Talk:Vikings/Archive 7

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viking settlement and sea level rise

sea level rise through the holocene seems rarely factored in to human settlement change

Viking decline in greenland may be in part linked to sea level rise.

see The Norse in Greenland and late Holocene sea-level change Naja Mikkelsena1, Antoon Kuijpersa1 and Jette Arneborga2 Polar Record (2008), 44 : 45-50 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0032247407006948 see abstract http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1439260

Suggests flooding of fertile grassland caused by late Holocene sea-level changes as one factor that affected the Norse community.

further discussion of some relevance here http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=113807 (see last blog and references therein

Drrtwills (talk) 11:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Ergot spread to England and further north in Europe, and is credited as a strong contributing factor to Greenland’s depopulation in the late Middle Ages. Rye was particularly exposed to this infectious fungal attack, but it will be discussed later in this publication.(Per Martin Tvengsberg, Svedjebruk, ISBN 978-82-93036-00-5 Norway, and http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn#Ergot) --Svedjebruk (talk) 17:14, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Genetic legacy

It seems to me that the genetic legacy of the Vikings is given pretty short shrift here: e.g., the haplogroup R1a1 isn't even mentioned, although it accounts, for instance, for roughly a quarter of all male Y-DNA in Iceland. The R1a haplogroup has also been determined to be one of two major royal lines in Russian society, likely from descendants of the Scandinavian Varangian guard. [1] The issue needs to be addressed in more depth than is currently the case. Just my two cents. MarmadukePercy (talk) 13:08, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The genetic legacy portion of this entry is misleading. It never mentions R1a1, and yet goes on to cite the definitive (so far) Capelli study of the distribution of Viking genes across Britain, a study which focused on the R1a1 haplogroup. The entry needs more extensive correction and rewriting, which I will get to when time permits. In the meantime, I have inserted R1a1. MarmadukePercy (talk) 18:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Just noticed that the map for I1a is only going to an advert [2].--Celtus (talk) 06:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to insert an appropriate map when I have a chance. Thanks for pointing that out. MarmadukePercy (talk) 10:44, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

this is frankly PREPOSTEROUS.. this genetic Y-dna info is being foisted by those who had their own DNA tested and are now intent on writing their own article to scientifically validate that they are VIKINGS..

ALL that the R1a/I1a shows in the british isles WITH DEFINITIVE PROOF is that the HG/HT is in common with MODERN POPULATIONS or regions of scandinavia TODAY..

It is not proof of what these populations were 900 years ago, and it is far from proof of viking ancestry.. In modern day DENMARK, which would account for the vast Percentage of 'VIKINGS' to arrive in ENGLAND during the viking period, the largest Pct. of the population is R1b,.. R1a/I1a are small minority of the modern Denmark male population.

UNTIL you can show DNA results from ancient dna in a historical context recovered from VIKING sites in england, (which it seems is what the hackers who are trying to mold this article to suit there own Y-dna results are concerned with) you cannot proclaim sommerled or anyone else as a viking based on DNA as the primary two Hg's (r1a/I1a) this article asserts are 'viking' and are found in england as a legacy of 'vikings' are a minority pct of modern danish genetics.. most of whom are R1b like most of the english are... this article SHOULD be locked as it is.. but to allow blatant molding of this article to suit the viking ancestor fantasy of a guy who got a dna test result back of r1a/i1a with ancestors in the british isles, is total fantasy and does not withstand even a momentary review for legitimacy.. remove the DNA garbage-science unless you can show ancient dna studies recovered from 'viking' era sites in the british isles to corrolate this to.. until then its wishful garbage passed of as scientific fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.7.2.254 (talk) 01:33, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Please refer to the Vikings as a North Germanic tribe, only this is scientifically correct. Thank you! 91.65.18.109 (talk) 19:14, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

That's not true. North Germanic has no clear value in strictly biological terms: it is a philological term which defines a particular family group of languages. Some of those who spoke 'North Germanic', and adopted the cultural norms that we tend to associate with the speakers of North Germanic languages and dialects in the early medieval Scandinavian world may not have descended from 'original' speakers of these languages (if we could *ever* define such a group meaningfully, given the complex nature of human interactions in the real world): we might think of people from the eastern and southern shores of the Baltic who took on what we might call 'Viking' identity and language, people whose parents were taken as slaves and absorbed into Scandinavian societies, or people who were genetically connected with the Sami (itself probably another rather fuzzy-edged group in genetic terms). The use of the term 'tribe' is also confusing here. There is no evidence whatsoever that all the people whom we habitually refer to as Vikings belonged to a single identifiable 'tribe'. Indeed, it is unclear how useful that term is in Scandinavian contexts. How would you define it in relation to tangible evidence of Scandinavian social organisation at any particular moment in time or in any particular place? The closest we can get perhaps is when we find references in C11th skaldic poetry to those who spoke the 'Danish tongue' (apparently including all speakers of Old West and Old East Norse dialects, and not just Danes). But what does that mean in 'scientific' terms? CubeDigit (talk) 15:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Shifting cultivation here means the cultivation of hominids and crops for human consumption on freshly burned vegetation area or forest within a fewer number of years than the time that area is left to natural regeneration. (Conklin 1961 27). This is the oldest form of food production as proto humans have developed it over millions of years. During this long span of time, shifting cultivation developed into a complex process, requiring the coordinated interaction of larger groups of people. This way of life can be traced back to Africa and / or China, where the forerunners of Homo erectus (the erect man) had a nascent rise more than five million years ago. Later they spread out across the world, including northern Europe, less than one million years ago. But it is much less than one million years ago that Homo sapiens (the man who knows and can) came from Africa to Eurasia. They were knowledgeable and experienced people already. Shifting cultivation is highly community-forming. The smallest unit was the clan – the cultivation team – and often several clans would cooperate with one another. The manager, or Kuningas, had many functions. It was not only practical, but also political and religious. Cultivation was mobile; the clan moved to new forests to burn and grow food crops. They had no monumental construction. It is therefore difficult to trace them archaeologically, even from the study of Terra Preta (charcoal-rich soil). The swidden ranged from single ones onsite to periodic settlements, punctuated by moderately long abandonment. This rest period was required for necessary forest regrowth. Surveys of mountain caves and other natural settlements have revealed many cultural layers upon one another with natural forest regrowth in between. This stratigraphy indicates cultural development. Here in random order I will mention a few such places: Catalhöyük in Turkey, Altamira in northern Spain, Jericho in Israel, Kostenki Voronezh in Russia, Skara Brea on Orkeney, and the cave Vistehola at Jæren in Norway. The heads of swidden family groups or clans (noite) had to have, at all times, an overview of their own clan's activities in order to put together these three parameters to a kind of "rubik-cube", according to their own experiences and conscious thought. The time frame covers the first three cues of removal of the existing vegetation, which is controlled by man. The next three deal with the new vegetation, crops, and regrowth of new forests. The time between harvest and regrowth varies from direct transition to regrowth through a number of years with a second use of swidden (vuoma) to never regrow, i.e. direct transition from the crop (pühä) to a permanent farm place / settlement (Piha). Natural influences noite need only register and take into account in assessment: climate with rain, wind, temperature, drainage conditions, soil type, topography, flora and fauna, but he mastered his seeds brought for planting. Noite coordinate so that all valves within the clans function: technology with adequate treatment of the area at the right time, cutting, burning, and social order. Runic poetry was a faithful helper in the exploitation of past experience and knowledge, and poems thankfully have the ability to survive generations. Swidden cultivation requires a large number of people in the group to survive as an operational unit. It is a complex cycle of synchronized processes performed by individuals and / or groups in binding cooperation. Such production union is often called a clan, extended family, kind, thiod, ätt, or tribe; in Russian plemja, rod; in Persian tauma, and Sanskrit jana, kula-. The village name in today's Finno-Ugric languages is küla. The word küllä is a reinforced yes: those that say yes and agree. Each man in swidden society had significance as a participant in the community, not as a person. This cultural form requires a large family structure, and thus some form of village. Archaeology has demonstrated a difference in settlement development in Denmark and other Nordic countries in the West European lowlands (Gröngaard Jeppesen 1981 135). This difference is clearly visible around 8-900 AD, and is most likely due to the transition to field cultivation, which came later to Denmark than to areas further south. Generally speaking, arable farming has expanded northwards from the Mediterranean to forests in Europe within the last two thousand years before the 1600 AD. Climate fluctuation has a different impact on field cultivation than on shifting cultivation. Shifting cultivation expands as climate decreases, and the so-called "walking village" is activated, while arable farming has little chance of immediate territorial expansion that is detectable archaeologically. Vikings experienced a climate deterioration that led to internal expansion as well as a migration to unused forests both in outskirts and in other European areas where arable farming had already taken over the food production. Large families or clans wandering in the lush woodlands have continued to be the most common form of life through human history. Axes to fell trees and sickles for harvesting of the grain were the only tools people might bring with them. All other devices were made from materials they found at the site, such as fire stakes of birch, long rods (vanko), and harrows made of spruce tops. The extended family conquered the lush virgin forest, burned and cultivated their carefully selected swidden plots, powered one or a few crops, and then proceeded on to forests they had registered before. In the temperate zone the forest regenerated in the course of a lifetime. So swidden was repeated several times in the same area over the years. But in the tropics the forest floor gradually depleted. It was not only to the moors, as in Northern Europe, but also in the steppe, savannah, prairie, pampas and barren desert in tropical areas where shifting cultivation is the oldest (Clark 1952 91-107).Also see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn--Svedjebruk (talk) 17:37, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Are Finns Finnish People Suomi considred Vikings?

