Viking

“ Our knowledge of the Viking movement was, until the last half-century, drawn almost entirely from the works of medieval Latin chroniclers, writing in monasteries and other kindred schools of learning which had only too often felt the devastating hand of Viking raiders. They naturally regarded them as little better than pirates and they never tired of expatiating upon their cruelty and their violence. It is only during the last fifty years or so that we have been able to revise our ideas of Viking civilisation and to form a juster conception of the part which it played in the history of Europe. ”

“ The Scandinavian ‘Valhalla’ was no such ‘paradise’ as the faithful Moslems conceived, where, in sunlit gardens gay with fruit and flowers, he should rest from his labours, attended by ‘houris’, or maidens of celestial beauty. The Viking asked for no rest, only for unfailing strength and a foe to kill. In the halls of his paradise reigned perpetual battle all the day long, and, in the evening, feasts where the warrior, miraculously cured of his wounds, could boast of his prowess and rise again on the morrow to fresh deeds of heroic slaughter. ”

“ There was a suggestion of the Viking of old about this northern trader. His fair hair, quite untouched with the gray due to his years, his fair, curling beard, and whiskers, and moustache, his blue eyes and strong aquiline nose. These things, combined with a massive physique, without an ounce of spare flesh, left an impression in the mind of fearless courage and capacity. He was a fighting man to his fingers' tips—when need demanded. ”

“ Again he was a Norseman; and more, he was king of the Norsemen. He was the strong, subduing viking, and no sentiment must conquer him. He lifted the bronze horn and drained the ale to the last drop, though it burned his choking throat. ”

“ They will come in such force that they will reave half the land from the English, and then a Viking will rule the realm. Ay, and Englishmen will come to honour and love him. Then the Viking settlers will disappear, absorbed into the mass of the nation, and endowing the national character with a new strain of courage, daring, and adventure. But before that happy day dawns the land will run red with blood, many homes will be ruined, many patriotic hearts will break, and the star of England will seem to have set for ever. ”

“ Ye are the bonniest warriors I have seen for many a day," he croaked. Truly the sunken eyes of the gnarled old Viking sparkled with strange delight, at the sight of so many hardy-looking warriors. He went round to every man of them, and felt severally the stoutness of their limbs, examined their weapons, capering gleefully at the old-style weapons he was so familiar with, and grunting and muttering gibberish all the time of his inspection. ”

“ The hot-tempered Viking became a new man, and he thus communed with himself: "How can I ask this maid to share my life on the stormy sea? She is too tender and gentle to go under the dark clouds in a war-galley with me and my rude mates, when we sail to meet the enemy. ”

“ Is it for nothing that the splendid Scandinavian race, who have converted their rugged and rock-strewn peninsula into a group of prosperous and stable States, which are an example to Europe, and have infused the great Anglo-Saxon stock with something of their sane but noble idealism, have the blood of Vikings in their veins? Is there no place for the free play of all the best qualities of the Viking and the soldier in a world still sadly in need of men with courage enough, for instance, to face the truth, however difficult it may seem, however unkind to our pet prejudices? ”

“ The Scandinavian race survives in its descendants round the coasts of the British Isles, and the soul of the old Viking still burns in the seamen of the British fleet, in the Deal boatmen, in the fishermen of the Orkneys, and in that adventurous, bold, direct, skilful, mercantile class, that has encircled the world by its peaceful conquests. ”

“ We, as we gaze out south from the How of the Viking, can see plainly to-day the burial ground of other Viking chieftains of the dale on the grey green Latrigg's height; and sadly enough, we think, must they have passed into the dark, if so fair a sun as this shone upon so fair a scene, and the roses and elders were as sweet for them as they are for us to-day. ”

“ She had seen the mound many a time, but now the words on the runic ring had invested the spot with a new and mysterious charm.
"Orm's warriors were men with a taste for the picturesque," she said. "They could not have chosen a prettier place for the grave of their hero."
"Ay, close to the sea, that he doubtless loved well, as became a Norse Viking. And here for ages he has remained in solitary glory, with the surge forever murmuring his requiem."
"This is certainly a tremendous mass of earth to pile over one poor mortal," said Beatrice, contemplating the mound. ”

