Vikings - fact and fiction

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  • Serene NightSerene Night Posts: 17,560

    The biggest and weird thing about Vikings is how many people seem to think Vikings are a race of people. Viking is a job. And one different groups did. 

  • Serene Night said:

    The biggest and weird thing about Vikings is how many people seem to think Vikings are a race of people. Viking is a job. And one different groups did. 

    Exactly. And one tribe of vikings named themselves "Rus", and settled in Eastern Europe. Their decendants now call themselves "Russians" 

  • ArtAngelArtAngel Posts: 1,514
    edited January 2021

    Erik the Red's second son, Leif Erikson,was the seafaring viking explorer who discovered Newfoundland, Canada, 500 years before Columbus. Lief's settlement in Nfld, was the only authentic 'New World' settlement to date and has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It  was 'discovered' the year my mother died, 1960, an eleven hour drive from where I was born and lived for 26 years. In 2014-2016, while I was here in America, more 'viking sites' were discovered in Newfoundland, both within a two-hour drive from Stephenville, where I lived from age 6-9, The Sops Arm site is really suspected to be a site where the settlers of L'Anse aux Meadows went to hunt. My father would take us to L'Anse aux Meadows where he went Salmon fishing so it is typical to camp temporarily while hunting/fishing in other areas. Sop's Arm had pits that the vikings built to trap cariboo. These pits were built in straight lines and continued for almost the length of a football field (just 10 yards shy) where the animal/herds would run and fall in.

    The site at Point Rosee (near Port aux Basque - the Ferry to travel to the rest of Canada etc) is likely also a hunting/camping spot used to cook a kill. Although 'tourist attractions' from additionally discovered sites exist, they are not authenticated as settlements but more of a stop and hunt/rest spot. Vikings may have fought, or temporarily hung their 'hats/helmets' in transit  but such places are not considered authentic settlements of the 'New World'.

    L'anse aux Meadows is where they actually settled. My parents, and some other generations taught by Generation X teachers, were erroneously taught in school that Christopher Columbus of Italy, not Leif Ericson, discovered the Americas, namely North America. The linguistics of Nfld differs from the rest of Canada and when any author writes anything of fact, quoting authentic Newfoundland dialect, they get flack for grammer and spelling errors, which sucks because you can't change history or linguistics to suit the expectations of the masses. The old Norwegian & old Icelandic languages were quite similar and also spoken in settlements of Ireland which is why the Nfld language sounds sort of Irish, but differs.

    The true fact 'Norse' refers to all people alive during the viking age (including medieval Scandinavians) not just Norway. of why vikings resettled in Nfld, is because of the power struggle over  <<<< Edit:  (who care's?  Right? ...  big grin)

    Sevrin said:

    Peter Wade said:

    I vaguely remember reading some fantasy book long ago that had an elite group of warriors who went into battle without armour or weapons because they were amazingly fierce and brave. Can't remember their name or the book or the author.

    Doesn't sound like the kind of book that would have a sequel.

    LOLx2. Maybe I'll add their ghosts to the ones in Crashing Life, and give them some unfinished business to contend with (just joking).

    @FantastArt, You are right. The myth of horned helmets started after, Carl E. Doepler designed horned helmets for the opera, 'Der Ring des Nibelungen', in 1876.

     

    New World Viking site1.JPG
    860 x 1237 - 214K
    Norse.JPG
    549 x 894 - 93K
    Post edited by ArtAngel on
  • bytescapesbytescapes Posts: 1,807

    Chumly said:

    Sheeshh....
    If you think the Viking Mis-Interpretation is bad, it has nothing on Pirates/Piracy/Golden age of Pirates.....  
    Another one we can blame on Victorian Authors and Disney.
    http://www.gentlemenoffortune.com/

    The Victorians were also responsible for inventing a whole 'Scottish' culture that had little relationship to reality. The notion of 'clan tartans' is largely a Victorian invention, and they popularized the filleadh beag ('little kilt'), an 18th-century invention, over the more authentically Highland filleadh mòr ('great kilt').

  • FishtalesFishtales Posts: 6,043
    edited January 2021

    bytescapes said:

    Chumly said:

    Sheeshh....
    If you think the Viking Mis-Interpretation is bad, it has nothing on Pirates/Piracy/Golden age of Pirates.....  
    Another one we can blame on Victorian Authors and Disney.
    http://www.gentlemenoffortune.com/

    The Victorians were also responsible for inventing a whole 'Scottish' culture that had little relationship to reality. The notion of 'clan tartans' is largely a Victorian invention, and they popularized the filleadh beag ('little kilt'), an 18th-century invention, over the more authentically Highland filleadh mòr ('great kilt').

