The Vikings, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards were the most famous among early explorers.

The hereditary chieftains of Umhall were the O ' Malleys, recorded in the area in 814 AD when they successfully repelled an onslaught by the Vikings in Clew Bay.

Although not mentioned by Asser or by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred probably also paid the Vikings cash to leave, much as the Mercians were to do in the following year.

In such cases, the Vikings were extremely vulnerable to pursuit by the king's joint military forces.

Alfred's burh system posed such a formidable challenge against Viking attack that when the Vikings returned in 892 and successfully stormed a half-made, poorly garrisoned fortress up the Lympne estuary in Kent, the Anglo-Saxons were able to limit their penetration to the outer frontiers of Wessex and Mercia.

They were meant to keep in check the Basques and defend the mouth of the Garonne from the Vikings when the latter appeared c. 844 in the region of Bordeaux.

Gailey led the team to two playoff appearances with a 10 – 6 record in 1998 and an NFC East championship, but the Cowboys were defeated in the playoffs by the Arizona Cardinals 20-7 ; after an 8 – 8 season in 1999 ( during which Irvin suffered a career-ending spinal injury in a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles ) ending in another playoff loss ( this time to the Minnesota Vikings 27-10 ), he was fired and became the first Cowboys coach who did not take the team to a Super Bowl.

The winners of the 2010 tournament were Toronto's Salming Vikings floorball club.

Raids by the Vikings were frequent after about AD 800, and the Norsemen took control of large parts of what is now England.

However, by then the Vikings were almost certainly well established in Orkney and Shetland, and it is probable that many other non-recorded raids occurred before this.

Certainly in North Britain the Vikings were one reason behind the formation of the Kingdom of Alba, which eventually evolved into Scotland.

Led by Rollo, some Vikings had settled in Normandy and were granted the land, first as counts and then as dukes, by King Charles the Simple, in order to protect the land from other raiders.

There were also five teams which the Texans had never beaten: the Baltimore Ravens ( 0-5 in regular season, 0-1 in playoffs ), Minnesota Vikings ( 0-2 ), New York Jets ( 0-5 ), Philadelphia Eagles ( 0-3 ) and San Diego Chargers ( 0-4 ).

The Vikings celebrated Yule, which later contributed to the Twelve Days of Christmas, or the " Daft Days " as they were sometimes called in Scotland.

Contact between Sweden and what is now Finland was considerable even during pre-Christian times – the Vikings were known to Finns both due to their participation in commerce and plundering.

In the years 1953 – 66 the Colts played in the NFL Western Conference ( also known as division ), but were never known to have a significant rivalry with any of the other franchises in that alignment, seeing as they were the eastern-most team and the rest of the division included the Great Lakes franchises Green Bay, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, and after 1961, the Minnesota Vikings.

Industrial researchers were apparently built like Vikings and aggressive.

Longships were sea vessels made and used by the Vikings from the Nordic countries for trade, commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age although scientific analysis of the oak timber shows at least one well known ship was built in Dublin, Ireland.

The Vikings were experts in judging speed and wind direction, and in knowing the current and when to expect high and low tides.

The Vikings were major contributors to the shipbuilding technology of their day.

They currently participate in the North Division of the National Football Conference ( NFC ); prior to that the Vikings were in the NFC Central Division, and before that they were in the NFL's Western Conference Central Division.

Coincidentally or not, the teams from Ole Haugsrud's high school, Central High School in Superior, WI, were also called the Vikings.

In, the Vikings again won the Central Division with a 9 – 5 record and advanced to their 4th NFC Championship Game in 5 years, but were defeated by the eventual Super Bowl Champion Cowboys, 23 – 6, at Texas Stadium.

During home games at the Metrodome, the Vikings Gjallarhorn is loudly played and sounds often after the team has made a big play, gets a first down, or scores a touchdown.

The Vikings, for instance, although often portrayed with axe or sword in hand, were armed mostly with spears, as were their Anglo-Saxon, Irish, or continental contemporaries.

The Vikings were competent sailors, adept in land warfare as well as at sea, and they often struck at accessible and poorly defended targets, usually with near impunity.

Popular conceptions of the Vikings often differ from the complex picture that emerges from archaeology and written sources.

Norsemen ( often referred to as Vikings ) attempted to colonize the new land ; they were driven out by the local climate and harassment by the Indigenous populace.

The original cathedral built on the site was often plundered by the Vikings and was finally burnt and destroyed in 1087.

Metropolitan Stadium ( often referred to as " the Met ", " the Ice Palace " when the Minnesota Vikings played, " Met Stadium ", or now " the Old Met " to distinguish from the Metrodome ) was a sports stadium that once stood in Bloomington, Minnesota, just outside Minneapolis.

Members of the society would write extensively on the Vikings, often in a romanticized manner which described a largely heroic and noble ancient people.

The texts are tales in prose which share some similarities with the epic, often with stanzas or whole poems in alliterative verse embedded in the text, of heroic deeds of days long gone, " tales of worthy men ," who were often Vikings, sometimes Pagan, sometimes Christian.

Vikings would often turn their ships for home at Cape Wrath.

The clinker form of construction is often linked in people's minds with the Vikings, who used this method to build their famous longships from riven timber ( split wood ) planks.

He was part of the " Fearsome Foursome ", along with Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, and Lamar Lundy, often considered one of the best defensive lines in football history, along with the Purple People Eaters of the Minnesota Vikings, the Steel Curtain of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Dallas Cowboys ' Doomsday Defense.

At the same time there were often attacks from the Vikings, who settled in northern France as the Normans but continued to raid territory further inland.

The power of the Vikings never recovered, and they reduced to the level of a minor clan, however often playing pivotal parts in the endless power struggles of the next few centuries.

Because Vikings were often buried with their weapons, the " killing " of swords may have served two functions.

From runestones and other illustrations, it is known that the Vikings also wore simpler helmets, often peaked caps with a simple noseguard.

In conjunction with stronger wood, Vikings often reinforced their shields with leather or, occasionally, iron around the rim.

Although the Vikings are portrayed as heathens, the Annals describes strife between the Irish against each other and often the foreigners are depicted as allies to various Irish factions.

Around the same time manuscript production began to decline, and although it has often been blamed on the Vikings, this is debatable given the decline began before the Vikings arrived.