Viking musical instruments

Good evening!

Today we are going to talk about some musical instruments which Vikings used. I think it could be interesting for people like me who loves music. 

Singing and playing music were important to the Vikings, both in everyday life and for festive occasions. They sang songs when they were happy and when they were sad. They danced, sang songs and played their instruments when they had celebrations of some kind. They had songs to accompany them when working, making the work easier. They sang love songs, and lullabies for their children.

They had a variety of instruments. The first were bone or wood wind instruments.  The easily-hollowed branches of the elder tree have been providing simple whistles for children and musicians alike in every land in which the tree grows since antiquity. Bone whistles and recorders have also been recovered, most commonly crafted from the leg bone of a cow, deer, or from large birds. 

Replica of a bone flute

Bone wind instruments produce a remarkably plangent sound. The ones which have been recovered are all end-blown, with the sound being produced by an inset bone or more often wood fipple. The normal number of finger holes is three, although examples with up to seven holes has been found. 
The photograph shown at the right is a replica of a 13th century example of a bone flute crafted from a sheep's leg bone, found in Denmark.

Reconstruction of the panpipes

Another type of woodwind instrument was found during the Coppergate excavations , a set of panpipes made from a small slab of boxwood which date from the 10th century. This Anglo-Scandinavian instrument was created by boring holes into the wood at different depths, then the top of the hole was beveled slightly to form a comfortable rest for the player's lip.

Replica of a cow horn

Another type of wind instrument would be a type of recorder made from a cow-horn. A four-hole cow-horn was found in Sweden, with the mouthpiece being at the small tip of the horn.This is the instrument many people think of when imagining Viking musical instruments.

The Bayeux tapestry

 On the Bayeux tapestry we can see a blast horn, apparently sounding the signal to 'come and eat'. The tapestry was made around 1070, shortly after William of Normandy, a descendant of the Vikings,  had landed and conquered England.

Replica of a lire

The last instrument that we are going to talk about is the lyre or harp. The sagas mention the harp as a gentleman's instrument, however we do not have a surviving example from Scandinavia. Early medieval manuscripts show a variety of illustrations of this type of lyre in use.  

Those with seven strings or less seem usually to have been played by holding the instrument upright resting on one leg, with the left hand held behind the instrument with the fingers spread, apparently against the strings. The right hand may hold some kind of plectrum, or in some cases the right hand appears to be strumming the strings backhanded, which would result in striking with the fingernails.

  

The diary Vikings Life

Good Afternoon everybody! 

Today we will deal with the routine in the vikings´ life; men vs women.

Most Viking men were all-round handymen, but some had special skills. There were boat-builders, for example.

Most Viking men knew how to handle a boat, and most could fight if they had to protect the family or to support their chieftain.

Women were able to do different kind of things; baked bread, looked after the children, made the family's clothes and cooked the two meals a day most families ate. A well as on the farm, women milked the cows and made cheese.

Babies, to protect them from evil spirits and sickness, were given little Thor's-hammer charms.Girls often took the same name as their mother or grandmother, and a boy usually took his father's name too - so Eric, son of Karl, became Eric Karlsson. 

Viking children didn´t go to school because they helped their parents at work, andthey also learnViking history, religion and law from spoken stories and songs, not from books. It was common for a girl's father to choose her husband by the age of 15 or 16. That is one of the most hard thing to me... don´t you reckon? 

I have also read that it was really normal that a young Viking man might go off on a trading voyage, or become a raider. He always hoped to come home rich so he could buy a farm. Vikings met at markets.They usually traded by exchanging goods (a wolf skin for a pair of shoes, perhaps) but also used gold and silver coins. Traders valued coins by weight, and carried small folding scales to weigh a customer's coins.

Not everyone was free to come and go as he or she liked, I mean, some people were slaves. Slaves did the hardest, dirtiest jobs. People could be born slaves.The child of a slave mother and father was a slave too, but the child of a slave mother and a free father was free.

How interesant,hey? at least for me! 

Many slaves were people captured in a Viking raid. Viking traders sold slaves in markets, but slave-trading in England was stopped in 1102.

Now I will mention some of the plays and thingks vikings like to do to enjoy its free time.