Wondering if the Finns(Suomi) were considered Vikings too? Thought there heritage was from Magyar Hungaraian stock.VIKINGSWORD (talk) 21:32, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Essentially no. although there may possibly have been some who were "Vikingised" or "Norsisised" (ie some vikings may have been of non Norse origine, an example being "Ketil Flatnose" whose name possibly indicated a Sami origine as he was a Norwegian viking) but whether a Finn who became a viking was still considered part of early Finnish culture is a tricky one. Seamusalba (talk) 21:39, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that they probably could. Snorri uses the word "vikings" for what is most likely muslim pirates in the Mediterraean. "Viking" was not an ethnic denomination.

Andejons (talk) 07:30, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

that demonstrates the problems with definition and context. Viking didnt mean Norse until much later. It was more of a verbal noun during what we call the viking age. but if someone was a Norseman, they would be part of the Norse cultural/linguistic group by necessity, even if their original language was Finnish. (Incedentally, there was at least one Dutch Barbary pirate based in North Africa during the days of the Barbary pirates, he was a renegade from Breda according to a documentary I once saw on the attacks on Ireland and South west England. He would have had to speak Arabic and probably converted to Islam to fit in with the social norms of the new barbary society hed adopted. If Snorri was using the verbal noun to mean "rader", then that would necessitate defining all pirates (even the Somalian ones nowadays) as "vikings" from our own perspective surely? Seamusalba (talk)

But to answer the original question, no Finn is ever called a Viking in the written sources. Let's not speculate about flat noses. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 19:03, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Well I would never refer to a Sami or a boxer or anyone else as a "flatnose" but the speculation is whether the Norse were as politically correct as wikipedians in the 21st century are expected quite rightly to be (the chances are they werent). Seamusalba (talk) 19:50, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Didn't the Finns hire themselves out as mercenaries and bodyguards as the Varangians? Or the Varangian Guard? They supposedly reached the black sea and were employed by Russian kingdoms to bulk up their armies and as elite guard-forces. As far as I know, they too sailed down the rivers of Eastonia, Russia and Eastern Europe in a similar fashion to Vikings. So if you were looking for something to call Finnish raiders or pirates, Varangian's would be not-too-inappropriate. 92.28.162.225 (talk)

The trouble is that the term Varangian has never been used with this sort of modern notion of ethnic/national specificity--not by anyone, ever. Some people from the region now identified as Finland may have served in the Varangian guard in Byzantium, and some of them may have been referred to as Varangians in early medieval Russia, but there's no actual evidence that this was the case. And more importantly you need to remember that people from almost /all/ other parts of Scandinavia were connected with the eastern trade and communication routes at different times in the Scandinavian Iron Age and Viking Age and into the medieval period. They weren't just eastern Scandinavians. Some of the best-known individuals who spent time in Russia and further east were Norwegians (e.g. Magnus the Good and his uncle Haraldr Hardradi in the C11th). What we do know is that people, ideas, language and artifacts moved quite freely around the Baltic in the Viking period, and there was evidently mixing and communication beyond the limits of modern national boundaries and language groups. There's no point in limiting the term Varangian in the way you propose, or indeed in using it as if it helps us distinguish a coherent ethnic group. The term Viking is pretty unhelpful too of course, and a good deal of stupidity could be avoided if we refrained from using it whenever we could. Terms like these often provide us with a way of *not* saying what we mean rather than being precise. it would be much less misleading if we talked about Scandinavians and people of Scandinavian origin, or indeed the Norse-speaking peoples, during the VIking Age, accepting that some of them may have been referred to as Vikings or Varangians in some places, among other terms. Calling them Vikings is arguably a little bit like deciding to refer to all modern people of US origin as Military Contractors, or Marines (note the use of the upper case). The popular currency of the term Viking means that we're pretty much stuck with that word now, even though it would arguably make much more sense only to use it with the lower-case spelling (viking), as some historians do, to designate people of Scandinavian origin who engaged in activities of a certain sort. So lets not start using another equally problematic term too: above all if it's going to involve misapplying it to one group among many. As for the Sami in central and northern Scandinavia, there is plenty of evidence of different complex sorts of interaction with Norse-speakers, to whom we are customarily referring when we use the term Vikings: but the maintenance of separate languages, belief systems and economies means we must be right to distinguish them even though the distinctions of ethnicity and identity must sometimes have been fuzzy, and even though some people of Sami origin mixed with their Norse-speaking brethren, went on viking-type expeditions, and took part in the settlement of Iceland. By which I mean, the Sami may sometimes have been *v*ikings, but as a distinct group they weren't what people usually mean when they talk about *V*ikings. Dala-Freyr (talk) 11:26, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Good points, and well put. MarmadukePercy (talk) 11:42, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The term Viking; The word Viking appears to be older than the Viking Age. It occurs in Exodus, the Alexandrian translation of the 2nd Leviticus, which mentions the Jewish exodus from Egypt. On the voyage across the Read Sea, they are termed; säwicingas. In the Alexandrian Widsith occurs the word Viking in line 47; wicinga cynn, clan, and in line 59 and 80, the Vikings used the same term for themselves. The word Viking denotes mobility, those who deal with travel; Vikja, vik, veik, vikjinn is the old west-Norwegian verb with the same meaning as the word viking. Adam of Bremen tells us that these pirates, in Greek words that are related to go (travel), call themselves Vikings, while our countrymen call them ascomanner, i.e. boaters. The term scegdman is Anglo-Saxon and it also means boaters, and there are several other terms with similar meanings (Askeberg 1944 s.153).[97] The Vikings are associated with robbery and assault, and they got a good deal of written description because of this. The newly established Christian church was subjected to the Vikings’ robbery, but the reasoning for excursions was the necessary expansion, which was natural for their swidden culture in a time of climate deterioration.(Per Martin Tvengsberg 2010 and http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn)--Svedjebruk (talk) 09:57, 6 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Svedjebruk (talk • contribs)

In Nestor chronicle, written in Kiev at the beginning of the eleventh century, are the first dynasties dating back to the year 862, when Rurik the Varjage, who along with his younger brothers was invited to rule over slaves, chuder, kriviker and ves.

A source from the early nine hundreds was written by Ibn Fadlan, who participated in an Islamic delegation from the caliph al - Muktadir in 921 to Bulgar on the Volga River (Canard 1958 41-145).[108] Fadlan admired northerner physique, writing that they were red and long as date palms, but were the ugliest creatures that God had ever created. The men always wore swords, axes and knives, while the women had neck rings of precious metal and collars of green glass beads. He experienced a varjagkings boat burial.

Emperor Constantine of Byzantium Porphyrogennetos also mentions "rus" (Obolensky 1962). [109] "De imperio administrando" ca. 950 states that "the boats coming from the far straight Rus at Constantinople are from Novgorod, where Svyatoslav, Igor's son, Prince of Rus, has his residence." As he finds rich districts of ancient Scandinavian affairs in Russia, Jaroslav and Vladimir on the upper Volga mention, "There the hilly and friendly burch terrain in many ways reminds of a middle Swedish landscape" (Arbman 1936). [110]

The Invitation of the Varangians by Viktor Vasnetsov: Rurik and his brothers Sineus and Truvor arrive at the lands of the Ilmen Slavs. The Vikings in east were denoted as varjages, väringes, varangians. This last is an old expression that means lush forest. This is preserved in the names of geographical sites. The term has remained the name only in areas where the (rich) forest was a rarity. In northern Fenno - Scandia and around the White Sea are a dozen such names in areas of forest. Varanger in Finnmark is another example. The Finnish name of the fortress Vardøhus is Varjakanlinna. Varjakanmaa was the Vikings’ homeland, writes Lönnrot in the Finnish-Swedish Lexicon (Helsinki 1880 900).

Certain woodlands bear this name in Estonia, standing out from their surroundings through very high fertility.

The extended family was the normal social structure of the Vikings

The extended family was the normal social structure of the Vikings (Sjøvold 1979 53-72), [111] but has since become uncommon in most parts of the Nordic countries (Winberg 1973 192-97). [112] It has since remained where shifting cultivation was still the dominant means for nourishment, some still exist in some remote places in Karelia. Moreover, it has been discovered that in certain areas, the number of families increased by huge margins after the fifteenth century (Tornberg 1972). [113]

There was the tribe that was responsible for the earliest Viking raids in the 800's, where the primary goal was to find new forests for swidden. But from the end of the nine hundreds it was often the kings who led the expedition and swidden expansion.

