Until Victoria's reign in Britain, Vikings were portrayed as violent and bloodthirsty. The stories from medieval England had always portrayed them as 'wolves among sheep'. During the nineteenth century, public opinions changed. The first challenges to the many anti-Viking images in Britain emerged in the 17th century. Some scholarly works on the Viking Age became available to readers in Britain. Archaeologists began to dig up Britain's Viking past. Linguists started to work on identifying Viking-Age origins for rural idioms and proverbs. The new dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled the Victorians to study some of the Icelandic Sagas.