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Viking Horsemen

sackett said:
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions the Danes acquiring horses once they were in England and fielding a mounted raiding force that gave the Aenglisc great gowdy.
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But the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle also spends fifty pages speculating about Becks and Posh and whether it will last, and there's a topless woman on page 3, and it was always being sued for libel so I doubt we can take it as a reliable source for history. With front page stories "Mary and Elizabeth: The Same Woman?!" and "Thatcher Has Reagan's Love Child", it just seems somehow untrustworthy. Although I do read the headlines while in line at the supermarket.
 
For mounted combat, you really needed the stirrup, which IIRC, was an Arab invention. Attila got around it by using mounted archers, but without stirrups, you wouldn't get the necessary leverage to really be able to fight from horseback with melee weapons. Remember that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.;)

Which is why it annoys me to no end to see stirrups in movies that portray an era in which they had not been invented yet.

I could see the Viking bringing horses to explore, because it is a rather handy way to get around, provided you had horses large enough and strong enough for long-term riding, which it appears may not be the case.

Were the Viking there to settle, or just to raid and explore?
 
clarsct said:
For mounted combat, you really needed the stirrup, which IIRC, was an Arab invention.
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Nope, it was a Chinese invention. Then, for some unexplained reason, it turned up in Scandinavia, and later in the rest of Europe. My theory, which is based on a vivid imagination and not much more, is that some people living in the Asian steppe learned the secret from the Chinese, then migrated to Scandinavia, entered history as the Goths, and moved on across Europe.

But the Vikings should have known about stirrups anyhow, unless the technology had already been forgotten after only a few hundred years.

Wiki has a stirrup article, but my connection is screwed at the moment and I can't get to most sites.
 
The horses were reintroduced to the new world by the Spanish in the 1500's.


Stirrups were a about a Eighth century invention, in Europe. Sweden, specifically.

(A little earlier in China, and it was a Chinese invention, thanks for the correction.)
 
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Merko said:
Nope, it was a Chinese invention. Then, for some unexplained reason, it turned up in Scandinavia, and later in the rest of Europe. My theory, which is based on a vivid imagination and not much more, is that some people living in the Asian steppe learned the secret from the Chinese, then migrated to Scandinavia, entered history as the Goths, and moved on across Europe.

But the Vikings should have known about stirrups anyhow, unless the technology had already been forgotten after only a few hundred years.

Wiki has a stirrup article, but my connection is screwed at the moment and I can't get to most sites.
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Matter of time frame.
 
Beady said:
Hmm. When/did the American Indians adopt or develop stirrups?
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American Indians were exposed to stirrups as soon as the Spanish arrived with horses, since the Spanish used them. The Comanches are usually thought to have been one of the first tribes to become horse using people and they used stirrups. The Comanches were very famous and clever horse stealers and no doubt stole equipment as well. As I recall they supplied horses to others, so stealing was an important part of their business.

There was a comment earlier from clarsct, wondering about the strength of the Viking horses...... the horses of the Vikings were (and are) tough, strong little horses that could readily work all day, even carrying a large man. So it would have been possible to use them for exploration, despite the small size. As to whether it was actually done...... :D
 
Amapola said:
There was a comment earlier from clarsct, wondering about the strength of the Viking horses...... the horses of the Vikings were (and are) tough, strong little horses that could readily work all day, even carrying a large man.
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Except Hrolf, the founder of the Norman dynasty, who was so large that no horse could carry him, earning him the nickname Hrolf the Walker.
 
Ryokan said:
Except Hrolf, the founder of the Norman dynasty, who was so large that no horse could carry him, earning him the nickname Hrolf the Walker.
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His daughter Hrolfa Hrolfsdottir was even larger. She could carry a horse, and she frequently draped her charger Ensnuffaluffagus around her shoulders and attended fancy parties thus attired. She'd feed him horse d'ourves during the dancing, and all the regular French cited that as a mark of the barbarism of those brutish Vikings and Vikingettes. She was refused admittance to Versailles after she created a public spectacle by juggling two donkeys and a mare. The real trick was that mare later gave birth to a mule and the timing suggested the conception occurred midair.

A Concise History of the World: Only the Interesting Bits by TragicMonkey goes on sale this January. Reserve your copies today!
 
I was browsing through a used book store today and at one point I decided to look for any reference to the Vikings in North America, specifically, the Icelandic Sagas.

I found nothing so I was browsing through some Canadian authors and came upon a book called Westviking by Farley Mowat. This is an interesting book because he took excerpts from the sagas and then created a fictional story around them. So I bought the book for $8.95 and left the second copy on the shelf for some other treasure seeker to discover.

Tonight, I did a quick flip through the book and there are several mentions of other Norse artifacts found in North America and I have spent a little time searching on the net to find out more about them.

Here is one of the more remarkable ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone

The sagas themselves seem to be very interesting, full of betrayal and murder. Apparently there are many English translations so I will have to find one and read them entirely.
 
qayak said:
Here is one of the more remarkable ones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone
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The Kensington Stone is rather old news. One thing about the Wiki article that struck me throughout, was how much the controversy resembles that over Bigfoot. Seems to me that when it gets down to picking nits those fine, then nothing more that is useful can come of it until/unless someone comes up with a body.

