Vinkingships Fjords Norway

© Mal Dickson

Source: https://twitter.com/ImpPoster

I should be able to sue men who touch me without permission

Under Icelandic settlement law I can kill people who call me names

lol, yuuuuup

#submission

black and asian vikings 100% definitely existed (also, saami vikings)

you know how far you can get into eurasia and africa by sailing up rivers from the baltic and mediterranean seas? pretty fucking far, and that’s what vikings liked to do to trade

then, you know, people are people, so love happens, business happens, and so ppl get married and take spouses back home to the frozen hellscape that is scandinavia (upon which i’m guessing the horrorstruck new spouses went “WHAT THE FUCK??? FUCKING GIVE ME YOUR JACKET???????”)

and sometimes vikings bought thralls and brought them home as well, and i mean, when your indentured service is up after however many years and you’re a free person again, maaaaaaaaaaaaybe it’s a bit hard to get all the way home across the continent, so you make the best out of the situation and you probably get married and raise a gaggle kids

so yeah

viking kingdoms/communities were not uniformly pure white aryan fantasy paradises, so pls stop using my cultural history and ethnic background to excuse your racist discomfort with black ppl playing heimdall and valkyrie

Also we KNOW they got to Asia and Africa. 

Why?

Because Asians, Africans, and Vikings TOLD US SO. 

Also, we know there was significant mercantile trade between Scandinavia and parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern India, Kashmir, North and Eastern Africa because there is evidence in burial sites.

Check that out: the goods Vikings and Scandinavians were getting from their trade with the rest of the world was so important they buried themselves with it, as part of their treasure hordes.

We KNOW this.

There’s a reason you can still see many of the trade routes from the ancient world etched into the very earth.

Plus, we know that some Scandinavian cultures that participated in Viking raids had established minority communities of ethnically Mongolian folks living among them during the periods when such raids were common, and it’s difficult to credit that none of them would have signed on.

Islamic Ring in Viking Grave

Vikings in Persia

Black Vikings

Vikings in North Africa

Buddha statue in Viking hoard

Vikings brought Native American woman to Europe

Unflattering texts in Arabic about Vikings

Original text by Ahmad ibn-Fadlan

More about the Islamic World and Vikings (some Vikings converted to Islam! sort of sketchy site tho)

Viking technology came from Afghanistan

More on trade route determination via metallurgy

… is that enough? :)

Yet another on the pile of reasons why it monumentally honks me off when pusillanimous, pseudointellectual white supremacist scum try to use Scandinavian culture as a crutch for their arguments and act like Norse mythology agrees with their biases. No it fucking doesn’t, bitch. Odin would personally kick you in the dick for being a witless coward and then send your ass to the Realm of the Dishonored Dead.

I don’t usually reblog stuff, but this thread makes me so happy. See, I love the Viking aesthetic – I love the fusion of organic and geometric in its designs, I love the natural colors, the complexity of textures you get from juxtaposing metal/leather/cloth/fur–

–and I hate how the entire subculture has been so thoroughly co-opted by white supremacists. To the point where I, a person who likes viking stuff, am deeply and immediately suspect of anyone else who likes viking stuff, guilty until proven innocent, cuz that’s what the odds are these days.

Anyway.

As far as I’m concerned, anyone can be a viking, and thus I am so, so pleased to find that the historical record backs me up.

(And amused that Arab intellectual Ahmad ibn Fadlan was so thirsty for vikings.)

@whisky-gerblin

Why Everything You Know About Vikings Is A Lie

True story - There are historical accounts (well, there’s at least one historical account) in which English people whine about how the Norse men bathe so often they’re able to seduce the local women away from their husbands.

^^^ Yep. Turns out the women were way more into the hot well groomed muscular dudes who liked to smell nice.

*Hot, well groomed men who liked to smell nice and knew their way around sharp objects.

“I just don’t know why you couldn’t marry a local boy sweetie.” 

“What can I say dad, Hjalmar bathes regularly, smells nice, has shoulders, can wield a sword and can wield his sword ifyaknowwhatImean, and when he comes back from raids likes to shower me in rare gifts from overseas. Look at this necklace! The amber beads came from the lands of the Rus! Also, he’s teaching me how to shoot a bow and use a spear because he thinks it might be nice if I could go on raids too someday.”

I mean, frankly, if I wasn’t already married, I would marry Hjalmar, too.

Rb if you stan Hjalmar

vikings were GREAT :D

Source More Facts

Yes this could have to do with the fact that Freya the Norse Goddess of love, beauty and fertility drove a chariot pulled by cats.

So, if I ever get married, I fully expect a catmobile. 

One of the other reasons why they gave cats to each other was for their valuable skills as mousers. Cats were able to control rodent populations around their properties.

