6 Viking Leaders You Should Know


Aryanwarlordsparta

Re: 6 Viking Leaders You Should Know

Post by Aryanwarlordsparta » Fri Nov 06, 2015 4:53 am

I found this article to be a good read and I think I will pass it along. I really want to learn more about ancient whites. I have family from Norway and found this interesting. Thank you for taking the time to post this so we can all learn about our great and noble ancestors. White Pride World Wide!

Volker Zorn
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Re: 6 Viking Leaders You Should Know

Post by Volker Zorn » Fri Nov 06, 2015 3:47 pm

Not a bad list--but too short!

It missed out some of my own personal favorites, including:
  • Ragnar Lodbrok
    Styrbjorn the Strong
    Egil Skallagrimson
There are Wikipedia pages on all of these men, for those who are interested!

Aryanwarlordsparta

Re: 6 Viking Leaders You Should Know

Post by Aryanwarlordsparta » Sat Nov 07, 2015 3:06 am

Thank you volker zorn I will check that out.

Volker Zorn
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Re: 6 Viking Leaders You Should Know

Post by Volker Zorn » Sun Nov 08, 2015 1:56 am

I was not to happy to see Olaf Tryggvason on the list of great Viking leaders, given that he is remembered primarily for the enormous racial crime of bringing an alien, Semitic religion to Norway, and then forcing it on the good Germanic heathens there, upon pain of death.

Harald Hardrada was nominally a Christian, although he inherited this faith from his father, and does not seem to have taken it too seriously.

The Christians also boast that Leif Erickson is one of their own, but I am doubtful of the claim. Rather, I believe that he was a heathen during his life, and then claimed by the Christians after his death to be a follower of the Pale Christ (as the heathens termed Jesus). It is true that Leif's mother was a Christian, but his father, Erick the Red, was an enthusiastic and pious heathen who, had a personal consecration to Odin (as did Egil Skallagrimson).

Waes hal!

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Will Williams
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Re: 6 Viking Leaders You Should Know

Post by Will Williams » Mon Nov 09, 2015 1:31 pm

Volker Zorn wrote:I was not to happy to see Olaf Tryggvason on the list of great Viking leaders, given that he is remembered primarily for the enormous racial crime of bringing an alien, Semitic religion to Norway, and then forcing it on the good Germanic heathens there, upon pain of death...
Thanks for that, VZ. I'm not much up on ancient Viking heroes, but your comment prompted me to look up this Olaf character: http://www.nndb.com/people/979/000102673/

Arriving in Norway in the autumn of 995, he was unanimously accepted as king, and at once set about the conversion of the country to Christianity, undeterred by the obstinate resistance of the people. It has been suggested that Olaf's ambition was to rule a united, as well as a Christian, Scandinavia.
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It's obstinate resistance of our people to give up the universalist alien creed that was imposed on them and embrace loyalty to their own race first and foremost that is killing our race today. We would be better off if Europeans had never been converted by the likes of Olaf. Our European ancestors' heroic pre-Christian beliefs suited their character just fine.

Though not a Viking, Charlemagne had previously overcome that same "obstinate resistance" in Saxons to be converted to Semitic beliefs:
Conversion of the Saxons: 772-804
North of the Alps Charlemagne extends his territory eastwards to include Bavaria, but his main efforts within Germany are directed against the Saxons.

The Saxons, restless Germanic tribesmen, have long plagued the settled Frankish territories by raiding from their forest sanctuaries. Charlemagne the emperor is harmed by their depredations; Charlemagne the Christian is outraged by their pagan practices. From 772 he wages ferocious war against them, beginning with the destruction of one of their great shrines and its sacred central feature - the Irminsul or 'pillar of the world', a massive wooden column believed to support the universe.

Image
"The destruction of Irminsul by Charlemagne" (1882) by Heinrich Leutemann.
It takes Charlemagne thirty years to subdue the Saxons; not until 804 are they finally transformed into settled Christians within his empire. It has been a brutal process. Charlemagne's method is military conquest followed by forced conversion and the planting of missionary outposts, usually in the form of bishoprics. In his book of rules, the official punishment for refusing to be baptized is death.

The chronicles record that on one day some 4500 reluctant Saxons are executed for not worshipping the right god...

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Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/Pla ... z3r0rtSOBL
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Benjamin Bice

Re: 6 Viking Leaders You Should Know

Post by Benjamin Bice » Thu Nov 12, 2015 2:28 am

Glad to see this thread has sparked discussion with Mr. Williams himself becoming involved. I have learned new things from the posts. I hope that you all shall also find this interesting.