The ecclesiastical and secular authorities in Riga in 1230 set up an appointment with kurer (agricultural population), all oh whom had been converted to Christianity. The Kures agreed that for each swidden they would pay an annual fee of half a pound of rye, as they should pay the same fee for next year's crop on the same so-called harrowed land. But those who really wanted processed soil using plows and harrows pulled by horses rather than by burning new forest field would only pay half a pound (Bunge 1889 137-38). [114] The authorities wanted to get rid of shifting cultivation, because the place-bound farmer was more easily controllable and simplified tax collection. --Svedjebruk (talk) 18:18, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

systematic bias

There seems to be a systematic bias in this article. The general point of view is in removing the claimed wrong image of vikings. The article seems to be completely one-sided. 128.100.3.43 (talk) 17:41, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

You need to be a lot more specific about the sort of changes you'd like to see. Dougweller (talk) 17:48, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there is any 'systematic bias' here, but I do think it's true that if you came to this article without any previous knowledge of the vikings, you wouldn't really get a grip on just how much trouble they caused... However much bias there is in the ecclesiastical sources, things in many parts of Western Europe weren't quite the same shape when the first main wave of C9th raids slackened off. The tone of the article may be the result of contributors depending for their knowledge on books which emphasise the culture of the Norsemen as well as the complex realities of raids in England and France, in particular in the later ninth century. On the other hand, it's not entirely clear that vikings were always worse than anyone else. Charlemagne's execution of 4500 Saxons in one day surpasses any single act of violence for which the vikings are renowned. And one might think of the poor French commoners who organised a successful resistance against the vikings in 859, when the king and magnates had utterly failed to protect them, only to find themselves crushed by their own local magnates, who liked their peasants to be passive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.7.18.117 (talk) 17:04, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree. As a concequence, noone can read about true vikings, only the english misinterpretation of the term. It will probably take a long time for this to be corrected. Meanwhile, I reccomend to read the german version viking, which clearly define the object of the article. Dan Koehl (talk) 21:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Keep in mind that on an English wiki article the discussion of "Viking" will be about the English word not the Old Norse, Icelandic, German, Norwegian, or the definition of "Viking" in any other language. The English word "Viking" entered the vocabulary around 1807 and has, among it's meanings, the definition of "a Scandinavian." Therefore an encyclopaedic discussion of the English term will encompass far more than just the "pirate raiders" that are the subject of the more focused Old Norse term. --Jaiotu (talk) 07:41, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

The Vikings knew our Spherical Earth

If specialists like R.Simek, François Xavier Dillmann, Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Kaaren Grimstad explain that Vikings knew our Spherical Earth, it’s because they think that it isn’t a peripheral info, they specify that fact because it’s important to understand the Viking culture. The earth was believed to be flat is not a myth, it’s historical. In Middle Age, when someone tells that the earth is spherical, he was heretic. The theologians of Rome opposed philosophy and science observation advances, they burned Giordano Bruno, persecuted Galileo Galilei, destroyed the Academy del Cimento, used fear to Descartes, Tycho… Finally, Newton, Kepler, and Huygens discoveries had pushed close in the absurd theologian’s ideas.

If someone thinks it’s necessary to write this info into the article, I join here the text and the specialists sources. Sorry for my “poor English”.

The Vikings knew our Spherical Earth before theologians of Rome imposed their Bible's vision of a “flat earth” as a disk shape: orbis terrarum in latin or Heimskringla in old Norse. There is still a document dating from the 12th century which attests this fact: Elucidarium. It allowed Vikings to sail far without fear of "falling into the abyss" describe in the Bible.(cf.éd.Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Kaaren Grimstad Elucidarius in Old Norse Translation, Reykjavik, 1989, p40) ( Rudolf Simek, Altnordische Kosmographie, Berlin, 1990, pp 102 sq.) (History of the Kings of Norway by Snorri Sturluson, François Xavier Dillmann “L’Aube des peuples” Gallimard p 367 ISBN 2-07-073211-8).

Thorgis (talk) 13:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but Simek is wrong. See for instance Flat Earth. Bruno and Galilei are irrelevant, the church's dispute with them had nothing to do with a flat earth. The universities, all church run, did not teach that the earth was flat. You'd expect sailors to know the earth wasn't flat anyway. Dougweller (talk) 13:54, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi

I'm sorry, but I don't think that Rudolf Simek, François Xavier Dillmann, Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Kaaren Grimstad, are wrong.

Theologians of Rome teached during a long time that the earth was flat. At the beginning of the Viking age, Charlemagne had three tables: Rome’s plan, Constantinople one, and the third was Earth in the form of flat disk. Catholic bishops still believed that earth was flat in 16th century: they warned Columbus that he would fall off the edge of the earth for his lack of faith.

The Church had always crushed the "heretical" view, often through censorship and persecution of the scientists because they are not according with the Bible:

Ésaie 40:22 ; Isaïe 24:1 ; ezechiel 7 :3 ; marc 13 :27 ; job 9. 6 ; Daniel 4:10-11 ; Job 38:12-13 ; jérémy 16 :19; Jérémie 49:36 ; josué 10.12 ; genese 1.17 ; 1 Chroniques 16:30; Job 38:4-6; Josué 10:12-13...

I thought it was interesting to know the Viking knowledge about this, it doesn’t matter if you don’t want this info in the article.

Thorgis (talk) 17:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

No one knows what Charlemagne's 3rd silver table looked like, and some academics think it was a celestial map. You can't use it as evidence Charlemagne thought the earth was flat. As for Columbus, writing about A. D. white's immense study, A History of we Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (in two volumes), Rodney Stark wrote "Trouble is that almost every word of White's account of the Columbus story is a lie. Every educated person of the time, including Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round.5 The Venerable Bede (ca. 673-735) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg {ca. 720-784), Hildegard of Bingcn {1098-11791 and Thomas Aquinas {ca. 1224-1274), and all four ended up saints. Sphere was the title of the most popular medieval textbook on astronomy. Written by the English Scholastic John of Sacrobosco {ca. 1200-1256), it transmitted the standard view that all heavenly bodies including Earth were spherical. In the same century as Columbus's voyage, Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly {1350-1420), chancellor of the University of Paris, noted that "although there are mountains and valleys on the earth, for which it is not perfectly round, it approximates very nearly to roundness."4

As for the "sundry wise men of Spain" who challenged Columbus and advised against funding him, they not only knew the earth was round; they also knew it was far larger than Columbus thought it was. They opposed his plan only on the grounds that he had badly underestimated the circumference of the earth and was counting on much too short a voyage."

I can find many more quote to this effect. The fact that you think Bishops told Columbus that the earth is flat is an indictment of our educational system. It's a 19th century myth still around in the 21st century. Dougweller (talk) 18:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'm sorry again but, if Snorri Sturlusson, Saxo Grammaticus and all the other writers of Old Norse Literature, believed in our spherical Earth, and if theChurch did not impose its Bible’s vision, how can we explain that all this literature speaks about a flat Earth. The explanation is because the writers of these texts ought to respect the writings of the Bible, because it is God’s Holy Book and God cannot be mistaken on his own creation.

Thorgis (talk) 09:07, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Technically speaking, Snorri Sturlusson did not write "Old Norse" literature. He wrote in Old Icelandic. --Jaiotu (talk) 08:00, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

come on you have to idmit that boy are better than gils — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaco1234567 (talk • contribs) 20:16, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

If Simek voiced the opinion that the Vikings knew the earth was spherical, we can certainly cite this as Simek's opinion. Just bring the reference. What does exactly does it say on p. 102 of Altnordische Kosmographie? Cite Simek, don't just quote something you read on the internet and throw in a selection of "references" for good measure. You mentioned p. 102 of Simek's book, so now let us know what it says there. --dab (𒁳) 20:28, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

After a brief websearch, I can tell you what Simek says on the page mentioned. He says that knowledge of the spherical Earth was introduced to Scandinavia in the form of a 12-th century translation of Elucidarius. So we can assume that from the 12th century (note that this is the end of the Viking Age), the Scandinavians knew the earth is spherical. This is the opposite of what you claimed, of course. You said that the Vikings thought the Earth was round, and Roman influence imposed the image of the flat earth. In reality, the Vikings thought the earth was flat, and Roman influence spread the image of the spherical earth. --dab (𒁳) 20:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

falling off the flat earth

Anyone who has lived on the coast has noticed that when a ship sails within sight it rises above the horizon. The top of the mast appears first, then the sails, then the hull. When it sails out of sight, it slowly sinks below the horizon. Give the old mariners some credit, they weren't complete idiots. They'd notice this phenomenon every day of their lives, no matter where they sailed.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 11:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Conc. the Holy Bible, and the Creation of the Earth - the text og Genesis 1:st chapter doesn't state anything of how the Earth looks, or it's form. Nore does it state that the Earth is the center of anything. People just assumed

that the Earth was flat and that the sun appears to circle around the Earth. And by the way, if God could create the Earth, He of course also could create it to appear to be of any age He desires - not ? It's thereby pointless to argue against Christianity by scientific facts arguments. /Viking of Christianity —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.249.43.198 (talk) 01:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Please stick to sources for this, the page isn't a forum for our own opinions. Dougweller (talk) 13:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Which "four persons"?

14:08, 25 December 2012 (UTC)~ John Larsson, Hillerød, Denmark; jodalela@gmail.com . Posted 25th of dember 2012

Hi! Under "Etymology" your are writng "The idea that the word Viking is connected to the maritime distance unit vika has been put forward by at least four persons independently since the early 1980s, and has gained substantial support among scholars in recent years." I only know of two such persons, Bertil Daggfeldt in 1983 and myself in the Danish newspaper "Information" in 1998! Daggfeldt's article i "Fornvännen" was read by very few, and obviously by none who understood how important it was! When I had published my own article on the net ( http://www.abc.se/~pa/publ/vikskift.htm and later in English http://www.abc.se/~pa/publ/vikshift.htm ) I got many reactions, also a few from professional Scandinavian linguists. I am myself a scientist in physics, so these professional linguists all told me that "Languages do not develop that way!" [after the model e. g. sail (the noun) => sail (the verb) => sailing (the activity noun) => sailor], which was my assumption ["vik" => "vik(j)a" => "viking" => "vikingr" in Old Norse], but amongst the serious respondents to my article was a Swedish historian, who had a vague memory of, that he had read an article long ago with basicly the same message as mine. It took me some time to find out that the article he had read was "Vikingen - Roddaren" in "Fornvännen" 1983 by the Swedish naval officer and chamberlain, Bertil Daggfelt. I contacted Bertil Daggfeldt about ten years ago and told him about my article. Daggfeldt (born 1933, I am myself from 1943!), now retired and with little experience of the internet and we quickly became friends as I of course recognized his "priority" to "our" theory. Mr. Daggfeldt, who is an genuine "truth finder", then told me, that he (many years after his article in 1983) had found that a vicar in northern Sweden in 1955 a subordinate clause in an article in a local newspaper on folklore, actually was the very first (to our knowledge!) to utter the idea that "viking" had mentioned etymology! We know of many persons, who after our articles has been published on the net (I got Daggfeldt's permission to publish it at http://www.abc.se/~pa/publ/vik-rodd.htm and later I transledted it into English http://www.abc.se/~pa/publ/vik-oar.htm ) , scholars or not, who has written articles on this theory, sometimes without referring to our articles, but where the author obviously has read at least one of mine or Bertil Daggfeldt's articles!

