#medieval scandanavia

[elisabethwheatley]

Cooking implements have been most often been found in the graves of male vikings. Make of that what you will.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

https://www.tcd.ie/tceh/blogs/vikings.php

Author Tenaya Jorgensen

What happens if when archaeologists excavate a Viking grave, but find no body inside? Are the grave goods found within enough to determine the identity – either sex or gender - of the individual? Perhaps it is time for archaeologists and historians to challenge their assumptions regarding the relationship between artefacts and gender. In order to move forward, we must also look back by re-examining the corpus of existing identifications and the reasons why those identifications were made in the first place.

My PhD dissertation is not about sexuality and gender. I had not intended to take a strong stance on gendered-issues, as my thesis attempts to chart an interdisciplinary macro-history of the Early Viking Age (790-920 AD). As such, there seemed to be little room within my area of study for the finer ruminations required for the discussion of identity politics.

But then I began to catalogue Viking Age Graves across Western Europe, and what I found - well, it bothered me. Of the 64 burial sites in Ireland, only 33 of these sites contained human remains. Of the remaining 31, the cemeteries and single burials were identified solely through grave goods. Similarly, in Scotland, 31 burial sites out of 60 evidenced human remains. The other 29 were, again, identified by Viking Age objects.

Why do we sex and gender Viking graves that contain no bodies?

While it is understandable that graves may be correctly identified through the use of grave goods, I was struck by the confidence with which scholars identified burials as either ‘male,’ or ‘female,’ depending on the assemblage provided.

For example, in the 1940s, Sigurd Grieg compiled Viking Antiquities in Scotland for Haakon Shetelig’s six volume compendium on Viking Antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland(1). Although now over eighty years old, Grieg’s work remains the most comprehensive survey available on Viking Age burials in Scotland. Only a few individual corrections have been made, but Grieg’s survey as a whole has not received any extensive updates, and these updates are much needed.

Grieg states that in 1862, “the skeleton of an aged man, interred with a sword and possibly with a shield,’ was excavated at Ardvonrig, on the Isle of Barra, in Scotland. Also discovered were a tortoise brooch, bronze brooch, bronze peninsular brooch, and a needle case, “evidently belonging to a woman’s grave.” The problem is, only one set of human remains was found. Despite the lack of a second body, Grieg stated that the “mound probably contained a double grave for a man and a woman.”(2) His assumptions were based only around the suggestion of weapons within the grave - no other justification was provided.

Fast forward to 1990, when Kate Gordon at the British Museum re-examined the excavated objects. She ultimately determined that the sword was not, in fact, a weapon, but a weaving sword/baton, while the shield was a pair of heckles, which are also textile equipment. Armed with the findings of her reanalysis, Gordon suggests that the individual buried at Ardvonrig, “in absence of osteological sexing, was almost certainly a female.”(3)

However, even Gordon’s reanalysis bothered me, for why must the individual buried on the Isle of Barra have been almost certainly a female? Marianne Moen’s 2019 PhD thesis, Challenging Gender: A reconsideration of gender in the Viking Age using the mortuary landscape, brilliantly examines this question by analysing common practices and separating exceptions from the rule.(4) That is to say, while women are often buried with textile equipment, and men are often buried with weapons, that does not mean that it is always so. This, of course, brings up a further difficult point regarding sex and gender. According to Jennifer Tseng in the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, “sex refers to the biological differences between males and females. Gender refers to the continuum of complex psychosocial self-perceptions, attitudes, and expectations people have about members of both sexes.”(5) The former is much more straightforward - if we have a body, that is.

Gendered practices in Viking graves

There can be no conversation about gendering burial practices without mention of the Birka warrior. In 2017, archaeologists confirmed that a burial containing weapons could be positively associated with a female skeleton (Bj.581) through DNA analysis.(6) Response to their publication was swift, and the debate centered around whether the presence of weapons conclusively affirmed that the woman was, in fact, a warrior. The authors, with the addition of Neil Price from Uppsala University, offered a more nuanced take in 2019 when they published, ‘Viking warrior women? Reassessing Birka chamber grave Bj.581.’ While the first article meant to primarily address the genomic analysis, the latter article took greater care in examining the implications of both Viking Age funerary practices and archaeology, and ‘the ways in which we engender the societies of that time.”(7)

