I was mostly thinking of the Vikings stopping off here, picking up wives and then taking them to colonise the Land of Ice and Fire (aka Iceland).

I think mostly they left Viking ladies back home and came to settle with the native Britons over here.  So there are viking ladies here, by marraige, or half-vikings by birth (to the best of my knowledge, but I bow to any that Meekon might correct me on).

Actually there was a lot of colonisation under Canute.

The rape and pillaging thing is mostly an early period thing, if you look at Jorvik and Dublin under the Viking periods they are both large trading settlements.

I was skipping past the raping and pillaging thing.  I meant actual settling, coming over here, stealing our women and jobs, and the like   Some things never change!  Oh damn, I've turned into a Daily Mail editorial... burn me!!!

I believe evidence suggests that a lot of the females who settled Iceland were Britons who the vikings picked up whilst passing.  But as far as I'm aware little or no viking women were brought over to Briton, just the men, who settled with our women (or took them elsewhere to settle other lands).

So there'd be no point in going to see the viking women because basically they were ours in the first place?

We can go and see the Viking women, but as far as I know none came here from their homeland.  Sailing's a man's job, in the Viking world.  As is colonising and bigamy

Why pack up your family and take them on a long sea voyage when all we need to colonise a land that's already populated is stuffed down your undies?  My understanding was they were a bit like The Borg, or Genestealers from W4K, only with better beards

But Iceland, I'm not so sure.  I think a lot of them were perloined from our shores, mostly Scotland and Ireland.  Was too long a route to sail around the coast, stop off in Porchester and whisk a maiden away, only to find out the quality of soft southern women was not to their liking and that she was always moaning about how this land wasn't as good as the dungheap she came from.

Once again, I bow to someone who has a more accurate grasp of the facts than I do.  I'm just going by memory... a dangerous thing, in my experiance

Just don't get me on the "Vikings with horned helmets" theme (vikings did not have horned helmets the later christian historians pictured them like that to make them more satanic).

This is a viking helmet:


this is not a viking helmet:


(mutter mutter mutter)

Just don't get me on the "Vikings with horned helmets" theme (vikings did not have horned helmets the later christian historians pictured them like that to make them more satanic).

This is a viking helmet:

this is not a viking helmet:

(mutter mutter mutter)

Yeah, they did a LOT of that!
In fact most of our history is tainted with lies from the Jesuits. Anything written after 400 is suspect! 8(

About-facing to the actual subject of the topic...

I think the Vikings would have thoroughly approved of e-piracy.  They have a very gypsy-esque attitude to property and possession

It's probably just in the northern-european psyche.  But equally, the ultra-liberalism of the peaceful, equality-high/poverty-low countries of the north is a rebellion against the ulta-conservative politics they're usually mired in.

Ah well, I wish this new faith luck, even if I'm not really down with its principals

Oh bloody typical trust Ed to try to pull us back on topic ()

I was looping one end to another.  From piracy to vikings, from vikings to piracy.  Our-Rob-Or-Ross