Back in August 2013, there were two threads " Democrats attempt to
gut Electoral College" and "Salic Law (was Democrats attempt to gut
Electoral College)", where the claim was made that:

"The word Viking means an overseas expedition. Hollywood created
the modern image of 'the Vikings.' "

In October 2013, I visited Sweden (where I have an old friend) and
Iceland (to see Viking historical artifacts).

First, Viking does not mean any kind of expedition. The name is older
than Hollywood, and means "bay people" - in Swedish and Norse, a "vik"
is a bay, and Norway and Sweden were dense forests at the time, with
millions of bays along the shoreline. A fjord is a kind of bay.

Cross-check: enter the following into Google (without the quotes):
"translate vik from swedish".

Also
http://www.svenskaengelskaordbok.com/en/dictionary-swedish-english/vik


The word "vik" (unchanged since the days of Old Norse) well predates
the discovery of North America, never mind Hollywood, so it seems
unlikely that Hollywood had anything to do with it.

In response to my questions, my Swedish host brought out a book in
Swedish titled "Vikingar" (The Vikings). I know enough Swedish to
puzzle the picture captions out, and become quite interested. Turns
out that the book is available in English, having been translated by
the original authors, who are Scandinavian academics.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Viking-Bertil-al-Almgren/dp/B000BJUGDG


Joe Gwinn