Learning from Scandinavia’s By John Bechtel, Freelance Writerr either heritage nor history are boring, arcane subjects best suited for Heritage is about memories and identities; it seductively promises to aging seniors with nothing better to do than take dreamy trips down answer the question, where do I belong? Heritage is about geography and nostalgia lane. The only thing that can be said to be boring about topography and landscapes of the familiar; it is about emotional attachments to history from time to time is its teachers, who fail to communicate that history land and language and places; it is about our personal history and experiences does in fact repeat itself, its lessons lost upon successive generations who with such places and things, especially from an early age. But our attitudes and cannot remember yesteryear’s unkept political promises and failed ideologies. longings are also affected by others, outsiders, who may visit but who never lived it, who have other memories of other places. Both the insider’s viewpoint History is a living art; what we do, think, and act out today is tomorrow’s and the tourist’s perceptions can be valuable, because there is a certain amount history. How can that be boring? History is about taking nothing for granted, of mythmaking and whitewashing in all heritage stories. To truly benefit making no assumptions about the present or the future. History is an antidote from our heritage, we need to do more than romanticize the past. We need to to overconfidence by today’s ideologues. History is about insatiable curiosity experience it as closely as possible to the way it was to live it, not just by the about how we got to where we are, and the interplay of ideas, people—human elites of the day, but at all levels of society. As time travelers into the past, we nature—and randomness; the immutable fact that actions often have wildly become scientists and archeologists all, and it takes patience and courage to sift unanticipated consequences. Only a fool could move forward with confidence through the legends and look for what we admire as well as tragedies to avoid. having ignored the lessons of the past. But of course fools often do. IMAGE: WALL.ALPHACODERS.COM (Continued on page 00) O FALL-2016 | SCANDINAVIAN PRESS SCANDINAVIAN PRESS | FALL-2016 O (Continued from page 00) Safety in numbers when he dies, his sons Whether as predators or finding protection from predators, man lose control of Norway The Origin of Thrones found strength and safety in groups. Even today, every seasoned again. Then Canute the tourist knows safety lies in staying with a group when in uncertain Great, king of England, istory, as it has been traditionally or suspicious neighborhoods. Some men were better at fighting also becomes the king of taught in schools the world over, than at farming, so they became part-time or full-time specialists, a Denmark, and promptly has been an endless litany of the warrior class, and they were rewarded for their efforts by being given wages war against both riseH and fall of governments, of wars and rulers land, usually land taken away from other groups or tribes. Since the Norwegians and and dates and tallies of who lost and who won, they protected the others in their own group, it was only logical that the Swedes in 1026, and changes in arbitrary lines drawn on maps. the farmers and fishermen owed them something in return for the and conquers a part of Although this may be boring to the reluctant protections rendered, and they paid with what they had—food and/ Norway and of Sweden. student of history, it was a living nightmare or other services. This was a beginning of taxation without the name. You get the idea. Let it be for the participants. As the lines were redrawn The warriors achieved an elevated status in their communities and said that over this period after each conflict, neighboring villages had to became noblemen, and their leaders became chieftains, and over of 500 years Denmark be frequently re-educated as to who the new time, kings. Their protected communities became their kingdoms. went from having control enemy was, as determined by distant rulers Special privileges and status accrued to these individuals, ultimately of England, Norway, parts and capitals and administrative centers far based on their weapons and ability to kill others in large numbers of Sweden, the northern removed from the ebb and flow of local civilian using them. coast of Germany, and life. Populations that lived in “borderlands” What began as a protection service often became a protection Estonia to almost ceasing between two countries had to rethink their racket, and in addition to the power to tax the producers of the to exist in 1332. heritage and loyalties, and in some parts of realm to pay for the many wars, in times of great need the king Scandinavia as we shall see later in this article, would draft the males of the kingdom to supplement his own this often resulted in “peasant peace-treaties”, Norway fighting forces. Sometimes the “need” for these fighting forces had Norway reaches its where the locals ignored instructions from MAP: The pink area indicates the areas dominated by the Vikings from 700-1100 AD. The more to do with the ego and ambitions of the regional leader and peak in the mid-1200s, afar and continued to live in peace with their Norwegian Vikings concentrated on travel to the British Isles (England, Ireland, Scotland), was of dubious interest or benefit to the recruited soldier. The lines when it controls, besides neighbors, even though technically they Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland; The Danes focused on the western continental coast of between rulers and the ruled became drawn early on. Those who had mainland Norway, the now lived in separate countries, sometimes Europe and the Mediterranean Sea area, while the Swedes headed east into the Baltic states “served” their fellow men became their masters. Orkney and Shetland countries still at war with each other. As and Russia, moving south into the Black and Caspian Sea regions, Islands, the Hebrides, the Thomas Germundsson stated in his essay in were discovering and flexing their new the neighboring Swedish King Erik Isle of Man, the Faroe Nordic Landscapes—Region and Belonging on The Viking Age 700-1100 A.D. found muscle by working together, (the Victorious), which only lasts a Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. The the Northern Edge of Europe: “For centuries These groups, tribes, and kingdoms occasionally competed with both gaining in authority and ambition few years (no longer “Victorious”). Hebrides and the Isle of Man were these local agreements were to confuse Swedish each other, and the more successful grew in population and territory. through politics and the sword. Towns When Denmark subsequently loses lost to Scotland in 1266. Less than a and Danish officers fighting for their respective Others disappeared, either wiped served the dual role of secular and Norway, it regroups with Sweden hundred years later Norway lost half its armies.” out or absorbed by the larger groups. ecclesiastical centers, and in 1103 the to defeat the Norwegian king Olav population to the Black Death (1349) Let’s take a very brief overview of human During the Viking Age in what is first bishopric was founded in Scania, Tryggvason, and the Danes and which changed everything, and it lost history. Beginning with prehistoric man, now Scandinavia, there were many which was then part of Denmark. The Swedes divide up Norway between Orkney and Shetland to the Scots in daily survival depended on food sources. Like such kingdoms, and the nation-states three kingdoms became preoccupied them. The Danish ruler Sven at this 1468-9. other species, man followed the food source. of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden with competing with each other for time becomes the king of England, but If the herd moved, man moved. Eventually did not yet exist. The Vikings were power and territory. Thus begins a the greatest revolution of all time (thus far) farmers, fishermen, seafarers, and Finland most amazing game of thrones that happened; the agricultural revolution. Man fighters. Their culture lasted approximately 400 years, from about Finland, per se, didn’t exist during the lasted almost a thousand years. stayed put in one location and learned to 700 to as late as 1100 A.D. They were not known as Vikings, and Viking era. There were of course tribes cultivate crops, develop tools, and civilizations they were not a unified kingdom. During that four hundred years that for centuries had vied for power. were born. Some people became fishermen they settled lands to the north and west such as Ireland, Scotland, Denmark All the inhabitants spoke a Uralic and others became farmers. But not everyone Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Labrador, and Newfoundland; Denmark becomes a united kingdom language. The Finns lived mostly along wanted to fish or farm; they found it more to the west and south in England and France; in the east to western as early as 800, but it only lasts a few the coastal areas of the Gulf of Bothnia expeditious to prey on the others and steal Russia; in the southeast to Istanbul, and even to Baghdad, the center years. It is reunited and falls apart and the Gulf of Finland. Up until about what they wanted. If they resisted, the of the Islamic empire. The Vikings raided and they traded, developed several more times as kings die, are the end of the Viking era (1100) the predators killed them and took what they colonies, and acted as mercenaries.