I am rather sure that the Swedish vicar is not one of your "four persons", but could you please tell me, which persons YOU include in YOUR "four persons"?

My email address is jodalela@gmail.com which anyone can contact me on for further information!

Regards John larsson, Hillerød, Denmark Posted 25th of December 2012 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jodalela (talk • contribs) 14:08, 25 December 2012 (UTC) The term Viking; The word Viking appears to be older than the Viking Age. It occurs in Exodus, the Alexandrian translation of the 2nd Leviticus, which mentions the Jewish exodus from Egypt. On the voyage across the Read Sea, they are termed; säwicingas. In the Alexandrian Widsith occurs the word Viking in line 47; wicinga cynn, clan, and in line 59 and 80, the Vikings used the same term for themselves. The word Viking denotes mobility, those who deal with travel; Vikja, vik, veik, vikjinn is the old west-Norwegian verb with the same meaning as the word viking. Adam of Bremen tells us that these pirates, in Greek words that are related to go (travel), call themselves Vikings, while our countrymen call them ascomanner, i.e. boaters. The term scegdman is Anglo-Saxon and it also means boaters, and there are several other terms with similar meanings (Askeberg 1944 s.153).[97] The Vikings are associated with robbery and assault, and they got a good deal of written description because of this. The newly established Christian church was subjected to the Vikings’ robbery, but the reasoning for excursions was the necessary expansion, which was natural for their swidden culture in a time of climate deterioration.(Per Martin Tvengsberg 2010 and http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn)--Svedjebruk (talk) 09:57, 6 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Svedjebruk (talk • contribs)

Fake Map

This map is absolutely fake. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Viking_Expansion.svg/793px-Viking_Expansion.svg.png You write about "frequent viking raids" in Sardinia. Where are your sources? --Karanko (talk) 12:02, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

You might want to get a hold of User:Maxí who was the file's author regarding that issue.—  dain- talk   23:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

The map mixes areas with actual settlements (Iceland, parts of the British isles and Normandy, some parts of Russia) with areas where there were Scandinavian rulers (Kievrus) and areas where descendants of Scandinavians established kingdoms (Sicily, England). This map is better.

Andejons (talk) 13:06, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Plural of "viking"

Plural of "viking" is vikinger (in English aswell as in Danish and Norwegian). The Danish national television channel "DR K" did in December 2012 broadcast a British TV-production, a drama-documentation in 3 or 4 parts about the year 1066. The English speaker uses only vikinger - about battles of Fulford , Stamford Bridge and Hastings (vikinger joined the anglosaxons in the attempt to stop the normandian invasion, under the vikinger ancestor king Harold Goodwinson or Harald Godthvinsen). "Vikings" (when talking about the Scandinavian vikinger around 8:th to 11:th centuries) is utterly wrong ! Please do change name of the article. 83.249.164.128 (talk) 01:24, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The plural of "viking" is not "vikinger" in English, and using that term in one section is inconsistent when it is rendered "vikings" throughout the rest of the article, including the title. Mention of the term vikinger is appropriate, but you reach your conclusion based on the usage of a narrator in a single, unnamed BBC documentary. The overwhelmingly Most Common Name is "Vikings," the primary usage in common parlance, academic scholarship, as well as numerous other BBC documentaries, including the recent series featuring Neil Oliver, as well as on the BBC website.[3] Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 15:46, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The BBC-series name is "The Year 1066",or "In the year 1066" perhaps. The word Vikinger was very thoroghly explained as plural of "Viking", and therafter used in this for only. (And fact is "Vikingr" in old norse is plural aswell.) Series new, from from the 2010's and has been shown at Danish channels DR 2 and DR K atleast at two separate occations. It was a historical British series in English only in thre parts, following fictive men from "Crowhurst", Kent. After Edward the confessor died,his crown was promised to many, but the viking-ancestor ,known as Harold Goodwinson sinply stated "I am new Your King". When this got known the Anglo-Saxons in England understood that their island could be invaded, but couldnt possibly know if the Normands (from Normandie, France) or the Vikinger would attack first. Since the (now Christian) Vikinger arrived first, on the eastern coast,and won a huge victory at Fulford. But was defeated at Stamford Bridge, sincethe king Harald Hårdråde was killed. But now alarm came from the south, the normands had arrived and intended to stay. Some Vikinger even joined the tha Anglo-Saxons at Hastings, but got defeated. The source NE2000 is the digital (DVD) version of the large and modern encyklopedia of Sweden, Nationalencyklopedin, The Swedish National Encyclopedy of the 1990's. It is reguarded at neutral and thrustworthy. Also outside Sweden. Boeing720 (talk) 08:24, 15 March 2013 (UTC) NOTE I didn't state "Vikinger" as only plural of "Viking", "Vikings" in not wrong. Compare with "mouce" and "mice" here is "mouses" wrong (at least if talking about animals. Boeing720 (talk) 08:28, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

From WP:COMMONNAME: "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources." You want us to change the name of the article based on one BBC documentary? And what about the series Vikings (TV documentary series) that aired last year, or the page on the BBC website, or every other English-language source? There is already a discussion on the page regarding the etymology of the term Viking. Googling "Vikinger" merely leads one back to "Vikings"; I could not even find an English language discussion of the term Vikinger to base a discussion of the term on. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 14:28, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

"Vikinger" does not appear in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary either. Richerman (talk) 15:01, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

• I may be wrong but I believe the BBC series in question was indeed a historical drama, having seen a bit of one episode: IIRC the word "vikingr" was used in that series by the Anglo-Saxon characters, but presumably this was for the sake of some sort of historical accuracy, "vikingr" being the Old Norse as previously indicated. Whatever the reason, if I'm thinking of the right BBC series, then it has no bearing whatsoever on what the plural of "viking" is in modern English; anyway look it up in a dictionary. Nortonius (talk) 15:58, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

The BBC program in question is, in fact, 1066 The Battle for Middle Earth. The narrator was Ian Holm, the actor who portrays Bilbo Baggins in the film versions of The Lord of the Rings as well as the older Bilbo in The Hobbit. The film purposely goes out of its way to use non-English terms to draw the viewer into the period and to paint similarities to Tolkien's "Middle Earth" -- the Norman invaders, for instance, are referred to by the English defenders as "Orcs." It would be highly dubious to use this stylistic choice in a television docudrama as evidence that the proper plural form of Viking in the English language is anything other then Vikings. Vikinger is the proper Norwegian plural form of Viking but the English is Vikings. In fact, if you translate "Vikinger" from Norwegian into English using Google Translate the result is "Vikings." --Jaiotu (talk) 09:21, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

fix pages

Redirects? Why? ~Curiouscrab 23:32, 19 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.88.114.205 (talk)

Society and Technology Section

In response to this 'lost' edit request, I've corrected some spelling and grammatical errors, but the entire section still reads poorly and is inconsistent with the style of the article in general. It needs some work, and I am unsure about the reliability of the cited sources... Gabhala (talk) 19:09, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 9 March 2013

this section under viking society and technology is clearly made-up and misspelled:

In combat the Vikinger are belived to have been specially skilful in disordered fighting, like in groups of a few men only. In this type of combat the Vikinger sometimes is described as not have felt any kind of fear, and during armed fights they insted went into a kind of mental mood known as "beserk". They strengthen themselves with certain funguses like fly agaric. In this state of mind a group of just five well builded Vikinger could kill ten or fifteen opponants and making another fifteen men to run away. Tasbeg (talk) 18:18, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Grammatical errors in "Viking Society and Expansion"

"This both proves that the Vikings knew navigation and that Greenland in the past have had a warmer climate."

1) "Knew navigation" should be changed to something like, "were skilled navigators." 2) The last part should read "Greenland HAD HAD a warmer climate in the past", or "Vikings knew Greenland TO HAVE a warmer climate in the past."

Also, earlier in the section, "15th century" is accidentally written as "15:th century". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.190.67.157 (talk) 16:10, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

No the Vikinger actually knew navigation, daytime and nightime. Of cource the had not GPS available. But finding the way to Iceland, Greenland and probably New Foundland (as explorers) - and then being able to return home actually is navigation, by defalt. No one else during the middle ages knew navigation so well as the Vikinger did already in 8th 9th 10th and 11th centuries. No European stood on American soil for about 500 years after Leif Ericson did. How they could navigate ? Through the stars and the sun. This was however good enough. Second point. Fair enough. Greenland is 3:rd person singular and HAD HAD, not HAVE HAD.

