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About the Vikings

The word “Víking” refers to an overseas expedition. In old Norse “fara í víking” "to go on an expedition". A Viking is a participant in such an expedition. These expeditions were not only trading expeditions but resulted as well in a cultural interchange over extensive parts of the Western hemisphere.
A good number of Scandinavian words were planted into other languages. The English word window originates from the Danish “vindue”. The English word scissors originates from the word “sisare” – a kind of scissors, egg originates from the Scandinavian “ägg”, sister from “syster”. Many Russian words have Swedish origin like mjod for honey, velociped for bike, poet for poet. Many Russian first names have Swedish origin. – Helge became Oleg, Ingvar became Igor, and Valdemar became Vladimir. Snorre Sturlason, the Icelandic poet, claims that the word “asar” for the pre-Christian gods originates from Troja and from Turkey, where a royal dynasty ruled. A man Tror’s wife was the fortune-teller Sibil, who became Siv, which we recognize as Tor and his wife Siv. A descendent of Tror was Odin (1, p6)
The Icelandic “Alltinget” is the oldest parliament in the world founded in 930 but was dissolved 1789 to become effective again in Reykjavik in 1845, Tynwald Hill on Isle of Man has, however, gathered on the same place since 979. (1).
Tynwald is the same word as “Tingvalla” – “ting” meaning court. Law and order were important for the Vikings. Lots of villages, towns and cities in England, Scotland and the Orkney- and Shetland islands contain the word “ting”. Names of locations ending on “by” – Danish for city - can be found in no less than 700 in mid and east England. The 2nd most common ending, 500 of them, is thorp – “torp” is Swedish for a tiny farm. In the city of York, many streets end on “gate” which is Danish for street. William the Conqueror organized the Domesday Book - Swedish for “domedagsboken” - so the Normans could tax their new domains. (2)
There were laws governing what was right and what was wrong, what was fair and what was unfair. There were lawmen as judges at the “ting” where the disputes were settled. This system was also introduced in the colonies. The English word “law” originates from the Danish “lov”. The law had to be memorized by the lawmen. To help in memorizing the law, it was phrased like a poem. These “lawspeakers”, as they were referred to, were a powerful force in the community. All men should be regarded as equal and should be judged on equal terms. In this way the society was a democratic society.
For sure, many Viking expeditions were pure muggings. Harald Hårfagre’s raids in the northern part of England, after the battle at Hastings, is a terrifying example of bad business ethics.
Even before the Viking age there were Swedish colonies in what is now Estonia and Latvia. Many Vikings remained in the areas they colonized, they formed families and they acquired the local traditions.
The image of wild-haired, dirty Vikings is a Christian invention. As always it is the conqueror who writes the history, but at least in this case he isn’t especially reliable. Adam of Bremen wasn’t even an eyewitness. Ahmed ibn Fadl?n, the secretary of the envoy of the Kalif of Bagdad has more credibility. He encountered Viking traders on the Volga River and observed their traditions and customs. Another Arab, Al-Tartushi, a merchant from Cordoba, visited and reported on the people of Hedeby-Slesvig in Denmark in the mid-10th century. Among Christian sources, the primary one is Adam of Bremen, the German ecclesiastical historian, who – in 1075 AD - wrote his description of Scandinavia. Some of his information may have been first-hand, but much of his knowledge, particularly about
Denmark, was obtained from his superior Archbishop Adalbert and from his personal friend King Swein Estriddarson of Denmark.
The Vikings used combs and razors, and they made soap for cleaning. The soap was also used to bleach their hair as blonde hair was in fashion in the Viking culture. They even took sauna baths every Saturday. When they were bathing their wives or may be a slave washed their clothes. The Vikings in England even had a reputation for excessive cleanliness, due to their custom of bathing once a week, on Saturdays. This day, Saturday, is referred to as laugardagur / laurdag / lørdag / lördag, "washing day". We may wonder about the cleanliness of the Englishmen at the time.
An essence of the mushroom the destroying angel (amantia virosa) and /or western blueberry (vaccinium uliginosum) turned the Viking warriors into an uncontrolled fury. The French prayed “from the wrath of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us”. Few wars are battled without drugs, if we want to make an excuse Viking brutality.
Their organization is impressive. A Viking fleet trying to invade Paris, or Lutetia as it was referred to at the time, found itselves outnumbered. The Viking fleet requested help from Denmark. Within 3 weeks no less than 300 ships arrived. It was indeed an impressive logistic achievement.
In France, the Christians built towers on the hills where they kept gold and silver without protection. It was a gift from above (sic). No wonder that France was a popular destination for the Vikings.
When the men were away the women took care of the farm and that remained even when the men returned back home. In many ways the Viking era was a matriarchy. With Christianity the women should keep silent, which was a big loss for the sex con gender. There were women though who took part in the expedition – not many, but still there were some. In the same way on the battlefield where women could be high ranking commanders.
The Viking farms were an entail, in a sense that the oldest son inherited the farm. The purpose of the entail was to keep the land of a family intact in the main line of succession. This was not fair according to the Christians. By end of the 18th century the divided farms were a total disaster, and the reforms for getting bigger farm lots started.
The entail resulted in the fact that the younger brothers had to find a living outside the farm, which in turn resulted in the Viking expeditions.
In many ways the Viking society was a violent society, but at the same time, a tolerant society:

