Ancient World Review

Do Canadian Carvings Depict Vikings?

Video from 2016.

"Carvings uncovered in the Canadian Arctic may be the earliest portraits of the Vikings created in the Americas. But archaeologists have been puzzling over whether the artwork really shows the infamous seafarers." Source: Live Science.

"...One of the carvings was excavated in the 1970s at the Okivilialuk site [?] on southern Baffin Island.Two textiles found near the Okivilialuk carving date back to the 16th century, suggesting that the carving may also date back to that time, the scientists said. This carving may not show a Viking, but it could show someone from one of Sir Martin Frobisher's expeditions to the Canadian Arctic in the 1570s, the researchers said."

Note: While it's still unclear whether these particular carvings were made by Vikings, archaeologists have already found more definite evidence that Viking explorers did establish camps on Baffin Island. Life in these camps or settlements or whatever they were must have been pretty harsh. I'm not sure what the climate on the island was like back during the medieval period, but it probably wasn't all that different from what it is today -- extremely cold and cloudy with polar nights in the winter and midnight suns during the summer. This is one of the harshest and most remote wilderness areas on the planet and the toughness required to survive there can only be imagined.

Video from 2014.

Hnefatafl - Board Game Of The Vikings

"In central and eastern Sweden from 550 to 793 CE, just before the Viking Age, members of the Vendel culture were known for their fondness for boat burials, their wars, and their deep abiding love of hnefatafl." Source: Hakai Magazine.

"Also known as Viking chess, hnefatafl is a board game in which a centrally located king is attacked from all sides. The game wasn’t exclusive to the Vendels—people across northern Europe faced off over the gridded board from at least 400 BCE until the 18th century. But during the Vendel period, love for the game was so great that some people literally took it to their graves."

A huge amount of information can be found in the article Hnefatafl - The Strategic Board Game Of The Vikings. The background image on this page makes it difficult to read unless you zoom in on the text.

Amateur Danish Archaeologist Finds 1500-Year-Old Treasure

"An amateur archaeologist made a remarkable find on muddy land on the island of Hjarnø near Horsens.  Source: The Local.

"Over 32 pieces of jewellery including gold and pearls, dating 1,500 years, have been found on the island in Horsens Fjord, according to broadcaster DR.

The gold included beads, pendants, a needle and small gold pieces that were used as currency during the Iron Age."

8-Year-Old-Girl Finds Pre-Viking Sword In Swedish Lake

"An eight-year-old Swedish-American girl came across an exciting find swimming at her local lake, when she pulled an ancient sword from its depths." Source: The Local.

The sword is now being restored and studied by the Jönköpings Läns Museum.

"...It was initially reported that the sword was at least 1,000 years old, but the museum later contacted The Local to clarify that they believe it may be even older, estimated to date back to the 5th or 6th century AD, pre-Viking Age. The find has prompted huge interest from archaeologists and historians."

Comment: It's impossible to read about discoveries like this without thinking about what Sweden is like today. Despite the growing support for the Sweden Democrats -- an encouraging sign -- the country is collapsing very rapidly and may have passed the point of no return years ago. The Vikings and their ancestors would never have let something like this happen and if they were around now I don't think they would bother with elections in order to solve the problem. The contrast between the Vikings and modern Swedes couldn't be more dramatic.

The Eketorp Iron Age Fort In Sweden

"Eketorp Fort—a prehistoric ring fort—was completely excavated between 1964 and 1974. The first fort (Eketorp I) was built during the Scandinavian Iron Age (ca. AD 300) near the edge of a lake that had been used for animal sacrifices since the birth of Christ." Source: Penn Museum.

"Around AD 400 Eketorp I was torn down and rebuilt (Eketorp II) as a fortified hamlet with a permanent population of farmers. This phase of the fort has been reconstructed for tourism."

A "period of relative peace" around 650 AD led to the abandonment of Eketorp and many other forts in the region. The fort sat empty for almost a half century, but "the lake outside its walls continued as a sacrificial site up to AD 1000." Eketorp was occupied again around 1170 AD, this time as "a military garrison for heavy cavalry during the formation of the Kingdom of Sweden." The fort was permanently abandoned around 1240 AD.

Vikings Who Invaded Britain 1,000 Years Ago Were On A "Mission Of Love?"

"The Vikings who pillaged Britain 1,000 years ago may have had a surprising motive – they were trying to raise cash to attract a wife back home." Source: Daily Mail (2016).

"According to a study, there was a shortage of available girls in Scandinavia, so young Viking men joined raiding parties to become rich enough to entice one on their return."

Notes: "Writing in the journal Evolution And Human Behaviour, researchers from Sweden’s University of Uppsala and Canada’s Simon Fraser University said: ‘Many low-status men would have found it difficult to marry unless they were willing to engage in risky activities to improve their wealth and status.'" (Ibid)

So who were these low-status men?

There were three basic classes in Norse society: the thralls, karls and jarls (nobility). According to Hurstwic, "[t]he vast majority of Norsemen belonged to the middle class, the karls. These people were freemen and land owners. They were the farmers, the smiths, and the just plain folks. Families of karls usually lived in clusters of two or more buildings, typically longhouses supplemented by barns and workshops." I guess you could call the karls the working class and they probably wouldn't have had that much trouble finding wives unless the ratio of men to women was really lopsided.