So how do we engender the Viking Age? Our representations of the Viking Age are coloured by societal norms of the 20th and 21st centuries - especially in popular culture and outside the confines of a sometimes rather sterile academic environment. That is to say, male biological sex was often synonymous with a man’s gendered identity, and that the role of a warrior was exclusively associated with men and males. As the authors of ‘Viking warrior women?’ themselves acknowledge, ‘the same interpretation [that the body of the warrior belonged to a man] would undoubtedly have been made had no human bone survived at all.’ While these authors suggest that this automatic conflation between men and swords was a product of its time (i.e., the late 19th century), they fail to acknowledge that these types of genderings are still occurring. Furthermore, we know these associations are still occurring today, because the survey of Ireland’s Viking Graves was only published in 2014, and in this survey, bodiless weapon burials are gendered as male.(8)

If we think twice about suggesting the presence of a male when a sword is discovered, can the truth also be said in reverse? If textile equipment is excavated, such as the baton and heckles found on Isle of Barra, does this mean we must automatically attribute the burial to a woman? While no biologically male burials have currently been identified with textile tools, many of the sites contain bodies of indeterminate sex - or simply no bodies at all. Furthermore, what of burials that contain both textile equipment and weapons, but with remains too insubstantial to be analysed for sexing? Moen states the simple and obvious truth: “we are simply asking the wrong questions. Perhaps less rigidity in expected gender roles may be the answer to how to interpret such apparently transgressive burials.”(9) Perhaps less rigidity in sexing burials is needed as well - for we have no sex without a body, and gendering burials based solely on grave goods can only limit our understanding of the people who lived during the Viking Age.

[exercise-of-trust]

seemingly cool fiber arts person i followed a little bit ago just put radfem shit on the dash, anyway the blanket statement that the only contributions of men to textile production are capitalist/exploitative and the only contributions of women are household-centric/victimized is patently untrue. while less of a documented presence, women in medieval europe [1] absolutely participated in weaver's guilds and commercial cloth production [2], and men have been participating in household knitting in all parts of europe for as long as knitting has been a thing there [3]. like i'm not trying to say women haven't been deeply excluded from economic opportunities in the textile trade for centuries but you cannot be making sweeping statements like that about everyone in every part of the world through all of history and expect them to be true. do, like, a basic level of research and have a basic understanding of nuance, i beg of you [4]

footnotes/sources/etc under the cut, sources are a bit basic because i just grabbed whatever was nearest to hand but they should suffice to prove my point:

[1] i'm only referring to western europe here because that's the only region i feel comfortable talking about in any detail without embarrassing myself. systems of medieval cloth production in european guilds are not gonna look anything like the systems of hundreds of servants employed to do textile production for a household in china. don't make categorical statements about everyone everywhere all at once, you will end up with egg on your face.

[2] quotes from "when did weaving become a male profession," ingvild øye, danish journal of archaeology, p.45 in particular.

england: "in norwich, a certain elizabeth baret was enrolled as freeman of the city in 1445/6 because she was a worsted weaver, and in 1511, a riot occurred when the weavers here complained that women were taking over their work" + "another ordinance from bristol [in 1461] forbade master weavers to engage wives, daughters, and maids who wove on their own looms as weavers but made an exception for wives already active before this act" germany: "in bremen, several professional male weavers are recorded in the early fourteenth century, but evidently alongside female weavers, who are documented even later, in 1440" -> the whole "even later" thing is because the original article is disputing the idea that men as weavers/clothiers in medieval europe entirely replaced women over time. also: "in 1432-36, a female weaver, mette weuersk, is referred to as a member of the gertrud's guild in flensburg, presently germany" scandanavia: "the guild of weavers that was established in copenhagen in 1500 also accepted female weavers as independent members and the rules were recorded in the guild's statutes"

[3] quotes from folk socks: the history and techniques of handknitted footwear by nancy bush, interweave press, 2011, don't roast me it was literally within arm's reach and i didn't feel like looking up more stuff

uk/yorkshire dales: "...handknitting had been a daily employment for three centuries [leading up to 1900]. practiced by women, children, and men, the craft added much to the economy of the dales people." (p.21) uk/wales: re the knitting night (noson weu/noswaith weu) as a social custom practiced in the 18th/19th c.: "all the ladies would work on their knitting; some of the men would knit garters" (p.22) uk/channel islands: "by the early seventeenth century, so many of the islands' men, women, and children had taken up the trade of knitting that laws were necessary to keep them from knitting during harvest" (p.24) -> this one is deeply funny to me, in addition to proving my point uk/aberdeen: "the knitters, known as shankers, were usually women, but sometimes included old men and boys" (p.26) denmark: "with iron and brass needles, they made stockings called stunthoser, stomper, or stockings without feet, as well as stockings with feet. the men knit the legs and the women and girls made the heels" (p.32) iceland & faroe islands: "people of all ages and both sexes knit at home not only for their own use but for exportation of their goods as well" (p.35)

