Were the Norse generally peaceful?

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by theoldnorthstate

And weren't the Norse formidable opponents of the Nazis and maintained a stiff resistance when overcome?

So if they are generally peaceful it is a post WWII direction.

Denmark protected their Jewish population by hiding them, knowing the concequences. Then when word came that the gestapo was coming, they achieved an amazing miracle and risked their own lives and families to evacuate nearly the whole Jewish population to neural Swedon. Nobody else did this. And resistance was constant, and effective.

Even more remarkable, a small group of Jews and others taken into Germany were protested by the government of Denmark and finally returned. Nobody else had the nerve to try that. Obviously their culture does not lack in courage and daring.

[BigSwede]

Originally Posted by MyTarge13

Also, the peaceful nature is more of a recent invention. Sweden was pretty aggressive military nation for a while.

That was 500 years after the viking era.

[diogenes2]

If the late Magnus Magnusson's book "Vikings!", isn't the definitive book on Vikings. it certainly must be the one of the better ones. As Magnusson said, the Vikings seemed to be everywhere, "from the depths of Russia, founding city states like Novogorod and Kiev, pioneering new trade routes along formidable rivers like the Volga and Dnieper. opening up the route to Asia to exploit the exotic markets of Persia and China." They even served in the Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople. Normans, who were were originally Northmen, ruled Sicily for a time.

That the Vikings were violent at times isn't to be denied, although Magnusson said even that has been overstated. Like the myth of the Viking warriors wearing horns on their head gear, even the well-known words that reputedly formed the chant in medieval churches during the Viking furies has been denied. The words, 'From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us,' are presumed apocryphal, according to Belgian scholar Albert D'Haenens. No documentation has ever been found to confirm it.

As an aside, my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, England, in 1986. It was an educational and enjoyable experience. The exhibits detail the everyday life of the Viking settlement. Magnusson was very involved with the Viking excavation at the Coppergate dig. The city of York is perhaps the most historically rich city we have ever visited. It would take days to exhaust the places of interest.

The island of Lindisfarne (Holy Island) was mentioned earlier, and we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of it from the train as we traveled along the coast to Edinburgh, Scotland. The Viking raid on the island in 793 was known as the 'Bolt from the Blue,' marking the beginning of the Viking Age.

[Bernie20]

Looking at it from an Irish perspective they introduced the first towns and produced the first coinage of Ireland. Towns like Dublin, Wexford, Limerick and Waterford came into existence due to the Vikings. The first recorded raid in Ireland was in 795 on the island of Lambay.

Ireland was of course a part of the Norse-Gael kingdoms that included the Isle of Man and the Western Isles of Scotland.

Norse

[ABQConvict]

A book entitled, "Norwegian Aggression: 1100 - Present" would not waste a lot of paper.

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by ABQConvict

A book entitled, "Norwegian Aggression: 1100 - Present" would not waste a lot of paper.

One of the reasons the Vikings struck far and wide was wealth and loot, but for land as well. The north county was not full of good land. As populations rose, and politics pushed elements of the population into areas which offered little, raiding areas where there was more, was survival. Their source population was the same as the Angles and Saxons and others who overran the Roman Empire and they were pushed out for the same reason. In Britan, as soon as they'd secured an area, ships full of farmers and families, who didn't go a viking, arrived to farm. The earlier Roman invaders had come in much the same way.

When in part with their influence the places they occupied became culturally merged, and stronger, the great age of the Vikings was over. But their influence in the places they settled would continue, in the ambiguity of Old English and the vigor of the Normans especially.