The lowest social class consisted of the þræll or thralls. "These included the slaves (usually booty from a raid) and bondsmen. If a Norseman of any class could not pay his debts, he was obliged to become a bondsman and to work for another man until the debt was paid. Icelandic law ... allowed for someone convicted of theft to be handed over as a slave to the victim of the theft. [They] must have led very hard lives." (Hurstwic) According to Wikipedia, you could be born into bondage if your parents were thralls, so some thralls must've been married.

The males who were most effected by a shortage of available females were probably Karls. If you were a dirt-poor and/or ambitious Karl trying to attract a mate and climb the social ladder, you only had a couple of choices: (1) you could work for years to accumulate some wealth through farming or trade, or (2) you could take a gamble on getting killed or wounded and go a-Viking in an attempt to get rich quick and make a name for yourself.

Men in Viking society had fewer options than they do now, but it doesn't sound like the basic situation has changed all that much since medieval times. The males with cash and status have the best chances of finding a mate. That's as true now as it was back then.

Fashionable Vikings Loved Colors, Fur & Silk

"Fashion in Viking times was different from how we perceive it today, where the wardrobe changes from year to year ... but we can see a form of 'fashion' from the archaeological finds from that time." Source: Archaeology News Network (2015).

Closed captions in English available.

"Our knowledge of Viking fashion comes entirely from the tombs of rich Vikings and tells us little about how poorer people in society would have dressed ... "What we call fashion are their symbols of high status. Overall, it appears that the ordinary Vikings would have been dressed in something similar, though less luxurious and without the gold, silver, fur, and silk. But the elements would have been roughly the same. Styles of high-status outfits probably greatly influenced styles of garments made further down the social hierarchy..."

Hallucinogens & Hieronymus Bosch

"There is no denying that the world Bosch shows us is a world of dreams. Can these strange visions have been due to drug-taking? Dare we assume that the painter resorted to some [phantasmagoric] drug so as to give free rein to his subconscious self and attain one of those 'abysses of the psyche' to which Henri Michaux had access under the influence of mescaline?" Source: The Alchemy Website.

The Alchemy Website suggests that Bosch may have used a "stimulant named 'witches' pomatum,' the recipe for which was apparently discovered in a "16th century book' by Professor Will Erich Peuckert of Gottingen University, who "made some, and tested it on several persons. All, after a deep sleep of twenty hours, had the same tale to tell; all had dreamed of flying, of orgies in the company of satanic creatures, of visits to the netherworld."

As far as I know there's no evidence to support this theory, but Bosch's paintings are all the evidence I need that he had personal experience with hallucinogens of some kind. Ergot is a good candidate, but so are the gruit beers of the time (1). Before hops came along, these beverages were made with a variety of herbs, some of which had psychoactive properties. Just looking at Bosch's work, I'd guess that he had tried mescaline at some point, but peyote is apparently only found in North America, primarily Mexico. A more likely candidate is the amanita muscaria mushroom (2), but this is all speculation. It's possible that Bosch just had a particularly strange imagination.

(1) I'm not sure if gruit beer was still common during Bosch's lifetime (1450-1516 AD). According to Wikipedia, "The exclusive use of gruit was gradually phased out in favor of the use of hops alone in a slow sweep across Europe occurring between the 11th century (in the south and east of the Holy Roman Empire) and the late 16th century (Great Britain)."

(2) Amanita Muscaria can be found in the Netherlands, according to the The Vaults of Erowid.

The Sagas Of Icelanders

"The Sagas of Icelanders ... also known as family sagas, are prose narratives ... based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the 9th, 10th, and early 11th centuries, during the so-called Saga Age. They are the best-known specimens of Icelandic literature." Source: Wikipedia.

"Many sagas of Icelanders are about feuds between families and their supporters; they give graphic accounts of fights, escapes, outlawry and reconciliation. They detail complex legal procedures that, in the absence of a police force on the island, were the individual’s main recourse to justice, but only if he had sufficiently powerful supporters." Source: The Conversation.

"Some sagas, the so-called sagas of poets, detail the love lives and stormy careers of well-known skalds, off duty in Iceland from their careers at the Norwegian court. Others are more regional histories of families from certain parts of Iceland and their struggles with neighbours and with the supernatural inhabitants of their region."

Video from 2011.

Related: The Icelandic Saga Database.

Gryla, The Christmas Child Eater From Iceland

"One of Iceland’s most renowned figures associated with Christmas made her first appearance in ancient Pagan times. An especially terrifying figure, Gryla is a giant troll with hooves for feet and sports an impressive thirteen tails. This lady-troll is in a perpetual bad mood due to her insatiable hunger…for children. Each Christmas, Gryla comes down from her mountain dwelling to hunt for bad children. She places them in a sack and drags them back to her cave where she boils them alive for her favorite stew." Source: A Scary Little Christmas.

Note: "Grýla was not directly linked to Christmas until the 17th century," according to Wikipedia. "She has the ability to detect children who are misbehaving year-round ... During Christmas time, she comes from the mountains to search nearby towns for her meal. She leaves her cave and hunts for the children. She devours children as her favorite snack. Her favorite dish is a stew of naughty kids for which she has an insatiable appetite. According to legend, there is never a shortage of food for Gryla."

Of course there's no shortage of food. Children aren't just naughty; they're downright evil.

A typical child suitable for Gryla's stew.

When Gryla isn't snatching and eating naughty children, she keeps herself amused by creating natural disasters:

"No one had as much effect on air travel in 2010 as the horrifying Icelandic mountain ogress Grýla, who this spring launched a plume of ash 30,000 feet into the sky from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, shutting down airports across Europe and costing the global economy hundreds of millions of dollars." Source: The Onion.

Related: Gryla and other trolls [PDF].