     

    According to this site the small kilt came into being in the 1720's.

    https://www.scottishcountrydanceoftheday.com/daysoftheyear/the-kilt-maker

    Post edited by Fishtales on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,929
    edited January 2021

    Fishtales said:

    bytescapes said:

    Chumly said:

    Sheeshh....
    If you think the Viking Mis-Interpretation is bad, it has nothing on Pirates/Piracy/Golden age of Pirates.....  
    Another one we can blame on Victorian Authors and Disney.
    http://www.gentlemenoffortune.com/

    The Victorians were also responsible for inventing a whole 'Scottish' culture that had little relationship to reality. The notion of 'clan tartans' is largely a Victorian invention, and they popularized the filleadh beag ('little kilt'), an 18th-century invention, over the more authentically Highland filleadh mòr ('great kilt').

     

    According to this site the small kilt came into being in the 1720's.

    https://www.scottishcountrydanceoftheday.com/daysoftheyear/the-kilt-maker

    There are people in northern Indiana that 'reenact' old battles in North America and they plainly say the uniforms they wear with kilts are authentic from about 1770s. Well authentic as they could manage 250 years later. I think it's near Muncie, Indiana.

    That's a big thing. There are even more people that reenact Civil War battles.

    Post edited by nonesuch00 on
  • McGyverMcGyver Posts: 7,005
    edited January 2021

    Chumly said:

    Sheeshh....
    If you think the Viking Mis-Interpretation is bad, it has nothing on Pirates/Piracy/Golden age of Pirates.....  
    Another one we can blame on Victorian Authors and Disney.
    http://www.gentlemenoffortune.com/

    FantastArt...
    You in Germany?

    I feel the same way about these Victorian nincompoops like Giovanni Schiaparelli, H.G. Wells and Kurd Lasswitz depicting Martians as a bunch of canal building, water stealing, tentacled monstrosities... A stereotype that has persisted right up to 2005 when actor Tom Cruise further besmirched their fine reputation.

    Sure they may enjoy a little human flesh here and there... who doesn't?... but that's besides the point... to portray them as being too arrogant and stupid to take even the slightest precautions against pathogens, is almost a laughable scenario... I mean who'd do that?... okay, bad example... but it's totally insulting to Martian culture and dinning habits to portray them as blood thirsty monsters, yet most of our depictions of these noble monstrosities involve them stomping around in tripodial war machines, slurping up our water, roasting cities with heat rays and snarfing down humans willy-nilly... all thanks to Victorian authors and Dreamworks.

     

     

    Post edited by McGyver on
  • maikdeckermaikdecker Posts: 2,750
    That's a big thing. There are even more people that reenact Civil War battles.

    Loads of Civil War reenacters in Great Britain, too... just a different Civil War. wink

    And also loads of "Viking" reenacters there. Some of which tour(ed) north sea coast of Germany up to Denmark in the early 80's what how was I got in contact with them.

    And in Moesgard is since about that time a yearly meeting which I had the honour and fun to take part of in the mid-80's when I was still fit enough to use a sword properly..

  • bytescapesbytescapes Posts: 1,807
    Loads of Civil War reenacters in Great Britain, too... just a different Civil War. wink
     

    I have a happy memory of seeing two English Civil War re-enactors standing by the side of the motorway in full Cavalier outfit -- white lace shirt fronts and all -- next to a broken-down 2CV with pikes sticking out of the sunroof, explaining to a tow-truck driver just what was wrong with their car.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,929

    maikdecker said:

    That's a big thing. There are even more people that reenact Civil War battles.

    Loads of Civil War reenacters in Great Britain, too... just a different Civil War. wink

    And also loads of "Viking" reenacters there. Some of which tour(ed) north sea coast of Germany up to Denmark in the early 80's what how was I got in contact with them.

    And in Moesgard is since about that time a yearly meeting which I had the honour and fun to take part of in the mid-80's when I was still fit enough to use a sword properly..

     

    Oh, that's sort of interesting. It sound like a giant fencing competition where they really compete but no body gets hurt.

