All Vikings were not Norse
Let’s take a look at these Vikings. They come in boatloads, all armed with two swords and a battle axe yet it is only the nobility that can afford proper weapons in Britain and Western Europe. What’s the difference? Massive iron ore deposits in Scandinavia. When you look at the North Sea area you begin to understand why it created such powerful groupings. Tin, copper, lead and a wee bit of gold from Britain, Iron ore and timber from Scandinavia and through the Baltic, down the Danube to the East.
To dismiss them as slave traders is to sell them short, just as to assume they were pure Norse. On a lengthy voyage, some crew members would die and be replaced by slaves. The first time the normal crew went ashore and stirred up the wrath of the locals, it would be obvious to the slaves that if they wanted to survive they had best grab a sword and join in with the crew.
Of course they were fierce, can you imagine sailing down past Scotland’s west coast to the Irish sea among Highlanders, mad Welshmen and fight loving Irish without being fierce? There again, can you imagine a wild Highlander or Welshman or an Irishman not wanting to join in and go looking for senioritas to capture, never mind gold and loot?
The picture of Vikings we have been given by historians is of a grim death dealing masochists but in any group that is a the fanatical minority, the bulk would be adventure loving chaps, who enjoyed a good fight, like some soccer supporters today.
Let’s stop thinking about people in history having different appetites and desires to us and enjoy our heritage as human beings and begin to worry about what happens when Europe has no natural resources to offer the world.