After I discovered that I had no Indian blood I started researching the history of the Danes of Denmark, the country of my Maternal Grandparents. This painting is a result of some of that research.
Vikings, Nordic peoples – Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians – raided and settled in large areas of eastern and western Europe during a period of Scandinavian expansion from about 800 to 1100. The Vikings were both a warrior and farming society from the region now known as Scandinavia. They were also seafaring explorers who sailed beyond their homelands not only to raid, but also to build settlements in other parts of the world. The Danish Vikings went south toward Germany, France, England, Spain, and into regions of the northwestern Mediterranean coast.
The raids of the Vikings in the 9 th and 10 th centuries are among the best-known episodes of early medieval history. Despite the notoriety the Vikings attracted because of their ferocity, within a century or two they settled in the lands they raided. At the same time, the Vikings were developing new outposts of settlement in Iceland, Greenland, North America, and the North Atlantic, and establishing kingdoms in Scandinavia along the line of the European kingdoms to the south. As they became assimilated in their new lands, they became farmers and traders as well as rulers and warriors.
Few written records exist of the Vikings; as a result knowledge of the peoples of Scandinavia in the pre- and early- Viking period is limited. The basic social structure was that of small, free farmers who owed loyalty to the headman or patriarch of the family, or to the regional chief or noble.
Because of the harsh climate and the many enterprises that took men away from home for extended periods, free-born women possibly enjoyed a base of power and responsibility for family and economic affairs not matched by women elsewhere in Western Europe. In harsh climate the thinly scattered population lived by framing, fishing, and trading – mostly by the sea. As a result these groups did not consolidate into kingdoms until around the time the Vikings began to venture on their raids in about 800. For several generations after the raids began, the bands of Danes or Vikings or Northmen, as they were known in Western Europe, arrived mostly as small-scale undertakings, not as royal expeditions or large invasions.
They worshiped a number of gods, including Odin, the god of war and leader of the Norse gods, Thor, the god of thunder, and Balder, the god of light. Viking warriors believed that if they died heroically they would be called to dwell with Odin in Valhalla, his palace in the realm of Gods.
The basic economy was agriculture. The short growing season sufficed to meet the demand for grain for cattle and stock grazing. Because the people of this world mostly lived along the coasts, fishing played a significant part in their lives, as did sea trade. Even before the Viking raids began, the markets of Europe to the south were always interested in the raw goods of the North Sea and the Baltic. Furs, timber, amber, slaves (mostly from Slavic regions) were primary commodities.
Viking ships, because of their shallow draft, were able to successfully navigate rivers and streams that many other vessels could not. This allowed the Vikings to raid settlements far upriver from the sea, settlements that frequently were not prepared for an attack from the water.
Many of the men became settlers in the lands where they had first appeared as marauders and raiders. They either brought families' from home or intermarried with the local people. In such areas as northern England and Normandy, on the coast of what is now France, the combination of peoples and cultures that resulted from these settlements led to a new mix of ethnic stocks, languages, and institutions. Because of their interest in commerce, the Vikings fostered urban growth, founding many cities and towns. Cities founded by the Vikings, such as York in England and Dublin in Ireland, emerged as prominent trade centers.
These Viking, now called Normans, adopted the French language and ways and organized a strong state in Normandy. Numerous bands of Viking adventurer's reached Iceland and their new home became a center for settlement by Norwegians and Danes. Iceland was a launching point for expeditions and ventures farther out into the North Atlantic. Around 929 Eric the Red led an expedition from Iceland, which settled in Greenland. His son Leif Erickson later landed on North America, which he called Vineland, or Wineland, because of the large number of grapes that he and his men found.
.jpg)