[4] actually? no. i'm not begging for shit from radfems. fuck all'a'y'all.

[enbycrip]

I have come across a number of things in books and podcasts about historical West Africa recently which have made me think about our current society and how we as humans handle prestige, class, resources and stability.

(I am aware I’m writing this as a white European and that the people this knowledge passed to me through had European or American accents and names; while all of them referenced academics with African names, I am acknowledging as a starting point here that there is going to have been flattening of power relationships, oversimplification, translation issues, issues with how oral histories reach academic writings, and the issues of a colonial lens *at the very least* in the transmission of knowledge to me here, and that’s before whatever misunderstanding and issues with my lack of context and structural racism have occurred in how I have processed what I have read and heard.)

So it seems that, in a lot of medieval West African kingdoms, particularly historical Ghana (relationship to the modern state of Ghana is complex and not really geographical), land was neither owned by individuals/families or by the king a la European feudalism; it was in something closer to corporate wider kin/tribal group ownership.

Unlike the situation in *most* of medieval Europe, there was just not a land shortage; there never seems to have been an issue with any individual or familial group having security of tenure of a particular area of land as long as they had the capacity to work it.

The issue of shortage was *labour*, not land itself; it’s basically the complete inverse of the situation in Western Europe in the 14th century just before the decade preceding the Black Death, when there was so much labour due to population growth that all the marginal land was under cultivation just to feed everyone and there was this underclass living in serious poverty and food insecurity, who were, horribly and familiarly, the first people to start dying in the decade of disasters that led up to the Black Death.

This kind of situation, where *land* is the prestige resource, is the one really baked into the European and colonial mindset, and you can still see the effects of it stretching into our modern western capitalist mindset when, in a lot of ways, that doesn’t entirely make logical sense. But, in medieval to early modern West Africa, the prestige resource was *labour*, not land.

Hence the long, stable social history of slavery in West Africa; when labour is your scarce resource, holding and controlling labour is how you gain, hold and demonstrate power and prestige.

And because it is long and stable, the institution of slavery in West Africa seems to have had a lot more in common with serfdom in Europe or thralldom in early medieval Scandanavia than chattel slavery in the Americas or Roman slavery. Because both of those depend on an Imperial mindset. While a society can *absolutely* persist stably with manifest inequality and exploitation, and even dehumanisation of whole classes of people, it can’t *use up* people the way those institutions did and still remain stable.

It’s not even simply an issue with birth and replacement rates etc; there are conditions of life that humans can tolerate on a generational scale and ones we can’t. We are these highly social apes that evolved to survive and thrive in small, hierarchical but highly interdependent clan communities. So there are certain kinds of stress we can tolerate an enormous amount of *if* we have other protective factors.

Imperial societies do not allow their underclasses these factors because they do not only seek to *maximise* output of resources at any given time; they see the maximum theoretical output as their “right”. They work slaves to death and exploit land to infertility because they can always conquer more land/take more prisoners/buy more slaves. The fact that they *can* acquire MORE people, and/or more land, quickly becomes a social imperative; they are *duty-bound* to acquire more people and/or more land; to EXPAND, and not doing so becomes a “loss”.

(Yes, Augustus set Rome’s imperial boundaries; it didn’t stop them continually starting wars for resources and prisoners to become slaves until the collapse of the Empire.)

I think it is fairly clear that modern capitalism is a global imperial society. You can, in fact, explicitly see that evolution. Capitalism was born at the same time as Spanish imperialism - and colonialism-genocide - in the South Americas; it was South American silver that was the resource injection that allowed the beginnings of the stock market in the Netherlands. Both of these were part of the Spanish Empire at the time, and the Netherlands’ nascent capitalism powered itself on that resource injection and used it to leap free from Spanish control and immediately begin its own colonial ventures.