The lame man rides a horse
Handless is the herdsman
Deaf in battle is bold
Blind better than burned
A dead man is of no use

They were also tolerant of homosexuality, at least for the one playing the man’s role.
A primary merchandise of the Viking trade was slaves. The Church took the position that Christians should not own fellow Christians as slaves, consequently slavery diminished throughout Northern Europe. This was the main reason for the decline of the Viking era. However, slavery remained in the Christian (!) Denmark until 1848 and in the Christian (!) Russia until 1861.
One other reason for the decline of the Viking era was better defence systems. It was no longer as safe as it had been to go ashore. May be we should say that the Danish Vikings gave offers that were hard to resist, while the Swedish Vikings were more peaceful traders. The raiding of England started by the robbing of the monastery of Lindisfarne on the English east coast in 793 AD. This raid was the starting point of the “Danagälden”, which was the tribute the Anglo Saxon kings had to pay in order to avoid raidings. Olof Tryggvason used no less than 93 ships as an expedient and got away with 10 000 pounds.
Christianity was spread over Europe and the Nordic countries were the last to be converted. Baptizing paid off by a white garment and food. Many men were baptized over and over again. The same kind of bribing system has been used by Saudi Arabian missionaries in Bosnia.
The Roman culture had an outstanding development for its time. The Roman Empire contributed greatly to the development of literature, architecture, technology in the Western world. It started in 750 BC and ended in 600 AD. The Romans conquered most of Europe. To promote the trade, they developed the infrastructure; they build roads and canals, and we can still trace the remains. Most North Europeans felt that it was beneficial to be under the Romans. We can compare them with the modern European Union, where EU primarily finances the infrastructure. The Öresund Bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen is one example and the motorway connecting Kiel and Tallinn is another.
In Russia the Swedish Vikings were referred to as “Ruser”, which is the Finnish word for Sweden meaning “rower”. Which we find in the word for the Stockholm archipelago – Roslagen.
The Viking era began in 800 AD. Their network is as outstanding as the Roman network. The Romans rode their horse powered chariots over land, while the Vikings were sailors. The main reason may be that the Vikings were able to navigate over open sea. Contrary to Columbus who was heading for India and ended up in North America. Lately we have seen another Italian who landed his cruising ship on the mainland.
Viking navigators opened the road to new lands to the north, west and east, resulting in independent settlements in the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands; Iceland; Greenland; and L'Anse aux Meadows, a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland. The Vikings also explored and settled in territories in Slavic-dominated areas of Eastern Europe. There are claims that Kreml was founded as a Viking fortress. The Vikings campaigned in North Africa, and in the Middle East. There is archaeological evidence that Vikings reached the city of Baghdad. The Norwegians expanded to the north and west to places such as Ireland, Iceland and Greenland; the Danes to England and France, and the Swedes to the east which is logical due to the distance. However, no less than 26 runestones of the 58 in Sweden tell about expeditions westwards.
At the Viking time Russia was made up of mainly of 2 empires or Khaganats – Bulgar in the north and Khazar in the south with the Volga River linking the 2 together. The Swedish expansion into these areas was commercial rather than conquering. The Swedes traded fur and amber, honey and slaves, for silk and silver from the Orient. They used coins for buying the commodities. The Swedish Vikings had established a colony in the northern part of Russia which turned to an independent Khaganat, this Russian i. e. Swedish Khaganat sent their ambassadors to the Byzantine emperor. There is a disagreement between modern Russian archaeologists and historians if Russia was founded by the Vikings or not. Given the Soviet talent for revisionist history many archaeological finds, considered to be of Swedish origin, have now been decreed by the Soviets to be Slavic. This anti-Viking sentiment has taken the form of an intellectual ban on the subject resulting if such extreme measures as the imprisonment of scholars, who produced evidence conclusively identifying archeologically remains as of Viking origin.
