General knowledge · 12 questions

The Vikings

Leave the horned helmet behind. Trade, travel and powerful stones. Twelve questions, with a few convincing wrong turns along the way.

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Question 1 of 12

What is absent from the surviving Gjermundbu Viking helmet?

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1. What is absent from the surviving Gjermundbu Viking helmet?
- A. Nose guard
- B. Iron construction
- C. Eye protection
- D. Horns (answer)
The helmet has no horns. Horned headgear is not established as standard Viking battle equipment.
2. Which community suffered the famous Viking attack of 793 CE?
- A. Lindisfarne (answer)
- B. Canterbury
- C. Iona
- D. Glastonbury
The 793 attack struck Lindisfarne, the Northumbrian religious centre associated with St Cuthbert.
3. Why is calling Lindisfarne in 793 the first recorded Viking attack in England misleading?
- A. It was in Wales
- B. An earlier Wessex encounter is recorded (answer)
- C. It happened in 893
- D. It was a Frankish army
English Heritage notes a Wessex incident in 789, when northmen killed a royal reeve.
4. What helped Viking warships travel upriver and land on beaches?
- A. Deep keels
- B. Stone ballast towers
- C. Shallow draught (answer)
- D. Multiple enclosed decks
Shallow draught allowed access to waters unsuitable for deeper vessels.
5. Which trading centre lies in present-day Germany?
- A. Birka
- B. Ribe
- C. Kaupang
- D. Hedeby (answer)
Hedeby belonged to Viking-age Denmark, although its site is now in Germany.
6. What do Arabic silver coins found in Scandinavia chiefly demonstrate?
- A. Far-reaching exchange networks (answer)
- B. One Scandinavian currency
- C. No local metalworking
- D. Universal conversion to Islam
The coins show long-distance connections, not that all their Scandinavian owners were Muslims.
7. Who commissioned the large Jelling rune stone around 965 CE?
- A. Cnut the Great
- B. Harald Bluetooth (answer)
- C. Harald Hardrada
- D. Sweyn Forkbeard
Harald Bluetooth raised the stone in memory of his parents, Gorm and Thyra.
8. What religious achievement does Harald claim on the large Jelling stone?
- A. Europe's first monastery
- B. Restoring worship of Thor
- C. Making the Danes Christian (answer)
- D. Converting the Byzantine emperor
The inscription proclaims Christianisation, although Christian influence in Denmark predated the monument.
9. Why is a rune stone not necessarily a gravestone?
- A. They never name dead people
- B. They were only boundary markers
- C. They were always indoors
- D. Memorials could stand away from burials (answer)
Many commemorated the dead beside roads or bridges rather than marking graves.
10. How were many Viking-age rune stones originally finished?
- A. Bright paint (answer)
- B. Polished silver sheets
- C. Woven wool coverings
- D. Thick beeswax layers
Paint made the inscriptions and decoration conspicuous rather than leaving every stone bare.
11. What was a thrall in Viking society?
- A. Royal adviser
- B. Enslaved person (answer)
- C. Free landowner
- D. Travelling poet
Thralls occupied an unfree stratum. Viking society included slavery alongside farming and trade.
12. Which weapon was particularly associated with wealth and elite status?
- A. Wooden club
- B. Hunting bow
- C. Sword (answer)
- D. Sling
Swords were expensive elite weapons; axes and spears were more broadly affordable.

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