After reading Bernard Cornwell's Anglo-Saxon series, it seems that the Anglo-Saxons are portrayed as being more concerned with combing their mustaches than fighting and being great warriors.
Were the Vikings better warriors than the Anglo-Saxons: both man-for-man and as a fighting force?
Is Bernard Cornwell's writing an accurate portrayal of the Anglo-Saxons? Is this how the Vikings viewed Anglo-Saxon culture?
DISCLAIMER: I know it's historical fiction, so it's entirely possible it's a literary device and not based on fact.
It's tough to gauge, honestly; there's no objective statistic for 'better warriorship' to compare, so all we can really do is look at victories and losses againt the Anglo-Saxons. Even then, we have the problem where Scandinavian mercenaries would often fight on both sides of a battle, which muddies the water further.
You could ask about generalship, but then you'd run into the problem that vikings (and here I'm talking about actual vikings, not medieval Scandinavian armies) were essentially biker gangs that showed up, wrecked things, stole what they could, and then took off again. The reaction of local authorities would depend on a number of factors, such as proximity to the target, the amount of men they have on hand, and how large a force was raiding the village.
Egils saga has good examples of both battles with Scandinavian forces fighting alongside and against Anglo-Saxons, and of raids against villages - though in that case, Egill and his crew raid Courland, rather than England, but the principles are still the same. They arrive unannouced, no-one can muster an adequate defence, and the village is sacked.
TL;DR It's not that Scandinavians were better warriors than Anglo-Saxons, it's just that they knew where and when to hit to make the best impact.
I am not very well-versed in how good warriors the Anglo-Saxons were, but they certainly did well against the viking host of Harald Hårdråde at Stamford Brigde 1066, so they can't have been all bad.
The vikings themselves were concerned with hygiene - the most common archeological find from the viking era in Scandinavia are combs. Another common find is earspoons that were used to scoop out wax out of your ears.
The vikings are described in some sources as clean, bathing every weak and washing their hand and face and combing their hair, beard and moustasches every day.
The viking hird (personal retuny of a great man) was the pride and prestige of a viking great man. Keeping them well fed, well equipped and seeing them fight well in battle was the pinnacle of prestige during this era.
Thus the hird was as close to a professional force you could have during this era. They were certainly on par, if not superior to Anglo-Saxon the housecarl. However, the vast majority of a viking host would not consist of hirdmän bur rather odalbönder, free self-owning peasants with far less training and worse equipment (although still far better than conscripted serfs since they kept arms and trained with them).
The main advantage of the vikings were that they were extemely mobile. They could move much, much faster at sea than any Anglo-Saxon host could by land. Thus they could sack villages, monestaries and towns and simply sail away and land somewhere else if they found strong opposition towards their raids.
The vikings are obviously renowned for their fighting and as the other answers talk about the were known for raids along the coasts and were problems for different Kingdoms across of Europe. This attests to the mobility that the vikings enjoyed.
When the Danes (which more likely just refers to people from Scandinavia rather then people from Denmark specifically) invaded Anglo-Saxon England in 865 as dated in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, they were successful in sweeping through large parts of England as well as settling in these areas and forming the Danelaw. The Anglo-Saxons were largely unable to defend from this initial invasion as attested to the large amount of the land lost and the fact that the only surviving Kingdoms were basically Wessex and Mercia (despite being much smaller now).
Alfred the Great, the ruler of Wessex was able to withstand and eventually defeat the Danes, ensuring the survival of Wessex. His successors: Edward the Elder and Æthelstan were able to slowly expand the borders of Wessex through war against the invaders. Æthelstan in fact is often quite renowned as a warrior King his exploits immortalized in the Anglo-Saxon poem 'The Battle of Brunanburh". He was also able to defeat the last remaining Danish controlled Kingdom of Northumbria.
Ultimately it is hard to evaluate who were better warriors, but both sides enjoyed successes and defeats and the Anglo-Saxons were certainly not pushovers.
Sources: Sarah Foot: Æthelstan: The First King of England, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle