Slant educates you about The Vikings

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slant

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I am sooooooo sick and tired of seeing threads with inaccurate information about the vikings!

Did you know that on average, every five seconds one INFJ member posts an inaccurate statement about the vikings?[SUP]1

Well the purpose of this thread is to stop all of that! HERE IS YOUR ACCURATE INFORMATION!


1 [/SUP]Slant accepts no liability for the content of this thread under the dietary guidelines of DR. PEPPER TRADITIONAL HEALTH CODE 3873, or for the consequences of neglecting to feed your cat or dog when you go on a spur vacation forgetting their entire existence. Any actions taken by Hermain Cain or Michelle Bachmann are not to be trusted and are to be considered completely idiotic on the basis that their heads are stuffed full of cotton ( I know it's true I saw the x-rays) and the information provided has NOTHING to do with any of that, unless that information is really skewed and made to seem like it does which would be really funny but in the end it still wouldn't make any sense, subsequently confirmed in writing. If you are not the intended recipient of this information go ahead and read it anyway you fat lard because what else are you doing with your life, you could be spending it reading about ME and my life and how awesome I am you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action that is similar but not absolutely required to be similar to the Terminator in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited....if you're not gay.
 
The Vikings ​


The Vikings was an ethnicity of people that emerged around the 8[SUP]th[/SUP] century in the lands of present Day Scandinavia, including the countries of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The property also included 100s of islands- for the Vikings were sea-dwellers, building wooden ships called Longships [/i] to navigate between them. Before the Viking age, Scandinavia was a cluster of small kingdoms that were non-interconnected.

For the most part Vikings were Pagans, believing a multitude of Gods. There were hundreds of Viking Gods- yet within society there were no priests that taught about them or the religion of the people. Instead, it was the duty of the Chieftain to promote the Gods and educate the people under their rule about them.
Here are a few examples of the Pagan Gods that the Vikings worshipped.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae72/slantmaster/images2-1.jpg
Odin: The god of war, wisdom, learning, magic, patron God of Kings warriors and poets.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae72/slantmaster/th_images3-1.jpg
Thor: The God of Thunder, lightning, weather, crops. Patron God to Seamen and Farmers.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae72/slantmaster/th_images4-1.jpg
Freyr: The God of Fertility, harvest, rain, wealth, peace.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae72/slantmaster/th_images5-1.jpg
Frigg: Goddess of Marriage, motherhood, love, fertility, wife of Odin.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae72/slantmaster/th_images6-1.jpg
Freya: Goddess of Love, fertility and crops. Sister of Freyr.

http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae72/slantmaster/th_images7-1.jpg
Hel: Goddess and ruler of realm of the dead.

Paganism did not last forever in the Vikings kingdoms. In the late 10[SUP]th[/SUP] century, Christianity won over Paganism and was adopted by regional Kings. One reason that the adoption of Christianity gave the Vikings an advantage was that it created unity between the peoples, both domestically and internationally. Interjecting my opinion a bit into this, this is a common phenomenon with Ancient Civilizations I have studied. In the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] / 4[SUP]th[/SUP] century the same thing happened to the Roman Empire when Constantine the Great adopted it. For reasons that could be argued forever, Christianity is a contagious thing that has managed to liquefy a massive quantity of Ancient Religions by replacing them.

By the 10[SUP]th[/SUP] century a lot of other regions were dominated by Christianity, so sharing the same religious beliefs helped Vikings become more favorable to traders from those regions.

There were three classes of people in Viking society by the 10[SUP]th[/SUP] century:

Jarls: The upper class, including aristocrats, cheiftans, warriors and most skalds (term will be explained later).
Freemen: Farmers, Merchants, artisans, hired laborers and servants.
Thralls: Essentially this is the word for slaves.
There are some Viking mythological poems that sort of explain the origins of the three classes.
Thrall is the mythical ancestor of all slaves, hence why they were called ‘thralls’. Karl is the mythical ancestor of all freeman. Jarl is the mythical ancestor of all upper class and royalty.

Within the Farmers class there were even subsets of upper class and lower class. Vikings had a system of renting land to the poorer farmers who were called Tenant Farmers and considered the lowest on the Farmer social hierarchy chain. The highest farmers were the ones who owned their own land.
All freeman had certain inalienable rights such as the right of protection under the laws, the right to bear arms and the right to take part in Things (which will be explained later).

Now, as far as farming itself went, there were different forms. In most of Norway the land was rocky and thin soil so that isolated farms were more common. Where the land was rich and fertile in Denmark and parts of Sweden, farmers lived together in small villages that were essentially just clusters of farms.
There were never any Viking capitals, and Royal families did practice polygamy.

