The Anglo saxons came from northern Germany and Denmark, the Angles specifically from an area that was at one point part of Denmark and is now mixed between Germany and Denmark [schelswig area]. They were both Germanic tribes and migrated to England between the fifth and seventh centuries.
I point this out to preface my question because what seems interesting/confusing to me is that the Viking invasions started not too long after In the 9th century. The Vikings that went to England were mainly from Denmark, and had a Germanic culture to a large degree.
From my understanding of the Viking invasions into Briton it’s made out to seem like the Vikings were some type of barbarian/outsider/unknown foreign group of people coming and attacking England.
The Vikings however were from an area where the angles were living not too long before and had elements of a similarly based culture. Not to mention Denmark isn’t really that far away from England.
Did the Anglo saxons in England have a previous knowledge/similarities to the Vikings before they came since they were both from parts of the danish peninsula?
Hi there, I've answered this very question before here.
The TL/DR of that link is that while the Anglo-Saxons would have been very aware of who the Vikings were, English society had changed greatly over ~300 years of settlement, Christianity and intermarriage with the British population, and English literary sources took great pains to emphasise the Pagan and foreign nature of the Vikings as an effective propaganda tool.