Regardless of his social behavior or actions while abroad, the Viking’s cultural past merits respect, regardless of his heathendom or the polygamy of his chieftains. He was born into a family of mostly sober and hardworking farmers; they also had a remarkable eye for beauty and were masters of their skills in fields like shipbuilding and ironwork. Although it would be fruitless to seek out a typical Viking, given that the Vikings were always colonists, robbers, and traders according to their circumstances, it is more accurate to portray them as a civilized, orderly people rather than a violent, destructive wild west.
Some have argued that the Vikings’ colonial endeavors and their overseas victories do not merit complete veneration. Because of this, we still don’t know how beneficial or detrimental the Vikings’ migration was or was.
In terms of eastern Europe, the vikings’ greatest and undeniable accomplishment was laying the groundwork for the Russian state and then focusing it on Constantinople. They played an essential and helpful part in this process. However, they aren’t as well-respected in the West. It is undeniable that the modern-day inhabitants of Iceland and the Faroes are the product of Norse entrepreneurship during the Viking Age. However, the finding of Greenland yielded no benefit to humanity, and the incredible discovery of America was a complete and utter waste of adventure and bravery. However, the Northmen were instrumental in establishing and developing Ireland’s seaport town-system, which greatly benefited the country in the early Middle Ages.
The vikings were only useful in Ireland until they disappeared after the Norman invasion, and the same may be said for the northern shores of the Bristol Channel, where they traded extensively and settled in large numbers. The arrival of the Danes brought a significant element of foreign culture to England. While this didn’t have much of an impact on the southern Danelaw region between the Thames and the Welland, it did have a significant impact on East Anglia’s social structure. The northern Danelaw region of Northumbria was even more affected.
There, a peaceful and semi-foreign rural society managed to distinguish itself from the English, knowing its own unique laws and customs, until the Norman conquest and beyond. Although the original Danelaw was an independent Danish colony that lasted only fifty years and the Anglo-Danish kingdom of Cnut was also short-lived, the unassuming Danish countrymen who lived there were not really driven out by Edward the Elder’s re-conquest or the collapse of Cnut’s realm.
Their belief was that the Danelaw’s demise in 920 was merely a change of overlord, and that the Normans’ arrival was no worse than that of new masters. As a result, they continued to live as half-English people, holding on to their ancient wapentakes, until they vanished into the Middle Ages Norman world, leaving behind a wealth of Old Norse personal and place names that attest to their foreign ancestry.