The Vikings

Njord Kane

Description

The story of the Norse is a Viking adventure in history.

The Norse saga began with the first ancient tribes of Norsemen during the Early Nordic Stone Age. The beginning of the Nordic Ax Culture when primitive Norsemen created their first battle axes from stone. The evolution of an innovative and progressive culture that groomed legendary warriors whose voices still roar out today.

Take a journey into the Age of Viking Expansion where Ragnar Lothbrok, Rollo, Erik the Red, and many other famous Vikings take you on a ride into the very Halls of Valhalla.

Very interesting and worth the read to anyone interested in the Vikings or Norse history.

Explore knowledge and technology specific to a culture that was shaped by a people able to reach great distances beyond their homelands and seas. A battle ferocious people with shields, armor, and weaponry that was unmatched by their opponents.

A whole new world of understanding about the ancient vikings has been opened up by new archaeological discoveries and studies. New findings that lead to new questions.

Could some of the mythological tales about giants in the Norse Sagas have had some truth behind them? Researchers have found proof of giants and humans interacting together in our own DNA!

There are also many shared technologies between the Ancient Norse, Asians, the Inuit and other North American aborigines. Viking explorers have long interacted and traded with many people and cultures afar. Were ancient Norse already in contact with early Native Americans? Were these the people they referred to as "Skraelings?" Were they Proto-Inuits known by the ancients as Thule People?

See for yourself with new information about the Norse that was once lost in time.

Sujets

• Ragnar
• Norse
• European
• Ragnarök
• HIStory
• Viking

Informations

• Publié par: Spangenhelm Publishing
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 11
• EAN13: 9781943066025
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Vikings
The Story of a People
by Njord Kane
The Vikings: The Story of a People.
By Njord Kane

© 2015 by Njord Kane. All rightsreserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in anywritten, electronic, recording, or photocopying form withoutwritten permission of the author, Njord Kane, or the publisher,Spangenhelm Publishing. You must not circulate this book in anyformat.
Books may be purchased by contacting thepublisher and author at: spangenhelm.com
Published on: September 14, 2015 bySpangenhelm Publishing
Interior Design and Cover by: Njord Kane
Library of Congress Control Number:2015939914
ISBN-13: 978-1-943066-02-5 (ePub)
1. Vikings 2. Norse 3. History 4. Europe
Second Edition.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1 - Who were theVikings ?
Chapter 2 – The Nordic StoneAge
Chapter 3 – The MetallicAges
Chapter 4 – The VikingAge
Chapter 5 – NorseReligion
The Norse CreationStory
Ragnarok : The Twilight of theGods .
Chapter 6 – Christianization of theNorse
Chapter 7 – NorseLanguage
Chapter 8 – Norse Life
Chapter 9 – Norse Trade
Chapter 10 – Norse Law andGovernment
Norse Law
Disputes settled byHolmgang .
Chapter 11 – NorseWarfare
Norse BattleTactics
Chapter 12 – Norse Armor andWeaponry
The Shield
The Ax
The Bow
The Spear
The Atgeir
The Sword
Viking Armor
Viking Helms
Chapter 13 – NorseLongships
Chapter 14 - TheSkræling
Chapter 15 - The Jötnar(Giants)
References
Preface

This book is divided into two parts. Thefirst part tells the Norse story chronologically from ananthropologist’s point of view. Starting from the early Norsepeople during the Stone Age that migrated as hunter-gathersfollowing herds of megafauna, such as Mammoths. From the Stone Ageinto the gradual progression of settling and forming into a complexsociety. Detailing the steps of Norse society as they evolved intothe far reaching "viking" explorers that changed and modified theWorld we know today.
The second part of this book highlightsspecifics about ancient Norse culture, technology, beliefs, andpractices.
The Norse were a major indigenous people ofScandinavia and Northern Europe. When we refer to them, we oftensee the words Vikings and Norse used interchangeably withoutdiscrimination. So which term is correct when referring to thesepeople? Do we call them Vikings or Norse?
At first thought, we usually call themVikings. This is because when we mention the Vikings, immediatelyeveryone knows we're talking about the Norse.
However, the term “Viking” is not actuallywhat the Norse people called themselves. It was actually somethingthey did.
The word Viking comes from the Old Norse word“víkingr,” a term which meant to go raiding and it wasn't always byboat. The word Viking was only later used to refer to the Norsepeople whom were conducting these raids. There are a variety ofother stereotypes commonly associated with “Vikings.” Most aresimply false stereotypes such as the horned or winged helmet forexample.
Calling them “Vikings” is technicallyincorrect. However it's of such common use today that when we callthem Vikings, everyone knows that we're referring to the Norse.Even though Viking was something they did (raid) and not what theywere called.. or how they referred to themselves. They wereactually called the Norse or Northmen.
A statement of fact is: all Vikings wereNorse, but not all Norse were Vikings. In fact, most Norse werefarmers – just like everyone else on the planet during thetime.
The purpose of this book is to provide aconcise and up to date historical chronicle about the Norse people.With so many recent discoveries by archaeologists studying theNorse, there are many things that we had previously thought we knewabout the Norse that has changed. This makes the Nordic story aspreviously taught out of date and in need of being retold. Thisbook tells the Norse story current to today's discoveries,presented in short chapters through each epoch of Nordichistory.
We start our story about the Norse from thefirst proof of existence as an identifiable and distinct people. Apeople whom migrated into Scandinavia and the Northern Europeanarea many thousands of years ago. We then take you through theirprogression from hunter-gathers into the agricultural settlementsthat eventually grew into societies.
A journey through the rise and expansion ofNordic culture that forever help form Europe and Western Culture asa whole. Highlighting new discoveries in Norse knowledge andtechnologies, that were previously a mystery to scientists.
This book is not the single work of theauthor, but the combined works of hundreds of years by thousands ofresearchers that have spent lifetimes trying to unravel the storyand mystery of the Norse people. There has been so many recentdiscoveries by modern researchers, the Nordic story has beenrewritten from what we thought we used to know about their obscurehistory. A history that was almost lost in time and obscuremythology.
Chapter 1- Who were the Vikings?

