Jun 24
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I have to find & watch this ASAP. 😆
You Want to Make a Fantasy World - Part XXXIII: Vikings!
First off, what was a Viking. They weren't a people, culture, or even class, (like, Spartans are a class. No, Viking is a VERB.
It uses the same structure of English verbs, -ing.
It roughly means adventuring. Travel, for trade or raiding.
The the named Vikings were probably Thanes or Jarls. Thane/Thegn. Thegn means freeman, but means Freeman, as in Free from Work. They had lands which they drew rents from.
Now, Scandinavia has short summers and long winters, and you can't earn income from your lands in the winter. Everyone's primary goal is to not be killed by winter. Travel is almost impossible.
Vikings were not especially good as warriors. They were the top 10% of their own society, and you get to be the top of a warrior society by being a great warrior, but when compared to other tribal warrior cultures, they aren't really any better. When compared with sedentary cultures, they were often even worse, at least at direct warfare.
By Vikings were feared from North America to Byzantium?
They did have two really important things going for them:
Fatalism
The Viking view of fate is that:
a) You can't affect WHEN you die, but you can affect HOW.
b) If the gods give you advice, and you don't follow it, it's probably because life sucks, not because the gods are angry at you.
This produced a culture that was just not afraid of getting hurt. They sailed across oceans, they fought battles "endorsed by Thor" aka, thunderstorms.
Mobility
Until WWII, there was no better landing craft in the world than the Viking Longship. Just like it wasn't until WWII that there was no firearm as good, (in open combat), as the English Longbow.
The Norsemen, (Literally Northmen), live in Scandinavia. They have a lot of fjiords attached to deep waters, without any good overland routes. This means that they, by necessity, needed a ship that can survive in the open ocean while barely having a draught, (distance between the waterline and keel).
Even better, the Longships can be PORTAGED. They can be carried overland, or at least run over land on greased poles. This allowed Vikings to appear, literally, anywhere.
And combined with fatalism, whereby being a madlad won't shorten your lifespan, they literally traveled to North America and Byzantium.
When Alfred the Great kicked the Danes out of England and unified the English Heptarchy, he created the Fyrd, which mandated every area to fortify, even the tiniest rivers. Because Viking Longships could literally appear on any waterway deep enough for a canoe. You might think I'm joking, but their typical draught was 0.5m. Which is less than deepwater outrigger canoes, like those used by Polynesian Voyagers.
That said, they typically didn't spend that much time on open water, they would travel between islands, and typically would have seen the next island before actually trying to get there. They were also made from solid logs, that were squared off a bit, making them incredibly strong for their size. Their cargo capacity was actually pretty terrible, because they were designed as a necessity to visit your relatives in Scandinavian fjords, not to be part of a merchant fleet.
This is, literally, literally literally, the preferred tactics of the Mobile Infantry in Starship Troopers. They liked Corvettes that could deploy a single platoon.
Varangian Guard
Byzantium claims to be Rome, but Rome was it's army. Literally. Literally, literally. Most Roman territory only existed because of standing Legions. It was literally what separated civilization from barbarians.
Byzantium was too fat and complacent to defend themselves. Instead of fighting for themselves, what do they do?
Hire Vikings. Literally, literally. The Varangian Guard had the first right to loot, and could literally, literally literally, literally literally literally loot the emperor's chambers when he died. This is what a non-warrior culture has to do to survive against a warrior one.
For the record, to get to Byzantium, they took the inland route to the Black Sea. It was a great place to sell cash crops. You know, slaves, unicorn horns, other rarities.
Voices of the Ancestors (facebook)
Scientists have uncovered a stunning link between the New World and the Old — hidden for over a millennium.
DNA evidence reveals that a Native American woman’s genetic lineage has been part of Icelandic bloodlines for more than 1,000 years. This means that long before Columbus ever dreamed of crossing the Atlantic, a connection between the Americas and Europe already existed — one carried quietly through generations of Icelandic families.
Researchers identified a rare haplogroup C1e, a genetic marker found only among Indigenous peoples of the Americas, in several Icelandic lineages. The most plausible explanation: Norse explorers from Greenland or Vinland (North America) brought back a woman of Native ancestry around 1000 AD, during the time of Leif Erikson and the first Viking settlements across the Atlantic.
This discovery reshapes history — suggesting that Indigenous peoples were not only the first to meet Europeans, but that their legacy became woven into the DNA of Europe itself.
I’m so grateful I’m not Norse because I’d be such a shitty wife to a Norseman
Like some huge bulky Viking dude with a beard would come on to me and I’d just be so disgusted by his appearance and if he tried to sleep with me I’d probably throw up so let’s all be grateful that I’m not in that situation
Read the latest LOST IN HISTORY post on Greenland, the Vikings and Denmark.
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