Who were the Vikings?
The word `Viking' meant `sea robber'. It was the name given to
people who sailed to Britain from Norway, Sweden and Denmark more than a
thousand years ago.
The Vikings were great seafarers, building sturdy ships that they used for fishing and hunting seals and walrus.
Gradually, the hunters made longer and longer voyages into the open sea. They raided new
lands and brought treasure
home with them.
Much of the soil in the Vikings' homeland was rocky and infertile. This made farming difficult. The Vikings began
to search for better places to settle, where the weather was warmer and the soil richer. This was the beginning of
the Viking Age.
The Early Raids
The first Viking raid on Britain were aimed at the monasteries which were built on the coast.
The monasteries were places where Christian monks lived and worshipped God. The pagan Vikings saw them as a source of great riches. From about 790, they began to make frequent attacks from the sea.
The first Viking raid took place on 8 June 793. The monks on the island of Lindisfarne, in north east England, noticed the square sails of strange ships on the horizon. The ships had sailed from Norway and they were packed with warrior.
The raiders beached their ships and rushed towards the monastery. They killed some of the monks and captured others, keeping them for `thralls', or slaves. They stripped the church of its gold and silver ornaments and then sailed away, back to Norway.
The raid had been very easy for the Vikings. The monastery was right next to the sea. It was full of
treasure and yet the monks made no effort to defend it. They were holy men and they did not own weapons.
It is hardly surprising that the Vikings returned again and again to raid monasteries on the
British coastline.
The Invasion
In 865 a massive Viking army crossed the sea from Denmark and landed in eastern England. These Vikings planned to invade the land
and stay for good. For 14 years, the Great Army moved around England. The summers were spent fighting the English. Each winter, the army retired to a winter camp, like the one discovered at Repton in Derbyshire. We know from English
writings that the Great Army passed the winter of 873-874 here.
Viking Towns
By the 880s, the Great Army had conquered much of the north and east of England. There were several important towns here, such as York, Lincoln, Leicester, Stamford and Derby.
The biggest Viking town in Britain was York, which the Vikings called Jorvik. Archaeologists digging here found all sorts of things that were left behind by craftworkers of the Viking Age.
Lincoln, which had been founded by the L Romans 800 years earlier, was a perfect place for a Viking settlement. It was beside a river which meant that the Vikings could reach it by ship. It was also strongly defended by massive Roman walls.
During the 1970s, archaeologists dug at Flaxengate in Lincoln and found remains of houses where the first Viking settlers might have lived. They were wooden long houses, each measuring around 16m by 5m. They had mostly rotted away in the dry earth, but a few black stumps of posts remained. Using this evidence archaeologists could work out what the houses had been like.
The Vikings had two ways of building in wood. They used either oak planks or wattle, which is springy twigs of hazel woven into a mat. Both types of house were found by archaeologists at Lincoln and at York. The Viking houses in
York were much better preserved than those at Lincoln. The soil was very wet: wood lasts longer if it is waterlogged.
In Lincoln, many of the streets have names such as Danegate, Flaxengate and Micklegate. This is because the Danish word for street was `gata' or gate. Danegate means `street of the Danes'.
The end of the Viking Age
The year 1066 is often said to mark the end of the Viking Age. It was in that year that King Harald Hard Ruler of Norway tried to invade England. This was the last great Viking invasion.
Harald failed and was killed in battle near York. Instead, England was conquered by the Normans, who were originally Vikings (North men') who had settled in France.
Long after 1066, Viking languages were still being spoken in Britain. Over time, English speakers picked up hundreds of Viking words for everyday things. We still use these words, including law, husband, egg, take, happy, sky, ugly, knife, fellow, they, and window.
We are still influenced by the Vikings who settled in Britain more than a thousand years ago. In some
places, people remember their Viking past through festivals. `Up-Helly-Aa', a fire festival
which takes place on the last Tuesday in January in Shetland. Most of the islanders go to the capital,
Lerwick, to join in the fun. Dressed as Vikings, they pull a specially built longship through the
streets, finally setting it on fire.
Extract from “On The Trail Of The Vikings In Britain”, written by Peter Chrisp. London, Franklin Watts, 1999.
It was during the Romantic period, in the 19th century, that the modern image of the
European Barbarians was created. This process happened as an answer to the yearnings of
the diverse nationalistic movements, creating an image of old landscapes and medieval
characters to help in the construction of modern identities: Celtic for the French, Teutonic
for the Germans and Viking for the Scandinavians.
Immersing themselves in this Barbarian glorification, several romantic painters struggled to
capture all the nostalgic atmosphere that was predominant in that period. Such was the case
of the Norwegian Peter Arbo who, in 1860, painted the magnificent “Asgardreien”,
representing with great realism an old Viking meeting. Also in this decade, Arbo painted
other pictures which made a great impression in his contemporaries, such as “Viking Chief”
and “Haakon”. In those works, the details in the armour and weapons, such as chain mail,
swords and helmets were all very elaborate and correct. At the same time, another artist of
Norwegian origin, Johannes Flintoe, was painting “Duel in Skiringsal”, with the same
features of accuracy found in his compatriot’s work.