Which brings up a question I've always had about the Stone. It was found on the spot where 10 men were massacred. Where are the bodies? If the stone is authentic, the author had time to carve it out; presumably he and his companions also had time to bury their dead, and the Norse had some pretty elaborate burial rites. I'm not suggesting complex cairns and ritualistic internment, but surely the slain would have rated more than being left out to rot, or a rapid, shallow and unmarked grave; they would also have been buried with their personal effects. I've never heard that anything other than the Stone was discovered at the site. If nothing else, it appears that the site was a base camp of sorts, and someone in the party must have dropped something during its use; yet, nothing has turned up.

So, what we have is a single artifact of dubious authenticity, discovered completely out of context. Such are generally the hallmarks of a hoax.
 
Beady said:
Which brings up a question I've always had about the Stone. It was found on the spot where 10 men were massacred. Where are the bodies? If the stone is authentic, the author had time to carve it out; presumably he and his companions also had time to bury their dead, and the Norse had some pretty elaborate burial rites. I'm not suggesting complex cairns and ritualistic internment, but surely the slain would have rated more than being left out to rot, or a rapid, shallow and unmarked grave; they would also have been buried with their personal effects. I've never heard that anything other than the Stone was discovered at the site. If nothing else, it appears that the site was a base camp of sorts, and someone in the party must have dropped something during its use; yet, nothing has turned up.
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A simple explanation is that the stone was moved. The area seems to have been a well travelled route and the stone was found int he area of a portage. It could be as simple as someone finding, thinking it would be cool to take with them and then discarding it because of its weight.

According to the article: "The waterway also contains possible signs of Viking presence. At Cormorant Lake in Becker County, Minnesota there are three boulders with triangular holes similar to those used for mooring boats along the coast of Norway in the 14th century. Holand found other triangular holes in rocks near where the stone was found. A 14th century Scandinavian firesteel was found between the Cormorant Lake and Kensington, where the Runestone was found.

Other Viking artifacts dating from the 14th century have turned up in Minnesota but apparently none were recovered under controlled archaeological conditions and it has been impossible to eliminate the possibility they were brought by Europeans centuries later. Similarly, the dating of any Viking-like mooring holes cut into rocks in the region has been elusive."

But I do tend to agree with your assessment.
 
I have read the Icelandic saga's. In the Vinland Saga it tells of the norse warriors traveling from Greenland and iceland traveling south to northern tips of north America. They had a few encounters with the natives but nothing as dramatic as depicted in the movie from the previews. One or two fights with the natives running away and the Vikings not perusing them. Oh, And one 1 legged native who was faster than the Vikings on foot.

They didn't mate with the natives, They didn't enslave them as far as I know. Does anyone know of any other sources of evidence that showed vikings having more dramatic encounters with the natives of N.America?
 
Ryokan said:
Why are Americans so keen on making remakes of movies? I just don't get it, the original Pathfinder is an amazing movie, certainly the best Norwegian movie ever made.[/URL]
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Because Hollywood is run by accountants and lawyers who are afraid of new ideas (i.e., untested ideas) and have the mindset that 'well Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a hit in 1974, it should be a hit again' - which is why it's been remade 4000 times since 1990. New ideas are shunned if possible.
 
Polaris said:
Because Hollywood is run by accountants and lawyers who are afraid of new ideas (i.e., untested ideas) and have the mindset that 'well Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a hit in 1974, it should be a hit again' - which is why it's been remade 4000 times since 1990. New ideas are shunned if possible.
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Well, yeah, but also because

(a) Many of us don't really enjoy movies in a foreign language. I'll take in the occasional subtitled film, but having to read the dialogue really pulls me out of the movie.

(2) While the content of the original film may actually be superior to the Hollywood remake, production values (cinematography, editing, sound, etc.) of some foreign films don't really live up to those of "Hollywood" movies.
 
ZirconBlue said:
Well, yeah, but also because

(a) Many of us don't really enjoy movies in a foreign language. I'll take in the occasional subtitled film, but having to read the dialogue really pulls me out of the movie.

(2) While the content of the original film may actually be superior to the Hollywood remake, production values (cinematography, editing, sound, etc.) of some foreign films don't really live up to those of "Hollywood" movies.
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But then, once in a while, there's a Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Ok, that's enough derail. I wish I knew more about the Vikings to comment on the actual OT. I find them fascinating.
 
Time and settlement

I believe with what is surely discovered it is clear the 'Vikings' had settled into North America - possibly as west as Iowa at least. The settlements found on the east coast - where much shoreline is now underwater compared to the time they settled - what proof found of their time here - shows the time to build and prosper - long enough to breed horses. A lot of horses.
So it seems a little naive to listen to anyone who thinks they must have brought all these horses over one their boats... Bring a few - breed them. Just like - bring the cattle and pigs - breed them. Once they found this new land - they must have had time to develop and would have had to befriend the natives - or they would have died. But they must have prospered for a time to leave behind as much as we can find given they most likely lived on shores no underwater. How they disappeared is a mystery - horses they had - because they bred them...
 
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