An important cultural activity of the upper class was feasts that could last for days. They would include beverages such as beer wine, and mead and food from all different regions. There would be entertainers who would dance to live music of fiddles, flutes, harps and pan pipes. The Vikings enjoyed board games and would often play them during these festivities.

The essential part of any feast was the Skald(s). A Skald was an upper class poet who would memorize poetry involving honorable tasks accomplished by the King and his warriors. They were highly respected in society and the poetry was considered extremely important. If you’re questioning why Skalds were so important, the reason for that was Vikings didn’t have any written language. They did have Runes and later on adopted the Roman Alphabet, but for the most part the Vikings related stories verbally through word of mouth generation to generation. The duty of the Skald was to tell these tales and that was their entire job, what they were paid for. Skalds were so prized that most of them lived in the kingdoms with the royal families.

There were also jugglers and acrobats in attendance of these feasts.

In way of politics, the Vikings had what was called Things . Things were outdoor, often on hilltops. Women were allowed to attend Things once or twice a year which speaks to how important they were to all society- representatives from all of the collected small villages would be sent to a Thing if it was a huge regional one to settle matters that affected everyone. Things were long, loud and lively and would feature debates that would drag on for hours and hours. Members displayed their approval by shouting and rattling weapons. Because the Vikings didn’t have a written language they had no written law and for the most part memorized them and handed them down to other orally. Things were intended to settle issues and set laws; whether it be to do with the selling and trading of Thralls or a property dispute, a Thing could be held for all sorts of issues. A Thing also served as the courts of the law- a jury would be chosen out of the people present at the Thing and after listening to evidence and the witnesses the jury of the Thing would make a verdict. This is the predecessor to our current legal system. Unlike many other societies, Vikings did not have a death penalty for wrong doers. They didn’t behead murders or stone them. Instead there was a penalty for a crime consisting of a fine. Since there were no policemen in society, whatever fine was decided on had to be enforced by the victim of the crime or the family of the victim. If someone was convicted and told to pay a fine and did not pay it, this could result in being outlawed which essentially removed any protection of them under the laws. If someone was outlawed they could be killed or done wrong against without fear that they would be charged for a crime. This resulted in outlaws leaving to other lands in fear of being harmed.

Viking households were generally huge. It wasn’t just the couple that would live on a farm and their offspring- extended family members such as parents and unwed brothers and sisters often lived on the estate as well. Family was highly prized within the culture and avenging family members was a common practice which would often lead to generational family feuds.

Women had a special and important role in the community of the Vikings. They were the homemakers, responsible for making family meals and everything involved in that: collecting eggs, miling cows, grinding grain, baking bread, churning the butter, making cheese, mixing porridge, roasting and baking meat and fish…etc. They sun and wove dyed wools and linen to make all of the family’s clothing. They were also responsible for assigning the children their chores- all children but infants did some work around the farms. Usually, sons worked with their fathers in the fields and daughters with their mothers inside of the home.
Wives had the right to own and inherent property and could also divorce their husbands in an unsuccessful marriage. When men were away, the wife had full responsibility of BOTH the house and the farm. Women wore keys on a sort of belt at their waist which symbolized power and authority. The keys unlocked doors to the houses as well as chests that contained the households most valuable goods.

But where did the men go when they were away? Yes, this is what you all have been waiting for, the Vikings you know and love and cherish. When men were away, usually in the summer months, they would either go trading or pillaging. Both involved sailing the seas to a far away land in boats. Most pillagers and traders were only part time because it was difficult to navigate during the cold season. They would raid places and originally this practice was to take the goods and runs- but later on the Viking men began to settle the lands that they robbed because of a shortage of land at home.

By the 12[SUP]th[/SUP] century, the Vikings had settled in Iceland. An interesting fact, too, is that during this exploration period of time the Vikings reached North America 5 centuries before Christopher Columbus. Greenland was established soonafter Iceland. The Vikings founded the first towns in Ireland, including Dublin. In the 8[SUP]th[/SUP] century the Vikings had settled in Russia.

Here were some possible careers for men if you were born during the Viking time period. It’s thought that women did work too, usually if they were wealthy or to help out in a family business- but never farmer women on their own.

Sculpters: Made stones with pictures and messages
Leather workers: Used animal hide to make shoes and boots
Weavers: Wove wool and linen for clothing and tapestries
Wood Carvers: Decorated cups, wagons and warships. Skilled ones created combs, spoons and game pieces from animal bones and horns, deer antlers and walrus tusks.
Jewelers: Made women’s brooches, colorful glass beads, charms and pendants.
Blacksmiths: Most respected artisan of them all- shaped iron into farm tools, cooking pots, nails and rivets for ships.
Weaponsmiths: Welded iron to make spears, axes and swords. Often skilled ones worked for a King or Chieftain.
Shipbuilders: Built ships and were culturally highly respected.
Trader/merchants: Traded, traveled.
Worker: Loaded and unloaded goods from ships
Skalds: Lived in households of chieftains or kings and were special to society. They recited poetry, often composing funeral poems and traveled from court to court. They performed Eddas which were poems that were less complex than the traditional Skaldic verses. Eddas had a focus on gods and legendary heroes versus the usual focus on kings and warriors.