“ There is hardly a sound, save the creaking of the blocks, or rattle of the rudder chains, the joyous ripple of the water, and the screaming of the sea-birds, that seem, to sing their farewells. Away ahead is the blue horizon and the heaving sea, but he has faith in his good barque, and faith in his own skill and judgment, and for the time being he is a Viking ”

“ The Norse viking no longer plows the unknown wave, his heart wilder than the wat'ry waste, his arm stronger than tempered steel: He comes to America and starts a saloon. No more the untamed Irish king caroms on the Saxon invader with a seasoned shillalah: He gets on the police force and helps "run the machine," or clubs the head off the harmless married man who won't go home till morning. ”

“ Neither the next day nor the day after came the Viking, though he was on the way, but the wind was against him; [55] it was for the storks. A fair wind for one is a contrary wind for another.
In the course of a few days and nights it became evident to the Viking's wife how things stood with the little child—that it was under the influence of some terrible witchcraft. By day it was as beautiful as an angel, but it had a wild, evil disposition; by night, on the contrary, it was an ugly frog, quiet, except for its croaking, and with melancholy eyes. ”

“ Harald—a name common in Scandinavian history—we may suppose to be a Norwegian Viking. The Vikings of old Norway were the most terrible men that ever lived, but they were also among the grandest and noblest. Their trade was war, their religion was war, their idea of happiness after death was still war—eternal war in heaven, ghostly fighting on the side of the gods. Such an idea of life requires many great qualities as well as natural fearlessness and great physical strength. ”

“ The boy viking stood by his dragon-headed prow, and shook his clenched fist at the obstructed sea-strait and the Swedish spears.
"Shall we, then, land, Rane, and fight our way through?" he asked.
"Fight our way through?" said old Rane, who had been in many another tight place in his years of sea-roving, but none so close as this. "Why, King, they be a hundred to one!"
"And if they be, what then?" said impetuous Olaf. "Better fall as a viking breaking Swedish spears, than die a straw-death [G] as Olaf of Sweden's bonder-man. May we not cut through these chains?" ”

“ The Viking Age—Ansgar, the Apostle of Sweden
“In the North there is a great ocean, and in this ocean there is a large island called Scandza, out of whose loins our race burst forth like a swarm of bees and spread over Europe.” These were the words the Gothic historian Jordanes put on parchment, inspired by the popular traditions of a Teutonic migration from the North. Historic evidence is lacking to prove or disprove the truth of these words. But they may be applied to the phenomenon which has given its name to the Viking Age. ”

“ To beguile the time of waiting, Viking set out in a well-manned dragon ship; and, cruising about the northern and southern seas, he met with countless adventures. During this time he was particularly persecuted by the slain giant's kin, who were adepts in magic, and caused him to encounter innumerable perils by land and by sea.
Aided and abetted by his bosom friend, Halfdan, Viking escaped every danger, slew many of his foes, and, after recovering his promised bride, Hunvor, whom the enemy had carried off to India, he settled down in Sweden. ”

“ But often the old Viking spirit of his pagan days would master him, and he would hack down with his battle-axe the emblems and the altars of Thor and Odin, and challenge the old gods to avenge the insult if they had the power, and then tell the startled onlookers that if they were to be loyal to him and live in peace they must accept the new and better creed. ”

“ Harald Halfdanson!"
"Ah! the bite of the sword is sweeter than the kiss of your mother," he said to Olaf one day. "When shall I stand in the prow of a dragon and feast on the fight? I am hungry to see the world. Ivar the Far-goer tells me of the strange countries he has seen. Ah! we vikings are great folk. There is no water that has not licked our boats' sides. This cape of mine came in a viking boat from France. ”

“ Sometimes when he was finished the old Viking would talk on various themes. Brief glimpses of his earlier days, snatches of religious converse, his travels, and the strange peoples he had seen, he would touch upon before the evening prayer. ”

