The Vikings: travel, trade and exploration
Viking ships
The Vikings were brilliant ship builders. Their ships were strong, lightweight and beautifully shaped to skim quickly through the water. Warships and raiding ships were designed to come right up on the beach so that men could jump out and start fighting straight away.
The ships were built of wood and made waterproof with tar from pine trees. The square sails were made of woven wool and were often brightly coloured. When the wind was wrong for sailing, they were rowed by teams of oarsmen. Many ships were decorated with carvings on their curved ends.
Trading
The Vikings traded all over Europe, as far east as Central Asia. They bought goods and materials such as silver, silk, spices, wine, jewellery, glass and pottery. In return, they sold items such as honey, tin, wheat, wool, wood, iron, fur, leather, fish and walrus ivory. Everywhere they went the Vikings bought and sold slaves.
They paid for their goods using silver coins, or pieces of silver or jewellery. The value of the silver depended on its weight, so many traders carried round a set of scales.
Discovering new lands
The Vikings were brave sailors and explorers. They thought nothing of taking their families on long, dangerous journeys across the sea. They discovered and settled in several remote countries that lay to the west of Britain in the north Atlantic Ocean: the Faeroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland.
A Viking man called Bjarni Herjolfsson discovered America by accident in the year 985, when his ship was blown off course on the way to Greenland. A few years later, in 1001, Leif Eriksson 'the Lucky' sailed there to take a proper look at it. He was the first European to land in America.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/vikings/travel/index.shtml