Cattle stand at attention in Normandy's Berville-sur-Seine, a small rural town on the banks of the Seine River. More than a thousand years ago, Vikings sailed into France along this river. They married themselves to the girls of the region and to the fat of the land, making Normans out of Norsemen.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "The Civilizing Seine," April 1982, National Geographic magazine)