A nice. nice piece of satire from Mr Neil Gaiman on the way British history books are being subtly rewritten to promote the idea of European unity can be found here. Prepare yourself for warm, caring, agricultural Vikings.
When I was a grad student in the early 90s, there was a movement afoot to rename then "barbarian invasions" the "Volkerwanderungen," which is German for "the wanderings of the peoples," the gist being that what we typically call invasions were simply migrations of Central Asian tribes into Europe.
Of course, Vikings were agricultural and foremost traders. Our view of what they did is skewed by the recorded history of the time: no-one bothered to record trading visits ('I bought a new soapstone food bowl today! Jay me!'), but the blood-spattered raids were (obviously) recorded. This is not to say that all Vikings were cuddly, but they weren't (all) a blood-crazed bunch of berserks either.
(On a slight tangent: the Rune RPG is a hoot to read! 'Viking Mayhem' indeed...)
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The term never took root in North America.
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(Anonymous) 2003-04-29 03:20 am (UTC)(link)This is not to say that all Vikings were cuddly, but they weren't (all) a blood-crazed bunch of berserks either.
(On a slight tangent: the Rune RPG is a hoot to read! 'Viking Mayhem' indeed...)
-Hein