Indholdsfortegnelse for The vikings - Final Secrets Revealed i Inside History Collection

The last 50 years have seen a number of breakthroughs in the charting and understanding of the Viking Age. Archaeologists and historians have analysed everything from ancient postholes to thousand-year-old grape seeds in their quest to uncover the truth about the Viking world. Painstaking detective work is necessary because the Vikings themselves did not record the events of their time. The history of the Vikings is known only from the horror stories of monks and the heroic tales of sagas. But armed with patience and modern technology, the unknown pieces of the puzzle are slowly being identified and put together. Researchers have come a long way, but questions remain. For example, we still don’t know who the first Vikings were, or why they set out on epic voyages. Nevertheless, we…

Ermentarius was a troubled man. As a monk and historian at St Philibert’s monastery on the island of Noirmoutier off the west coast of France, he’d hoped that life would unfold as it usually did for monks in the ninth century AD – as a series of quiet days, filled with prayer and work. But it was not to be. In AD 799, savage Norsemen attacked the monastery for the first time. The raid would not be the last. Again and again, Vikings plundered the sacred buildings, and from 819, Ermentarius and the monastery’s other monks were forced to move to the mainland during the summer months to avoid the bloodthirsty warriors. A few years later, the monks gave up. They abandoned the monastery, moved inland and left the buildings…

At several places in Denmark, traces in the ground bear witness to gigantic buildings erected around the year AD 980. The structures were huge ring fortresses built by Harald Bluetooth. The largest of these castles, Aggersborg in North Jutland, measured 240 metres in diameter and stood as a forbidding monument to the king’s power in the tenth century. Archaeological studies show that the fortresses were built according to strict mathematical principles, with the gates placed with perfect precision pp at the four points of the compass, the ramparts built according to advanced engineering concepts, and the streets laid with solid oak. Today, very little remains of the original ring fortresses, which are not mentioned in any written sources. Therefore, piecing together the past and purpose of the strongholds is challenging,…

Few attributed much significance to the discoloured bones that appeared in the ground in 2008 near the small town of Salme on the island of Saaremaa, off the west coast of Estonia. The island had been the scene of fierce fighting between German and Soviet forces during World War II and discoveries of soldiers’ remains were common. So, when a work crew digging trenches for electrical cables came across the bones, they called the authorities as required and waited impatiently for work to restart. No sooner had archaeologists stuck their spades in the ground than long arrowheads and swords emerged. They were in for a long wait, for no sooner had archaeologists stuck their spades in the ground than long arrowheads and swords, rusty and brittle with age, emerged. The…

In 860, in the streets of the northern Italian city of Luna, a chorus of tall, weeping and wailing Viking warriors followed a bier towards a monastery. The warriors had been carefully selected. Outside the city gates, the rest of their army waited. The war band had tried in vain to take Luna by force, and now its commander was dead. Under the shroud lay their chieftain Hastein. Around his body, his faithful men had placed decorative axes and ceremonial swords studded with gold and jewels. The day before, Hastein had been baptised into the Christian faith. Luna’s Catholic prelate had chosen to grant the terminally ill Viking his dying wish. The mighty Norse chieftain would be laid to rest in a lavish service at Luna’s monastery. They vented their…

On 29th July 1030, two armies faced each other at Stiklestad, a village in central Norway. On one side, rows of tall, weather-beaten peasants prepared for battle. On the other, King Olaf Haraldsson and his faithful well-armoured royal guard waited behind a wall of shields. Swords and helmets shone in the dawn light. Everyone knew that they were about to fight a battle of destiny. A battle between gods. King Olaf was a committed Christian and wanted the whole of Norway to share his faith. As determined as Olaf was to convert his countrymen to his beliefs, the men of the peasant army were equally resolved to defend theirs. They fought for – and with – Odin and Thor. Everyone knew that they were about to fight a battle of…

Every year, when spring was in full swing, the Vikings got busy. As the sun shone and the lark and the lapwing sang over the fields, the men hauled sacks and barrels of provisions on to their ships. Dried meat, salted herring and plenty of grain for porridge were stowed under the planks that covered the decks of the longships. Then the men carefully packed their weapons and went on board. In the early morning, they set sail for foreign shores to trade, plunder or conquer new land. Behind them, the Vikings left the village women, children and elderly, as well as farm animals and freshly sown fields. When the men returned in the autumn, the animals would be fat after months of grazing and the crops would be plentiful…

Flames lick up the sides of the ship. Crackling, the fire eats into the dry wood and flares up. In less time than it takes to walk ten kilometres, the blaze burns the ship and the dead warrior to ashes. The soul of the deceased begins its journey. Having died in battle, the Viking is assured eternal life in Valhalla, the home of fallen warriors in the realm of the gods. As soon as the body is burned, the Valkyries, Valhalla’s female warriors, lift the dead man and fly him over land and rivers to Valhalla. Upon arrival at the mighty hall, several Valkyries welcome him. One of the winged women hands him a drinking horn filled with mead. Ahead of him await sumptuous meals, endless warrior jousts – and…

The first Vikings Pages 10-23T Douglas Price: Ancient Scandinavia: An ArchaeologicalHistory From the First Humans to the Vikings, Oxford University Press, 2015Philip Line: Vikings and Their Enemies, Warfare in Northern Europefrom 750-1100, Skyhorse Publishing, 2015A Forte, R Oram and F Pedersen: Viking Empires,Cambridge University Press, 2005 www.archaeology.org/issues/95-1307/features/941-vikings-saaremaa-estonia-salme-vendel-oseberg www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/vikings-may-have-first-taken-seas-find-women-slaves How did the Vikings live? Pages 24-41Else Roesdahl: The Vikings, Penguin Books, 1998Richard Hall: The World of the Vikings, Thames & Hudson, 2013Judith Jesch: Women in the Viking Age, Boydell Press, 1996Gwyn Jones: A History of the Vikings, Oxford University Press, 2001www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/no-one-questions-vikings-drank-did-they-make-wine-008010 Towards unknown worlds Pages 42-63Gwyn Jones: A History of the Vikings, Oxford University Press, 2001Judith Jesch: The Viking Diaspora, Routledge, 2015Duczko Wladyslaw: Viking Rus – Studies on the Presence ofScandinavians in Eastern Europe, Brill, 2004Ibn Fadlan: Ibn Fadlan and the Land…