A unique Viking sword goes on display for the first time since its discovery
Posted on July 15, 2015

Image

A sword was found in Langeid, Bygland (Setesdal, S. Norway) in 2011. It is a unique sword from the late Viking Age, embellished with gold, inscriptions and other ornamentation. It is now being displayed for the first time in an exhibition entitled “Take it Personally” at the Historical Museum in Oslo.

A special grave

Archaeologists from the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo discovered a Viking burial ground in Langeid in Setesdal in southern Norway. In one of the graves they made the discovery.

“Even before we began the excavation of this grave, I realised it was something quite special. The grave was so big and looked different from the other 20 graves in the burial ground. In each of the four corners of the grave there were post holes,” said excavation leader Camilla Cecilie Wenn of the Museum of Cultural History.

The post holes reveal that there was a roof over the grave, which is a sign that it had a prominent position within the burial ground. But when the archaeologists dug deeper there were few traces of gifts for the afterlife, only two small fragments of silver coins. The coins were from northern Europe; one was probably from the German Viking Age, judging by how it was embossed, while the other was a penny minted under Ethelred II in England dating from the period 978-1016.

“But when we went on digging outside the coffin, our eyes really popped. Along both sides, something metal appeared, but it was hard to see what it was. Suddenly a lump of earth fell to one side so that the object became clearer. Our pulses raced when we realised it was the hilt of a sword! And on the other side of the coffin, the metal turned out to be a big battle-axe. Although the weapons were covered in rust when we found them, we realised straight away that they were special and unusual. Were they put there to protect the dead person from enemies, or to display power?”

Dating of charcoal from one of the post holes shows that the grave is from around the year 1030, at the very end of the Viking Age. “And that fits in well with the discovery of the English coin.”

“The sword is 94 cm long; although the iron blade has rusted, the handle is well preserved. It is wrapped with silver thread and the hilt and pommel at the top are covered in silver with details in gold, edged with a copper alloy thread,” said project leader Zanette Glørstad.

“When we examined the sword more closely, we also found remnants of wood and leather on the blade. They must be remains from a sheath to put the sword in,” explained curator Vegard Vike. He has had the challenging task of cleaning up the handle and preserving the sword.

The sword is decorated with large spirals, various combinations of letters and cross-like ornaments. It is probably Latin, but what the letter combinations meant is still a mystery.

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The sword dates to the Late Viking Age. Image: Ellen C. Holthe, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo


“At the top of the pommel, we can also clearly see a picture of a hand holding a cross. That’s unique and we don’t know of any similar findings on other swords from the Viking Age. Both the hand and the letters indicate that the sword was deliberately decorated with Christian symbolism. But how did such a sword end up in a pagan burial ground in Norway? The design of the sword, the symbols and the precious metal used all make it perfectly clear that this was a magnificent treasure, probably produced abroad and brought back to Norway by a very prominent man,” added Camilla Cecilie Weenn.

“The way swords are referred to in the sagas suggests that the sword is an important bearer of the identity of the warrior. A sword reveals the warrior’s social status, his position of power and his strength. The sagas also tell us that gold had a special symbolic value in Norse society. In Norse literature gold represented power and potency.

Gold is rarely found in archaeological material from Viking Period and then too, it stood for power and potency. This indicates that gold had considerable economic and symbolic value. Based on the descriptions in the literature, we can say that the sword was the male jewellery par excellence of the Viking Age,” said Hanne Lovise Aannestad, the author of a recent article on ornate swords from the days of the Vikings.

The sagas emphasise the importance of the ornate sword. Swords could have hilts of gold with ornamentation and magical runes. The mythical sagas tell of magical swords forged by dwarfs. The creation of myths around the art of the blacksmith and the making of high-quality swords may be related to the fact that few people mastered the art. The production of metal objects of high quality may have been a form of hidden knowledge unavailable to most people. This gave the objects a magical aura.

“In Mediaeval literature, swords are referred to as aesthetic, powerful and magical objects. The many similarities between the descriptions of swords in Norse and Mediaeval literature suggest that the splendour of the sword in the latter had roots in the Viking notions of the symbolic power, magic and ritual aspects of the ornate sword. The Viking Age was a period of great social upheaval. At times like that, certain symbolic objects may play an important role in negotiating social positions. There is much to suggest that these magnificent swords were such objects, reflecting the status and power of the warrior and his clan,” said Hanne Lovise.

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Conservator Vegard Vike working on the sword. Image: Ellen C. Holthe, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo

The battle-axe

The axe found in the same grave has no gold decoration. But the shaft is coated with brass and it may well have flashed like gold when the sun shone. Such shaft coatings are very rare in Norway. But a number of similar battle-axes have been found in the River Thames in London. That makes the axe particularly interesting. Dating of the axe from Langeid shows that it belongs to the same period as the axes found in the Thames. There was a long series of battles along the Thames in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. The Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Canute led their armies against the English king in the battle for the English throne. Even the Norwegian king Olav (Haraldsson) the Holy was involved in the attack on London in 1009. The men under the Danish King were from all over Scandinavia. Did the axes get lost in the Thames during the numerous skirmishes, or did the victors throw them in the river?

