Vikings came to Britain from across the North Sea - from what today is modern Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. The people of Britain called them Northmen or Danes - rarely 'Vikings'. The term was used when men went "a viking" - to trade, raid or colonise and different country.

Suddenly, in the last years of the eight century, the Viking raids began. Shallow-draft vessels, hidden in the mists, would sail stealthily into the mouths of rivers or slide silently up on to the unprotected shore. Raiding parties worked their way inland, targeting churches and monastries, looking for silver, gold, and slaves. When the monastries had all been raided the Vikings turned their attentions to farms and settlements, and as the years passed, the raids increased.