Cosmopolitan Scandinavians Of Old And Y1K

In the Middle Ages in Europe it is commonly said that most people never traveled more than thirty miles from where they were born. But, then there were the Vikings:

In the centuries around and before 1000 A.D. there was a “Viking international” of sorts. Harald Hardrada may have died in England trying to become king of that nation, but he served for a time in the Varangian Guards in Constantinople. His connections to Kievan Rus were such that priests in the Eastern Christian tradition were brought in to aid in the conversion of Norway.

N.B. The time period that I call Y1K was a fascinating one all over the world. For example, Viking Lief Erikson makes it to the New World, the Gypsies start their migration from India, the Brahui migrate from the Deccan Peninsula to the Indus River Valley, the Crusades start one of the first very distant foreign wars in history, and more.

Even before the Vikings, the Bronze Age Scandinavians got around as well. There is evidence of trade of amber for Egyptian jewelry that brought goods, and probably people with them, from the Baltic Sea to Egypt.