Further down the Setesdal Valley we find a runic stone, which says: “Arnstein raised this stone in memory of Bjor his son. He found death when Canute “went after” England. God is one.” (Translated from the Old Norse). The text probably refers to King Canute’s attacks on England in 1013-14. It is likely that the stone was erected just after the incursions, by a father whose son never came back home. A written source from the 12th century states that King Canute’s closest army had to meet certain requirements. Soldiers had to honour the king, had to belong to the leading families in society and also had to provide their own gilded axes and sword hilts.

The Langeid sword would no doubt have been approved by King Canute, probably also the axe. The sword was made outside Norway and an Anglo-Saxon origin is quite possible. The axe is very similar to those found in the Thames, especially in its brass coating. The grave with the sword also contained the only coin found in Langeid from the Anglo-Saxon region, which increases the possibility that the dead man had a particular connection to the events in England.

“It’s quite possible that the dead man was one of King Canute’s hand-picked men for the battles with King Ethelred of England. Seen in connection with the runic stone further down the valley, it is tempting to suggest that it is Bjor himself who was brought home and buried here. Another possibility is that his father Arnstein only got his son’s magnificent weapons back and that, precisely for that reason, he decided to erect a runic stone for his son as a substitute for a grave. When Arnstein himself died, his son’s glorious weapons were laid in his grave. The death of his son must have been very tough on an old man. Perhaps their relatives honoured both Arnstein and Bjor by letting Arnstein be buried with the weapons with such a heroic history,” said Zanette Glørstad.

The runic stone dates from the same period as the final phase of the burial ground and testifies that Christianity is about to take root in Norwegian society. It is the oldest runic stone in Norway that refers to Christianity. Could this also explain why the weapons were placed outside the coffin? In a transitional period, people may have chosen to use both pagan and Christian elements in a funeral. The Langeid grave is from one of the last pagan funerals we know of from Norway and marks both the greatness and the end of the Viking Age.

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php ... -discovery

Carpetlayer1961
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Re: 6 Viking Leaders You Should Know

Post by Carpetlayer1961 » Thu Dec 08, 2022 3:32 pm

Years ago I was in Tallinn (Estonia) and visited a viking museum there, it was very interesting with a nice collection of objects, a lot of vikings lived in Estonia.

Thomas S NJ
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Re: 6 Viking Leaders You Should Know

Post by Thomas S NJ » Fri Dec 09, 2022 11:08 am

Volker Zorn wrote:
Fri Nov 06, 2015 3:47 pm
Not a bad list--but too short!

It missed out some of my own personal favorites, including:
  • Ragnar Lodbrok
    Styrbjorn the Strong
    Egil Skallagrimson
There are Wikipedia pages on all of these men, for those who are interested!
I always understood Ragnar Lodbrok to be a likely fictional figure, akin to Jesus or Robin Hood… I would be very interested in historical accounts of the real person.
H0195

Volker Zorn
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Re: 6 Viking Leaders You Should Know

Post by Volker Zorn » Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:09 am

Ragnar Lothbrok is a liminal figure: he lived right on the border between legend and myth. Had he been born a generation or two earlier, his story would have been subsumed by mythology; had he been born later, he would have clearly been an historical figure.

The story of Ragnar clearing a Scandinavian isle of snakes runs parallel to a similar tale about St. Patrick driving all the snakes from Ireland. This is a mythological motif, which suggests that there is a fictional component to Ragnar's saga.

On the other hand, the French recorded that a Norse warlord named "Reginherus" laid seige to Paris in the year 845. "Reginherus" is the Medieval Latin form of the name "Ragnar." Whether that raider was the same Ragnar of legend is anyone's guess. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles record that in 865, a force which they called the "Great Heathen Army" invaded England. The Norsemen were commanded by a group of warlords collectively known as the "Sons of Ragnar." So that suggests that Ragnar actually lived.

The name "Ragnar" was a common one in the Viking Age, and it is possible that the exploits of different men with the same name became conflated into one narrative.

Regardless, during the Viking Age, Ragnar was considered to be a role model and ideal for Norse raiders. When I was a young kid, all of my classmates and I wanted to grow up to be Davy Crockett. So it was for Norse youngsters and Ragnar Lothbrok - whether or not he really was the father of Bjoern Ironside, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and Ivar the Boneless!

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