Also, Norse myths are thought to have the earliest literary descriptions of the Norwegian Forest Cat. They were described as large, strong cats that drew Freya’s chariot and were so heavy that not even Thor, God of Thunder, could lift them from the floor. (Source)

They kinda live up to the legend, too. Your average Norwegian Forest Cat is twenty pounds of solid muscle, with claws large and strong enough to climb solid rock. They’ve been known to attack bears when defending their territory. And yet they’re one of the cuddliest breeds out there, particularly noted for being patient with small children.

I have a Norwegian mix, and can attest that she is the cuddliest cat but also insane enough to try and fight a bear.

Viking cats “FIGHT ME”

Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, still could not lift this cat.

I always love it when this post comes round because a) giant kitties who Thor can’t lift and b) that picture omg boar riding and flower throwing is a good thing

You may have known this already, but the Apollo guidance computer’s core memory was literally woven strands of copper, and it was all done by hand, by a bunch of women. Because who else knows how to weave things?

*SLAMS HANDS ON TABLE* WOMEN’S WORK SENT MEN TO THE FUCKING MOON HOW IS THAT NOT MAGIC AS HELL

Oh oh oh oh this is my subject on Viking reenactment gigs, I’m the group’s Vala and I also fill in for the weavers and spinners because IT’S THE SAME SHIT let me tell you about it :D :D :D

SPINNING with a drop spindle, none of your fancy high-tech spinning wheels here my friend, SPINNING OMG is literally taking undifferentiated fluff and turning it into the most useful and life-essential item in your whole civilisation with little more than a click of your fingers–without thread you have no sails, no clothes, no blankets, it’s literally power of life-or-death shit here, it is magic AS FUCK. That’s without doubt why the Norns were spinners and weavers.

There was laws about not saying people’s names or talking about people when you’re spinning, because you’re basically bringing something into being out of nothing, and with that kind of power you could just as easily bring events into being. So folks probably look the other way when you’re spinning thread for your son’s shirt and you want him to be victorious and honourable, but if you’re spinning away and bitching out about that ho Ingvar (see below) and how she stole your man and deserves the same to happen to her, that’s a crime. You’d be in better legal standing if you just punched her, because enchantment against a person was seen as sneaky and underhanded, with all connotations of forethought and antisocial intention, while punching someone could be an understandable lapse of self-control.

It was also forbidden to spin “against the sun” (ie: counterclockwise) because ok we also know there’s a mechanical aspect to that as well, it’s very useful to have the twist going in the same direction at all times so it doesn’t cancel itself out, but it was believed that an item made from backwards-spun thread could literally kill a person, there’s an account of a Vala spinning a shirt to murder a priest and it’s inferred that it was spun backwards. Because like, the sun is the source of all life, and to go against the sun goes against life, and much as the anti-twist cancels out the twist, it cancels out life. Brutal.

And you couldn’t talk about people when weaving, either, because weaving is an extension of the whole something-from-nothing power, but presumably people did anyway because there’s an actual find of a weaving tablet with a curse carved on it “Sigvor’s Ingvar shall have my misfortune” so basically every time the card was turned, it would strengthen the curse, and literally spin and weave it into being. HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS THAT. There’s also a find of a weaving sword with a “love poem” carved on it, note the quotemarks because this “poem” goes “Think of me, I think of you; Love me, I love you” THAT AIN’T NO POEM FAM THAT A SPELL. She probably making him (or her) a shirt.

And that’s three times I’ve mentioned shirts, so I should tell you that making a shirt for someone was a Big Deal, in a way it was sort of the period equivalent of the boyfriend sweater, with the sheer amount of labour that goes into making a shirt you have to really give a whole lot of shits about that person. There’s an account of a woman making a shirt for her brother-in-law while her husband was away, and it’s OMG DRAMA BOMB. The Vala I mentioned above really gave a lot of shits about murdering that priest. Hence, the most-likely-a-woman who owned the inscribed weaving sword could very well have been making a shirt for her crush, who may OR MAY NOT have been her husband. You know, she could’ve been like “hope my nice hubby thinks about me while he’s away” or she could’ve been like “damn, brother-in-law too hot” or she could’ve been like “damn, Ingvar too hot” (wlw aren’t attested at all but you gotta assume it happened because humans) but in any event she knew what was up. And making a shirt for someone wasn’t thought of as *overtly* magical, mostly, but there’s kind of a subtext to it that presupposes any shirt could be enchanted and probably was to some extent.

And this is just scratching the surface of the academically well established stuff, with none of my own hypotheses and observations. I can go on for hours.

I have talked about knitting and fiber arts with many different women of all sorts of religion and non religion, and the vast majority of them say that when they make special items, they put some kind of intentions into the garment.

@tamorapierce, this seems right up your alley.

