Member
Thanks for the replay KoldHoldt.
Only speculation on my part though but I thought it possible. Learned a lot reading your blog!
I am very exited about the history of the "Primitive Völker" up in the north, the early English and Germanic cultures. I often wandered - would we think them so bloody and basic, if the had written down their musings and beliefs? The bit with the Berserker 's new to me, cool mushrooms! Guess a lot of our knowledge inside Homeopathy, Heilkunde, herbs, etc. will have their roots in the day by day use of our ancestors here.
Regards
Junior Member
Honestly. I'm not sure our view of them would be vastly different. The records ancient Norsemen did leave behind are often about praising each other for deeds done. Runestones were often erected to compliment a man or several who had died honourably in battle and tell of their warrior accomplishments.
Even if they did leave behind more records, I doubt we would be seeing accounts of their farming in daily life. Most people tend to record the extraordinary and not the ordinary. They would likely have recorded their biggest deeds and as a culture whose belief in the afterlife heavily relies on being a warrior culture, they might on the contrary have highlighted their warring deeds and further exaggerated them.
Viking age law texts are very telling though, and say a lot about the pre-Christian society.
From them we know:
- eating horsemen was important to them. Swedes refused to convert to Christianity unless they were allowed to eat horse meat
- They kept bees to get honey, but also kept bears.
- They were a highly hospitable people (Most of the sagas and the Norse mythology also tells us this).
- Their women owned the land and house.
- A woman (or a man) could divorce their spouse quite easily if there was reasonable grounds (a common one was: he is lazy).
The Icelandic sagas also tells us a lot about daily life in Iceland. This was a post-Christian society. but cultures do not change that easily and quickly so there is still lots to learn from this stories about what it was like to be a Norseman in those times.
The thing is... in modern day portrayal, people tend to assume all of those sources don't exist. They go off only the anglo-saxons sources and don't dig much deeper. So that doesn't give us a very varied image of the Norsemen.
