So What?

[BILLY BONES]

Of course, as for as compensation for injuries, Vikings used the same system. If a fight ensued between two vikings, and one was injured or killed, the other would have to pay him monetary compensation for each injury, or his family if death was the final outcome. But then, Vikings were pirates.

[El Pirata]

So pirates plundered coasts and other ships... o well. what affect have they had on our civilization today?(looking for examples any ideas?)

I always prefered the thought of piracy in the 20th and 21st century as the description given in the movie Hook. It was somewhere along the lines of a kid describing his father's work which was something like hostile a take over. I con't remember the description word for word but that's what I always thought of when I tink of piracy in the present day.

There's also the true pirates of the Caribbean that operate in and around Cuba but most who have never sailed those waters would never be able to imagine what that's like.

['Salem Bob']

Of course, as for as compensation for injuries, Vikings used the same system. If a fight ensued between two vikings, and one was injured or killed, the other would have to pay him monetary compensation for each injury, or his family if death was the final outcome. But then, Vikings were pirates.

Ahoy Billy Bones,

That isn't really a legacy of the 'Vikings' - it is a legacy of Norse society as a whole. A person gone a-viking is a job description, not all Norse were vikings, and we have no evidence of any set of rules for vikings (like Pirate 'articles' for 17th & 18th century), or any indication they had any.

To attribute wereguild (a legacy of Norse/Germanic agrarian tribal society) to vikings is akin to attributing Newtons laws of physics to Tew, because both of them happened to be contemporary Englishmen.