Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Viking revival began with the publication of Old Norse texts from the 16th century onward, starting with the first printed edition of Saxo Grammaticus's Gesta Danorum in 1514. The Romantic era of the late 18th and 19th centuries intensified the movement, with poets, scholars, and antiquarians across Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, and Britain reshaping the Viking image into a heroic ideal.
The word Viking entered Modern English only during the 18th century. It is derived from the Old Norse word vikingr, meaning a sea-rover or pirate, but Romantic-era writers gave it heroic and idealized connotations that the original term did not carry.
The Tune ship, excavated in Ostfold, Norway, in 1867, was the first Viking vessel ever unearthed. Its discovery fueled Norwegian nationalism and popular interest in the Viking past, followed by the Gokstad Ship uncovered in 1880.
Wagner drew on Old Norse sources, including the Poetic Edda and the Volsunga Saga, when composing Der Ring des Nibelungen, a cycle of four operas based on figures from Germanic and Norse mythology. His work brought Norse mythological material to broad European audiences through opera.
Rasmus B. Anderson founded and led the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and founded The Norrœna Society, a publishing company for texts on Northern European history. He is credited as the originator of Leif Erikson Day and popularized the idea that Viking explorers reached North America before Columbus.
Adam Oehlenschlager's 1802 poem "Guldhornene" (The Golden Horns) is credited with helping launch the Danish Viking Revival. The poem broke with Classicist tradition by celebrating Denmark's ancient mythological past.