@fiberistanora you probably know most of this stuff but I want to make sure

Also: I’ve spun on a drop spindle. Europe didn’t get spinning wheels until like….the 1100’s? 1200’s?? And man oh man: spinning on a drop spindle shows you exactly why 1. All women were spinning, all the time, whenever they weren’t doing something else, starting as toddlers, which is why we have those illustrations of women spinning flax WHILE WALKING to and from their farming plots 2. All clothing was basically made from rectangles and triangles so nothing was wasted and you patched and repaired everything and dead people were buried in rough-woven stuff and their clothes were saved for a living person, and even very wealthy people did not have many changes of clothes.

Or as I read once: most women would have two dresses. If it was cold she wore both of them.

Okay peeps this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CBZtCjAuTI is a bit over eight minutes of fascinating video about the discovery and eventual reconstruction of Norway’s oldest known garment, and also a very good illustration of why spinning and weaving were such a huge deal.

Best-dressed protestor att the anti-nazi/nazi rally in Gothenburg today. “Vikings against incorrect use of runic script”

THIS GIVES ME THE HAPPY

A bit of context for English-speaking heathens, reenactors, and other Viking enthusiasts, so that people don’t make the mistake of believing the above protester is actually just complaining about runes. The Swedish neo-nazi movement Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen (NMR, ‘Nordic Resistance Movement’ (Wikipedia link)) uses the tīwaz/Týr rune as their logo, basically the way the American National Socialist Movement uses the ōþila rune. In Sweden (where in some places runes are even still taught in schools) people are particularly disturbed by the usurpation of their history and culture and fighting back to reclaim the Týr rune has been an effective rallying point for undermining the nazis’ message by promoting knowledge about the things they lie about in order to stake a claim that they are representing their cultural heritage (link is in Swedish). The above protest was attended by members of Samfundet Forn Sed, Heathens United Against Racism (with some overlap between the two), and the guy pictured above was protesting with Vikingar Mot Rasism ‘Vikings against racism.’ The movement “No Tiw for Nazis” is on Facebook.

black and asian vikings 100% definitely existed (also, saami vikings)

you know how far you can get into eurasia and africa by sailing up rivers from the baltic and mediterranean seas? pretty fucking far, and that’s what vikings liked to do to trade

then, you know, people are people, so love happens, business happens, and so ppl get married and take spouses back home to the frozen hellscape that is scandinavia (upon which i’m guessing the horrorstruck new spouses went “WHAT THE FUCK??? FUCKING GIVE ME YOUR JACKET???????”)

and sometimes vikings bought thralls and brought them home as well, and i mean, when your indentured service is up after however many years and you’re a free person again, maaaaaaaaaaaaybe it’s a bit hard to get all the way home across the continent, so you make the best out of the situation and you probably get married and raise a gaggle kids

so yeah

viking kingdoms/communities were not uniformly pure white aryan fantasy paradises, so pls stop using my cultural history and ethnic background to excuse your racist discomfort with black ppl playing heimdall and valkyrie

Also we KNOW they got to Asia and Africa. 

Why?

Because Asians, Africans, and Vikings TOLD US SO. 

Also, we know there was significant mercantile trade between Scandinavia and parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Northern India, Kashmir, North and Eastern Africa because there is evidence in burial sites.

Check that out: the goods Vikings and Scandinavians were getting from their trade with the rest of the world was so important they buried themselves with it, as part of their treasure hordes.

We KNOW this.

There’s a reason you can still see many of the trade routes from the ancient world etched into the very earth.

Plus, we know that some Scandinavian cultures that participated in Viking raids had established minority communities of ethnically Mongolian folks living among them during the periods when such raids were common, and it’s difficult to credit that none of them would have signed on.

Islamic Ring in Viking Grave

Vikings in Persia

Black Vikings

Vikings in North Africa

Buddha statue in Viking hoard

Vikings brought Native American woman to Europe

Unflattering texts in Arabic about Vikings

Original text by Ahmad ibn-Fadlan

More about the Islamic World and Vikings (some Vikings converted to Islam! sort of sketchy site tho)

Viking technology came from Afghanistan

More on trade route determination via metallurgy

… is that enough? :)

Yet another on the pile of reasons why it monumentally honks me off when pusillanimous, pseudointellectual white supremacist scum try to use Scandinavian culture as a crutch for their arguments and act like Norse mythology agrees with their biases. No it fucking doesn’t, bitch. Odin would personally kick you in the dick for being a witless coward and then send your ass to the Realm of the Dishonored Dead.

that last comment, lol

Suddenly all those Hinterlands quests to go round up a random farmer’s druffalo don’t  seem so silly.

Dragon Age Inquisition - doing something right.

(source)

#war in pre-industrial societies was *very different* from what many people imagine#i keep seeing calls for ‘realistic medieval huge military battles’ and im like#yon average feif could maybe afford like 10 guys tops

YES. This whole thread is the best thing and betterbemeta’s tags (above) are on point. I would love actual ‘realistic ancient battles’ where like ten actual fighters and whatever serfs they can persuade to accompany them posture and try to intimidate each other, or have an Official Scrum on a mutually beneficial day. That and just…cattle raiding.

