Ancient Vikings

reply to post by VeritasAequitas


My family is reputed to be descended from Adam & Eve. Care to dispute that??

Odin huh? Descendant of the Gods?
Come on...

while it might seem nice to romanticize the norse who went 'viking' into some type of hero, the fact remains that much of what these norse did is nasty and brutal.
certainly the norse treated most of their own well and respected their women, most of their good 'qualities' were left at the shores of their home countries.
the 'viking' may not have used slaves to row their vessals, but these vessals absolutely had many dealings with slaves, as the vikings were very deeply into the slave trade.
viking slavery
www.regia.org...
lets face it the 'vikings' ravaged huge chunks of europe and quite frankly were not particularily nice people. one could idolize the mongol hordes just as easily as the 'viking' hordes.

reply to post by The Benevolent Adversary


You do realize that entire time period was brutal? The Vikings were no worse than the Romans, Saxons, Picts, Raetians or any other tribe around in that period. It was literally eat or be eaten...especially during the migration periods. Arguably we are no better now than then...heck turn our tech off and it would likely be even worse real quick.

reply to post by MagnusMaximus


actually yes i do realize that and had even written it when the power went out for a second and i had to reboot.
it was a brutish nasty time for all but imo the 'vikings' were at the top of the list at least in so far as western europe goes.

reply to post by The Benevolent Adversary


Depends which Vikings you are talking about. Look at Eastern and Northern England, were Danelaw was introduced. Aside from a few battles and some nun raping and pillaging of the church, the locals got on very well with the Vikings.

Vikings lords followed a similar style to Saxon lords but were even fairer to the population. All gods were allowed, pleasing many in the North that still clung to old gods whilst embracing Christianity. Trade increased, bringing greater wealth. Basically, for the common folk of England, Viking rule was good rule.

Look at King Cnut, one of our great Kings.

Away from the UK, the Vikings were instrumental in the establishment of Russia (kingdom of Rus).

Further incursions into the Black Sea brought them to the attention of the Byzantines and eventually led to inclusion in the Varangian Guard. Harald Hardrada was a Captain of the Varangians for a while and actually led the first full incursions into the Holy Lands, what would later become the Crusades (although he preceded the actual Crusades) in order to protect Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem. He was also the most successful crusader until Richard the Lionheart (he was known as the Hammer from the North to the Muslims).

Njal's Saga (or the Burning Saga) tells of how the Vikings relinquished their pantheon and adopted Christianity. Lots of information about Viking (mainly Icelandic) culture, social mores, weapons, foods, fashions, politics and geneology.

20. OF NJAL AND HIS CHILDREN

There was a man whose name was Njal. He was the son of Thorgeir
Gelling, the son of Thorolf. Njal's mother's name was Asgerda
(1). Njal dwelt at Bergthorsknoll in the land-isles; he had
another homestead on Thorolfsfell. Njal was wealthy in goods,
and handsome of face; no beard grew on his chin. He was so great
a lawyer, that his match was not to be found. Wise too he was,
and foreknowing and foresighted (2). Of good counsel, and ready
to give it, and all that he advised men was sure to be the best
for them to do. Gentle and generous, he unravelled every man's
knotty points who came to see him about them. Bergthora was his
wife's name; she was Skarphedinn's daughter, a very high-
spirited, brave-hearted woman, but somewhat hard-tempered. They
had six children, three daughters and three sons, and they all
come afterwards into this story.

omacl.org...

The Anglo Saxon Chronicles tells of the impact of the Norsemen on the British Isles (mainly mainland Britain/England)

omacl.org...

reply to post by teapot


The problem with the Anglo Saxon chronicles though is that they are entirely Wessex centric (rather than UK as a whole). Certainly highly interesting and useful though, nontheless.

reply to post by coredrill


en.wikipedia.org...

Odin was actually a real person that people saw and met. Unlike most people; I can trace my lineage back, because my family is known. The Scottish clan of Macleod are one of the last 4 living descendants of Ragnar Lodbrok.

en.wikipedia.org...

We trace our lineage through him all the way back to Sigi, son of Odin.

If you care to prove me wrong; attempt to do so.

archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com...

He was a member of the House of Munso; which would make us as well.

en.wikipedia.org...

Aslaug, Ragnar's wife and the mother of his sons, was the daughter of Sigurd, whose ancestor Sigi was a descendant of Odin. Therefore, the entire house of Munso (and all their descendants) are descended from Odin.