“ How they fought and drove [11] the Viking; how that the Viking led them along the coast till, our men weary with rowing, there came two fresh ships from a bay, hidden, friends of the Viking; and how that Lord Sigmund died in the fight, and how that our men fled north, while the Vikings shouted; and our ship ye have seen!
“On the sixth day after this, at the sunrise, let the ship be ready with new oars; the ship’s men will stay here to rest. I shall take the men that I call my guard; those who hunt bears with me in the forest. ”

“ I will not have ye despise the fierce spirit of your race that lives in ye! Listen. I know a Viking of the old stock, a true descendant of our heroes whose mighty deeds our Sagas tell. He hath a passion for ye deep and fierce, and pure as a Viking's love should be. 'Tis Sigurd of Lakesland, who was here but yestere'en. Let me plight your troth with him, and there shall spring a progeny like unto our forefathers, who will sweep the infamous Norman brood into the sea, and make the cowardly Saxon cower at the feet of the Norseman, as in the days gone by. ”

“ Fortune favored the boy viking. Heavy rains had flooded the lands that slope down to the Maelar Lake; in the dead of night the Swedish captives and stout Norse oarsmen were set to work, and before daybreak an open cut had been made in the lowlands beneath Agnefit, or the "Rock of King Agne," where, by the town of Södertelje, the vikings' canal is still shown to travellers; the waters of the lake came rushing through the cut, and an open sea-strait waited young Olaf's fleet. ”

“ The period of Scandinavian history to which the term Viking is applied extends roughly from the middle of the 8th to the end of the 10th or the first half of the 11th century. Its commencement was marked by the raids of Scandinavian freebooters upon the coasts of England, Western Scotland and Ireland and upon Frankish territory. Its climax was reached when in the course of the 9th and 10th centuries Scandinavian rule was established in Ireland, Man and the Western Islands, the northern and midland districts of England, Normandy, and a great part of Russia. ”

“ In consequence of the close intercourse which subsisted between the areas of the two distinctive schools of art during the Viking time, the influence of the one upon the other is traceable in such transitional styles as that of the Manx crosses and the decorations of the Skaill brooches to be hereafter described. And the Celtic manner, with a Scandinavian spirit, is distinctly discernible in the decoration of a sword-hilt (Fig. 40) found in a grave-mound of the Viking time at Ultuna, in Sweden. [36]
Fig. ”

“ Somewhere they knew his light was quenched, and they prayed the White Christ it would soon rise over them. His viking ship had been seen on the North Sea, and passing the shores of the Scoti and the Angles had sailed up the dark tide of the Liffey. ”

“ The grand old warriors of the viking period, who overran in quick succession the British Isles, ravaged the coast of France, swept through the Mediterranean and even penetrated to Constantinople, and wherever they went subdued and triumphed,—these are the men who, once the lords and petty kings of ancient Norway, scorning to bend the knee to Harald, chose unknown dangers in a strange and distant land, and going there sat down amidst the frosts and volcanoes of Iceland to relate the story of their deeds. ”

“ At the beginning of the Viking age the Scandinavian peoples were in a transitional stage of development; on the one hand there was still much, both in their theory and in their practice of life, that savoured of primitive barbarism, while on the other, in the development of certain phases of human activity, more especially in those of war, trade, and social organisation, they were considerably ahead of many of their European neighbours. ”

“ The Viking expeditions brought a large part of the population into direct contact with war and battle, while the former petty kings disappeared, or lost most of their importance, before strong rulers like Gorm in Denmark or Harald in Norway. ”

“ This helped fix the determination of the Norwegians to “show” the anti-Viking party. For there was the Gokstad ship unearthed but a few years before. And [197] from this vessel was modeled the Viking, exactly like this ship of the ninth century in size and pattern, except that the stern and bow were restored and finished off with a carved wooden dragon’s head and tail, splendidly gilded, after the style of the ancient Scandinavian ships. Manned with a picked crew of Norwegian sailors, the Viking was sailed and rowed over the wide Atlantic. ”