Question: I know the vikings are much more than just bloodthirsty raiders, but could you tell me exactly why and how?
...because they're an entire culture of people, not a caricature? Honestly, no, I cannot tell you "exactly why and how" any group of people is not actually just a set of berserking marauders who do nothing but run around setting things on fire and stabbing people. No people in the history of the world has ever been that. Murder and rampage are not sensible foundations on which to build a culture that you want to survive more than a few weeks.
Like every other culture around the world, the ancient Norse had their farmers and hunters, their social structure and laws, their domestic occupations and festivals, their environmental adaptations and their own unique values about what was important in life. They were a society of people, which means that there were more of them that were not ransacking raiders than were (newsflash: they also had women and children!) and that they did a great deal of other things in their daily lives other than zip around the ocean in dragon-headed longboats.
I think what you really want here is just some perspective on the Norse that doesn't come from Hollywood, and I don't think I'm going to be able to write you the entire history of Scandinavian social convention because I need to do other things. If you'd like to research on your own, I suggest Jonathan Clements' A Brief History of the Vikings or Peter Foote's The Viking Achievement, both excellent books on the culture of the ancient Norse.
Well they were one of the first democracy's with the thing, there women had a lot of freedom and owned property. They also had one of the most vibrant cultures with art and storytelling that gave us some of the greatest sagas in history. The vikings always seem to be the villans due to their pillaging, yet nothing is said about them also being explorers, or of the massive death toll Charlamagne racked up when he forced the Northern lands to convert to Christianity. I consider that just as evil as any viking raid.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you're a big viking fan! Just like every other culture, they had things they did better at than others and other things they did that were completely reprehensible. As the post title says, people is people, no matter where they're from.
DeleteIt's important to remember both; don't idealize them into a people who were more noble than their contemporaries, because they weren't, and don't point out the bad things other peoples did as if they excuse the bad things the Vikings did. But also don't forget that they contributed to the cultural landscape with advancements and ideas just like every other culture. There's no all good or all bad.
He shed the blood of the Saxon men.
DeleteHe shed the blood of Ten THOUSAND Saxon men!
DeleteAs a Viking descendant, I should like to point out I've always found the use of the term "Viking" as a name for the entire culture a bit odd. That is perhaps the first thing we should drop from the conversation entirely. "Norse" and "Viking" are not synonymous. Vikings were the Norse people who went abroad, whether for raiding, trading or settling. The rest, the ones who stayed at home, are not Vikings in any way, shape or form, not according to the Norse themselves, anyway.
ReplyDeleteMay seem like a minor point, but it's always been a pet peeve of mine.
The perceptive may ask whether my describing myself as a Viking descendant is a mistake, given what I just specified. It is not. My ancestors indeed went looting and pillaging. And trading, too, I should point out.
Right. That's my self-indulgent, patriotic two cents. Keep up the good work on the page, and have a pleasant day.
This is a good point - I apologize for adding to the confusion. I was using "viking" since the original asker did, but it's a much better practice to use "Norse" and reserve viking for the actual raiders.
DeleteI don't know the Huns did a pretty good job of just being about stabbing people and setting stuff on fire... well during Atila's time anyway.
ReplyDeleteNot at all. The Huns under Attila were herders and gatherers, keeping large amounts of livestock for their livelihood, and also artistically inclined, being some the only people in their area to bother with things like embroidery and clothing ornamentation. The entire reason they conquered a lot of the surrounding area so easily was because they were innovative enough to invent the stirrup, making them much better horsemen than their neighbors. They also had a thriving religion of their own, the Mongolian worship of Tengri and his associated gods, and their movement into Europe is one of the main reasons we know about it since before that time certainly nobody had ever gone to Mongolia and learned about it. It includes a lot of neat concepts, such as the horse being an extension of its owner rather than a separate creature (leading to men buried with their horses or horses buried with their men) and spiritual shamanism in which priests would embark on spirit journeys to fight evil spirits and save their people from illness or misfortune.
DeleteThe Huns have it especially bad from a historic perspective because they weren't a literate culture and therefore all history about them is written by the people that they fought in their numerous wars. Unsurprisingly, it's mostly violently racist propaganda about how stupid and only fit for violence they are, which is as wildly inaccurate as it would be if you said it about any race.
Basically, you're falling into the same trap you do for the Norse we're talking about above - popular culture paints the Huns as nothing but ravening invaders, so you assume that's all they were. Which isn't true. :)
I meant that more jokingly as essentially that's how Roman Historians seemed to treat the Huns.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to ask your opinion on cubicle 7's Yggdrasill book. Have you heard of it, is it a reliable source on Viking Culture. BTW in case you didn't know Cubicle 7 is the same group that made the Doctor Who RPG.
ReplyDelete