The original settlers on Greenland didn’t last long either."

In England the Viking Age began dramatically on 8 June 793[4] when Vikings destroyed the abbey on Lindisfarne, a centre of learning famous across the continent. Monks were killed in the abbey, thrown into the sea to drown or carried away as slaves along with the church treasures.

Never before has such an atrocity been seen,"[citation needed] declared the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York. More than any other single event, the attack on Lindisfarne cast a shadow on the perception of the Vikings for the next twelve centuries. Not until the 1890s did scholars outside Scandinavia begin seriously to reassess the achievements of the Vikings, recognizing their artistry, technological skills, and seamanship.[5]f
Until Victoria's reign in Britain, Vikings were portrayed as violent and bloodthirsty. The chronicles of medieval England had always portrayed them as rapacious 'wolves among sheep'.