The Vikings had no money system and relied on a trading and barter system. In the 9[SUP]th[/SUP] centuries, coins started to be minted that reflected kings with their names an titles on them.

As far as trading goes, as already was mentioned, it was a part time job only performed in the summer months. Vikings traded frequently with Iceland, Greenland, England, Ireland and France. Rare places that were sometimes traded from include Bagdad and North Africa.

Often traders traveled in groups called Felag - a fellowship of men that all shared the profit of what they made.

Moving on to military and all that, the Vikings had something called a Lid which was basically a band of warriors that were sworn to the service of a ruler. There were professional soldiers called Mercenaries , but all able bodied men were required to be dutiful to their rules and fight in battles, thus any farmer could be plopped off their homeland and sent to war if they were called to action. Men (but not necessarily women and children) were buried with their prized possessions.

Weapons that the Vikings had included:
-Swords, most of them were double edged
-Spears
-Battleaxes
-Long fighting knifes
-Bow and Arrows

For the most part Vikings didn’t wear a whole lot of armor. They had a long wooden shields that were round that they carried around which were often covered in leather and painted in bright colors. They usually wore hard leather caps and leather tunics.

The youngest warriors would form a wall in front of the fighting group during battle. The king would make a speech before battle and afterward the warriors would shout and clink their weapons together which was reported by other cultures as ‘barbaric’, especially Islamic cultures who described Vikings. In fact, most of the depictions of Vikings come straight from the journals of individuals visiting from the Islamic cultures. During the time of the Vikings the Islamic nations were one of the most advanced cultures in the world. They had developed math and medicine, not to mention already a written language.
Vahallah: A paradise afterlife.

Valkyries: Maiden warriors believed to guide brave warriors to Vahallah.
Ragmaok: “Doom of Gods”. Basically, the 2012 of the Viking culture- they believed that Ragmaok would be the epic battle between good and evil that would end the world. When it was over, the world would rebuild itself from the sea and everyone would live in an immortal paradise for the rest of eternity. Warriors believed that every battle they fought was helping to prepare them for the final battle of Ragmoak.

Alright, here is the Runes bit. I mentioned that Vikings had no written languages, no books, etc. That’s not entirely true, they did have Runes. But Runes wasn’t a written language used often- it was limited and typically done only by a Professional Rune Master who engraved them, often for royalty. Runes were mainly done in the honor of the dead- and were sort of important in that sense to record who had died and also to record the relatives of the deceased and bloodlines which were often referred to during inherited territory disputes. There was a strong tradition of literature, but it was given orally through poetry not written down.
Futhark was the runic alphabet. It has a total of 16 runes. It seems that although not many things were written in Runes, the common people had a concept of them and could both read and write them, even women. Countless artifacts have been recovered with Viking people haven written their names on them and short messages. Runes were always short messages because they were carved on stone and that was time consuming.

So, the role of slaves was interesting to learn about in the context of Viking society, especially if you compare it to slaves of the United States and slaves of Roman empires like Pompeii. But I’m not going to get into that in great detail, I’ll just kinda give you the run down here.

Slaves were called Thralls , I sort of already mentioned before why. Most of them were actually foreign and had been captured during wars and raids- however, sometimes a freeman could become a slave if he couldn’t pay off his debts. Most thralls worked as house servants or farm laborers. Females were usually kept as sex slaves, but they could do regular work as well. The price of a slave in Viking society was the equivalent of the price of 8 cows. Before Christianity had been adopted, Thralls were killed and buried with their masters. This was only for male masters, however some upper class women’s slaves were also killed and buried with her when she died. For the most part thralls were killed by beheading in these states.

Abusing a slave was considered bad behavior in society and somewhat discouraged. Most slaves that were skilled or beautiful could be respected within the household. Often a slave was allowed to earn some income by either working in the crafts or plowing extra land. Sometimes a male slave might become an artisan or estate manager. Women slaves were given the right to be the governess to their owner’s children. A slave’s freedom could be bought by a friend or family member and some were set free by their masters for faithful service, some even being adopted into the family that owned them officially/legally.
The Viking age ended in about the 11[SUP]th[/SUP] century.
 
so what are some misconceptions about vikings?

i guess it must be a foreigner thing to not have the right info, because in school in Sweden we learned about the stuff you posted here.
 
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Thank you for posting this. I've noticed the confusion about vikings on the forum myself, and I'm ashamed to admit I am not as knowledgable on the subject as I should be. With your help, however, I may be at least somewhat respectable.