Viking men enjoyed swimming, wrestling and horse racing. In winter, people skated on frozen rivers, and used skis over the snow. A favourite board game was hnefatafl ('king's table'). Players moved pieces around a board, like in draughts or chess. There were lots of versions of this game.

Most children's toys were home-made - whistles made from leg bones of geese, for instance. Children had wooden dolls, played football, and sailed model boats. Pig bones found at Viking sites might be toy 'hummers' - the bones were threaded on a twisted cord which you pulled to make a humming noise.

From bones, seeds and other food remains at Viking sites, we know they ate meat from farm animals, and from wild animals that they hunted, and collected foods such as berries and nuts. They cooked meat in a big stew-pot over the fire, or roasted it on an iron spit. Fish and meat were smoked or dried to preserve it. Viking bread was made from rye or barley flour. They used milk mostly to make cheese and butter.

At a feast, guests drank ale and mead (a strong drink made from honey). People drank out of wooden cups or drinking horns (made from cow-horns). Feasts were held to mark funerals and seasonal festivals, such as midwinter. Some feasts lasted over a week!

Jobs such as collecting wood for the fire, weaving cloth and baking bread took up a lot of time. Vikings did not have much furniture - perhaps a wooden table and benches for sitting on and sleeping on.

There were no bathrooms in Viking homes. Most people probably washed in a wooden bucket, or at the nearest stream. Instead of toilets, people used cess-pits - holes outside dug for toilet waste. The pit was usually screened by a fence. Slimy muddy cess-pits have been found by archaeologistsstudying the remains of the Viking town of Jorvik (modern York).

Viking writing

Hi bloggers!!

  Today we are going to know how did the Vikings write. They had their own system of writing, called Runes. The Runic alphabet, also known as Futhork (so called for the sounds of the first six letters in the alphabet) was in wide use throughout northern Europe from roughly the 3rd to the 12th century. At first, 24 letters were used, but in the 9th century, the futhork alphabet was simplified to 16 letters, beginning in Denmark, then spreading throughout the region.  Many variations of the futhork alphabet were used; one of the Danish variants is shown below.

  As we can see, all the letters consist of straight lines, making them easy to carve into wood, bone, or stone, which were the normal writing materials among the Norse, whit a knife or chisel. Words were formed by separating groups of runes with a full stop. The Vikings did not have paper or parchment like material. Their history and culture was passed down orally through stories and poems.

Stone with Viking runes

    Runes were not normally used to write down stories or poems. They were used record ordinary everyday things such as marking belongings or keeping a record of what was sold by a trader. The runic writing shown below is one of a number of wooden merchant's markers excavated in Bergen. It indicates the owner's name, and was meant to be stuck in or tied to a pile of merchandise.

Wood with Viking runes

      Viking warrior swords and spears were normally decorated with runes. The runes showed the owner of a weapon and also gave it magical power and strength in battle. Since ancient times, runes have been used for divination and magic, in addition to writing. The word "rune" actually means mystery, secret or whisper. The Vikings believed that the god Odin gave them the runes as a gift so they were treated with great respect. They also believed that the runes were magical and could tell the future.

Spears with Viking runes

  The Vikings also used runes to inscribe stones to remember dead family and friends. Thousands of rune stones have been discovered in Scandinavia and other lands that the Vikings invaded. One of the famous rune stone is the so called Rök stone, shown below, is an extraordinary rune stone over four meters high and is covered on all five sides with runic inscriptions. Many of the rune stones, particularly later ones, are memorial stones which served as declarations of inheritance.

Rök stone, Sweden

   Runes could be written left to right or right to left. The "facing" of the runes makes it clear which way to read. For inscriptions longer than one line, alternating lines were frequently written in opposite directions, first leftwards, then rightwards. Sometimes, the lines bent around at the end, so that one line reads left to right and the next line right to left and upside down. Some rune stones (such as the Rök stone above) have text crammed onto every surface of the stone, with lines reading upwards, downwards, leftwards, and rightwards.

  With the coming of Christianity, and its educated clergy speaking and writing Latin, runes were displaced by the Roman alphabet (modified to fit the needs of the various northern European languages), written with pen and ink on vellum. However, runes continued to be used for many centuries, since the materials for runic writing were always readily at hand: everyone carried a knife, and a stick could be picked up from anywhere.

Why did the Vikings stop raiding?