The Rus trade routes led the Vikings in contact with the Byzantine Empire. They first attacked Constantinople in 860 AD. Their fighting skill won the admiration the Byzantine emperors, and in 911 AD a treaty was signed permitting the recruitment of mercenaries for the imperial army. They became the personal body guard for the Emperor and fought for the Byzantine Empire from Sicily to Syria. In total there may have been no less than 10 000 Vikings serving in the Orient, an impressive number considering the population at the time. One runic inscription they left was found on a huge marble lion in Piraeus. The lion now stands in Venice.
The Russian Primary Chronicle or Nestor´s Chronical, said to have been written by the monk Nestor in the cave monastery of Kiev around 1100, legitimizes the Rus as founders of the Russian nation. According to Nestor the capital of the Rus Khaganate was Novgorod –or Holmgård as it was referred to by the Swedes. Another Swedish Khaganate was establish in the early 800’s in Kiev.
The Norwegian Vikings went towards north and west, towards Iceland and Greenland, the Danes towards England and France, and the Swedes towards east. Reasonable considering the distances. However, out of the 58 runestones in Sweden no less than 26 of them are telling about expeditions westwards.
There were no established states. A local “king” and his family ruled a piece of land. The families were struggling for the power and the family fights were violent. There were no solidarity or unity among the Vikings, who in many cases were legionaries fighting against each other.
There were laws controlling the justice and there were lawmen deciding at the court what was right and what was wrong. This system was also introduced in the colonies. The English word “law” is originally the Danish word “lov”. All men were equal and should be judged equally. In this way the Viking society was a democratic society. In reality the it wasn’t with families competing about the power. An exception from the equality was the one carrying execution on the smith. He got 3 times the punishment. Indeed, equality for the perpetrator, but not for the victim. The Icelandic constitution, based on the court, was adopted in 930.
The main quality of a Viking was his courage and his wish to die an honourable death in battle. The Viking believed in and trusted his luck. There were leaders of expeditions with victory-luck, there were individuals with weapon-luck and woman-luck, and there were luck-swords and luck-axes. Christian priests had a bad reputation for weather-luck and if a storm arose while priest were on board the ship they were thrown overboard to get better luck with the weather.
The poetry and the rhymes were complex and creative in their illusive simplicity with in-rhymes, vocal rhymes, consonant rhymes and alliterations in strict meter. Circumlocutions – kenninger - were use to a large extent for describing things. A ship for instance could be “the steed of the waves”, a battle could be “the reddening of spears” etc. In 1220 AD Snorre Sturlason wrote a book about poetics. He meticulously describes an impressive number of meters - 169 - as far as I recall (3).
Arts and crafts were far-reaching and all-embracing. What could be decorated was decorated – axes, swords, boats and shields.
The religion was polytheistic with Oden, Tor, Frö and Freja followed by a good number of gods.
In the same way as we admire Shakespeare and his creativity and wisdom, we admire the Vikings for their expeditions. Both of them have their predecessors. Shakespeare had the Greeks and the Romans with its writers and philosophers. The Vikings had the Phoenicians, with the difference that the Vikings possibly couldn’t have known about the Phoenicians.
Phoenicia was located where Lebanon is located today. The Phoenicians established a good number of colonies even in Africa. They traded with silver and copper, glass, ceramics and textiles. Maybe the most important commodity was a red dye which they got from a sea shell. This dye was used to colour textiles. Its purple colour symbolized power and wealth. The biggest colony was Carthage.
In 600 BC the Phoenicians sailed from the Red Sea they sailed around the African Horn and followed the coastline and sailed into Gibraltar sound. This was 2100 years before Vasco da Gama.
The Phoenicians ships were about 30 m long and 6-7 m wide. They could take 50 tons. Different from the Vikings the Phoenicians were totally peaceful, even if Carthage was well armed to protect from the competing Greeks. (4).
