Denise Wondolowski, age 12, of East St. Louis, Illinois, for her question:

From what country did the Vikings originate?

Their original homelands were what are now Norway, Sweden and Denmark. About a thousand years ago, some of these Vikings had traveled northeastward and settled the Atlantic island of Iceland. Others, led by the mighty Eric the Red, went still farther and made a new homeland along the shores of Greenland. Eric tried to persuade other Vikings to join his colony. Though it was a desolate land, he named it Greenland hoping to entice them with visions of thriving trees and foliage. In their heyday, the Vikings were called Northmen or Norsemen and they set forth on their brutal raids from Scandanavia, Iceland and Greenland.

For 300 years or more the peoples of England and Ireland. France and Spain, Italy and Germany lived in terror of these Viking raids. The Vikings were great seamen and very cunning. Their ships arrived at unexpected times, often out of the fog, and struck the helpless citizens along undefended coasts. As a rule, their main objects were plunder and robbery. But let's face it, the Vikings were barbarians. They thought nothing of slaughtering human beings and they usually left behind the gory bodies of many adults and children.