The Vikings — Warriors of the Northlands

At the present time, Scandinavia is di­vided into three separate countries, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. But long ago, especially from about the ninth to the 11th centuries a.d., the people who lived in this land were called Vikings or Norsemen—men from northern Europe. The name Viking probably comes from a Latin word meaning village because they lived in villages on the fiords along the coastline.

The Vikings were extremely hardy people and were fine sailors. They lived in houses built of fir wood. The cracks between the logs were filled with pitch. The log ends and gable peaks of the cabins were carved and painted in bright colors. The feasting hall was the main building in the village. Here the chief and all his men would gather to eat and drink.

The Norsemen believed that the rainbow was a bridge by which their many gods crossed to their homes. The roar of thunder was the great God Thor rattling past in his cart, or bang­ing with his hammer. Since the Norsemen were warring tribes, much of their religion was about what happens after death. They believed that all those killed in battle went to Father Odin to feast forever in his great hall at Valhalla.

When a Viking chief died he was buried in his ship along with all his weapons and treas­ures. Because archeologists have been able to dig into these burying places, we know exactly what the Viking ships were like. They were long, open boats with a sharp prow for cutting the water. The prow was often decorated with the head of a horse or serpent. Although the Viking ships had a mast and sail, they were usu­ally propelled by men with long oars. As they rowed across the waves, the warriors lined their shields along the side of the boat for protection. These fearsome ships must have been a terri­fying sight to the people whose towns and vil­lages were about to be invaded.

Because life on the Scandinavian Peninsula was very difficult and overcrowded, the Vikings set sail in search of new lands toward the end of the eighth century. They crossed the seas in their long open boats, plundering other lands and pushing as far as Iceland and Greenland. They even landed on the shores of North America hundreds of years before Columbus discov­ered the New World,

In the early 8oo's the fierce Viking invaders swept over the North Sea to England in their boats. The Norsemen had a hatred of Christian­ity. Charlemagne had fought against them long and bitterly in the name of the Holy Roman Empire. Thus, when they arrived in Christian England they set fire to the monasteries and churches with extra zeal. The English are said to have added to their prayers; "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us!"

In time, however, the Danes, another sec­tion of the Vikings, settled down among the conquered peoples and, by 1016, a Dane, King Canute the Great, ruled in England as well as Norway and Denmark. He proved to be a good king and, for a while, it seemed as though the northern countries of Europe might be united.

About the time that the Danes were invad­ing England, another band of Vikings came down to France, then the land of the Frankish tribes. The Viking raids were particularly terri­ble in France, and in the ninth century Paris was plundered four times. Each time the invad­ers slipped up the River Seine under cover of night. Finally, after the French King had paid them a vast sum of money, the Vikings with­drew to settle on the coast of northern France. This area of France is still called Normandy after the Norsemen. The Scandinavians learned to speak a Norman variant of French and their chiefs became some of the great dukes of France.

In 1066, under William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, the Normans landed on the south coast of England and defeated the Eng­lish King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. Both the conquerors and the conquered were origi­nally of the same stock. Both the Normans and the English were descendants of the Vikings who had conquered both areas.

While some of the Vikings were busy in England and France, others were also ventur­ing as far as Russia. They traveled in the sum­mer, using Russia's many rivers. It was often necessary to carry their boats overland from one river to the other. They appeared on the Caspian and Black seas as pirates, raiders, and traders.

The story goes that Rurik, a Scandinavian chief, was invited to settle and rule in Novgorod in the west of Russia. "Our land is great and bountiful," said the invitation, "but there is no order in it. Come and rule over us." Somehow, this doesn't seem too likely, and probably Rurik was an ordinary warrior chief who invaded that part of Russia. In any event, in a.d. 856 Rurik settled in Novgorod and turned it into a pros­perous city. Rurik founded a line of chiefs who ruled Russia for eight centuries and became completely merged with the Russian people.

Meanwhile, the Normans from Normandy were also penetrating the Mediterranean coun­tries. This time they came, not by boat, but over­land through the Rhineland into Italy. They came as paid soldiers, as invaders, and some­times even as pilgrims. For the 9th and 10th centuries was the great era of the Crusades.

Many of the Normans soon saw that they could become leaders and established them­selves in southern Italy and Sicily. Robert Guiscard, who came to Italy as a pilgrim, became a highwayman in Calabria. He organized an army containing a band of Sicilian Moslems and attacked the Byzantine Empire's strong­hold, Durazzo. The Normans remained in the Mediterranean countries and adopted the cus­toms and language of the area.

The Norsemen plundered the countries they attacked. But, more importantly, they breathed new life into the conquered peoples. They be­came a part of the new civilization. The Vikings had a wonderful way of adapting themselves to the language and customs of the peoples they settled among. In Normandy they became French. In England, the Danes mixed com­pletely with the English. In Russia they built a prosperous country, and in Italy and Sicily they made themselves at home.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 826