VIDEO Dronning Margrethe begejstret for kæmpe vikingeskib | Nyheder | DR
And here is an excerpt from an interview to DR1, where QMII is talking about the exhibition and about the Viking age and let me make it absolutely clear: this is QMII on her homeground! She knows exactly what she is talking about.
The only thing that annoys her slightly is the continuous and popular depiction of Vikings with horned helmets, but that's because she's a bit of a nerd she admits.
(Vikings never wore horns on their helmets, that's a Keltic and partly Germannic costum. The Vikings wore state of the art conical helmets which are much better at deflecting a sword blow. Horns would be a downright danger in that respect).
I should love to hear her give a lecture about Svend Tveskæg = Swein Forkbeard, who is indeed her direct ancestor and the third (official) King of Denmark. His father was Harald Bluetooth, who is claimed (for political reasons) to have Christened the Danes. His son, Svend, took a somewhat different view.
Let's have a look at Vikings as they actually looked at the time of Svend Tveskæg/Swein Forkbeard.
https://app.box.com/s/vkk5i1oor0vea5bec4ry
First we have a group of Viking Raiders. As you can see they are well suited for their role, which is basically highly mobile marine infantry.
Well equipped and very well armed, combined with a culture where combat and dying in combat was something you sought as that determined your status in Valhalla and also determined your memory in this world, local millitias were rarely a match for the raiders. Especially as Viking warriors lived and was hardened in a world of constant small scale warfare. Being free men who lived on a good diet they were also generally physically bigger than their Western European adversaries who often came from peasant stock in a feudal society where only the wealthy ate protein rich meat on a regular basis.
As you can see they were also very vain. Every self respecting Viking was most careful about his appearance, especially the beard and the hair. But also clothes.
It is said that English women found Vikings attractive because they, in contrast to English men, took a bath every week. On Saturdays in fact. A thing that was common up until less than a hundred years ago.
https://app.box.com/s/q8ylnjyow5s25j62xq5l
This is life!
Plunder, honor, a good good drink and comeraderie - and a good bargain.
In fact as QMII also points out Vikings were eminent at adapting to the local conditions. If it was more profitable to trade, they did so. Was it better to raid the next town, they did so.
England, Ireland, Iceland and so on (I'll leave the East for another time, but that's equally fascinating) were lands of opportunity. A place you could settle as a free man, whack the locals on their heads if they didn't behave and make a fortune for yourself. Often as merchants or slavetraders or mercenaries.
It didn't take long before they got fully assimillated into the local area and indeed present day English and not least the eastern dialects of full of Scandinavian words and ways of speech. And that went both ways.
But the Vikings also settled in Normandie, intially as a buffer colony. It takes a Viking to beat a Viking was the logic. They very soon adopted a French dialect, adopted the feudal way of life and developed the most formidable heavy cavalry in Europe of the period. And they kept their opportunistic lifestyle.
As you know the Normans conquered England and changed the course of history.
Had that not taken place who knows what would have happened? An American historian has suggested in an alternative version that backed by a North European empire the Viking expeditions to America could have been larger and better organised and perhaps, just perhaps, we would have seen Viking longboats on the Great Lakes, manned by a mix of Vikings and Iroquis. Perhaps we might have seen Aztec ambassadors in Constantinople as well.
Because there would not have been a European conquest of the Americas, the technological edge wasn't big enough.
https://app.box.com/s/pwlr6c0ht2ktyoii4t51
Viking women.
Being the wives of men who were away for months at a time each year, often twice a year and often not knowing if their husband ever returned, they had to be independent and resourceful. And also capable to pick up the sword if need be, because raids in Scandinavia were common.
The woman to the left, is the mistress of the farm. You can tell from her tools and keys hanging visibly from her belt, a symbol of her status. As a married woman she wear a head scarf.
The young woman in the middle is unmarried, signified by keeping her haid uncovered. You will notice that they wear short sleeves. Bare forearms were sexy.
The third elderly woman to the right is also a member of the family, probably a widow. And pretty well of. Their men have been good providers in regards to plunder and/or trade.
And the women were just as vain as the men.
A Viking farm consisted of an extended family. A few adult males (old men were rare, they were expected to and indeed wished to die before growing old), a number of adult women. Perhaps ten adults alltogether and a similar number of children and young teenagers. And a handfull of slaves as well.
The slaves, thralls, were not free and they had few rights, but they were generally not mistreated for the simple reason that within such a small community everybody relied on everybody else. And often they became an accepted part of the family.
When the husband was away the whole thing, including security, rested on the shoulders on the mistress of the farm. Even when the husband was at home, he rarely intervened in the daily running of the household, that was the sole responsibillity of the mistress or alternatively a widow appointed as mistress, what would in later centuries become a matron.
Finally. The Vikings were not a people but a class of free warriors, mechants, adventures and mercenaries. To go out on such an adventure was to go "Viking". The rest of the population, slaves, minor farmers, laboures, specialists, priests and so on mainly stayed at home.
Thanks. There are always someone in the know, no matter how strange the subject.
) striking. A few weeks ago I was on a plane to Chicago and I saw a large-ish person carrying this stick and I immediately said 'Margaret Mead!' even though this famous anthropologist died in 1978. The person turned and said 'yes'. but I doubt I was talking to Margaret Mead's ghost: perhaps it was HRH Prince Henrik
