|
 |
Who Were the Vikings? This article is from
Jim Cornish's Website:
http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/v_drakkar.htm
Twelve thousand years ago, human beings slowly made their way
into northwestern Europe, hunting the animals and gathering
the plants that began to occupy lands left bare by the melting
glaciers of the last ice age. For the next twelve millennia,
the land and the surrounding sea in what is now called
Scandinavia would shape a people who would eventually become
known as the Vikings. This is a brief explanation of who they
were.
Raiders and Pillagers
The word "Vikings" has been used to identify all the people
who lived in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden in early medieval
times. They earned the name "Vikings", and the bad reputation
that went with it, because in old Norse, the word Viking meant
"pirate", a reference to their raiding and pillaging of
settlements across Europe at the turn of the ninth century.
For most of the last one thousand years, our impressions of
who these Norsemen were and how they lived have been based on
writings like those of the Lindisfarne monk (who certainly
portrayed them in the worst possible way) and on sagas written
by thirteenth century Viking poets (who undoubtedly let their
Christian beliefs influence their perceptions too). In more
recent time, books, movies and cartoons have kept the barbaric
image alive. But, the archaeological evidence being uncovered
in Europe and in western Russia in the past hundred years is
helping to change this. The fact that they were marauders is
not in dispute, but more positive images of these northerners
are emerging.
Farmers and Fishermen
While raiding cities, towns and monasteries may have been a
quick and sometimes easy way to get rich, it was not the only
means by which Vikings supported themselves. For a majority of
Vikings, the resources they needed to survive came not from
pillaging, but from the seas, the fields and the forests
around them. Based on archaeological finds such as sickles,
picks, hoes and ploughshares and the preserved remains of
animals and plants, we now know the Vikings were very skilled
craftsmen and highly successful farmers. And as seafarers,
they felled the trees of Scandinavian's forests to build their
famous cargo ships to trade these goods with each other and
with others across Europe and parts of east Asia. They also
shaped the iron commonly found in the bogs of Europe into
tools, weapons and turned traded and ill-gotten gold and
silver into stunning jewellery. Relying on local materials,
they built homes of wood, stone and sod to create large and
well organized communities in the areas of Europe they
conquered and settled. They even contributed to the language
of the areas they eventually colonized.
Travellers and Explorers
The Vikings were also explorers. Their ships, which resembled
open canoes, were able to navigate the shallowest rivers and
cross the widest oceans even in very poor weather conditions.
From Sweden, Vikings rowed and sailed the rivers of eastern
Europe that lead to the Black Sea and ultimately the Middle
East. The exploits of Norwegian Vikings lead them west to
settle Iceland in 860 and still further west to colonize
Greenland about a hundred years later. By the end of the first
millennium they had even reached and set up at least one camp
in North America, some five hundred years before Christopher
Columbus's arrival in 1492.
The Vikings also developed strong religious beliefs based on a
series of gods not unlike those of ancient Rome and Greece.
Lacking the ability to write literature, this religion and the
myths associated with it, were passed down from one generation
to the next through storytelling. It wasn't until the
thirtieth century that many of their myths were recorded in
print.
In their travels, the Vikings encountered many cultures and
lifestyles. When they returned home, they adopted some of
these ideas and used them to shape and reshape their own
society. One of the greatest influences on them was
Christianity. By the end of the Viking Age, most of their
pagan beliefs were replaced with Christian ones.
|