I am Sorry, but why not correct this grammatical error Yourself ? Boeing720 (talk) 08:42, 15 March 2013 (UTC)No, You actually made me thikt wrong again , since -You are wrong too. "Greenland" is 3:rd person, singular. And Greenland has had is correct. If I've written "Greenland and Iceland" (in a different ciucumstance) then it's 3:rd person plural, and "Greenland and Iceland have had" is correct. Boeing720 (talk) 11:57, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Clearly 140.190.67.157 (talk) has not edited wikipedia before and so has politely asked someone else to correct the mangled English. Please Don't bite the newbies - especially when they're right! Richerman (talk) 12:49, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

The page is semi-protected, so not everyone can edit it, that is why edit requests were made. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 14:12, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Resolution

I edited and moved the discussion of runor into the section on Runestones and the discussion of berserkers into the section on Warfare. The bits about burials and ship characteristics are already covered in other areas of the article. Laszlo Panaflex (talk) 23:33, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

This is corret, I never discovered the chapter myself. Reason was to explain that the Vikinger were not analfabets, hence I somehow looked at wrong section. Sorry, my misstake Boeing720 (talk) 08:45, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Talk page redirect

Is there a reason why the article is named "Vikings", but the talk page is at "Talk: Viking"? If I had to guess a reason, it would have something to do with this move of the article not also effecting the talk page. If this is the only reason, shouldn't the talk page be moved to "Talk: Vikings"? Alphathon /'æɫ.fə.θɒn/ ^(talk) 20:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I notified the administrator who performed the move and the issue has been corrected. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 15:13, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea what went wrong. Normally, when a page is moved, the option "Move associated talk page" is selected by default, and I can't think of any reason why I would have deliberately de-selected that. JamesBWatson (talk) 21:39, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Country Portals

Why at the article’s bottom are links to the "Finland Portal" and "Estonia Portal"? Are Finnish and Estonians peoples direct descendants of the Vikings? I thought that Vikings/Nordics/Norsemen were only the Danish, the Norwegians, the Icelanders and the Swedish or Varangians; Russians (descendants to Swedes) and Normans (descendants to Danes) are likely more related to Vikings and its culture than Finnish and Estonians.

PS: Shouldn’t England, Normandy (or France) and Russia have a link to their portal here?

★ Nacho ★ ★ 19:52, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Normand (Northman) means Norwegian in modern Scandinavian languages.--Profoundpaul (talk) 20:48, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm not disputing if the Normans are related to the Vikings, but Finnish and Estonians! (:

I know that some Danes settled in northwestern France, and for example people in Normandy are blonder than an average French, but Normans speaks French (I don't know about cultural ties with Denmark, Norway or Sweden nor traditions in common); and that some Swedes settled in what is now Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, but their descendants now speak Slavic languages (Russian, Belarusian, Rusyn and Ukrainian). But what connection do Finnish and Estonians have to Vikings? (Cultural, Linguistic, etc.?) I think that someone just pust those countries because of their location in Northern Europe. I will proceed to remove those countries and replaced them with countries that are actually related to Vikings. (: ★ Nacho ★ ★ 01:39, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

not sure if this is best spot to bring this up but i have always been lead to believe by school history lessons that icelandic vikings were descendants of modern day German settlers who followed the same original norse religion with minor diffrences(probaly location related which lead to culture diffrences that evolved over time). if anyone can find a source article to proove this then we would need to add germany to the list.

ok since i bothered to reread and its confirmed in page adding the german portal appears rather relevant to me any complaints in adding?152.91.9.153 (talk) 03:03, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Citation needed under The Viking Age

There is a sentence under "The Viking Age" section which needs a citation. The sentence is: "The Greenland settlement eventually died out, possibly due to climate change." The request is to please add that a citation is needed at the end of this sentence: The Greenland settlement eventually died out, possibly due to climate change. <citation needed>

Without a citation, this statement is opinion, and not objective. Specifically, the word "possibly" in this sentence qualifies this as an opinion; so to use this word, the sentence would require some supporting journal/research/evidence that would at least indicate this statement to be the common thought among historians or scientists.

Please either add a citation is needed, or please remove this sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrxnfx (talk • contribs) 14:00, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I've gone one better and added a citation Richerman (talk) 09:40, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Definition

There has never existed a tribe, a nation, or a people called vikings, this is an anglosaxian misinterpretion dating less than 100 years. The term viking is mentioned in several medevial prime sources; The Beowulf, "Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum" by Adam von Bremen etc. Adam states clearly that world means "pirat" nothing more and nothing less: "Aurum ibi plurimum, quod raptu congeritur piratico. Ipsi enim piratae, quos illi Wichingos as appellant, nostri Ascomannos regi Danico tributum solvunt. " = "There is much gold here (in Zealand), accumulated by piracy. These pirates, which are called wichingi by their own people, and Ascomanni by our own people, pay tribute to the Danish king." Observe, 1. Adam is surprised that they pay tax and mentions this is a vital information their own people call THEM vikings, which means that the rest of the people does not view themselves as vikings, so they even have a name for this minority. Furthermore, in the article is claimed "Vikings traded etc", this was NOT vikings, it was just simply scandinavians, most of them non-aggressive. And to be more precise, vikingr was primarly an activity, and it was a temporarily activity, when a person was not piracing anymore, then this person could no longer be refered to as a viking. This is very precisely defined in Egil Skallagrimsson, when he is discussing Björn Farman: "Björn var farmaður mikill, var stundum í víking, en stundum í kaupferðum; Björn var hinn gervilegasti maður." = english: Björn was a great traveller; sometimes as viking, sometimes as tradesman. A tradesman was a tradesman, a viking was a viking. The same perosn could of course change between the two activities, but it doesnt make them the same. A tradesman is a tradesman, a pirat is a pirat. Now, it may surprise you that the word viking is only mentioned on six runestones in Sweden, in 5 cases, its used as a personal name (without explanation) and in the sixth case its used about a man who was a viking watcher, he was a guard AGAINST vikings. This man, obviously related to the royal family, would probably rotate in his grave, if he knew that millions of people call him a viking today. It may surprise you that probably less than 1% of the swedish people during medevial time committed piracy, and were, during that time refered to as vikings. As a consequence, most swedes probably hated vikings as much as other people working hard for their food. There were NO viking kings, and although Harald Hårfager is in wikipedia and other places mentioned as viking king, in a lot of anglosaxian litterature, the truth is that he cleaned the shores of Scotland and Hebrides FROM vikings, most of them escaping to Iceland. Theres even a scandinavian source mentioning an attack from arabian pirats on scandinavians ships in the Mediterranean Sea, and those arabic pirates were refered to as vikings. When arabic people were mentioned as pirates, this makes sense, once you understand that viking just means pirat. Forget about "viking ships" since pirats probably never had a wharf or made any ships. The correct term is long ships, and they were mostly used by non pirats, the swedish and norwegian royal navy "ledung" as an important example. A misunderstanding and abuse of a defenition that was clearly defined for over 1000 years, and the last 50 or so misinterpretation, will never help anyone to fully understand the complex medevial scandinavian society, which in fact was never dominated by vikings. Even if Spain and Britain had some pirats sailing the atlantic sea, this will never make the kings of spain and britain "Pirat-kings". It will never make those countries peaceful farmers, shepheards, and fishmonglers to pirats. It is exactly the same for scandinavia. A misinterpretion, or a lie, will never become true, regardless how many people repeat it over and over again. Read the prime sources, and you will understand, what most important encyklopedias has not clearified, due to the popularity of what people in their phantasy see, when they hear the word viking, an archtype, which in reality never existed. Most encyclopedias today state in their intro that vikings were not a people, and then is the rest of the articles an unclear story about pirats from scandinavia AND non pirats from scandinavia. Those articles discuss what vikings ate, drank, spoke about, etc, which clothes they wore, which weapons they used, etc, but all this archeological material is remains from scandinavians, not pirats. It has to be stated: Scandinavia had a flourishing society, which in the case of Sweden, is known already in year 78 by Tacitus, and scandinavins still exist today. They were building ships, exploring, trading, and also pirating as vikings. But this doesnt make just any baker, shepheard etc, during medevial time , a viking, and not even a tradesman were defined as viking in the medevial sources. Most REAL vikings were probably outlaws, and hated and disrespected by most Scandinavians. They had to flee to Iceland or Jomsborg, when the scandinavian kings lost their patience. Its time to focus on the original difference of the DIFFERENT terms norse, scandinavians, vaeringar, rus and vikings. Allt those terms had a unique defenition for over 1000 years. Anyone can feel free to mix them together in a pseudo-scientific marmelade, and claim that vikings built ships, colonized, traded, found america, worked as body guards for the Byzantic emperor, but who, in the end benefits from that, if its isnt true, since all this was performed by Scandinavians? In the end, its a matter of respect. All germans during the 40s can not be refered to as nazis, all americans can not be refered as cowboys? Why shall then swedes, living in a kingdom already mentioned 2000 years ago, be refered to as vikings, just because some pirates were (MAYBE) of scandinavian scandinavian origin during 200 years, 800 AD to 1000 AD? If you read through the whole article, and focus on when the article discuss vikings, and when its discusses non-viking scandinavians (bit still called vikings in the article), you can easily see what a rape on peoples history it is, and how inconsequent the article is, Im citing:

1. Regardless of its possible origins, the word was used to indicate an activity and those who participated in it, and IT DID NOT belong to any ethnic or cultural group
2. In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, Widsith, which probably dates from the 9th century. In Old English, and in the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam of Bremen in about 1070, the term is synonymous with pirate and a Scandinavian. As in the Old Norse usages, the term IS NOT employed as a name for any people or culture in general. The word DOES NOT OCCUR in any preserved Middle English texts.

When I was young, the old encylopedias I read were full of bullshit, like racial comments about african people, gypsies etc. I will not repeat here what extreme uneducated lies were written, but afact is, that most parts of our western culture, during almost 100 years, in general supported all this bullshit. Then came the time to start to clean up, and it was probably not easy, but under protest most encyklopedias developed into giving a more balanced and true information. Today it would be impossible, and even illegal, to repeat those mistakes. WHY then, must, as a principle, a fundamental misunderstanding of the word viking, still today 2013, be an encyclopedias defintion of the word, even if its against ALL prime medevial sources? Cant we let scandinavians be scandinavians, and develop the article about them, and remove ALL general scandinavian information about the word viking, and instead use the article viking, to describe the (very few) real vikings? (And admit that we doesnt have the foggiest, about what this criminal minority ate, drank, used for clothes, weapons, and religions, since it was nothing else than a temporarily criminal activity, performed by a minority, during 200 years.)

