Discussion on the Vikings.

[Incongruous]

In eastern england it has been proved that nearly the entire pop of male britons was wiped out.

[English assassin]

Has it? when and who by?

The BBC did that genetic profiling thing a while back but IIRC that showed there was not much genetic variation between England, Scotland, Northern Germany, the low countries, and Denmark. Interestingly Wales did have a different profile, putting a different perspective on the celtic fringe (ie, it doesn't include scotland). And the western Isles and Norway were closely linked but that's no surprise.

[Sirex1]

Has anyone read "Vikingarnas stridskonst" by Lars Magnar Enoksen?
It translates to someting like The vikings art of war or somthing like that. And this guy that has written it has done 15 years of researing on vikings.
Basicly they wehre bad asses :).

I will try to summarise and give you a picture.
First you need to understand the vikings life and values.
The vikings belived in that all should be fair, almost extrem fair, but that everybody should, as the swedish saying still to day goes, "if you are in the game, you need to accept the consecvenses". Basicly don't cry if you joined the game voulantery.

Also a viking needed to defend his hounor, so if one was offended one needed to make a stand against that. If you did nothing you was a pathetic coward.
So legal matters could be decied by one-vs-one swoed play, and here also the "fairnes" comes in. If one got tired he was allowed a pause to rest. And also the honour of his family/relatives.
And also everyone was extremly fit. At a very early age children was encourage to play,"work out",sport and to explore there bodys limitations. And even adoults frecvently "played"/competed. They practise running,swimming,claiming, lenght jumping,sking and the most importand and most respected sport Wrestling.
In everyday life these things wehre practised. And the book mention one actuall acount where during a siege of paris the viking began to sport and compete while passing the time.

And the most wide spread wrestling variant was called "Famn tag" which translate to around chest grip. And meant that both wrestlers held around each outhers backs, arms crossing. Sence it was the most fair start position. And then by manauvering one is trying to bring the outher one down. If you weher hurt is was the "if you are in the game, you need to accept the consecvenses" that you followed, but if you, when being brought down, dragged your opponent with you to the ground it was considerd a great offence. And equally if you delibretly followed down and landed on your opponent.

But the most repsected was the one called "glima" which mean around shine for a second or glim or sudden movment. It was called this becouse skilled wrestlers moved so fast. And this really emphasisec all things one needed, balance,strenght,speed,brevery,constitution and fairnes. Wher you had an equally hold on the outher pants and tried by your hands to ofbalance him and with you lower body (read below waist) to bring him down.

And here was a ceratin melle where both had swords and they made strikes ont turn. First one hit, then the second one make a swing, then the first one again.

But the actual sword/warrior traing was done as realistics and orgainsed as possible. In actaul combat the vikings did not take the rules whihc they used when trainign/"playing" into consideration, then it was all means allowed (and all means should be used!). This is a quote ,translated by me , on unarmoured fighting style when all thing allowed.
"In unarmoured combat the vikings preferd a fighting style that used all of the bodys resourses/capabilities, which meant hits,kicks and wrestlings grips/holds..."

And now a little about viking law. If you on a road kick, swing at,shoots , throws or hits a man the penalty is exile. Even if you do not actually hits him , like the defender managed to block or evade, it still counts. And the ways that you can evade is very detalied said, thus indicating that oridnary people masterd this. And also outlawing is a very common charge for what we today might call mild... medium crimes. Even if one was shooken it still counted as an assoult, sence the attacker was only off balancing him for a wrestling move. So here it is also indicated that everybody knew how to fight and wrestle. And i almost forgot in about once or twice everyyear there was a big gathering (called "tinget") of people from around the local area, where people could talk and decide things. But most importantly the legal matters where settled here, and most of them could be settled by the sword. So you needed to be fit.


Seems i got a little carried away thier .
But it is my personal belive that after the spartan the vikning was the most battle orientated people that has been. And the viknig where better sence they actually had a decent socity. They did things for fun, playing practicing sports at gathrings and the like. But they needed to be fit, for if one of your relatived was attacked so was you. And thus you could be target by some relatvie/famaly from the attackers relative/famaly. And you might need to defend you homour in a one-on-one on the "tinget". Not only focus thier whole life to kill like spartans. The vikings also practice all this to defend the honour of the... (damn english language) a word like family but includes all the realtives also, they did not practice only to kill. They had a hard but fair socity.

[Kalle]

They had a hard but fair socity.

Indeed their society was often hard, not to say very harsh and cruel. Ill try to get time to give you a longer answer once I get home from work but it wasnt all about fairness and honour, not even at "tinget".

Kalle

[Sirex1]

Looking forward to your response.
Now looking back i see i missed some points, but sence i see you are a swed "Jag orkar inte :)". The english really don't got a word for "orka", thats why i will never put it above swedish.

[Perplexed]

Indeed their society was often hard, not to say very harsh and cruel. Ill try to get time to give you a longer answer once I get home from work but it wasnt all about fairness and honour, not even at "tinget".

Indeed, look at Harald Hardrada (Hardrada actually means "hard-ruler"), probably one of the most bloodsoaked Viking rulers in history. Lots of massacres of women and children, lots of blood, lots of guts, lots of dynastic murder. Not a nice man.

[IrishArmenian]

Were not the Vikings and the Saxons from the same general stock. The Saxons, were of Norse desent, yes? I guess living on Britain must have made them soft. All joking aside, the Vikings are oddly distributed around Europe. If you count the Normans (I do), Viking desendants were in Sicily, Russia (it gets its name from Rus, or red hair, a trait known almost only to the Vikings), France, Britain and Ireland, in addtion to their native lands of Norway, Sweden and Finalnd (I could be wrong about their native lands. I am no Viking expert.) Do not forget they got high before battle that made them go crazy, or "beserk" if you will. They would kill everything and anything, including their own.

[The Wizard]

The Saxons came from what is today Northern Germany. There are still numerous states in the Federal Republic named after them (Niedersaken and Saksen itself); they are still a German people like any other, such as the Bavarians or Swabians.

The Angles came from what is today mainland Denmark, as did the Jutes. Northern mainland Denmark is still called Jutland, and has a markedly different character than that of the area of, say, Copenhagen.

On the Vikings: they were what they were -- Germanic tribesmen. The Vikings are, by the very fact that their appearance, customs and everything else about their culture was almost anachronous when they began their feared raids, the most famous exponent of the Germanic tribal culture that was dominant in mainland Europe during the Great Migrations.

What I see described by Sirex1, for instance, is pure Germanic warrior culture. No, the Vikings were not so very different from the Franks, Saxons, Alemanni, Goths, and all the other mighty tribes that have gone down in history as the most glorious of barbarians...