And the Scandinavians were not the only painters creating such historically accurate visual
representations of the Viking past. In 1870 the English W. G. Collingwood finished his
work “The Thingvellir”, representing an Icelandic Viking meeting and, instead of using
literary sources, he actually went to Iceland, granting his painting an even more impressive
amount of detail and accuracy, in both geographic and cultural terms. The amour suits and
clothing of the Icelandic Vikings were all depicted in the most precise manner.
But, despite this trend which was specially strong in Scandinavia, of rescuing with great
detail the image of those fearful Barbarians, the process took an unexpected turn when
certain works appeared that would totally change the routes of the European iconography.
More related to fantasy than fact, pictures representing Vikings with horns and other
ornaments in their helmets became the norm rather than the exception. Why has the former
visual representation fell from grace, and why did the work of the early 19th century
Norwegian painters failed to be followed? Would it be for the lack of research and much
needed information?
The picture of rude Barbarians was frequently perpetrated by artists of different
nationalities and, since they were not Scandinavians, they might lack any proper knowledge
of the Viking culture. Therefore, this new image for the Barbarian warrior would be made
out of a collection of traits associated with prejudicial concepts in the minds of people who
were ultimately foreign, that is, not from Scandinavian origin. And this image was often
that of a uncivilised brute, carrying all the characteristics of a sub-human creature. The best
example of this new representation can be found in an illustration of French Normans, by
Guizot, taken from the book “History of France”, published in 1879. The warriors were
mostly shown as if they were “cavemen”, troglodytes wearing animal skins to cover their
bodies. Guizot can certainly be said to have attained the violent picture of chaos and
primitivism associated with the invasion of the Nordic peoples, preserving for the
Frenchmen the honour to carry the badge of civilisation. In the picture, the rider wears a
helmet with a dragon wing – a totally fictitious detail, made out of pure fantasy. In reality,
most of these specific ornaments for helmets – such as horns and lateral birdlike wings,
were already commonly represented in the European iconography, but they were generally
associated with mythological figures.
In the debut of Richard Wagner’s opera “Tristan and Isolde”, in the city of Munich in 1865,
a picture congregated all the types of fantastic helmet ornaments. The paintings and
decorations used at the stage were done by J. Noerr and, in the illustration for the final act
of the opera, at the moment of Isolde’s death, she is surrounded by warriors carrying
helmets with branches, horns and both bird and dragon-like wings. In this specific piece of
work, Wagner intended to rescue the Arthurian and medieval ethos, deriving his subject
from Celtic influences.
When he created boards for the stage set, Noerr might have been using as reference
material, or otherwise been inspired by, the work of François Gerard and Gustav
Malmström. In 1800, Gerard painted “Ossian”, a work where he depicted an Irish soldier
observing the Celtic god Oisin while he plays his harp – the soldier wears a Roman helmet,
but it is decorated with an enormous, though solitary, wing. Although Swedish, the artist
Gustav Malmström can also be held responsible for this change in the Viking image. He
was the illustrator for the book “The Saga of Frithiof”, a modern version of the
Scandinavian hero, published for Esaias Tegner in 1820. In several pictures, Malmström
depicted Viking kings with small lateral horns on their helmets and, more frequently,
dragon wings. The association of this legendary monster is very clear and understandable.
The ancient Scandinavians did appreciate its importance and also believed its existence,
decorating their long boats, the “drakkars”, with heads and tails of dragons in their
extremities. But, in the English version of the “Book of Tegner”, published in 1839, a series
of paintings already showed Vikings featuring their modern image: in contrast with
Malmström’s work, the horns on the helmets of those new Vikings had an uncommon size
(Wawn, 2001).
As for the Celts, the bird wings (as in the modern Asterix) are also a purely random
decoration, with little relation to any real Celtic ornament, and the same can be said of
branches and horns. The Celtic warriors wear conical helmets in battle, some carrying wild
boars ornaments (same as the Saxons), or birds and geometric connecting rods. Therefore,
as the Vikings and other so called Barbarians, their battle helmets could not have been the
inspirational source of the European artists from the 19th century. There is, however, a
important detail that cannot be overlooked: the Celts did have a god, Cernunnos, generally
depicted with two enormous hart branches in his head. Also, in some silver reliefs of Celtic
origin, it is possible to see a man carrying a helmet with ox horns alongside the god Dagda
and some animals. A quite similar case can be seen in a bronze board found in Sweden,
which can be dated back to a time before the Viking Age (sixth century A.D.) where two
armed warriors engage in a ritual dance. One of them is wearing a wolf head mask and the
other a helmet with pointed horns.