I guess in post-collapse terms it’s theoretically different because your whole raider gang exists to nick other people’s shit so doesn’t need to cultivate or craft much except perhaps to make them more self-sufficient in weaponry, armaments, and other logistical things that’ll enable them to raid harder and more often. That’s exactly why, on the other side of things, as many citizen’s as possible in your vulnerable good-guy farming commune might need to be militia members to protect themselves from people who can dedicate their full-time everyday energy to Being Raiders.

I say in theory because, even if you’re nicking other people’s shit, why not treat that as a bonus? Why not look to history’s peoples who placed a particular import on raiding as a way of life, and notice that none of them were just straight-up predators. They had enough agricultural or pastoral or pescatoral (is that a word?) infrastructure to subsist, and then the luxury, the surplus, came from attacking other people part-time, very occasionally. Look at norse folks going viking; look at the invasive pastoralists of the Eurasian steppe. Just in terms of the caloric requirements and risks inherent in combat, you’re not gonna want to do that full-time. Training to do it well will take more calories and they need to come from somewhere. You pick your battles. You take without fighting at all where you can – so intimidation and making enemies surrender without having to fight is important here; c.f. pirates of the Golden Age – and you fight rarely and only when you know you can a) win, b) benefit hugely from it.

THANK YOU

“Previously, researchers had misidentified skeletons as male simply because they were buried with their swords and shields. By studying osteological signs of gender within the bones themselves, researchers discovered that approximately half of the remains were actually female warriors, given a proper burial with their weapons.”

how many other ‘discoveries’ were prevented from happening because men applied current ‘gender norms’ to past cultures?!

remember this when somebody tries to convince you that gender roles are natural, that we ‘evolved’ this way, that men and women are made for different functions, that males were hunters, female were gatherers and child rearers and so on, remember that speculations about the distant past people’s behaviours and culture more often than not follows cultural biases and even agendas…

even in hunter gatherer times, men went out bc they were expendable, not bc they were strong.

I love how humans have literally not changed throughout history like the graffiti from Pompeii has people from hundreds of years ago writing stuff like “Marcus is gay” “I fucked a girl here” “Julius your mum wishes she was with me” and leonardo da vinci’s assistants drew dicks in their notebooks just for the banter and mozart created a piece called “kiss my ass” so when people wish for ‘today’s generation’ to be like ‘how people used to’ then we’re already there buddy we’ve always been

The Hagia Sophia has inscriptions that were considered sacred for centuries until they were deciphered in the 70s to be Nordic runes saying “Halfdan wrote this”

my old english prof told us that theres a cave in Scandinavia where a viking gratified some runes like 14 feet up on the wall and when they finally reached it all it translated into was “this is very high”

they found a cup in the workshop of phidias, who made the former world wonder statue of zeus at olympia, that said 'i belong to phidias' on the bottom

Quaint and Quirky Tiny House on Wheels Lets Owners Live Off-the-Grid

i feel like this photoset isn’t about the house

is he chopping wood with his dick

This beautiful Swedish lady sings an ancient Viking song. Now watch how the cows respond. 

It is often argued that everything our ancestors did and said gets stored into our brains. Their experience and knowledge gets passed down from generation to generation. This may explain why we know or react to certain things without having any prior knowledge.

Kulning is an ancient herding call used in the Scandinavian region. The call is a high pitch tone that can reach long distances. The herding call sounds more like a haunting and sad melody meant to echo through mountains and alleys.

It was getting late and foggy on a magical night last month when Swedish artist Jonna Jinton wanted to try kulning. She wanted to find out if the animals would answer to the call their own ancestors heard when the women called them. Kulning might just be one of the most beautiful and enchanting sounds ever made.

Never in my life have I so badly wanted to be able to download the audio from a video.

*whispers* vidtomp3.com

Cooooows

@rjdaae

Body in well confirms Viking Saga

Archaeologists working in Trondheim in Norway are amazed by the discovery of a human skeleton in the bottom of an abandoned castle well. The skeleton provides evidence that confirms dramatic historical events mentioned in the Sagas.

The location and contents of the well are mentioned in Sverre’s Saga, a chronicle of one of the kings of Norway, and one of very few historical manuscripts describing events in the Norwegian Viking age and medieval period.

Scholars have questioned the chronicle’s trustworthiness as a historical document. But now, at least one part of the saga seems to hold truth – down to the tiniest detail. 

“This is truly astonishing. As far as I know there is no known example of the discovery of an individual historically connected with an act of war as far back as the year 1197. And the fact that this actually corroborates an event described in Sverre’s saga is simply amazing“, says lead archaeologist at the site, Anna Petersén. Read more.