History Today Magazine, Vikings Warriors of No Nation
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Norse travellers reached every corner of the known world, but they were not tourists. The ‘racially pure’ Vikings of stereotype were, in fact, cultural chameleons adopting local habits, languages and religions. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough VIKINGS WARRIORS OF NO NATION Viking ship carrying Harold III of Norway against his half-brother Olaf II in 1030, c.1375. 2 | History Today | April 2018 April 2018 | History Today | 3 n January 2018, President Trump Odinism and white supremacy are bedfellows. expressed a preference for immigrants Such ideas of racial and cultural purity from affluent nations such as Norway, as would have been alien to the inhabitants of the opposed to those from what he termed medieval Nordic world. They may have come ‘shithole countries’. The indignant from the northernmost fringes of Europe – and Iresponse was on a global scale. Photos of in the case of Icelanders, in the middle of the beautiful African sunsets and wildlife were North Atlantic – but Norse travellers reached posted. One Norwegian woman tweeted: ‘We every corner of the known world. are not coming. Cheers from Norway.’ Trump was not the first to misuse Blond men in boats Scandinavian countries as a poster child for Thanks to chronicles and letters written by racism. The Nazi ideology of Aryan supremacy Christian holy men, perpetuated by modern rested on the premise of the Nordic race as books, cartoons and films, an enduring Viking superior to all others. Particularly disturbing stereotype is engrained in our collective was the ‘Lebensborn’ programme initiated by cultural imagination: blond men in boats with the head of the SS Heinrich Himmler to secure beards and battle-axes, sailing slate-grey seas the racial purity of the Third Reich. The under northern skies. There is some truth in programme was particularly active in Norway, this. Technically speaking ‘viking’ simply where around 10,000-12,000 children were means ‘raider’ (which is why we tend to use the born to Norwegian mothers and German broader term ‘Norse’ to describe medieval fathers. The roots of this ideology lay in Nazi Scandinavian peoples, their culture and perceptions of Scandinavia’s past. When language). From the late eighth century Norway and Denmark were occupied, SS onwards, the coastal and river monasteries of recruitment posters appeared featuring Viking the British Isles and Western Europe were warriors and dragon-headed longships. As war vulnerable to hit-and-run attacks from raged, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to his son seaborne Scandinavians. bemoaning ‘that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf It is likely that, for most of us, the first image Hitler’ for: ‘ruining, misapplying, and making that springs to mind is not traders bumping forever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a over the desert sands to Baghdad on camelback supreme contribution to Europe, which I have or indeed of men of Norse descent out on the ever loved, and tried to present in its true light.’ Russian steppes, worshipping the Slavic gods Shadows of the past persist. The modern of thunder and lightning. It is also probably not growth of Odinism and Ásatrú – the modern bored Christian converts carving runic graffiti worship of Norse pagan gods such as Odin, into the stone of Hagia Sophia, the magnificent Thor and Freyja – has been shadowed by an basilica in Constantinople (now Istanbul). But ideological subculture that emphasises racial as is often the case, truth is far more interesting heritage and ethnic separatism. In US prisons, than fiction. Over the centuries, Norse men and Waffen-SS propaganda poster to recruit Norweigan men during the Nazi occupation of Norway, 1943. 4 | History Today | April 2018 April 2018 | History Today | 5 women set out from their homelands bound for Finally, in 911, a Norwegian raider called Rollo suggests that the newcomers were in the remarkable about the events of 1066 is that all distant lands. Through activities such as was granted lands in northwest France in minority and did not take long to adopt three major players were of Nordic descent. trading, raiding, fighting, colonising and return for converting to Christianity and Frankish material culture and burial practices. The first casualty was Harald Hardrada, killed settling, their travels took them west to swearing loyalty to Charles the Simple, king of By the early 11th century, it would have been by Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Greenland and the edge of North America, the West Franks. This region included a unusual to hear anyone local speaking the Bridge just outside York. As King of Norway, north beyond the Arctic Circle, east down the portion of the Seine, meaning that Charles had Norse language. his Scandinavian credentials were well Russian waterways and south to