Posted on 01/03/2015 10:28:24 AM PST by SunkenCiv
The spam episode. I keep a can around in times of bad weather in case the power goes out for a long time etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8huXkSaL7o
Well, I object to all this sex on the television.
I keep falling off!
They've put burgonet helmets on Saxons more than once, here is but one example (season 2 ep9) ~~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a05AOYLIh8w
And again, the body-armor (having refreshed my memory with the above clip) does literally look like they got some kind of wholesale deal on the English armor from Braveheart (wasn't accurate for that either, but I digress).
Yes, the Vikings are beaten a couple times in the series, but in typical "bad-guy" fashion the Saxons lose scores of men to batter down the handful of scruffy heroes. As far as fighting well "for Saxons," in reality it would have been difficult, often impossible, to tell the two sides apart in a battle between Vikings and Saxons, unlike the Franks who never really took to shieldwall fighting (their armies being built around cavalry). There are many reasons that the Danes experienced so much success initially in their onslaught against Britain, but I'd say overwhelming prowess in combat was one of the least influential.
Small axes, arrows, knifes and so forth could and did indicate things about the person buried besides warrior status. Considering the domestic role women played in Viking society, the presence of multi-use tools certainly need not indicate that the person buried was a warrior.
Show me the skeletons buried with swords (a surer indicator of warrior-status, unlike more general tools like knives), the skeletons showing battle-damage (knicks etc.), buried in Britain or other places the Vikings would have gone on war-making expeditions, that have been identified as female. Unless significant finds have occurred since the last time I put a lot of study into the topic, I don't think you'll be able to present anything compelling.
As for Saxo...Much of his work swirls so thoroughly with legend that I don't think he can be used to support objective historical arguments -- why bother consider his talk of shieldmaidens, when we'd then also have to examine his talk of 7 years of preparations, hundreds of thousands of warriors, and thousands of ships at the battle of Brávellir? There were occurences of women taking up arms in times of desparation, there is no doubt. But in the context of the TV program in question, where women are presented as having an equal and unquestioned role in battle, absolutely not.
That and Potato/Egg hash if you know what that is.
Don’t know what that is...which is probably a good thing, LOL!
I enjoy the series, liberties or no-it would be so much worse if it had been produced in Cali...
Is there any truth to the rumor that the early Vikings traveled under the following motto:
Norwegian Bruise Lines?
Its a shame that such waring, brutal conqueres let the muslims walk all over them today
Shhh! Don’t give the TV producers any more wrong ideas to muck up that show with.
Actually it’s good, fry up a mess of potatoes....(American fry style) and dump in scrambled eggs at the end. Salt and pepper.
It’s filling and dirt cheap.
That DOES sound good!
And Filling! :-)
Most scale armor types don't change much from Roman times through to the Middle Ages. After all, how many different ways are there to affix small over lapping coins of metal to a jacket?
There are many reasons that the Danes experienced so much success initially in their onslaught against Britain, but I'd say overwhelming prowess in combat was one of the least influential.
LOL... Which runs counter to pretty much everything ever written about them. From every account I've read, they were not only physically impressive specimens, but their martial arts and tactics were extremely effective.
But in the context of the TV program in question, where women are presented as having an equal and unquestioned role in battle, absolutely not.
I never said it was common. But more sources than just Saxo mention Norse female warriors mixed with the men. Common? Certainly not. Especially not after Scandinavian rulers started "Christianising" their entire culture.
Looks like you have some more reading to do.
Invasion of the Viking women unearthed
This one starts on page 273. Includes photos and is annotated.
Oh God
I quit watching that crap
The women propaganda
Tell me they don’t have a homosexual hero by now
Valhalla Rising....beautiful film
Last Viking film I liked....Mads Mickelson make ya “take the walk”
I love that guy....cool Dane
My aunt would make that for breakfast when I visited. I loved it!
Agreed. It’s what I call “edu-tainment”. It contains just enough “fact” to get folks interested in looking up the realit behind the myths.
This is a good thing. Entertaining too, unless the fact that they used an anachronistic stich on their breeches ruins it all for you.
"Most scale armor types don't change much from Roman times through to the Middle Ages. After all, how many different ways are there to affix small over lapping coins of metal to a jacket?"
There are more ways than most people would care to imagine. Suffice to say, the type of armor the Saxons use in the program is not accurate for the period. There would possibly be a handful of very wealthy nobles who had acquired some similar armor through trade from afar, but to say it would be not be common is the understatement of the century. Chainmail was the ubiquitious, domestically made armor of choice for those who could afford it -- and most could not.
"LOL... Which runs counter to pretty much everything ever written about them. From every account I've read, they were not only physically impressive specimens, but their martial arts and tactics were extremely effective."
A great deal of their reputation stems from them having been pagans slaughtering defenseless Christians in abbies and outlying villages -- they were thought to be some form of chastisement from God. Objectively speaking, the political situation in Northumbria was tenuous, with multiple men vying for the throne of the kingdom and weakening considerably. Once the Vikings gained a foothold by scooping up Northumbria, they were provided a base camp, horses, and supplies in East-Anglia, the people there preferring that to the fate of Northumbria. Mercia was weak and divided. In France, they faced stiff resistence, but the French kings preferred to pay the invaders off rather than fight them. In the 880's for example, after the residents of Paris heroically fended off a Viking attack, the French king granted the Vikings a large payment of silver and safe passage to the coast, rather than annihilating them. They garnered a lot of success simply because good men refused to stand up to them. Once the Christian kingdoms truly stood against them, the Vikings didn't hold out particularly long. The Vikings were exception travellers and fierce warriors, but the near-supernatural reputation they've acquired is based as much in legend as reality.
On the next topic -- Macleod's study has been extrapolated far beyond it's findings. The Vikings intended to settle Britain, so of course many of them brought their wives and children with them. It doesn't mean anything, except that. The study is unavailable to the public for general viewing, but I do know that the only female grave that supposedly contained a sword, in reality contained fragments of metal that some archeologists have conjectured were part of a sword -- hardly compelling.
I knew the Minnesota Vikings were good at SOMEthing!
Or had you must not gotten to those yet?
Exquisite work there.
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