.
Close
to three hundred years, from before the year of 800 until almost
the 11th year hundred, the Nordic race shows a conspicuous ability
to spread over new land areas. Nordic hosts invade the western and the eastern
countries.
They show up in thousands in the French areas, they ravage
the coasts of The Mediterranean, and they behave like at home in
Constantinople in
the castle of the emperor. It is a Nordic extension time, which has
its parallel in the English extension in the 18th and 19th year
hundred, when Englishmen traveled in smaller or larger groups to
coasts of all countries along the seas in the whole world.
What was the basically causes to
the Nordic raids and emigrations, we have to guess. We can imagine
that settlement and the cultivation of land in the Nordic countries
had come to such a degree, that many young men thought that it was too
tough and unrewarding work to clear new land, when the see could carry
them to rich countries.
And as the power of the great kings would grow,
the land of the smaller kings and chiefs became smaller and smaller.
Their sons were born leaders of the adventurous Viking raids, and
there were always enough courageous young warriors, who would go with
them.
For a long time already the Nordic people had mastered the art of
building
ships. Long narrow easy vessels, which are driven by oars. They had
mast and sail, but only as minor power.
Whereas the old Nordic Viking
raids and merchant journeys to Friesland have probably been coasting
trade, where they never lost sight of land, we see the great time of
the Vikings from around the year of 800, that the Nordic seamen
venture out in the open sea, and suddenly they show up in foreign
countries.
At first they come in small groups robbing cattle and
plunder farms or a monasteries, which might be situated close to the
coast. Soon however they gather together in larger and larger groups,
which during the summer ravage along the coastlines.
Now and then they
rob horses and venture raids into the country for more days. In winter
not all of them go back home, some wintered maybe on a small
island in a river and start off again in the early spring.
At last wee
see them come in large fleets and land huge armies, who will stay in
the country. They fight from town to town, and at last they conquer
the whole country. From their homeland new vessels are still coming
bringing new warriors. Often they also bring their wives and children.
At the end of the year 900 the Nordic people are settled in and ruling
over extensive land areas far outside the Nordic countries.
We meet our
countrymen as masters deep into East European steppes, and in almost
all the British islands, in Iceland and soon also by the mouth of the
river Seine.
At the same time all the people along the European
coastline were afraid of the vessels of the Vikings with the dragon
sterns and the raven banners.
.
.
The most preferred arms of the Vikings was the broad bladed
fighting ax, which was only used by the Vikings.
The sword was a much used war weapon, and was often of high quality.
Many swords came from The Rhineland because of their high quality.
The helms of the Vikings was maid of metal.
The shield of the Vikings was maid of wood and covered
with iron and decorated with paint.
.
It is not always easy to determine from which area in The Nordic
Countries a specific army came. The attacked people, from the chronicles of whom,
we must obtain our knowledge, could hardly distinguee the tribes of the
North, who spoke the same language.
It is obvious that those warriors, who
went to the east to the countries of The Finns and The Slavs mostly came from
Svealand. It is also likely, that the islands in the North See
mostly were the goals of the Norwegian ships. But of the homeland of the armies
going to Britain and France there have been much doubt.
The chronicle writers
from there seems to call the foreigners for Danes or Normans more or less
at
random, and in any case these two names are not easy to understand.
Normans means originally "men from Norway". Danes is naturally the
name of the Danish people, but as they were the most powerful of the Nordic people,
it is reasonable to believe, that many French writers also have converted
this to other Nordic countries.
It is also likely, that the Danes also have
had people from Viken in Norway and westgøter from Svealand. Most of the
Vikings came from Denmark and its neighboring areas, but it was not from here
the Viking raids began. It was around 790 that the inhabitants at the
coast of North England one day saw a sail raising from the sea. Foreign vessels
headed for the coast and savage warriors came to shore.
The
Anglo-Saxon chronicle tells, that it was three ships from Haruqaland. It can
hardly mean
nothing, but Haruqaland, the known Vest Norwegian countryside, the
name of which in that times Nordic language has sounded like
Haruqaland.
From this Nordic area the Viking raids started, situated directly by
the
sea, and they have been used to sailing, and they were the first at
open
sea.
Right west of Hadanger Fjord, only a couple of days sailing away, the
brink
erne of The Shetlands raise from the sea. And from there the route
south to
The Orkneys and after that to the coast of Scotland and on to Ireland.
While the Danes and the other tribes, who with them went by the coast
of The
North Sea to the Anglo-Saxons and the Irish countries, the West
Norwegian
Vikings found their way across the open sea to the same places. The
North
people and the Danes did not stop here, they sailed through the
English
Channel and further on to the south, sailed through the Strait of
Gibraltar
and into The Mediterranean Sea.
It was a varied and colorful universe our ancestors now learned to
know. It
was various peoples with highly different culture they came upon, and
from
whom they learned themselves. At more places the Nordic people have
seriously intervened in the life of these people, but even more
serious the
Nordic people themselves became intervened by the new and unknown.
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