandinavian countries that we call Sweden, Norway and Denmark now. They were good at building boats, which helped them travel to many lands. At first they were traders swapping things they 
Summer: Here is a longhouse and a boathouse with a boat near the water.didn’t need for things they did need. After a while they stopped trading as they snatched the things they wanted instead. Why did the Vikings become marauders?marauders?
Their Land
Where the Vikings lived there were rocky coasts, high mountains and deep rivers and fjords.fjords. While it is warm in summer, the winter is very long and very cold there. There is lots of ice and snow and the day is very short and the night is very long. It was very hard to grow food for the family while it was winter. Because it was very cold and icy, there was not enough farmlandfarmland for everyone.
Their Houses
Diagram of a Viking Longhouse
The Vikings’ houses only had one room. They had no windows and dirt floors. In the middle of the floor they had a fire. Even though there was a hole in the middle of the roof to let the smoke out, most of the smoke stayed in the house and the snow came through the hole. In the house there were a lot of people living and it was dark with only a little bit of light coming from the fire. They even had to bring their animals inside until spring.
Their Health
Winter: Here the longhouse is covered in snow.The Vikings must have had very itchy bodies because they all would have had lice. They got very sick from drinking water that had got mixed with wees and poos even though the toilets were holes dug outside. They didn’t live very long. They collected the pee in a barrelbarrel inside their house. They used it for soap once they had mixed it with fleecess from sheep. Scientists think that Vikings might have kept their food in the barrels of pee to keep pests away. I would not want to eat food after it had been in the pee barrel.
Their Ships
Diagram of a Viking Ship
The Vikings built strong sailing ships so if a storm on the sea came they wouldn’t break. The bottoms were flat and they could travel up rivers whether or not they were deep or shallow. They didn’t have maps or radarradar but they sang songs about other Vikings’ journeysjourneys and they used the stars and the sun and landmarkslandmarks like mountains, islands and birds like puffins.puffins.
Their Villages
Map of Where and When the Vikings Went
Viking people lived in villages in big families. The young men wanted to find riches. Unless they sailed away to fight for riches, they would stay poor. They found it easy to get riches in peaceful places like churches and monastery.monasteries They took loot and the people still alive as their slaves.
Conclusion
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The ships sometimes were called dragon ships.
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The Vikings became marauders because their land was not very good to live in; their houses were dark, dirty, smoky and crowded; they got sick easily and they died young; and they were very good at building ships to take them to new lands to find riches.
Glossary
| barrel | a large container made of wood | journeys | trips or voyages |
| fjords | deep, narrow fingers of sea with steep land on three sides | marauders | people that kill and steal from other people |
| fleeces | the shorn wool from sheep | monasteries | places where religious monks live |
| landmarks | special things abut the land that makes it easy to remember | puffins | sea birds that live in England |
| lice | blood-sucking bugs that live on people | radar | an object-detecting system that uses radio waves |
| loot | stolen riches | slaves | people that are owned by other people |
Bibliography
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The ships could be pulled up on to a beach so the Vikings could jump out and start fighting and get away fast.
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Digging Deeper Into the Past - The Vikings, by John and Louise James, published by Reed Publishing in 1997
Oh, Yikes! History's Grossest, Wackiest Moments, by Joy Masoff, published by Workman Publishing in 2006
By Amy
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