Who Were The Vikings

Who were the Vikings?
What do we know about the Vikings? What are the myths and how do we know the truth? Where were the Vikings first discovered? Were the Vikings known as pirates? These are some of the questions that interest me about the Vikings and I plan to find the answers to these questions and many others. My goal in this paper is to learn more about the Vikings to research them and become familiar with who they were, how they survived and to learn what they would want us to know about them.
It was a bit hard to find a place to start when researching the Vikings. I looked hard to find out where the Vikings were from, were did they originally call home? What I discovered was that one of the first known encounters of the Vikings was in the late 18th century. On the Island of Lindisfarne, on the coast of England. (Gascoigne) I also found information stating that between the 8th and 11th centuries the Vikings were known to have come from Scandinavia. (Fitzhugh) Now, obviously the first sittings and where the Vikings were from are two separate questions. However, little was known about the Vikings until they started to make a name for themselves, such as one the first citing on the Island of Lindisfarne.
Myth. The Vikings were very vain about their appearances. And took a great deal of pride and effort into being clean, groomed and well presented. (staff) I was shocked to read this and like many people I had an idea in my head about the Vikings. I thought of them as drunks, visiting brothels, moving from town to town because of the reputation they had. But they had a reputation in England of being very cleaning almost too clean and even making their own soap. When artifacts were discovered in regards to the Vikings things like ear spoons, combs and razors were discovered. (staff) So definitely a myth, finding artifacts is how we learn about people and this helped us learn a little more about the