  • ChumlyChumly Posts: 793
    edited January 2021

     

    Loads of Civil War reenacters in Great Britain, too... just a different Civil War. wink

     

    Funny thing though, there IS a contingent of UK folks that do AMERICAN Civil War... in the UK.  Or at least there was (and I can't believe they have dissapeared).  I used to live near Lakenheath/Feltwell and the American school nearby hosted about 100 or so US Civil War Re-enactors who set up for the weekend on base and showed the American Kids what US Civil War soldiers were like... Camp, Drill, Clothes, Food... it was Awesome. That was probably back around... 1999/2000.

    Post edited by Chumly on
  • vukiolvukiol Posts: 66

    maikdecker said:

     

    One has to look very closely at the results from historical "truths" - old and new alike - to make sure how much of them results from actual proven facts or just from assumptions, done by someone by an agenda. Being from Germany, which has it's own time in history of a quite fictitious hereditary of "blond and blue-eyed people" mostly spread a brunette dark-eyed austrian, taught me that.

    just to speak the truth, truth dont exist, time to erase that word from the dictionary :)

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 9,480

    vukiol said:

    maikdecker said:

     

    One has to look very closely at the results from historical "truths" - old and new alike - to make sure how much of them results from actual proven facts or just from assumptions, done by someone by an agenda. Being from Germany, which has it's own time in history of a quite fictitious hereditary of "blond and blue-eyed people" mostly spread a brunette dark-eyed austrian, taught me that.

    just to speak the truth, truth dont exist, time to erase that word from the dictionary :)

    Take a blind man to an elephant and ask him to describe what does the animal look like... Depending on which part of the animal the man is touching, the assumptions and descriptions you get are completely different. 

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,733

    PerttiA said:

    vukiol said:

    maikdecker said:

     

    One has to look very closely at the results from historical "truths" - old and new alike - to make sure how much of them results from actual proven facts or just from assumptions, done by someone by an agenda. Being from Germany, which has it's own time in history of a quite fictitious hereditary of "blond and blue-eyed people" mostly spread a brunette dark-eyed austrian, taught me that.

    just to speak the truth, truth dont exist, time to erase that word from the dictionary :)

    Take a blind man to an elephant and ask him to describe what does the animal look like... Depending on which part of the animal the man is touching, the assumptions and descriptions you get are completely different. 

    Now we're at it, Bill Gates never said that 640K thing... wink

    https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/the--640k--quote-won-t-go-away----but-did-gates-really-say-it-.html

     

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 9,480

    Taoz said:

    PerttiA said:

    vukiol said:

    maikdecker said:

     

    One has to look very closely at the results from historical "truths" - old and new alike - to make sure how much of them results from actual proven facts or just from assumptions, done by someone by an agenda. Being from Germany, which has it's own time in history of a quite fictitious hereditary of "blond and blue-eyed people" mostly spread a brunette dark-eyed austrian, taught me that.

    just to speak the truth, truth dont exist, time to erase that word from the dictionary :)

    Take a blind man to an elephant and ask him to describe what does the animal look like... Depending on which part of the animal the man is touching, the assumptions and descriptions you get are completely different. 

    Now we're at it, Bill Gates never said that 640K thing... wink

    https://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/the--640k--quote-won-t-go-away----but-did-gates-really-say-it-.html

    Easy to deny as the proof was on paper magazines that nobody held on to laugh

  • A friend of mine used to go to various Viking reenactments. On one occasion he & his band went close to the Sussex coast to spend a few days playing in a field. There were 50-60 of them and one of their number owned the farm they were on. Further up the lane was a bunch of caravan utilising nomadic travellers, occasionally known as 'Gypsies', illegally parked on a field. The Police came mob handed, in two busses, fully suited in riot gear with battons, shields, helmets etc and ordered the legally camped re-enactors off their own field. The owner protested and was shouted down by the Police. Eventually the Police lined up and formed a shield wall which they then beat with their battons and advanced menacingly. There was only one thing the re-enactors could do, and that was to form a shield wall and beat their shields with axes and swords while advancing menacingly. The police officer in charge stopped the incipient massacre by admitting that maybe thay had the wrong field.

    Regards,

    Richard

  • bytescapesbytescapes Posts: 1,807

    richardandtracy said:

    A friend of mine used to go to various Viking reenactments. On one occasion he & his band went close to the Sussex coast to spend a few days playing in a field. There were 50-60 of them and one of their number owned the farm they were on. Further up the lane was a bunch of caravan utilising nomadic travellers, occasionally known as 'Gypsies', illegally parked on a field. The Police came mob handed, in two busses, fully suited in riot gear with battons, shields, helmets etc and ordered the legally camped re-enactors off their own field. The owner protested and was shouted down by the Police. Eventually the Police lined up and formed a shield wall which they then beat with their battons and advanced menacingly. There was only one thing the re-enactors could do, and that was to form a shield wall and beat their shields with axes and swords while advancing menacingly. The police officer in charge stopped the incipient massacre by admitting that maybe thay had the wrong field.