The "Vikings" were an ancient people thatinhabited Northern Europe and Scandinavia known as the Norse (alsoknown as Northmen or Norsemen). The Norse people were spread acrossNorthern Europe, particularly in the regions known today as:Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, and Finland), Germany, Denmark,Poland, Netherlands, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland,Ireland, and the surrounding islands), Iceland, Russia, Latvia,Lithuania, and Estonia.
These northern people as a whole spoke astheir native language, one the various dialects of Norse. The Norselanguage was a Northern Germanic / Scandinavian language that wasin wide use before the Christianization of Northern Europe, Russia,and Scandinavia.
The Norse are today most commonly known topeople as the "Vikings." However, the term “viking” was notactually what the Norse people called themselves. It was somethingthat they did. The word "viking" comes from the Old Norse word“víkingr,” a term which meant to go raiding for loot and it wassomething that wasn't always done by boat. A Viking was a NorseRaider.
The word viking was only later misused whenreferring to the Norse people as a whole, instead of just thosespecific Norsemen whom conducted the Viking raids. Simply put, a"Viking" is a raider, or more correctly; a Norseman whom wentraiding. In more precise terms, a Viking is a Norse Raider.
With this in mind, we know that calling theNorse people “Vikings” as a whole is incorrect. However it is ofsuch common use today that when someone calls them Vikings,everyone knows that they are talking about the Norse. Although, inmost cases, they are referring to Norse Raiders, in which case,"Vikings" would be correct. But to reiterate, viking was somethingthey did (raid) and the people were actually called the Norse.
A statement of fact is: all Vikings wereNorse, but not all Norse were Vikings .
In fact, most Norse were farmers andtradesman – just like everyone else on the planet. I had said allof this in the preface of this book, but found it necessary torepeat myself because I simply can't stress this fact enough.
There are also many other misunderstandingsand stereotypes that are commonly associated with the term“Viking.” One of the most common false stereotypes about the Norseand especially of viking raiders is that of the horned or wingedhelmet for example.
The Norse never wore winged or horned helmets- that is fiction. The types of helmets the Norse wore is discussedfurther ahead in this book's chapter about Norse Arms andArmor.
The winged and horned helmet were mistakenlyused to depict Vikings in an opera. The opera singer's costumes ofwinged and horned helmets stuck as a common belief as to what theNorse used to look like and what they wore.

Statue of a Viking in Gimli, Manitoba(Canada).42
As glorious as many of these false depictionsmay be; such as horned helmets being a sort of universal icon as toidentify Vikings.
We'll clear up these misconceptions as we gofurther along in the book and look closely at what the Norse reallydid and what they were really like. We'll look at the facts of whatwas real about the Norse people and their culture. We'll also lookspecifically at the Norse that infamously raided during the VikingEra, giving them the label as Vikings.
The history of the Norse people goes all theway back to the Stone Age, but they are best known for a period oftime when they raided several parts of Europe known as the VikingAge.
The Viking Age is typically recorded inhistory as occurring approximately around 793 AD to 1066 AD. Thisperiod of time is not the time span of the Norse people themselves,nor was it the peak of their civilization. This is merely theheight of the time when the Norse people were mostly written about.The time when they reached out and went out on viking adventures. Atime when the World noticed them and were fearful.
The Viking Age began somewhere just beforethe date of 800 AD. The actual beginning of the Viking Age is a bitfoggy and different locations argue different time periods of whenviking raids actually began to occur.
To abolish this argument, it is generallyaccepted in the academic community that the official beginning ofthe Viking Age is to have begun on the 8th of June 793 AD. Thisdate is when there is a formal recording made of when Norse Raiders(Vikings) made an attack on the monastery at Lindisfarne, an islandoff the northeast coast of Eng