Vikings

From Medieval Wiki

By Edmund Billings VII and Zachary Bauke

"From the fury of the Norsemen, O Lord, deliver us!" -Saxon Prayer

"Be your friend's true friend. Repay gift for gift. Repay laughter with laughter again but betrayal with treachery." -The Havamal (the book of Viking wisdom)

The Vikings (700-1100 B.C.E.) were a seafaring people hailing from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and later Russia, Iceland, and Greenland, who conquered and colonized these countries after the fall of the Roman Empire. Although the writing from the time characterizes them as evil pillagers, they were in fact great explorers, sailors, and navigators, as well as fierce fighters that attacked and pillaged most of England, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain.

A picture of the famous Viking, Leif Ereiksson, discovering Stoneland (North America).

The Rise of the Vikings

The Vikings started appearing and attacking around 700 B.C.E., about 250 years after the fall of Rome, eager to stake their claim in the known world, which was left for the taking. After conquering Norway, Sweden, Denmark(known in the collective as Scandinavia), they began wreaking havoc on the Christian settlements in eastern England an Ireland, eventually moving south all the way to Italy, and eastward to Russia. Because the other population of the known world already had a claim to their parts of the world by then, they decided to settle for their own conglomerate of countries and numerous settlements in other lands, and put their maritime knowledge to other uses, such as exploration and trading, sometimes to the places they once looted.

The Life of a Viking

The Vikings lived in either small villages(Denmark and Sweden), or large but isolated farms(Norway and Iceland), usually along the coast. They appointed a leader for said village, usually the bravest sailor, fighter, navigator, or just a natural leader. The village or farm consisted of a collection of small farms surrounding a communal hall, where they threw feasts and congregated to strategize. When they decided that it was time to raid for conquest, the need to terrorize, or because their crop was bad that season, they pulled their longboats out of the sheltered nook they put it in (to protect it from the elements) and, after a long period of rolling toward the beach on a carpet of logs, they finally moored it in the shallows, and began making preparations to leave.

When it came to the Vikings and their boats, nothing was second best. The Viking's longboats were masterpieces, made of oak and inlaid with line engravings of battles and voyages. They were either powered by rowing or by 1-3 square sails, when there was sufficient wind. Over time, the longboat's design changed, making it bigger and faster, with help from the latest technology. When the Viking leader died, his ship was buried with him.

The Gokstad Ship, one of the best preserved longships, in the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo

Because the longship had no place to sleep, apart from the seats they sat on, the Vikings were expected to return quickly after their successful raid for a congradulatory feast, unless it was an explorational voyage, in which case they would either have had prepared bedrolls, they huddled together to conserve warmth, or they just slept on their chests of belongings that they sat on.

The Power of the Vikings

More that anything else the Vikings were feared for their ferocity in battle. They attacked with lightning speed, fighting with a strength none could match. When a battle was expected, some Vikings would don a cloak made of bear fur. The belief was that the power of the bear would rub off on the warrior, and made him as powerful as a bear. The Norweigan name for this bear cloak is "bearsark" which is where we get the modern-day word "berserk". Bearsark or no bearsark, a strange thing would happen to certain Vikings. As the sights and sounds of the battle got more and more ferocious, the Viking's heart rate and blood pressure would rise, driving the Viking berserk. This caused him to fight with the strength of 3 men, and to fight with a bloodlust so powerful it scared away the opponent. This bloodlust would last the entire battle. After the bloodlust wore off, the Viking would slink into a depression that usually lasted 7-8 days.

As further addition to their legend as the best warriors in the medieval period, the Vikings would fight with minimal armor aside from a roundshield, sometimes a helmet, and very rarely a shirt of chain mail. They fought with the usual assortment of military weapons in the medieval era–swords, spears and axes. The main weapon of choice for the Vikings was the sword. Like their longships, Viking swords were of excellent craftsmanship. Because the sword could be the most expensive object a man owned (they cost about as much as a dozen milk cows), and very rare, the few Vikings that owned them sometimes named them, a token of devotion to the sword. A normal Viking was not rich, so they did not have much choice on the topic of weapons. They usually opted for a spear or bow, the latter of which was cheap though underrepresented.

An assortment of Viking weapons and armor.

The Vikings also made many tactical improvements to their weapons. They redesigned the normal axe, making the axehead smaller, with a much more pronounced curve to the underside. The tactic was to hook an opponents leg with the underside of the "bearded" axe and pull him off guard, then dispatching him with a chop to the head, neck, or torso. Another main weapon used by the Vikings was terror, as illustrated in their tactics, such as a move where a Viking would see a javelin coming, jump and catch the spear, spin it around and throw it right back! The Vikings also created many different fighting techniques. Among these were defense positions, called wards, unconventional fighting, such as kicking and disarming techniques with the shield, and joint locking and bodily control moves. It could be said that the Vikings created a martial art all their own.

The Contributions of the Vikings

The most important modern contribution of the Vikings was their exploration. Over the course of time, the Vikings discovered Russia, where they established settlements, Iceland, a permanent territory of the Vikings, which is also the original Viking name, Greenland, which they explored and colonized (another original name), and, probably the most relevant of all their finds, North America.

Technically, the Vikings were not the first people to discover Iceland. The first settlers on Iceland were Irish priests, whom the the Vikings called Papars. The first Vikings to set foot on Iceland were a band of men led by their leader Naddod, in the ninth century. The story goes that Naddod and his men set sail from Norway to the Faroe islands, only to get lost and land on Iceland's east coast, then called "Thule" by the Papars. After taking a look around and concluding(falsely) that it was uninhabited, Naddod ordered his men to get the boat prepared to sail for the Faroes. Just as they were getting ready, snow fell over the mountain range, and taking a look at this beautiful sight, Naddod named the island "Snaeland", or Snowland. The second(purposeful) Viking landing was made by a Swede, Gardar Svarvarsson, who chased the Papars until they set sail for Ireland. He then invited other bands of Vikings and their families to come to the island. After that, the Vikings stopped exploring and focused on other pursuits, until Leif Eiriksson set sail for North America in 1001 AD.

Leif Ereiksson, possibly the most famous Viking ever, was born in 960 to Ereik the Red, a chieftain living in Iceland at the time. When he was eight, Leif was put into the care of a man named Thryker by his father. Thryker, a good friend of Ereik's, taught Leif everything he needed to know, including navigation, fighting, runescript (the Viking writing form), and foreign language. After a while Leif decided to captain his ship to the lands to the west of Greenland, as was told by many people to exist. After a long and perilous journey, Leif and his followers landed on a series of islands, and then on to mainland North America, presumably in southeast Canada. After erecting a series of small settlements, exploring, and, unfortunately, harassing the natives, they left for Iceland again. Surprisingly, after that only a handful Vikings stayed in the New World. Most people would like to think that the Vikings just admired their momentous discovery and moved on. Another great contribution by the Vikings was the innovations they made concerning navigation. Even though the art of navigating with Polaris, the north star, was already thought of, the Vikings could use the star's position between other stars to pinpoint their position and navigate with even more accuracy than before. Apart from this, the Vikings were also fearless and expert sailors, bringing a whole new level of finesse to the art of boating.

The Fall of the Vikings

Nobody knows exactly why the Vikings died out in the late 1000s. Most people believe that, as the world changed, the Vikings felt no need to continue their pillaging and fighting, and eventually faded away.

They didn't fade away completely, though. They left a blooming society in Russia, fathered the rise of the Normans in France, and left thousands of settlements in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, and yes, a very small one in North America. As the Vikings discovered, conquered, and created these societies and colonies, they were insuring themselves from ever dying out.