Leather Viking Spectacle Helmet  SBMU-LEATHVIKINGHELMET   $104  Expedited Shipping Available! E-mail service@strongblade.com or call 866-7SWORDS In Stock - Ships in 1-3 days    Some Monks in England were walking around on their Island at Lindisfarne more than 1,000 years ago, doing monk-type things (chanting and slamming books into their foreheads, I beleive) when some strange ships were spotted in the distance. The monks and many of the island residents wandered to the shore to greet the strangers. I can only imagine that they were smiling and waving to their new, heavily armored friends. Their new friends smiled back. And they waved, although it was battle axes and swords, not hands. This was the first recorded encounter between the English and the Vikings, and it didn't involve trading beads and planting corn, mind you. Most of the residents of the Holy Island were slaughtered and everything of value was looted. The Vikings made it very clear from the start that they weren't interested in a happy, warm-and-fuzzy, symbiotic, "let's grow together" type of relationship. Things didn't get easier for the English after that. Or for the rest of the world for that matter. The Vikings went on a three hundred year shopping spree in the home towns of their enemies, burning, looting and raping (in the early years, the Vikings did it in that order, which proved a little rough for them. The chronology was reversed after a few bad outings, though).