sometimes you can even drink beer with them
Posted on 03/13/2009 10:24:11 AM PDT by BGHater
From the moment that they ransacked a remote priory at Lindisfarne in 793, the Vikings have had a bad press.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s entry for the year says that the raiders made “lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter”, fixing the popular image of the Vikings for the next 1,200 years. New evidence suggests that many of the Norse invaders were in fact model immigrants.
Historians will try to redress the balance today at a conference at the University of Cambridge and show that the Vikings who settled in Britain and Ireland were technologically sophisticated, swapped ideas and often lived in relative harmony with Anglo-Saxons and Celts.
“The latest evidence does not point to a simple opposition between ‘Vikings’ and ‘natives’,” said Fiona Edmonds, of the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at the university. “Within a relatively short space of time — and with lasting effect — the various cultures in Britain and Ireland started to intermingle. Investigating that process provides us with a historical model of how political groups can be absorbed into complex societies, contributing much to those societies in the process. There are important lessons that can be gained from this about cultural assimilation in the modern era.”
The findings are based on new archaeological evidence, historical studies and analysis of the language, literature and coinage of the period. Together they illustrate how between the 9th and 13th centuries, the Vikings became an integral part of social and political life in Britain and Ireland and changed both countries more profoundly than is generally realised.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
model immigrants ping.
Yeah, comparing them to Muslims the Vikings were model immigrants.
Most of them just wanted to head South in the Spring for a break. How were they to know that there were no ATMS in the Isles and France?
Due to no ATMs and being left to their own devices by the unethical travel agents, they had to sack the monasteries to get the cash the non-existent ATMs couldn't supply. They are victims.
So what we are being told here is that illegal immigrants are kind, lovable and help our culture not hurt it. This is veiled political correctness. As a history teacher I always look at the underlying politics of any “new” outlook on currently historical beliefs. Accept the illegal immigrants and the legal ones trying to change your laws and culture. Its good for you. That’s the real message here.
My DNA indicates that I am a Dane (maybe a Viking?) who went to Ireland in ancient times and stayed. (R1b, DYS390-23)
that should be (currently held historical beliefs)
Countries and history is nothing but conquest and destruction.
All those tall, round stone monastery structures in Co. Wicklow, with the entry door quite a ways off the ground and only accessible via ladder, where the monks would retreat when Vikings came a-pillaging, would tend to undermine this historical revisionism.
"intermingle" (verb, from Old Norse): to administer an ax in the back or a sword across the throat.
“Deliver us, O Lord, from the fury of the Norsemen.
They ravage our lands, they kill our women and children!”
8th Century English prayer.
Same here. Distantly my haplogroup is IA1, which is called the Viking haplogroup. My most recent ancestors were Irish and English. Strange to contemplate that I may have berserkers in my lineage.
Correct. They left many blond hairs and blue eyes on the British Isles...
As a Viking in large part, I can safely say that we swapped some excellent ideas for their women and valuables and lived in harmony with their relatives (read wives).
The Guizer Jarl is silhouetted as members of his Viking Squad walk around a long boat with burning torches during the annual Up Helly Aa Festival, in Lerwick, Shetland Islands on January 29th, 2008. Up Helly Aa celebrates the influence of the Scandinavian vikings in the Shetland Islands. (Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images) #
Just ransack a couple of villages and rape their women and suddenly you’re some terrible person.
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