All free Scandinavian men were permitted to carry weapons at all times. These arms were an indication of the Viking's social status. Bows were used in land battles. Vikings were relatively unique for the time in their use of axes as the main battle weapon.
The Viking helmets were conical, made from hard leather with wood and metallic reinforcements. They did not wear the horned helmets that nowadays illustrators like to provide them with.
The ways of navigation are interesting. To sail close to land wasn’t too much of a problem for them but they had to find their way across open sea. The compass was known in China at the end of the Viking era, and even used on Iceland in the 13th century.
The sun and the Polar star were obvious astronomical modules and they measured the height of the sun at midday and the height of the Polar Star at midnight. They knew that the Polar Star always appeared at a certain height on the sky.
Another instrument was the sundial, as we have today to show the time in gardens. However, at sea they had to keep a circular disc in a kettle of water and a pin from where they could get the shadow. It could also be a hand held instrument indicating the destination.
The sunstone is another navigation tool. It is made from a mineral that changes colour when the light is polarized. It is used when the sun isn’t visible and still you can keep the course. It is claimed that turtles and birds navigate in the same way. An experiment during a polar expedition proved that it was the case.
There were two distinct classes of Viking ships: the longship and the knarr. The longship, intended for warfare and exploration, was designed for speed and agility. They were equipped with oars to complement the sail as well as making it able to navigate independent of the wind. The longship had a long and narrow hull, as well as a shallow draft, in order to facilitate landings and troop deployments in shallow water. In the year of 1893 a replica of the Gokstad ship – built in 900 AD – sailed from Norway to Newfoundland during stormy conditions in 28 days. Indeed, the Vikings perfected the art of shipbuilding to a high point. The ship became the most prevalent symbol of the Viking age.
The knarr, on the other hand, was a slower merchant vessel with a greater cargo capacity than the longship. It was designed with a short and broad hull, and a deep draft. It also lacked the longship oars. The ships were light so they could be dragged over land, they were broad, and they even had a small keel. They could sail close to land, into bays and up and along rivers.
Maybe the struggle for the existence was so tough that the ability to organize was a condition for survival. That the trade by silk and silver made them go south to Constantinople. That the fur trade made them go to northern part of Canada, where they established a colony, an Emporia, for trading with the Paleo Eskimos in the northern part of Labrador. The area had plenty of walruses and furred animals.
The Western countries had the Catholic Church as a model for their administration. In Russia the administration was adapted from China and from the Ottoman Empire. This administration wasn’t as efficient as the administration of the Catholic Church. The immense KievRus – 880 AD until 1100 AD thus contemporary of the Viking era – sent a delegation to Roslagen:

“Our country is big and rich, but here is no order.
Come to control us, to govern us and to rule us”

May be todays Russia should send a similar request to Prince Carl-Philip and Princess Sofia: Our country is big with an enormous potential, but we are totally thrown off balance. Come to control us, to govern us and to rule us as Tsar and Tsaritsa.

References (1) Språktidningen no 1 2015, p 7

(2) Språktidningen november 2014, p 26 ff. Cecilia Christner Riad in an interview with professor Stefan Brink, professor in Scandinavian studies at the University of Aberdeen.

(3) Hallberg, Peter ”Den fornisländska poesin” Bonniers Stockholm 1962
Sturlason, Snorre ”Háttatal” to be found in Ohlmarks, Åke ”Eddan” Zindermans, 1964

(4) Allt om Historia nr 10, 2017, sid 52 ff

A heartfelt gratitude to Mrs. Marian Carlsson, Lexington, VA for sharing her 24 p notes for a talk on ”Kings of the Sea: Viking Voyages” held on the 4th of September in 1979.




Prosa av Gunnar Barkenhammar
Läst 137 gånger
Publicerad 2019-04-26 14:49



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Gunnar Barkenhammar
Gunnar Barkenhammar