Capitalism was part of the imperial machinery of the Dutch, French and British Empires; the American Empire has been more explicitly capitalist than it has been imperialist, as one became more overtly acceptable than the other. It didn’t really change its nature; just moved it from a national base - and let’s be clear; nation states are as much social constructs as anything else is, and the fact that they are somewhat anchored to a geographical location does not give them more objective reality than, for example, money - to something more diffuse that nonetheless still operates to systemically entrench power and privilege to certain people and marginalise others.

[baeddel]

i understand that it's quite silly to complain about some part of something so unsystematic and arbitrary, but Liber 777 (Crowley's big list of symbolic correspondences) does not include Fortuna in its list of Roman gods, nor Tyche in its list of Greek gods. this seems like a remarkable omission to me. right away, the Wheel of Fortune (which is derived from medieval Fortuna iconography) from the tarot list is necessarily mispaired. it's placed in position 21 and therefore pairs with Zeus and Jupiter in the Greek and Roman tables, and with Amun-Ra on the Egyptian tables—the lords of the heavens. what is the basis of that correspondence? of course it really needs to be with Fortuna and Tyche and, once you include them, Isis, who was syncretized with Fortuna in the Roman world.

another complaint: the Scandanavian list does not include Skaði or Iðunn. the only goddesses are Freyja and Frigg, who are made to fill roles which aren't appropriate to them. Freyja appears at 7 and 14, the same as Aphrodite. Crowley obviously thinks of Freyja as the Norse Aphrodite. i believe he thinks that because they are both women. apart from that, what do they have in common? i think it makes the most sense to pair Aphrodite with Baldr, since his stories revolve around his beauty. Freyja is a goddess of war, but in a very specifically Germanic sense, as a chooser of the slain. she is not appropriate to pair with Ares, who makes war, nor really with Hera, who is more like Skaði, the huntress (Iðunn can be Persephone, since they both get kidnapped and handle fruit)—she is more like a fate. well, today i read an article (click) which argues that Freyja has an association with ships: her hall, Sessrúmnir, is listed as a famous ship in the Prose Edda. they spin this into an argument that Freyja is the "Isis of Suebi" mentioned in Tacitus' Germania who is associated with ship symbolism. if this is the case, Tacitus has provided the attribution for us; Fortuna-Isis, the blind, inarticulate virgin who holds the rudder, is our unlikely correspondence for Freyja.

oh, and don't take this post too seriously—you probably shouldn't think about mythology in this esotericist way. we are as intersted in the differences between characters as we are their similarities. there isn't really an equivalent of Scandanavia's female dooms anywhere else in the world, and while it's interesting to think about Fortuna and Freyja's combined associations with fate, fertility and fortune, Fortuna has nothing to do with the slain and Freyja has nothing to do with chance. i just had to get it out of my system.

[nostalgia-tblr]

thought 1 (reading fic that mentioned coffee): wait wait wait... if asgard is essentially 'Medieval Scandanavia Plus Magic' do they have coffee or not? if they visit earth from space then presumably they could visit all of it they wanted to, so the Columbian Exchange not having happened yet wouldn't be an issue for them, would it?

thought 2: but you'd have to remember not to mention potatoes if you got summoned by a devout viking or it could get kind of awkward

thought 3: well maybe that's why leif erikson knew there'd be more land to the west

[livefuntravelposts]

The Most Beautiful Cities in Scandanavia

Whether Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo or Helsinki, Reykjavík and Tórshavn - Scandinavia has some cool and relaxed places to offer: tips for the most beautiful city trips in the north. Scandinavia is a popular travel destination, and the diverse nature, in particular, attracts many visitors to the far north. But the Scandinavian capitals are also definitely worth the trip - and that doesn't just apply to the well-known highlights of Stockholm, Copenhagen and Oslo. Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, is certainly only a few on the screen, but the remote islands are a real highlight. And Reykjavík is also an essential part of a trip to Iceland. Not forgetting Finland's capital, Helsinki, where you can enjoy the sea-view sauna even in summer. By the way, did you know that the Scandinavian peninsula actually only includes Norway and Sweden, as well as the northwest of Finland? Culturally, however, Denmark is also one of them - and in a broader sense, also Iceland and the Faroe Islands. So here's the complete overview of the Scandinavian capitals - with many tips and further information.

