Ever since the Vikings left Scandinavia, and started to conquer land wherever they could reach a shore with their ships, there has been stories, rumors and real facts that tells the story of these merciless Norsemen. Because that's how they're most commonly known, as barbaric, hard-hearted pagans, who did nothing except drinking mead from their horn helmets, eating fly agaric, or killing innocent monks. But who gave us these ideas? What gave us these images? Well, there are not much material left from this time, because the art of writing wasn't widely spread. Therefor, the only two sources that produces a lot of information is the writings from the Arabian merchants that observed the Vikings thoroughly when they came to their country, and the convents on the British and Irish islands, who were repeatedly pillaged by the Norsemen. This is an analysis which concerns the different views from these two sources, and tries to figure out why one side claims one ting while the other claims something else.