The Vikings were destructive assailants of Ireland during the 8th century although they laid the foundations of cities such as Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick. Brian Boru or Boruma, king of Munster (972-1014), defeated the Norseman Ivar (997) and ruled southern Ireland, but he died in battle and Ireland remained very much fragmented. In the picture the Irish make ready to face a Viking raid.

The Viking's farewell could be a sketch for Wagnerian drama, which anyway probably inspired this picture.

Norsemen is the general name given to the Scandinavians who raided the European coast from Russia to the Mediterranean from the 9th to the 11th centuries, conquering portions of it. The western Norsemen, called Vikings in Britain and Ireland, peopled Iceland and Greenland and, captained by Leif Ericsson, discovered ca1000 a land called Vinland, identified today as Newfoundland, Canada. Humble Norse ruins were found in the site of Anse-au-Meadows in Newfoundland. The colonizers of Iceland and Greenland, and consequently the discoverers of America, were from Norway. The Norse invaders of England were mostly from Denmark. In France the Norsemen were known as Normans.

The Danes, hardly different from the Norwegian Vikings, raided the European coast from Russia to the Mediterranean from the 9th to the 11th centuries, conquering portions of it, notably Normandy. Their raids were fearsome, but Winston Churchill admired them and once wrote that what they brought with them in fighting ability was well worth roasting the occasional monk.