Stockholm: The Historical

Together with Copenhagen, Stockholm is certainly one of the most popular capitals in Scandinavia, if not in all of Europe. And with around 950,000 inhabitants, it is definitely the largest city in the far north. Stockholm offers a great mix of royal elegance and old-town charm, Swedish nonchalance and Scandinavian design. The heart is the old town Gamla Stan with the Stortorget and its colorful houses. The Royal Castle and the Nobel Prize Museum are also located in Gamla Stan - and the colorful streets with the medieval atmosphere are wonderful for strolling through. Like all Scandinavian capitals, Stockholm is right on the water. One of the numerous boat tours is a good way to explore the city and, ideally, to go on a trip to the skerries, the offshore islands, directly afterwards. In Stockholm, you can also walk in the footsteps of Astrid Lindgren and ABBA or marvel at a centuries-old ship that sank in the harbour at the Vasa Museum. And then there's the trendy district of Södermalm, the colorful art in the subway and the numerous museums. When you finally get tired of sightseeing, it's best to find one of the cool cafés and take a fika, the Swedish coffee break.

Copenhagen: The Cozy One

With just over 600,000 inhabitants, Copenhagen is significantly smaller than Stockholm - and yet or perhaps because of this, Denmark's capital is one of the most popular destinations in Scandinavia. Copenhagen is pure coziness. The most famous Copenhagener is the little mermaid. The Lille Havfrue sits on her rock in the harbor - and even if she's a little unassuming, she's an essential part of a visit to the Danish capital. Also popular is Nyhavn, where you can sit on the harbor promenade, especially in summer. From there, it is also not far from the royal palace Amalienborg and the opera, one of the chic new buildings in Copenhagen. The roof of the Amager Bakke waste incineration plant was laid out as a dry ski slope and attracts numerous visitors as CopenHill. In Copenhagen, you can also stroll through one of the largest pedestrian zones in Europe or take a trip to Tivoli, the oldest amusement park in the world. Foodies should also plan a trip to the Torvehallerne market halls and the former butchers' quarter "Kødbyen".

Oslo: The Green

Even if Oslo glitters in blue in front of the opera as the city's modern landmark, Norway's capital is really green. Located directly on the fjord, Oslo is surrounded by deep green forests, a popular local recreation destination for residents. In Ekelandpark, green is even combined with art - and you will also find a lot of street art and interesting sculptures in the city. The most important sights in the centre are the Royal Castle, the Cathedral, the Parliament Storting and the City Hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every year in December. With almost 700,000 inhabitants, Oslo is the second largest city in Scandinavia - and yet it doesn't feel like it. You can, for example, start directly from the port district of Aker Brygge to the islands in the Oslofjord and switch off completely. On the Bygdoy peninsula, you will also find numerous interesting museums, such as the Vikingskipshuset or the Kon-Tiki Museum. And things get alternative and creative in the trendy Grünerlokka district and around Oslo's Mathallen market hall.

Helsinki: The Youngest

Although Helsinki was founded in 1550, it was an insignificant city for a long time. Only since 1917 has it been the capital of an independent Finland. Today, with 635,000 inhabitants, Helsinki is the third largest city in Scandinavia after Stockholm and Oslo. The city is totally relaxed, which can be partly due to the numerous saunas, which are simply part of the way of life for Finns.  But Helsinki's landmark is the cathedral, which rises completely white over the city. The Finnish capital has even more churches worth seeing: from the Russian-Orthodox-style Uspenski Cathedral to the Chapel of Silence to the rock church Temppeliaukio Kirkko. And for foodies, the Vanha Kauppahalli market hall and the Teurastamo slaughterhouse district are the perfect destinations. The sea and the islands are not far in Helsinki either, and they definitely belong on the to-do list, especially in summer.

Reykjavík: The Colorful One

When you think of Scandinavian capitals, Reykjavík is certainly not the first thing that springs to mind. And yet the town with its 120,000 inhabitants is worth a visit. The northernmost capital in the world is a mix of colourful houses, Scandinavian design and friendly people. The residents are not deterred by the cool temperatures, even in summer, but rather meet up to relax in one of the hot springs and enjoy what feels like endlessly long days. In addition to the Hallgrímskirkja as a landmark and the futuristic Harpa concert hall, a stroll through the colorful shopping street Laugavegur is a must on the to-do list for Reykjavík. You'll find some cool street art here and throughout the city. And for foodies, a detour towards the Alter Hafen and the Grandi district, with its food hall and the chocolate factory is a must.