I do have or two questions though:

You mentioned there were many gods in the Viking deity spectrum? The Greeks had Dionysus, the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, ritual madness, and ecstasy. I was wondering if there was a Viking god of alcohol of any sort - be it wine or mead.

Along those same lines - is Loki a Viking god, or does he fall within a different spectrum?

Thanks Slant!
 
Interesting thread, looking forward to more posts.

Just one thing, The "doom of gods" is not called Ragmoak, The name is Ragnar
 
I'm only posting the first chapter of this. The rest is available through the link. It's one of the most famous Icelandic Sagas, which are not entirely factual, but still give a decent idea of the culture back then.

http://sagadb.org/egils_saga.en


1893, English, transl. W. C. Green, from the original 'Egils saga Skallagr
 
DrShephard said:
Thank you for posting this. I've noticed the confusion about vikings on the forum myself, and I'm ashamed to admit I am not as knowledgable on the subject as I should be. With your help, however, I may be at least somewhat respectable.

I do have or two questions though:

You mentioned there were many gods in the Viking deity spectrum? The Greeks had Dionysus, the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, ritual madness, and ecstasy. I was wondering if there was a Viking god of alcohol of any sort - be it wine or mead.

Along those same lines - is Loki a Viking god, or does he fall within a different spectrum?

Thanks Slant!
Click to expand...

Yes, Loki was a Goddess , she was the goddess of mischief and lies.

My book didn't cover if there was a god/godess for wine or mead.

Krutz said:
Interesting thread, looking forward to more posts.

Just one thing, The "doom of gods" is not called Ragmoak, The name is Ragnar
Click to expand...
 
Why do you keep using the term Viking as if it referred to all of the Norse? The term Viking is only accurate when describing those actively going abroad in an expedition, regardless of whether they were trading or raiding.
 
slant said:
Yes, Loki was a Goddess , she was the goddess of mischief and lies.

My book didn't cover if there was a god/godess for wine or mead.



Thanks- I had it written down correctly but I couldn't read my own handwriting! Thanks for pointing out my mistake.
Click to expand...
Happy to help, this is a subject i'm interested in and i'm a Swede so. :D
I would like to add a little to this as well.

Loki(Loke) is not to be mistaken with Logi(loge), they are not the same although both are giants.
They actually compete against one another in an eating contest at the halls of giant Skrymer.

Loki indeed is commonly refered to as the god of mischief and lies, or plainly as the trickster god.
This is a fair description off him although he is a very complex character and central in the myths, In my
opinion he can also be seen as somewhat of a mover(making things happen) as he is the cause of many
an adventure and story, and many a times he is also the one to provide the solution to the things he caused.
He is not a god, he is a giant living amongst the Asa gods(his parents are Farbaute and Laufey),
he is mostly refered to as a male, however he like Odin is a shapechanger. There are many stories where Loki
changed both his gender and species, he even gave birth to Odin's eight legged horse Sleipner while in the shape of a mare.
He is also the parent of the Fenris-wolf, the Midgard-serpent(Jormundgand), Hel, Vale, and Narfe.


He was chained to sharp rocks in the undergrounds, and a snake was poised above his face dripping venom
into his eyes, Loki's wife Sigyn stood watch over her husband with a bowl to catch the snakes venom,
and whenever the bowl was full and she had to empty it, venom would drip down on Loki making him twist
violently in agony, jerking his bonds and thus it was said he was the cause of earthquakes.


As far as I can remember there are no Alcohol god/goddess comparable to Dionysus. I can remember
Valkyries serving mead to Odin and fallen warriors, A goat that produce mead instead of milk,
and a mead produced by two dwarves that granted the drinker the gifts of a Skald.
 
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magister343 said:
Why do you keep using the term Viking as if it referred to all of the Norse? The term Viking is only accurate when describing those actively going abroad in an expedition, regardless of whether they were trading or raiding.
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Cuz thats what the book called them.

bickelz said:
Lol, I've never even seen anyone say anything about Vikings on the forums.
Click to expand...
Lies! You have now.
 
Dear Sir,

I am in a quandary sir.

You see I have two photos, alas I know not of the 2 which is a Viking.

8(1).jpg
plat%20lik1.jpg


Could you please assist me?

Also, how does one properly pronounce:
Slant said:
Longships [/i]
Click to expand...


I await eagerly upon your reply.

Yours sincerely,
InvisibleJim (not a viking)
 
Bird said:
......And just so you know, I didn't bother reading your longass
post about your dead ......
Click to expand...


that said, Isn't it true that, according to the Mormons, Vikings rowed the boat that Jesus used to cross the Atlantic and do his ministry in the Americas?
 
Yay I read the whole thing... slowly. Most of it I learned in middle school but there were a couple details that I hadn't known. Thanks it was entertaining.
 
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