                          
The answer is hard to define not just because there no Vikings nowadays but also because they have ``disappeared´´ such a long time ago, but we can explain that changes took place in European societies that made raiding less profitable and desirable for the Vikings. Changes occurred not only in the Norse societies, but also throughout Europe where the raids took place.

Regarding to them, The Viking homelands were divided into separate kingdoms, led by rival kings, these new kingdoms became independent with leaders of their own.

On the other hand, by the end of the Viking age by AD 1100 , most European lands had strong central authorities, including trained, standing armies capable of mounting effective defenses against Viking attacks. Generally, the Vikings were not trained, organized troops. The violent attacks from the Vikings were ineffective against trained, professional soldiers supported by the king.

Another change that occurred as a result of the Viking attacks was that some of the more desirable targets were fortified or modified, making them less susceptible to Viking raids. Monasteries built easily defendable towers, where valuables and people could be moved quickly in the event of a raid. Some monasteries were moved inland, away from the reach of the Vikings´ raids.

On the other hand the Christian church arrived in the Viking lands at the end of the Viking age and they became Christians. Then, in my opinion this could be another important reason to the Vikings to stop raiding or at least to stop plundering monasteries, we have to remember that they loved to plunder monasteries because they had a lot of silver inside.

We could say that the Viking age ended when the raids stopped. The year 1066 is frequently used as a convenient marker for the end of the Viking age.  If you remember and read my articles, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, the Norwegian king Haraldr harðráði was repulsed and killed when he attempted to invade England. It was the last major Viking incursion into Europe as we said in the previous publication.

My conclusion to the question of the title is that the raids slowed down and stopped because the times changed. It was no longer profitable or desirable to raid. In no way the Vikings weren't conquered ever.  Did the Vikings disappeared then? No, actually they just were setting up and became, not Vikings, but Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders, Greenlanders or whatever depending on where they set up although mostly these places were where they set up.

Why were they so powerful?

Well we must ask us in this point what did make the Vikings so successful and powerful men? Nobody could stop them and everyone feared them.
                                       

The answer could be obvious if you notice that they had got the most fast, resistant and best prepared ships to sail of the period. Their vessels or Drakkars that were longships, narrow and very flexible vessels were used by the them for trade, exploration, and warfare. They were also called "dragonships" because they often had a dragon-shaped. The Longships had been the symbol of the Vikings' naval power for a long time. They were expert sailors,  they didn´t even need ship's compass in order to orient themselves, they just took advantage of the position of the Sun, Moon or stars to get orientation or symply they sailed alonside the coast but not only they used the sea, they used the rivers as well, thanks to this, they got into all parts of Europe. Their vessels were not too much big and they could got inside any river, spreading out like a plague throughout Europe. One remarkable thing is that they had to put up with storms, torrential rains while sailing because of these vessels were completely open. Probably many Vikings would died from hypothermia and others things associated with the cold, just only imagine that dark nights throughout open sea during winter, with strong storms etc you can realice how terrible had to be and how powerful were these men.
                                           
Another important reason was their cruelty and wickedness bigger than the rest of the tribes of Europe at that particular time, they were plunderers and killers. Actually we can say that the Viking were warriors, fierce warriors without compassion of any kind, they killed everyone, even babies, children and women, although women alao used to be sold by the Vikings after being raped for the Vikings. Their most important weapon was the axe, they had a great skill using it, they threw them against their enemies with such accuracy that mostly the enemy died with the impact or got disabled.
                                                         

One easy target and too much desirable for them were the churches and monasteries, because of the monks didn´t put up any ``resistance´´ and they had so much silver inside them. For the Vikings silver was their more desirable treasure like gold for Spanish in the 15th century but actually they didn´t want these treasures although it was very important for them so these were a mean of exchange.

Ambition and greediness were other factors for the Viking´s conquest, the more they had got, the more they would want to. The conquests and plunders became in a current activity for them like commerce. These Viking warriors didn´t like work for a living, they prefered robbing.

Viking language

Good evening!


Today we are going to talk about the language that Vikings used and its repercution in the nowadays english language. I think it could be interesting to know the way in which it has developed over the time.

Here you can apreciate some of the letters of the viking alphabet and their pronunciation!

Old Norse pronunciation

What was the language vikings spoke?