The vikings also had some knowledge of the "ocult and sang a lot about sorcerors, wizards and witches. They placed multiple viking forts along a leyline that run through the tower of winds in Athens close to acropolis and if you follow the line you end near Necropolis in Luxor Egypt. These danish forts is Aggersborg, Fyrkat and Trelleborg. Source

External image of Trelleborg


External image of a reconstructed viking long house



This "long" videoclip shows a lot of the danish sites crossed by leylines, it incluede a lot of churches and pictures of the viking forts.


The vikings might also have had advanced knowledge of the Earths magnetic grid and possible even known about the concept of electrical conductivity - watch the videoclip in part 3 of this thread if you want to hear more about that.

reply to post by yourmaker


Nice to see a cousin of mine, however distant! My family is directly descendant to Eric the Red.

Originally posted by therealdemoboy
reply to post by yourmaker

 

Nice to see a cousin of mine, however distant!

My family is directly descendant to Eric the Red.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by yourmaker


If that Rollo character is a Yngling, we would be relatives.

reply to post by VeritasAequitas


You do realize the problem with the old medieval genealogies is missing generations and lifespans a bit to long right?

In fact in the rootsweb post you decided to post it states specifically "There is no reliable pedigree of the intervening generations", Which basically means your supposed decent from Odin has a giant black hole right in the middle of it.

If you want another example go look up the various descendant clans of the Uí Briúin in Ireland and related DNA Projects on FTDNA. Several Septs supposedly related to "legendary/mythical founders" weren't related to each other...Specifically the Ua Ruairc (O'Rourkes)/O'Reillys. What does this mean? All those ancient pedigrees go out the window as both should be descended from Conn of the Hundred Battles and generations later Duach Galach...it is a simple fact that various kings/royals had a pedigree drawn up that legitimized their claim to the throne.

So to answer you challenge to prove you wrong...Can you document your supposed pedigree from Odin with no missing generations? No you cant and even your references you cited prove it. My guess is your pedigree hits one of those black holes right around AD 1000 if it makes it that far even. So consider yourself proven wrong...sorry.

reply to post by MagnusMaximus


That quote was taken out of context. In fact, it was Genealogists that discovered such a thing in the first place about Ragnar, not myself. As far as your quote really goes, it was in reference to Sir Iain Moncreiffe and Godfrey Hardacnutson, and not Ragnar Lodbrok, thus having no bearing on my statement. As a matter of fact though, I directly traced my family from Father to Son, all the way to him, and further. We trace our lineage through the Crovan dynasty.

en.wikipedia.org...

Who was the first King of Sweden.

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

Now here is where either way, I can still prove we are linked to the Uí Ímair, and Ragnar Lodbrok.

However, articles have been published in the Clan MacLeod magazine which suggest an alternate genealogy for Leod, one in which he was not son of Olaf, but a 3rd cousin (some removed) from Magnus the last King of Mann.

Magnus, belonged to the same dynasty as Godred Crovan, who was a Uí Ímair, and also descended from Ragnar.

www.macleodgenealogy.org...

reply to post by VeritasAequitas


I'm impressed you can trace that far back. After much research (five years) and lots of money spent, we can only get our family back to the early 11th century as records are simply too sparse to get any further back.

What did you use to get to such a conclusion? Would be good to see if i can get further back too.

Vikings obviously have some sort of missing history. Remember "Winner write the history of others."

a reply to: AnarchysAngel

I am reviving this 2012 thread, with new and relevant information:

listverse.com...
10 DISCOVERIES THAT CAST THE VIKINGS IN A NEW LIGHT

www.newser.com...

VIKING RING LINKS THEM TO ISLAM FOR TRADE
It's a woman's ring made of cut-glass to resemble an amythest, and is incribed in Arabic "To/For Allah".

There were trade routes between Denmark, Egypt and Mesopotamia that go back 3,400 years.

a reply to: VikingWarlord

These books are among my favorites so far. I'm about half way through but have taken a break. I thought his Warlord Chronicles were stellar, but I think I like the Saxon Stories more!

Please, be my friend so we can talk books (at least these, as I have no friends that will read them

Does anyone feel like going for a row followed with some fighting looting and pillaging and top it off with some binge drinking?

Yea... I'm descended from the Vikings