the made himself a convenient Norse ‘plug’ to stop established. Leading the Normans, William the Mediterranean and the Holy Land. The other northern pirates sailing down the river Age of the Conqueror Conqueror was the great-great-great-grandson medieval world could be a brutal place and the and attacking further inland. The king had set By the time William the Conqueror crossed the of Rollo, the Norse-raider-cum-royal-vassal Norse played their part in making it so. But a thief to catch a thief: Rollo would not want Channel to shatter Anglo-Saxon England in who was given Normandy. Even Harold they were cultural chameleons, adopting local his newly acquired lands crawling with 1066, the Normans were Northmen only in Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of habits, languages and religions. river-borne looters any more than the Franks name. But visual remnants of their cultural England, was of Scandinavian heritage: his While the Norse raids on the British Isles did. Now he was Christian, he would not attack heritage are woven – literally – into the Bayeux mother was Gytha, daughter of the Danish are perhaps best known – the attack on the any monasteries. And since he answered Tapestry. One clue is the hairstyles that many of nobleman Thorgil Sprakling (‘strut-leg’). island monastery of Lindisfarne in 793 is often directly to the king, he was on his best the Normans sport, shaved at the back and long However the battle had transpired, a king of used as a convenient date for the start of the behaviour. That, at least, was the idea. Before at the front. Writing a few decades earlier in Scandinavian descent would have ended up on Viking Age – Western Europe also experienced they settled into their new role, Rollo and his England, Aelfric of Eynsham had complained the English throne. its share of violence. The Royal Frankish men changed allegiances a few times, raided that the English were adopting a similar sort of The Nordic cultural and political influence Annals record pirate-infested waters at the the coastline and generally made nuisances of Scandi-chic look, dressing like Danes and on the British Isles was substantial. Off the edge of Charlemagne’s kingdom from around themselves. Despite his conversion to cutting their hair with ‘bare neck and blinded northern coast of Scotland, the Northern Isles AD 800, probably Danish raiders. A few years Christianity, Rollo is said to have sacrificed eyes’. Elsewhere in the tapestry, Normans hold of Orkney and Shetland were under Norse rule later, a Danish king called Godfred laid waste slaves to the pagan gods Odin and Thor on his up war banners depicting ravens, a design until the 15th century. For hundreds of years to the northern regions of the Carolingian deathbed, just in case. Old habits die hard. associated with the Norse rulers and warriors. afterwards, a form of Old Norse – Norn – was Empire. The scale of this activity grew, with the Even so, it was not long before the The Norse were keen on ravens, not least spoken in the islands. The Norse heritage is still Seine, Loire, Elbe and Rhine – acting as routes immigrants known as Nordmanni because the pagan god Odin was said to be visible in the landscape, in everything from into the heart of Western Europe. The first (‘Northmen’) assimilated, marrying local accompanied by two named Huginn (‘thought’) place names [SUCH AS?] to runic graffiti siege of Paris in 845, saw 120 ships sail up the women [FROM WHERE?] and speaking the and Muninn (‘memory’). As carrion birds, carved onto prehistoric cairns and stone Seine. Reports stated that they defeated the local language [WHICH?]. Despite the fact ravens were also emblems of corpses and circles. Before the Norse arrived, the Northern king’s army and hanged 111 of his men as a that the Norse were in the minority the region battles and, in Norse poetry, ravens are Isles had been occupied by the Picts, but sacrifice to Odin, before occupying the city. became known as Normannia (‘Land of the described hovering over the corpses of warriors evidence for cultural assimilation of the sort we Northmen’), or as we know it today, Normandy. and feasting on their flesh. It would have been see in Northern France is limited. Were they Christian Converts But evidence for the Norse cultural roots of the appropriate to march into battle with images of simply wiped out, or did the Norse come to Over the years the Frankish rulers tried Normans is relatively scarce. Norse place ravens fluttering above the army – a reminder dominate the socio-cultural landscape so different tactics: paying Vikings off, converting names tend to be concentrated around the to their enemies of what awaited them. completely that little evidence of other them to Christianity, allying with their leaders, coast, where Scandinavian settlement was The Norse connection to the Normans is inhabitants survived? pitting them against each other, even ignoring most concentrated. There is not much well known.