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Estonian pirates, AKA Estonian vikings (Norwegian:Vikinger fra Estland) . appear in history and legends. Although the eastern shores of the Baltic sea during the era were often referred to as Estland in general by the Scandinavians and others. Estland that also is the modern national name of Estonia in Germanic languages other than English. The Vikings from Estonia originated mainly from (Latin: Curonia) Courland (Modern Latvia) and (Latin: Osilia) Saaremaa (Modern Estonia).

Ptolemy in his Geography III in the middle of the 2nd century CE mentions the Osilians among other dwellers on the Baltic shore.

The first reliable notice of the Curonians is from the 9th century by Bishop Rimbert, the biographer of St. Ansgarius. Contemporaneous is the mention of the Ests or Estonians under the name of Chuds by Nestor the Chronicler. . By Saxo Grammaticus the Curonians and Estonians are named as having taken part in the Battle of Bråvalla on the side of the Swedes. While the Livonians and the Wends of Pomerania had sided with the Danes. It is notable that the Balts, the Letts and Lithuanians are not mentioned by Saxo.

Snorri Sturluson relates in his Ynglinga saga that the Swedish king Ingvar (7th century), the son of Östen, was a great warrior who had to spend time patrolling the shores of his kingdom fighting Estonian pirates.

According to Heimskringla sagas in the year 967 the Norwegian Queen Astrid with her son Olaf Tryggvason escaped from her homeland to her brother Sigurd, who lived in an honoured position in Novgorod at the court of Prince Vladimir. On their way, Estonian vikings robbed the ship, killing some, taking others into slavery. Six years later when Sigurd Eirikson traveled to Estonia to collect taxes on behalf of Valdemar, he spotted Olaf on a market and bought him out from slavery.

A battle between Estonian and Icelandic vikings in Saaremaa is described in Njál's saga to have occurred in 972.

About 1008 AD Olaf the Holy, who later became the king of Norway, landed on Saaremaa. The Osilians, taken by surprise, had at first agreed to pay the tax he demanded but then gathered an army at the time of the negotiations and attacked the Norwegians. Olaf nevertheless won the battle.

Around the year 1030 a Swedish Viking chief called Fröger was killed in a battle on Saaremaa.

Varyag Ulf (Uleb) from Novgorod was crushed by Estonians in a sea battle at the proximity of Tallinn in 1032 according to the Novgorod Chronicle.

Since the 12th century, chroniclers' descriptions of Estonian, Osilian and Couronian raids to the coasts of Sweden and Denmark have become more frequent.

The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia describes a fleet of sixteen ships and five hundred Osilians ravaging the area that is now southern Sweden, then belonging to Denmark. In the XIV book of Gesta Danorum, Saxo Grammaticus describes a battle on Öland that took place in 1170, where the Danish king Valdemar I had to gather his entire fleet in order to curb the incursions of the Couronian and Estonian pirates.

In 1187, the Swedish town of Sigtuna was attacked by Baltic-Finnic raiders from Karelia, Couronia or Estonia. Among the casualties of this raid was the Swedish archbishop Johannes. It remained occupied for some time. This contributed to the diminishing of its commercial importance in the 13th century, in favor of Uppsala, Visby, Kalmar and Stockholm. Estonian fleet is said to be intercepted on it's way home by raiders from the Novgorod Republic who took the ornate gates now known as Magdeburg Gates of Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

It is indited in the Livonian Chronicle that the Estonians had two kinds of ships – piratica and liburna. The aforementioned was a battleship, the latter mainly a merchant ship. Piratica could carry approximately 30 men. It had a high prow shaped like a dragon or a snakehead and a quadrangular sail.

Decline
With the rise of centralized authority along with a stiffening of coastal defense in the areas the Vikings preyed upon, the Viking raids became more risky and less profitable. Christianity had had growing presence in Scandinavia. With the rise of kings and a quasi-feudal system in Scandinavia, they ceased entirely – in the 11th century the Scandinavians are frequently chronicled as combating the Vikings from the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea which would eventually lead to German, Danish and Swedish participation in the Baltic crusades

The east Baltic world was transformed by military conquest: First the Livs, Letts and Estonians, then the Prussians and the Finns underwent defeat, baptism, military occupation and sometimes extermination by groups of Germans, Danes and Swedes.

Notes

1. A History of Pagan Europe by Prudence Jones; on page 166; ISBN 0415091365
2. Nordic Religions in the Viking Age by Thomas A. Dubois; on page 177;ISBN 0812217144
3. Template:No iconOlav Trygvassons saga at School of Avaldsnes
4. Heimskringla; Kessinger Publishing (March 31, 2004); on Page 116;ISBN 0766186938
5. http://books.google.com/books?id=4BxvGd3c9OYC&pg=PA228&ots=ewPc7Q1dpj&dq A History of Pagan Europe By Prudence Jones, Nigel Pennick; p.195; ISBN 0415091365]
6. The Forgotten Republics By Clarence Augustus Manning
7. ^ Pre- and Proto-historic Finns by John Abercromby p.141
8. The raid on Sigtuna
9. St Sophia's Cathedral
10. The Northern Crusades: Second Edition by Eric Christiansen; p.93; ISBN 0140266534

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