Subject:
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Re: Vikings?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.castle
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Date:
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Wed, 2 Feb 2005 17:29:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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3942 times
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James Stacey wrote:
> Are you using the term Viking here where you should prehaps be using
> the term Norsemen ? I always thought that 'Viking' was a term for the
> Warriors. Various online encyclopaedias seem to agree with this..
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings for example.
> quote : The name Viking is a loan from the native Scandinavian term
> for the Norse seafaring warriors who raided the coasts of
> Scandinavia, Europe and the British Isles from the late 8th century
> to the 11th century, the period of European history referred to as
> the Viking Age.
I'd say that definition is a bit 'narrow'.
As far as we learn from *our* history books, 'Vikings' are the name given to
almost all inhabitants in Norway, Denmark and Sweden (and later Iceland and
Greenland), maybe excluding the northernmost parts.
The name 'Viking' *may* come from 'Vik' which means 'bay', 'creek', i.e.
"The people living in the creeks". They were good boating people, travelling
mainly by boat even inside the country.
They were mainly fishermen, farmers, merchants and village builders, but as
only the eldest son could inherit the farm, the younger ones had to have
something else to do too. They made a lot of travelling, some raiding,
trading, exploration, colonization and also worked as mercenaries (eg. at
Konstantinopel in Turkey).
They founded settlements all over the part of the world where they
travelled, Normandie in France maybe has the most obvious name.
The Swedish vikings were mainly travelling eastwards (raiding the baltic
states once a year), all the way down to Turkey, and it is belived that a
viking named Rurik was the founder of Russia.
Sorry to say, they did not normally wear the 'traditional' helmet with
horns, that's probably a later invention to make them more like the Devil's
company. The most usual design, I believe, is a smooth helmet with an iron
band down over the nose for protection.
I'd better stop now, or this post gets way too long...
--
Anders Isaksson, Sweden
BlockCAD: http://w1.161.telia.com/~u16122508/proglego.htm
Gallery: http://w1.161.telia.com/~u16122508/gallery/index.htm
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Vikings?
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| Are you using the term Viking here where you should prehaps be using the term Norsemen ? I always thought that 'Viking' was a term for the Warriors. Various online encyclopaedias seem to agree with this.. (URL) for example. quote : The name Viking (...) (20 years ago, 2-Feb-05, to lugnet.castle)
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