For you who can read german: please read the german article, which in the intro precicely defines the object of the article, and after this doesnt loose its track, from the first sentence, until the last, it describes VIKINGS, not scandinavians. As long as you consist of mixing those terms, the article will always be a confused rague of true information about vikings from prime sources, and what people BELIEVE was wikings, when uneducated people use the word viking, when they actually mean a medevial scandinavian.

wikipedia should be a true and correct source of facts and information, not a place were 1800 romantism is being repeated again?

Dan Koehl (talk) 04:09, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

The term "Viking" as both a noun and a verb has undergone an evolution in it's meaning. Toward the beginning of the Viking Age the word had no negative meaning; runestones contemporary to the time period record persons proudly identifying themselves as "Viking" and the term seems to have simply meant a person traveling for adventure. By the time the Sagas were written down, the term appears to have gathered more negative connotations as the term is often used to describe someone of dubious character. Christian works contemporary to the Sagas use the term to mean a murderer or a plunderer; the Old Icelandic Homily Book, which dates from the early part of the 13th century, paraphrases one of the parables told by Jesus, using the word víkingr: "En þá er konunginum var sagt, hvað þeir höfðu gjört, þá sendi hann her sinn og lét drepa víkinga þá og brenndi upp borgir þeirra." of which the English translation is: "And when the king was told what they had done, he sent his army and ordered them to kill the vikings and burn their city."

So who were the Vikings? You can't discuss the subject without touching on the people groups from which the Vikings came from. Viking culture reflected Scandinavian culture. The term, as it was used in the Viking Age, always refers to raiders from the Scandinavian lands. Raiders from other parts of the world are never called "Vikings." Narrowing down the article to focus only on what you describe as the "(very few) real vikings" would be even more of a misunderstanding. The term Viking does NOT simply refer to "a temporarily criminal activity, performed by a minority, during 200 years" as you seem want to describe it. There is serious modern scholarship that suggests that Vikings (adventurers from the North) were not the depraved killers, looters, and rapists depicted in popular stories and tales.

Some Viking-age documents suggest that some Europeans would rather be raided by Vikings than by some of the other raiders active during this period. The Vikings tended to be less interested in sacking towns or in destroying buildings or in mass killings. They were more interested in grabbing the valuables and moving on, and so, for example, they didn't destroy the vineyards at Aquitaine, the way that Frankish raiders did. --Jaiotu (talk) 06:09, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

1. I never saw any sources, backing up that this word was "developed" into something that differed from its original meaning, and I very much doubt that this is a relevant description of what happened. I rather argue that during 1800 century, the word was MISUNDERSTOOD and applied in situations where it was not relevant, and this is not the same as development.

2. You write: "The term, as it was used in the Viking Age, always refers to raiders from the Scandinavian lands. Raiders from other parts of the world are never called "Vikings.""

- I argue this as well, and contrary to you, I name a source which you can look up; Extracts from Orosius, written in latin, and translated into old english. There is to read about Philip II of Macedonia: Philippus vero post longam obsidionem, ut pecuniam quam obsidendo exhauserat, praedando repararet, piraticam adgressus est. translated into: ac he scipa gegaderade, and i vicingas wurdon

Dan Koehl (talk) 20:53, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

talk, 1. I never saw any sources, backing up that this word was "developed" into something that differed from its original meaning, and I very much doubt that this is a relevant description of what happened. I rather argue that during 1800 century, the owrd was MISUNDERSTOOD and applied in situations where it was not relevant, and this is not the same as development.

2. You write: "The term, as it was used in the Viking Age, always refers to raiders from the Scandinavian lands. Raiders from other parts of the world are never called "Vikings.""

- I argue this as well, and contrary to you, I name a source which you can look up; Extracts from Orosius, written in latin, and translated into old english. There is to read about Philip II of Macedonia: Philippus vero

post longam obsidionem, ut pecuniam quam obsidendo exhauserat, praedando repararet, piraticam adgressus est. translated into: ac he scipa gegaderade, and i vicingas wurdon Dan Koehl (talk) 20:51, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

1. I never saw any sources, backing up that this word was "developed" into something that differed from its original meaning, and I very much doubt that this is a relevant description of what happened. I rather argue that during 1800 century, the word was MISUNDERSTOOD and applied in situations where it was not relevant, and this is not the same as development. I would also suggest, that the world has been commercially abused, when the first "viking museums" was established. I you refer to a step by step development, can you relate to any sources that confirm this?

2. You write: "The term, as it was used in the Viking Age, always refers to raiders from the Scandinavian lands. Raiders from other parts of the world are never called "Vikings."" - I argue this as well, and contrary to you, I name a source which you can look up; Extracts from Orosius, written in latin, and translated into old english. There is to read about Philip II of Macedonia: Philippus vero post longam obsidionem, ut pecuniam quam obsidendo exhauserat, praedando repararet, piraticam adgressus est. translated into: ac he scipa gegaderade, and i vicingas wurdon Dan Koehl (talk) 21:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem with using Extracts from Orosius as a source is that we are discussing the modern English term "Viking" and not the Old English term "vicingas" or any of the other variant spellings or terms from the Old Norse and how they translate from the Latin "piraticam." We are dealing with modern English usage. The word "Viking" entered the Modern English lexicon in the 18th century. For better or worse the English word "Viking" does not possess a one for one correlation with the Old Norse term "Viking." While English word does come to us from the Norse it's usage in English is clouded by a misunderstanding of it's etymology. An example is found in the 1887 edition of Skeat's "Principles of English Etymology" which understood the term to mean a "creek dweller" or possibly a bay dweller. The 1993 edition of "The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology" which builds of Skeat's work understands that, while the term's literal translation might yet be "creek dweller", it Scandinavian origin nevertheless had the specific meaning of a "northern pirate." Regardless of the term's origin the damage has been done. In the English speaking world the term viking has a dual meaning. This dual meaning can be found by looking up the term in the Merriam-Webster dictionary: "1 - one of the pirate Norsemen plundering the coasts of Europe in the 8th to 10th centuries" and "2 - Scandinavian".

Your argument that the word was misunderstood and misapplied in the 1800s in actually irrelevant to the issue. That's just part of the way living languages undergo evolution. Terms gain and lose meaning through a variety of forces and misunderstanding of a word's original meaning is not the least of these. The misunderstanding of the meaning of the word "viking" at the time in which the word entered into common English usage has endowed the English definition of the word with meaning that goes beyond the Norse term. --Jaiotu (talk) 08:57, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

what you say is eminently correct, Jaiotu, but you should know that Dan Koehl has been coming back to this page in intervals for about ten years now, just to inform everyone that "Viking" means "pirate". So far no amount of rational discourse has been able to impress on him that etymology does not equal meaning. Perhaps if we inform him that "cannibal" actually is the name of a people he will spend another decade trying to set the record straight at the "cannibalism" article. --dab (𒁳) 14:00, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Etymology

There seems to be much misunderstanding as to the etymology of the word Viking. A Vik in Old Norse is an inlet from the sea, in other words a creek, a cove or a bay. Go to Google Translate and enter the word Vik as a Swedish word and ask for a translation into English or try The Danish equivalent which is Vig

A Viking was a person who dwelt on a vik.

Many place names in England and Scotland end in Wick which is the English equivalent of Vik and it will be found by looking at a map that towns with names ending in a suffix similar to wick, are in creeks or inlets from the sea. for example Wick in Scotland, Lerwick in the Shetlands, in England there is Harwich, Alnwick and Shotwick and many more.

Look at a map of Sweden and you will see that every fjord or inlet from the sea has vik as part of its name.

So a Viking is just somebody who lived on one of these inlets somewhere in Scandinavia. They were fishermen and seafarers and as a natural extension went out in their long boats exploring. Many of them engaged in nefarious activities on their voyages of discovery which may have helped in giving new meaning to the word Viking in other lands. However, the main reason why they have gone down in history as pillagers and rapists, etc. is due to bad press given them in the Christian countries where they landed, by the only people who could read and write in those days - Catholic Monks. They were hated by these Monks for being Pagans. Profoundpaul (talk) 09:33, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I personally agree with you that the term "Viking" most likely is derives from "Vik" meaning an inlet. There are however other theories and it is important to include them in the discussion of the origin of the term which is what this article does. Much of my reasoning is colored by having lived for a time in Iceland where the many "Viks" (Reykjavik, Keflavik, Grindavik, etc.) help my the logical leap that a Viking must have been someone who lived in a Vik reasonable. However... since the term for someone living at a vik is "víkverir" it is quite possible that this assumption is wrong and the origin of the term must be found somewhere else. --Jaiotu (talk) 04:11, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense, considering we were well known as a seafaring people. The inlet is like the city hub, surrounded by highway rivers, and sea routes. I'm wondering is the Vik corruption Wica has something to do with Wicca/Druids. Seeing as how Christians wouldn't care to differentiate pagan groups. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.167.237.210 (talk) 05:37, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The term "Wicca" as it relates to the practice of "witchcraft" and "paganism" is relatively new. To my knowledge its use in that particular meaning dates back to the mid 20th century. Of what connection "Vik" may have to the Old English "wicca" one can only venture to guess. --Jaiotu (talk) 03:49, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

wicca (pronounced wi-tcha) is just the Old English spelling of the word witch. The etymology of witch is completely unknown. There are several plausible suggestions. Not among these is the one by Robert Graves in The White Goddess. Graves indeed connects witch to the root wei "bending, pliable" based on "'witch' and 'wicked' are derived from the same ancient word for willow, which also yields 'wicker'" This is demonstrably wrong, but then Graves was no philologist but the founder of Wicca. If Graves was right, viking and witch would be root-cognates, one based on the word for "bay" (i.e. a bending of the coastline) the other based on the pliance of the willow. Even if Graves was right (which he isn't) the derivation of two completely unrelated words from the same generic Indo-European roots would be very unspectacular.