    I am picturing something like the final scene of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

    The cops at that time were not known for their restraint where suspected 'travellers' were concerned. There was the infamous Battle of the Beanfield in 1985, when riot police ambushed a convoy of vehicles driving to Stonehenge, wrecking the vehicles and beating the occupants.

    "... seems they were committing treason -- by trying to live on the road!" ["The Battle of the Beanfield", Levellers]

    A friend of mine who lived locally was once served with a written warning that said that he would be arrested if he ever drove on a particular road again (such a thing, incidentally, has no legal basis). Why? Because he'd picked up a hitchhiker and the sight of two people in a car, one of whom had long hair, was apparently enough to persuade a cop that they were both "travellers" who needed to be deterred.

  • That's just how it was, apparently. He loves the story.

    Regards,

    Richard

  • OstadanOstadan Posts: 1,123

    Mark_e593e0a5 said:

    Serene Night said:

    The biggest and weird thing about Vikings is how many people seem to think Vikings are a race of people. Viking is a job. And one different groups did. 

    Exactly. And one tribe of vikings named themselves "Rus", and settled in Eastern Europe. Their decendants now call themselves "Russians"

    And another bunch of 'em set up housekeeping in France, became known as the Normans, and for a while dominated much of Europe (to say nothing of the Crusades).

  • OstadanOstadan Posts: 1,123
     

    Take a blind man to an elephant and ask him to describe what does the animal look like... Depending on which part of the animal the man is touching, the assumptions and descriptions you get are completely different.

    Kind of like explaining the rendering hobby to people.

    Elephant-3.jpg
    1667 x 1250 - 2M
  • Peter Wade said:

    "I vaguely remember reading some fantasy book long ago that had an elite group of warriors who went into battle without armour or weapons because they were amazingly fierce and brave. Can't remember their name or the book or the author."

    They were probably based on the Berserkers, which translates to "Bear shirts" or possibly the Ulfheadnar, who were also elite warriors and supposedly went into battle wearing wolf skins. Both groups were believed to take on the aspects of the animal whose skins they wore.

    and Jabba said:

    "PA Artists - if I could make a suggestion - make you helmets so the horns can be removed (most helmets look fairly historic except for the helmets), then everybody gets the best of both worlds  ;) "  Yeah, that.

  • Celts also, supposedly, fought naked - though that was based on unriendly accounts by the Romans, who no doubt wanted to emphasise the celts' purported barbarity.

  • If I want historical realism, I'll visit a museum or watch the discovery channel, LOL

    Agreed
  • McGyverMcGyver Posts: 7,005

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Celts also, supposedly, fought naked - though that was based on unriendly accounts by the Romans, who no doubt wanted to emphasise the celts' purported barbarity.

    Or the Romans were deeply interested in the erotic style of combat... the Romans and Greeks were big into naked wrestling, so ya never know.

  • hacsarthacsart Posts: 2,024

    Now that begs to be rendered...

     

    I have a happy memory of seeing two English Civil War re-enactors standing by the side of the motorway in full Cavalier outfit -- white lace shirt fronts and all -- next to a broken-down 2CV with pikes sticking out of the sunroof, explaining to a tow-truck driver just what was wrong with their car.

  • LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 11,176
    edited February 2021

    Of course Vikings wore horns on their helmets. I have the proof. 

    Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit! (at 0:56)

    Post edited by LeatherGryphon on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,586
    edited February 2021

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Celts also, supposedly, fought naked - though that was based on unriendly accounts by the Romans, who no doubt wanted to emphasise the celts' purported barbarity.

    ...I thought that was the Picts who were said to paint themselves blue and charged into combat totally naked against the Romans.

    Meanwhile here in the States there are some who believe vikings look like this and engaged in strange rituals that involved an oblate leather spheroid in front of thousands of townfolk.

     

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • Peter WadePeter Wade Posts: 1,604

    McGyver said:

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Celts also, supposedly, fought naked - though that was based on unriendly accounts by the Romans, who no doubt wanted to emphasise the celts' purported barbarity.

    Or the Romans were deeply interested in the erotic style of combat... the Romans and Greeks were big into naked wrestling, so ya never know.

    Not actually naked, but there was that scene near the end of Carry On Up The Khyber. I'm sure it was historically accurate. 

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