Well, vikings started to speak Old Norse, which was an ancient Germanic language from the north of Germany. It is closely related to Old English and it was also the language the modern Scandinavian Languages sprang, such as Swedish, Danish or Norwegian.

Nouns had three genders; masculine, femenine ans neuter, two numbers as in nowadays english ( singular and plural) but declined into four cases; nominative, acusative, dative and genitive.

Verbs were conjugated for person ( first,second or third), number ( singular,plural or dual), tense ( present or preterite) and mood ( indicative or subjuntive). Most of this inflection has been lost in the Modern Scandinavian languages which have moved towards more analytical structure. 

Most probably that was a language similar to the one used by the Norsemen. Nowadays the most similar one would be Icelandic as an example of  isolated medieval Norwegian.

Now I wanted to show you some text written in Viking language. So I have found this one:

Sample texts in Old Norse:

Þórr heitir áss, ok er sterkr mjök ok oft reiðr. Hann á hamar góðan. Þórr ferr oft til Jötunheima ok vegr þar marga jötna með hamrinum. Þórr á ok vagn er flýgr. Hann ekr vagninum um himininn. Þar er Þórr ekr, er stormr.

Translation:

A god is named Thor. He is very strong and often angry. He has a good hammer. Thor often goes to Gianthome and slays many giants there with the hammer. Thor also has a carriage that flies. He drives the carriage through the sky. Where Thor drives there is storm.

 This text I have found it in the next web page: 

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldnorse.htm

The Vikings´ costume!

Hi everyone!

Today we are going to talk about the fisical aspect of the vikings.

The image that we normally have when we think about vikings is totally wrong. Vikings never ever wore a horned helmet! didn´t you think the same, right?
Films usually show the originary habitants of Scandinavia ( the vikings) as violent warriors with  red bear, naked torso and wearing a horned helmet. But the reality was different.
Indeed, viking society was violent, in almost every grave, were found arms, cause a warrior had to be well armed!. They must wear sword, shield, spear, ax and bow with arrows. Actually these tools they used in their daily lives to hunt, eat or cut wood, and also useful to crush heads when they went to war.

                                



Specifically, the helmets with horns have never ever been found between the objects which come from the viking era. It is rather an invention from the XIX romanticism, it exagerated and idealized the force of those warriors.



                              

The images that appears in films do not represent the real aspect they truely had. For example, it is asumed that they wore metalics helmets with horns, but metal was really expensive in that period. A sword cost the same that a house, just the richier got one. What they really wore was a leather helmet with metal reinforcements, if they could afford it.
So then, why do we think that vikings wore a horned helmet?
Well, it´s a mith created in XIX century, during the romanticism, when everything was exagerated, overstanding things.


Now, we are going to see some of the most important tools they used:

Viking Spears

Here I show you one of the most common and important weapon that a Viking warrior had to wear, it is a spear. Viking spears have metal heads usually on wooden.Viking warrior used the spears for both throwing and thrusting with one hand.

Viking Swords

It is an interesting object in this period. Vikings owning a sword as a  matter of high prestige and wealth. This is the Viking sword  which was a single handed weapon. Vikings were able to swing faster and have harder strokes and at the same time, allowing to bend and not break.

Viking Axes

Axes of the Vikings were also called the Danish Axe, that were an early type of polearm. Viking Axes are made light enough to withstand throwing with there forged heads and hardened edges. This tool also was used on farms and cutting wood for their Viking ships!

Viking Clothing

Viking used more wool than anything else for making clothing. Viking men were a long woolen Viking tunic and long trousers.In cold weather and for feet protection, they wore Viking boots that were made of leather. 

It is very curious that the vikings made their own clothes from cloth woven from a loom by women and children in their own home. Most men wore long hair and beards as a protection from the cold weather.

Viking Shields 

The use of Viking shields went essentialy  to parry blows from an opponent. The Viking shield was typically round. The Viking shield was made of planks of woods. It usually contained a hole at the center that supported a hand grip at that point, covered by a metal boss.

Viking Coins

It might come as some surprise to find that the Vikings did indeed use coins; not everything could be traded for and not everything could be gotten from raiding other villages and cultures. These are a number of Viking coins, which were primarily used by Vikings, Normans, and Saxons as currency during history. Each of these Viking coins are made from antique-plated pewter and based on an actual historical coin, such as the penny.

How interesting!! Don´t you reckon? :)