also, as this article has been aware of for years, the Old Norse term víking is the term for the expedition, i.e. the activity of pirating. A víkingr is one who participates in such an expedition, not "one who lives in a bay". The expression fara í víking "to go on an expedition" is based on the ship following the coastline (instead of cutting across the open sea), where the settlements are, viz. in order to raid them. So yes, the word is after all related to the fact that most settlements were in bays, it is the term for cruising the bays with the implicit intention of raiding these settlements. --dab (𒁳) 14:08, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

cut from the article:

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There are several theories on the etymology of the word Viking. According to recent research, the word dates from before the sail was taken into use by the Germanic peoples of North-Western Europe, because the Old Frisian spelling shows that the word was pronounced with a palatal k and thus in all probability existed in North-Western Germanic before that palatalization happened, i.e. in the 5th century or before (in the western branch). In that case the word can be explained from the Old Scandinavian maritime distance unit, vika (f.), which probably originally referred to the distance covered by one shift of rowers. The Old Norse feminine víking (as in the phrase fara í víking) may originally have been a sea journey characterized by the shifting of rowers, i.e. a long-distance sea journey, because in the pre-sail era, the shifting of rowers would distinguish long-distance sea journeys. A víkingr (the masculine) would then originally have been a participant on a sea journey characterized by the shifting of rowers. In that case, the word Viking was not originally connected to Scandinavian seafarers but assumed this meaning when the Scandinavians begun to dominate the seas. – The starting-point of the distance unit vika is the verb that in Old Scandinavian had the form víka (Old Icelandic víkja) 'to recede, turn to the side, give way, yield', and the idea behind it seems to be that the tired rower moves aside for the rested rower on the thwart when he relieves him. At the same time, vika is the same word as a week 'seven days'; in both cases the real meaning is 'a shift, a rotation'. A sea week really means 'a rotation (of rowers)', and seven days really is a rotation of week-day gods – Wednesday is Wōdanaz's day, Thursday is Þunaraz's day, Friday is Frijjō's day, etc. The idea that the word Viking is connected to the maritime distance unit vika has been put forward by at least four persons independently since the early 1980s, and has gained substantial support among scholars in recent years. Traditionally, two other explanations have been favoured: 1. The word Viking derives from the feminine that in Old Scandinavian had the form vík and means 'a bay'. The idea would then be that the Vikings would seek shelter in bays and attack merchant ships from there, or make land raids from there. 2. Viking derives from the name Vík(in) 'the Norwegian coast of the Skagerrak Sea' (modern Viken). The idea would then be that Vikings originally was a term for the peoples of this area, and secondarily assumed the meaning 'pirates, sea raiders' because these peoples played a prominent role in the Viking raids. Both these explanations are highly problematic. The first is contradicted by the fact that all seafarers make for harbour in bays; that can hardly have distinguished the Vikings. To the contrary, according to the sources, the Vikings rather made camp on headlands and islands, which were more easily defendable from land-based armies. The second explanation faces several problems: First, people from Vík(in) are in Old Norse manuscripts referred to as víkverir 'Vík dwellers', never as víkingar. Second, no medieval source, neither from Scandinavia nor the rest of Europe, connects the Vikings with the Norwegian Skagerrak coast. Third, this explanation runs into formal linguistic problems. In addition, these explanations could only explain the masculine (Old Scandinavian víkingr) and ignore the feminine (Old Scandinavian víking), which is a serious problem because the masculine can easily be derived from the feminine but hardly vice versa.

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It's alright to cite etymological suggestions even if they are manifestly without merit, as long as they are just interesting and notable. But for this you need to be at least be able to cite who made the suggestion when and where. Airy claims as the above

The idea that the word Viking is connected to the maritime distance unit vika has been put forward by at least four persons independently since the early 1980s, and has gained substantial support among scholars in recent years.

are completely unacceptable and qualify as vandalism de facto. Just cite one scholar in an academic publication defending this idea, no need to assert how spectacularly this has "gained support" in "recent years". Then it can be included as an alternative view, in its proper place under WP:DUE. --dab (𒁳) 14:25, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

The term Viking; The word Viking appears to be older than the Viking Age. It occurs in Exodus, the Alexandrian translation of the 2nd Leviticus, which mentions the Jewish exodus from Egypt. On the voyage across the Read Sea, they are termed; säwicingas. In the Alexandrian Widsith occurs the word Viking in line 47; wicinga cynn, clan, and in line 59 and 80, the Vikings used the same term for themselves. The word Viking denotes mobility, those who deal with travel; Vikja, vik, veik, vikjinn is the old west-Norwegian verb with the same meaning as the word viking. Adam of Bremen tells us that these pirates, in Greek words that are related to go (travel), call themselves Vikings, while our countrymen call them ascomanner, i.e. boaters. The term scegdman is Anglo-Saxon and it also means boaters, and there are several other terms with similar meanings (Askeberg 1944 s.153).[97] The Vikings are associated with robbery and assault, and they got a good deal of written description because of this. The newly established Christian church was subjected to the Vikings’ robbery, but the reasoning for excursions was the necessary expansion, which was natural for their swidden culture in a time of climate deterioration.(Per Martin Tvengsberg 2010 and http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn)--Svedjebruk (talk) 09:57, 6 June 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Svedjebruk (talk • contribs) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Svedjebruk (talk • contribs) In Nestor chronicle, written in Kiev at the beginning of the eleventh century, are the first dynasties dating back to the year 862, when Rurik the Varjage, who along with his younger brothers was invited to rule over slaves, chuder, kriviker and ves. A source from the early nine hundreds was written by Ibn Fadlan, who participated in an Islamic delegation from the caliph al - Muktadir in 921 to Bulgar on the Volga River (Canard 1958 41-145).[108] Fadlan admired northerner physique, writing that they were red and long as date palms, but were the ugliest creatures that God had ever created. The men always wore swords, axes and knives, while the women had neck rings of precious metal and collars of green glass beads. He experienced a varjagkings boat burial. Emperor Constantine of Byzantium Porphyrogennetos also mentions "rus" (Obolensky 1962). [109] "De imperio administrando" ca. 950 states that "the boats coming from the far straight Rus at Constantinople are from Novgorod, where Svyatoslav, Igor's son, Prince of Rus, has his residence." As he finds rich districts of ancient Scandinavian affairs in Russia, Jaroslav and Vladimir on the upper Volga mention, "There the hilly and friendly burch terrain in many ways reminds of a middle Swedish landscape" (Arbman 1936). [110] The Invitation of the Varangians by Viktor Vasnetsov: Rurik and his brothers Sineus and Truvor arrive at the lands of the Ilmen Slavs. The Vikings in east were denoted as varjages, väringes, varangians. This last is an old expression that means lush forest. This is preserved in the names of geographical sites. The term has remained the name only in areas where the (rich) forest was a rarity. In northern Fenno - Scandia and around the White Sea are a dozen such names in areas of forest. Varanger in Finnmark is another example. The Finnish name of the fortress Vardøhus is Varjakanlinna. Varjakanmaa was the Vikings’ homeland, writes Lönnrot in the Finnish-Swedish Lexicon (Helsinki 1880 900). Certain woodlands bear this name in Estonia, standing out from their surroundings through very high fertility. The extended family was the normal social structure of the Vikings (Sjøvold 1979 53-72), [111] but has since become uncommon in most parts of the Nordic countries (Winberg 1973 192-97). [112] It has since remained where shifting cultivation was still the dominant means for nourishment, some still exist in some remote places in Karelia. Moreover, it has been discovered that in certain areas, the number of families increased by huge margins after the fifteenth century (Tornberg 1972). [113] There was the tribe that was responsible for the earliest Viking raids in the 800's, where the primary goal was to find new forests for swidden. But from the end of the nine hundreds it was often the kings who led the expedition and swidden expansion. The ecclesiastical and secular authorities in Riga in 1230 set up an appointment with kurer (agricultural population), all oh whom had been converted to Christianity. The Kures agreed that for each swidden they would pay an annual fee of half a pound of rye, as they should pay the same fee for next year's crop on the same so-called harrowed land. But those who really wanted processed soil using plows and harrows pulled by horses rather than by burning new forest field would only pay half a pound (Bunge 1889 137-38). [114] The authorities wanted to get rid of shifting cultivation, because the place-bound farmer was more easily controllable and simplified tax collection. .(Per Martin Tvengsberg 2010 and http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn)--Svedjebruk (talk) 18:20, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Other names section

Concerning this phrase: "The Slavs, the Arabs and the Byzantines knew them as the Rus'"

Firstly, etymology of the word "Rus" is disputed.

Secondly, in no way Vikings were known to Slavs as Rus; by the common theory, this article seems to follow, the appropriate name they were known by is Varangians (варяги), which is there, below the quoted phrase; by the same theory Rus is the name attributed only to the specific group of Varangians. Norsemen or Normans, exactly, were known to Slavs as "Murmans" (or "Urmans"), which is etymologically derived from the former.

The quoted phrase needs citation and to be reformulated accordingly.