[travric]

The words, 'From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us,' are presumed apocryphal, according to Belgian scholar Albert D'Haenens

You know perhaps that phrase was 'apocryphal' but I'd say there is ample eviodence in writings that meeting up with the 'sea-raiders' was going to be a pretty pretty bad experience. And this went on for years in the British Isles and Ireland.
A modern writer noted that living under those dire circumstances and dealing with the constant Viking raids was akin to being in the ravages of Blitz. It was a compeletly demoralzing experience. No wonder the monks thought they were in the 6th age of the world where it would be destroyed in cataclysm. And what one finds interesting is that in Ireland some chieftains themselves raided with the Vikings if it helped them gain advantage in their squabbles with others. Problem with that was the Vikings also went to plunder the megaliithic tombs of the Irish ancestors. Not a good thing to do! A very grievous offense and they paid for it with Irish payback.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

I was cruising this forum because of JFK posts (I do visit from time to time), and this thread caught my attention. I happen to be of "Viking stock," Danish and Norwegian heritage with a solid upbringing in the history of the Viking tradition, and there's just an amazing amount of misconception going on here (plus some good scholarship). Were the Vikings aggressive bada$$es? Sure. Were they peaceful farmers? Sure. Most nations are bundles of contradictions. But with the Viking culture having two major aspects, one at home (wives, parents, siblings sons, daughters back on the farm--and of course all those who didn't go Viking) and one exclusively male culture (except for the female slaves they brought along) going Viking and gaining prestige and honor for the whole family, they did over the centuries develop distinctively different world views. The warrior caste is what we have reflected in the Aesir religion with dead warriors being admitted to the company of the gods, and death in battle being the only honorable way to go. On the home front people probably still worshipped the old gods, the Vanir, and their fertility rituals. Some human sacrifice from time to time to increase the chance of a good harvest, in all likelihood, but overall just an agrarian people minding their own business, trying to survive harsh winters. (Norwegian Vikings may have gone after good fertile land, but Danish Vikings were after loot; there's plenty of good farmland in Denmark).

Something fascinating: When Christianity swept away the Aesir religion, in all likelihood the much more ancient Vanir faith probably lingered on as superstition in Scandinavia. Goblins and fairies, and above all the gnomes (the "nisse" who is still with us as Santa's helpers every Christmas) are probably faint memories of the fertility religion of the home-bound Norse people, while the more colorful Aesir (Thor, Odin) just pop up in movies from time to time . Unless you're an Odin worshiper, but there aren't many of those...

Another thing is whether the Vikings were uncouth barbarians. Ibn Fadlan thought so--he was invited to join the Russ, the Swedish Vikings, on their way home after a journey that ended in Constantinople, in 922. But he was a high-culture literate Muslim who washed his feet every day. Like some of you have commented, the verdict on the Vikings comes from the victims...but the Viking marauders were following the code of values they had learned from home: Bravery is respected, weakness is not. Loyalty of family and friends is all-important, and your legacy will live on after you're gone. The afterlife is a dark, cold, sad and dreary place (in the world of the goddess Hel, unless you die in battle), which is why you must celebrate being alive. Not too unlike the traditional values of other warrior societies around the world. So show a little respect for the values of another culture, please! Tongue in cheek. I don't think every single culture in the world and their values should necessarily be respected...

And about the noun/verb debate? For Pete's sake, Viking is a noun in English as well as in Scandinavian, but originated as a verbal expression (although not a verb) in Scandinavian. "Fare i Viking"/"gaa i Viking" means join the Viking expeditions. You don't "go viking" like you "go biking." There is no verb "to vike"! Maybe there should be . Anyway, thanks for a good read. Gave me a chance to brush up on my roots.

[travric]

And about the noun/verb debate? For Pete's sake, Viking is a noun in English as well as in Scandinavian, but originated as a verbal expression (although not a verb) in Scandinavian. "Fare i Viking"/"gaa i Viking" means join the Viking expeditions. You don't "go viking" like you "go biking." There is no verb "to vike"! Maybe there should be . Anyway, thanks for a good read. Gave me a chance to brush up on my roots.

From what I've learned, 'viking' is defintely a noun but it can be in masculine and feminie forms. So 'vikingr' (masculine) is defined as 'sea raider'. And in its feminine form, 'viking', it translates to 'raid from the sea'. But I don't think 'viking' or 'vikingr' comes up as such in the medieval texts. The Irish I believe noted them as 'gaill'.

[Laurenz21]

For those who talk about the peaceful Norse after the era of Vikings. Don't foget about the Danish and Swedish actions in the Thirty years war and the Finish actions against the USSR in WWII.