Norway
From the 8th to the 10th century, the wider Scandinavian region was the source of Vikings. The looting of the monastery at Lindisfarne in Northeast England in 793 by Norse people has long been regarded as the event which marked the beginning of the Viking Age. This age was characterised by expansion and emigration by Viking seafarers. They colonised, raided, and traded in all parts of Europe. Norwegian Viking explorers first discovered Iceland by accident in the 9th century when heading for the Faroe Islands, and eventually came across Vinland, known today as Newfoundland, in Canada. The Vikings from Norway were most active in the northern and western British Isles and eastern North America isles.
The Vikings (reenactment)
The Vikings, previously known as the Norse Film and Pageant Society (NFPS), which was founded in 1971 by Peter Seymour and Alan Jeffery, initially as an extension to their 'Central Focus' WWII film club, with the purpose of bringing an awareness of the Norse Myths and the Viking culture to the public through dramatic entertainment. They are the oldest and largest Dark Ages society in the UK. They are a founding member of the National Association of Re-enactment Societies. In its N.F.P.S days, the society consisted of some thirty core members, including the 'Odin Guard' an elite combat group maintaining Norse Heathen religious practices and values, but which eventually left the society during the leadership of Gerry East, whose recruitment tactics eventually took the membership into the three hundred plus bracket. The Society now has over 1100 members throughout Britain, Europe and North America. While the Society concentrates mainly on the 10th Century, events are often set in the wider period from 790 to 1066, with the appropriate modifications to dress and equipment used.