--Seykela (talk) 05:18, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

In Nestor chronicle, written in Kiev at the beginning of the eleventh century, are the first dynasties dating back to the year 862, when Rurik the Varjage, who along with his younger brothers was invited to rule over slaves, chuder, kriviker and ves. A source from the early nine hundreds was written by Ibn Fadlan, who participated in an Islamic delegation from the caliph al - Muktadir in 921 to Bulgar on the Volga River (Canard 1958 41-145).[108] Fadlan admired northerner physique, writing that they were red and long as date palms, but were the ugliest creatures that God had ever created. The men always wore swords, axes and knives, while the women had neck rings of precious metal and collars of green glass beads. He experienced a varjagkings boat burial. Emperor Constantine of Byzantium Porphyrogennetos also mentions "rus" (Obolensky 1962). [109] "De imperio administrando" ca. 950 states that "the boats coming from the far straight Rus at Constantinople are from Novgorod, where Svyatoslav, Igor's son, Prince of Rus, has his residence." As he finds rich districts of ancient Scandinavian affairs in Russia, Jaroslav and Vladimir on the upper Volga mention, "There the hilly and friendly burch terrain in many ways reminds of a middle Swedish landscape" (Arbman 1936). [110] The Invitation of the Varangians by Viktor Vasnetsov: Rurik and his brothers Sineus and Truvor arrive at the lands of the Ilmen Slavs. The Vikings in east were denoted as varjages, väringes, varangians. This last is an old expression that means lush forest. This is preserved in the names of geographical sites. The term has remained the name only in areas where the (rich) forest was a rarity. In northern Fenno - Scandia and around the White Sea are a dozen such names in areas of forest. Varanger in Finnmark is another example. The Finnish name of the fortress Vardøhus is Varjakanlinna. Varjakanmaa was the Vikings’ homeland, writes Lönnrot in the Finnish-Swedish Lexicon (Helsinki 1880 900). Certain woodlands bear this name in Estonia, standing out from their surroundings through very high fertility. The extended family was the normal social structure of the Vikings (Sjøvold 1979 53-72), [111] but has since become uncommon in most parts of the Nordic countries (Winberg 1973 192-97). [112] It has since remained where shifting cultivation was still the dominant means for nourishment, some still exist in some remote places in Karelia. Moreover, it has been discovered that in certain areas, the number of families increased by huge margins after the fifteenth century (Tornberg 1972). [113] There was the tribe that was responsible for the earliest Viking raids in the 800's, where the primary goal was to find new forests for swidden. But from the end of the nine hundreds it was often the kings who led the expedition and swidden expansion. The ecclesiastical and secular authorities in Riga in 1230 set up an appointment with kurer (agricultural population), all oh whom had been converted to Christianity. The Kures agreed that for each swidden they would pay an annual fee of half a pound of rye, as they should pay the same fee for next year's crop on the same so-called harrowed land. But those who really wanted processed soil using plows and harrows pulled by horses rather than by burning new forest field would only pay half a pound (Bunge 1889 137-38). [114] The authorities wanted to get rid of shifting cultivation, because the place-bound farmer was more easily controllable and simplified tax collection. (Per Martin Tvengsberg 2010,Svedjebruk ISBN 978-82-93036-00-5 Wiki version: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn--Svedjebruk (talk) 18:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Well known Vikings and Norsemen of the Viking Age

Regarding Ivar the Boneless, there is a statement of fact, that Ivar was disabled. However the evidence for his disability is not based on any direct historical evidence. It is speculation into the possible meaning of the nickname "boneless." Additionally, the statement that he "had to be" carried on a shield is also speculation. Norse sources do indicate that he was carried on a shield but there is no indication that he "had to" be carried on one... it is possible that he was borne aloft by his men out of reverence for him much like a winning football quarterback might be carried aloft by his teammates after a hard-fought game. --Jaiotu (talk) 03:47, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Popular culture

The 2007 film Pathfinder takes place inVinland and the story involves a fictional conflict between the Thule/Skræling and Vikings from across the Atlantic Ocean, who have come to the Americas in search of colonization.79.179.210.227 (talk) 14:08, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Adding ethymolog founds.

Adding ethymolog founds. See also:http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn--Svedjebruk (talk) 09:54, 6 June 2013 (UTC) My editing was deleted, Sorry. But they who can edit should consider this:

The word Viking appears to be older than the Viking Age. It occurs in Exodus, the Alexandrian translation of the 2nd Leviticus, which mentions the Jewish exodus from Egypt. On the voyage across the Read Sea, they are termed; säwicingas. In the Alexandrian Widsith occurs the word Viking in line 47; wicinga cynn, clan, and in line 59 and 80, the Vikings used the same term for themselves. The word Viking denotes mobility, those who deal with travel; Vikja, vik, veik, vikjinn is the old west-Norwegian verb with the same meaning as the word viking. Adam of Bremen tells us that these pirates, in Greek words that are related to go (travel), call themselves Vikings, while our countrymen call them ascomanner, i.e. boaters. The term scegdman is Anglo-Saxon and it also means boaters, and there are several other terms with similar meanings (Askeberg 1944 s.153).[97] The Vikings are associated with robbery and assault, and they got a good deal of written description because of this. The newly established Christian church was subjected to the Vikings’ robbery, but the reasoning for excursions was the necessary expansion, which was natural for their swidden culture in a time of climate deterioration.--Svedjebruk (talk) 09:57, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Another common theory posits that the Norse population had outgrown the agricultural potential of their Scandinavian homeland. For a coastal population with superior naval technologies, it made sens

This theses are claimed and documented:(Svedjebruk 2010, Per Martin Tvengsberg, and http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn--Svedjebruk (talk) 18:41, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

They where not only a costal population, archaeologists have found traces of population all over the inland of Norway.(Bergljot Solberg, 2012 127). The research considers it a serious lack of source material that is almost completely missing from ca.400 AD to the Viking Age. During this period, with a warmer climate, the move left few traces, too difficult for our time's researchers to draw many conclusions from. Shifting cultivation is the reason for the move of Iron Age villages. Access to forest adjudged frequency and extent of the move. Through the transition to agriculture, the villages remained in the same places. Preparation and improvement of the same piece of land became the dominant cultural shape.In Denmark, the establishment of villages during the Viking Age’s harsh climate was so extensive that few settlements we know of today existed much further back than the late Viking and early Medieval ages. This is proven on Fyn, including by thermoluminescence-dating. In Northwest Germany and Holland there was no expansion in the same period. The tendency in those areas was rather the opposite, according to archaeological investigations. The villages there can be traced further back than in Denmark. After the Viking era arable farming took over food production in Denmark, and shifting cultivation disappeared. This resulted in a firmer division of the area, a parish-structure. And in the aftermath of this new agricultural age, supplied goods followed the formation and development of the nobility and class society as we know it from the written sources. In Norway, some population groups held to their landscape, such as Heidmork and Raumariki. The single economic unit, extended family or clan, has again had its territory, which were often separated from others by rivers, mountains or other natural boundaries. Within its area ran a mobile cultivation and livestock breeding. In the north, grass production was more important than grain, and grass growth inside the swidden led to the domestication of the reindeer. The reindeer could be tempted, and it encroached on the grass field (vuoma) increasing ca.800 to 1000 AD. The chief of Troms spoke about this when he came to England: "Ottar was very rich on the property and that was their fortune, the wild animals. He dispensed, when he came to the King, 600 unsold tame reindeer. These are very valuable for the Saami, because they used them for catching wild reindeer "(Ross 1940 21). [62] Upon a runic stone at Gripsholm ca.1040 AD is carved the memory of the Vikings, who died in österled: "De foer mandigt fjernt efter guld og österude gav de örnene föde De döde sydpå i Särkland” They traveled far eastward, seeking gold, feeding eagles upon their deaths in Särkland" (North Arabia). A tragic rune is about a young man (lösfinne), who was fatally injured during swidden, far from home in the north, a place among the Sami. He realizes that he will die soon, and that his dead body will then become food for ravens, and crows will also pick up his body, "Kaaun kankahan nenähän - Kuolen korppien kotihin - Variksien vainiolle" (Kaukonen 1984 II, 305). Swidden,shifting cultivation here means the cultivation of hominids and crops for human consumption on freshly burned vegetation area or forest within a fewer number of years than the time that area is left to natural regeneration. Conklin 1961 27).Shifting cultivation has, as I said, become the most common cultural structure historically (Clark 1945 57-71, Steenberg 1955 65). This cultural form requires a large family structure, and thus some form of village. Archaeology has demonstrated a difference in settlement development in Denmark and other Nordic countries in the West European lowlands (Gröngaard Jeppesen 1981 135).This difference is clearly visible around 8-900 AD, and is most likely due to the transition to field cultivation, which came later to Denmark than to areas further south. Generally speaking, arable farming has expanded northwards from the Mediterranean to forests in Europe within the last two thousand years before the 1600 AD. Climate fluctuation has a different impact on field cultivation than on shifting cultivation. Shifting cultivation expands as climate decreases, and the so-called "walking village" is activated, while arable farming has little chance of immediate territorial expansion that is detectable archaeologically. Vikings experienced a climate deterioration that led to internal expansion as well as a migration to unused forests both in outskirts and in other European areas where arable farming had already taken over the food production. Large families or clans wandering in the lush woodlands have continued to be the most common form of life through human history. Axes to fell trees and sickles for harvesting of the grain were the only tools people might bring with them. All other devices were made from materials they found at the site, such as fire stakes of birch, long rods (vanko), and harrows made of spruce tops. The extended family conquered the lush virgin forest, burned and cultivated their carefully selected swidden plots, powered one or a few crops, and then proceeded on to forests they had registered before. In the temperate zone the forest regenerated in the course of a lifetime. So swidden was repeated several times in the same area over the years. But in the tropics the forest floor gradually depleted. It was not only to the moors, as in Northern Europe, but also in the steppe, savannah, prairie, pampas and barren desert in tropical areas where shifting cultivation is the oldest (Clark 1952 91-107).

See: Svedjebruk 2010, Per Martin Tvengsberg, and http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Slash_and_burn--Svedjebruk (talk) 19:16, 6 June 2013 (UTC)