Chapter 1: Myths and True Facts About the Vikings
A Brief Overview About What Medieval Texts and Archeological Facts Have Taught Us.
We have judged it fair to dedicate a chapter of the book to old perceptions about the Vikings that still exist today, even though these perceptions have been reshaped thanks to witnesses accounts and later on, archeological finds.
When people think about the Vikings nowadays, they see tall blonde men with blue eyes and at the same time, they can help but assimilate this word with violence, brutality and every type of vandal term anyone can come up with.
It is clear that the majority of people today knows what a Scandinavian looks like. With that respect, one can easily be tempted to compare actual Scandinavians …show more content…
His writings are considered to be the true testimony of the Viking’s physical appearance, some of their customs and how they behaved amongst each other. These accounts gave us more or less a good description of what they may have looked like and perhaps have also contributed in molding the myth about the “giant Norsemen”. In 2008, a mass grave was discovered at one of Oxford University’s colleges in Great Britain. The team of archeologists summoned by the Thames Valley Archeological Services discovered remains belonging to 54 males. It was later concluded that it was a mass grave dating from the Middle ages belonging to Viking Warriors. The bodies were found to be unusually large, after examination of the muscle attachment areas of the bones. That particularity led to the conclusion that they belonged to robust male individuals, and it also did not match the local Anglo-Saxons …show more content…
For instance, Erik the red who was born Erik Thorvaldsson is said to have obtained his nickname “red” because of the color of his hair. Another Viking called Egill Skallagrímsson is described in Egils saga as having black hair and ugly. These two examples are enough to reconsider the allegation that all Vikings were blonde.
They were merciless murderers
This allegation is perhaps the closest to the truth. One must remember that the Vikings lived in a period in history where cruelty sometimes seemed to be the norm. Most of Europe was overtaken by Germanic tribes, which were already reputed as “barbarians” during the Roman Empire. Although cruelty and barbarism were not distinctive traits of the Vikings, some of their warriors called the berserkers seem to be possessed during battle as they would not stop killing until all of their enemies are gone.
The Vikings also obtained the reputation of merciless killers as they tend to attack mostly Monasteries, considered as holy places. They would loot, kill without mercy and even capture some of the monks . For people of that time, such a behavior was close to diabolical. In that regard Alcuin of York
A Brief Overview About What Medieval Texts and Archeological Facts Have Taught Us.
We have judged it fair to dedicate a chapter of the book to old perceptions about the Vikings that still exist today, even though these perceptions have been reshaped thanks to witnesses accounts and later on, archeological finds.
When people think about the Vikings nowadays, they see tall blonde men with blue eyes and at the same time, they can help but assimilate this word with violence, brutality and every type of vandal term anyone can come up with.
It is clear that the majority of people today knows what a Scandinavian looks like. With that respect, one can easily be tempted to compare actual Scandinavians …show more content…
His writings are considered to be the true testimony of the Viking’s physical appearance, some of their customs and how they behaved amongst each other. These accounts gave us more or less a good description of what they may have looked like and perhaps have also contributed in molding the myth about the “giant Norsemen”. In 2008, a mass grave was discovered at one of Oxford University’s colleges in Great Britain. The team of archeologists summoned by the Thames Valley Archeological Services discovered remains belonging to 54 males. It was later concluded that it was a mass grave dating from the Middle ages belonging to Viking Warriors. The bodies were found to be unusually large, after examination of the muscle attachment areas of the bones. That particularity led to the conclusion that they belonged to robust male individuals, and it also did not match the local Anglo-Saxons …show more content…
For instance, Erik the red who was born Erik Thorvaldsson is said to have obtained his nickname “red” because of the color of his hair. Another Viking called Egill Skallagrímsson is described in Egils saga as having black hair and ugly. These two examples are enough to reconsider the allegation that all Vikings were blonde.
They were merciless murderers
This allegation is perhaps the closest to the truth. One must remember that the Vikings lived in a period in history where cruelty sometimes seemed to be the norm. Most of Europe was overtaken by Germanic tribes, which were already reputed as “barbarians” during the Roman Empire. Although cruelty and barbarism were not distinctive traits of the Vikings, some of their warriors called the berserkers seem to be possessed during battle as they would not stop killing until all of their enemies are gone.
The Vikings also obtained the reputation of merciless killers as they tend to attack mostly Monasteries, considered as holy places. They would loot, kill without mercy and even capture some of the monks . For people of that time, such a behavior was close to diabolical. In that regard Alcuin of York