[Cronos]

It is interesting that we find the Vikings fascinating yet they were just one in a long line of barbarian invaders who invaded civilized shores - as Germanics they were just the northern barbarians lefts after the Goths, Vandals, Suebi etc. left and went into Germania and the Roman Empire

And their impact is probably about the same as that of the Magyar, the Goths, the Bulgars, the Mongols, the Turkic peoples etc.

[sphinx]

I suspect we find the Vikings so interesting because they played an outsized role in the development of modern England, from which most of us still derive our basic historical template. Point of view counts for a lot in writing history.

[SunkenCiv]

Quite right, the natural climate cycle has caused a long series of cultural and civilizational flowerings in central Asia, followed by a sudden, rapid outward push when the agriculture crashes due to the downtick in the weather. The Scythians were the terror and scourge of the 1st millennium BC, but wound up much more settled and urbane when, centuries later, their relatives the Sarmatians arrived for a similar reason and pounded them.