Picture stone in the context of Stora Hammars stones

The Viking Age (about 793–1066 CE) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their homeland of Scandinavia but also to any place significantly settled by Scandinavians during the period. Although few of the Scandinavians of the Viking Age were Vikings in the sense of being engaged in piracy, they are often referred to as Vikings as well as Norsemen.

Voyaging by sea from their homelands in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the Norse people settled in the British Isles, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, and the Baltic coast and along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes in eastern Europe, where they were also known as Varangians. They also briefly settled in Newfoundland, becoming the first Europeans to reach North America. The Norse-Gaels, Normans, Rus' people, Faroese, and Icelanders emerged from these Norse colonies. The Vikings founded several kingdoms and earldoms in Europe: the Kingdom of the Isles (Suðreyjar), Orkney (Norðreyjar), York (Jórvík) and the Danelaw (Danalǫg), Dublin (Dyflin), Normandy, and Kievan Rus' (Garðaríki). The Norse homelands were also unified into larger kingdoms during the Viking Age, and the short-lived North Sea Empire included large swathes of Scandinavia and Britain. In 1021, the Vikings achieved the feat of reaching North America—the date of which was not determined until a millennium later.

Longships (Old Norse: langskip) were long clinker-built warships (Old Norse: herskip, Old Swedish: hærskip) propelled by oars, and later also by sail, used by the Norse and surrounding Germanic tribes from at least the 4th century AD and throughout the Viking Age, being part of the Nordic ship building tradition. As the name suggests, they were long slender ships, intended for speed, with the ability to carry a large crew of warriors. They are sometimes called "dragonships" (Old Norse: drekaskip) due to a tradition of the fore and aft ends being decorated with a raised dragonhead (Old Norse: drekahofud) and tail respectively, with the sail making up the "wing" of the dragon. The largest types were thus called "dragons" (dreki), while smaller types had names such as karve (karfi), snekke (snekkja), and skeid (skeið).

Archaeological finds have been made of longships from the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries in Denmark, Norway and Germany, with motifs on Gotlandic picture stones dating to the 8th century or earlier. It is thought that the Norse specifically invented the design for Viking usage, which included raiding and warfare, exploration and commerce. The longship is a rather distinctly Norse (Scandinavian) construction, with bronze age petroglyphs in Sweden indicating a long tradition of building long animal-headed naval ships in Scandinavia. Equivalent clinker-built naval ships by the Wends (a South Baltic Slavic people) were much smaller and shorter in comparison.

The Sigurd stones form a group of eight or nine Swedish runic inscriptions (five or six runestones, two natural rocks, and a baptismal font) and one picture stone that depict imagery from the Germanic heroic legend of Sigurd the dragon slayer. They were made during the Viking Age and constitute the earliest Norse representations of the matter of the Völsung cycle that is the basis of the Middle High German Nibelungenlied and the Sigurd legends in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and the Völsunga saga.

In addition, the figure of Sigurd sucking the dragon's blood from his thumb appears on several carved stones in parts of Great Britain with strong Scandinavian cultural influence: at Ripon and Kirby Hill, North Yorkshire, at York and at Halton, Lancashire, and carved slates from the Isle of Man, broadly dated c. 950–1000, include several pieces interpreted as showing episodes from the Sigurd story.

The terms Jötunheimr (in Old Norse orthography: Jǫtunheimr [ˈjɔtonˌhɛimz̠]; often anglicised as Jotunheim) or Jötunheimar refer to either a land or multiple lands respectively in Nordic mythology inhabited by the jötnar (relatives of the gods, in English sometimes inaccurately called "giants").

Jötunheimar are typically, but not exclusively, presented in Eddic sources as prosperous lands located to the north and are commonly separated from the lands inhabited by gods and humans by barriers that cannot be traversed by usual means.

The Snake-witch (Swedish: Ormhäxan), Snake-charmer (Swedish: Ormtjuserskan) or Smiss stone (Swedish: Smisstenen) is a picture stone found at Smiss, När socken, Gotland, Sweden.

The Viking Age (about 800–1050 CE) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their homeland of Scandinavia but also to any place significantly settled by Scandinavians during the period. Although few of the Scandinavians of the Viking Age were Vikings in the sense of being engaged in piracy, they are often referred to as Vikings as well as Norsemen.

Voyaging by sea from their homelands in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the Norse people settled in the British Isles, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy, and the Baltic coast and along the Dnieper and Volga trade routes in eastern Europe, where they were also known as Varangians. They also briefly settled in Newfoundland, becoming the first Europeans to reach North America. The Norse-Gaels, Normans, Rus' people, Faroese, and Icelanders emerged from these Norse colonies. The Vikings founded several kingdoms and earldoms in Europe: the Kingdom of the Isles (Suðreyjar), Orkney (Norðreyjar), York (Jórvík) and the Danelaw (Danalǫg), Dublin (Dyflin), Normandy, and Kievan Rus' (Garðaríki). The Norse homelands were also unified into larger kingdoms during the Viking Age, and the short-lived North Sea Empire included large swathes of Scandinavia and Britain. In 1021, the Vikings achieved the feat of reaching North America—the date of which was not determined until a millennium later.