Tórshavn: The Hidden One

With just over 20,000 inhabitants, the most important and largest city in the Faroe Islands is one of the smallest capitals in the world. Tórshavn is the economic and cultural center and is an essential part of a visit to the archipelago in the middle of the North Atlantic. When you stroll through the small alleys in the historic center, you quickly get the feeling that you have landed somewhere in a village and not in the capital. The little houses with turf roofs, so typical of the islands, are too cute. On the Tinganes peninsula, right by the small eastern harbor, you will find the Løgting, one of the oldest still existing parliaments in the world. And right next door, you can ring the Prime Minister's bell directly. In addition to a few museums, you will also find nice restaurants and cafes in the capital and a small shopping street. Last but not least, Tórshavn is also a perfect starting point to discover these spectacular islands.

Our Final Word

Kati and I always love to travel to Scandanavia.  The people and the vibe are intoxicating.  They just seem to get it.  And it shows.  From great art and museums to incredible outdoor activities, Scandanavia has it all. Out of the top 7 happiest countries in the world, 5 are from Scandanavia and way outscore countries like the USA and Germany.  I think it shows that warm weather and lower tax rates do not bring people happiness rather caring for one another in terms of healthcare and healthy life expectancy along with the freedom to make key life decisions make Scandanavia a model of society for the rest of us.  

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[armthearmour]

A Battle Axe, Scandanavian, ca. 1400, housed at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

[fiverrhero]

Norway #vikings #valhalla #lastkingdom #thelastkingdom #history #scandanavia #norway #denmark #netflix #history #historychannel #sweden #historyvikings #vikingsvalhalla #vikingshistory #vikingsnetflix #netflixvikings #odin #norse #thor #medieval #sheildmaiden #viking #vikinglife #nordic #freya #asgard #ragnar #pagan #norsemythology https://www.instagram.com/p/CAJ80wYhUpI/?igshid=1t2kufwznf1d0

[church-history]

St. Lucy, Enduring Yet Mysterious Saint of The Early Church - Dec 13th

St. Lucy is one of seven women, aside from the Blessed Virgin Mary, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass. St. Lucy (283–304) was a wealthy young Christian martyr well known for her works of charity who, after consecrating herself to God, refused to marry her pagan betrothed. For this, she was denounced as a Christian to the governor of Syracuse, Sicily. In medieval accounts, St. Lucy’s eyes were gouged out prior to her execution. She is the patron saint of the blind.

St Lucia’s Day Traditions 

Italy:

St. Lucy’s Feast Day coincides with the Winter Solstice, a time where light within darkness is both appreciated and yearned for. In Sicily, the location of her martyrdom, a procession takes place on her feast day.

Remembering when St. Lucy saved them from famine in 1646 when a boat full of grain miraculously appeared on her feast day, Sicilians honor her by refraining from consuming pasta and bread on December 13th and instead celebrate by eating cuccìa, a pudding made of wheat berries and sugar

Scandanavia 

Sweden and other Scandanavian countries focus their celebration on Saint Lucy’s charity and bravery. Tradition holds that Saint Lucy would bring food and refreshment to Christians hiding in the Catacombs during Diocletian’s persecution. She would wear a candle-lit wreath to light her way and free her hands to carry as much aid to her fellow Christians as possible.

Now, every St. Lucy’s Day, a young girl is elected to represent St. Lucy and leads a procession, wearing a white robe with a red sash and a crown of candles on her head.

[thistle-and-thorn]

Do you have any headcanons about religious/cultural practices and beliefs in Westeros? How do you think they vary between Dorne, the rest of the South and the North?

I talk to Lilium-convallium (who I know is lurking on this blog 👀 love u darling 🥰) talk about this ALL THE TIME. I need to re read the books because I don’t remember a lot of canon detail honestly so this will not be a meta post, just Vibes.

But how I imagine it when I write about it when I write fic is classical mythology in the form of the Catholic Church. Ancient Valyrian has a very traditional and recognizable mythology that is Greek, Roman or its predecessors/contemporaries like Sumerian or even Egyptian etc. like I picture elaborate burial rituals, Parthenon-like structures, etc. I think when the Targaryens invaded there was some marriage between religious beliefs.

I always imagine the literature of the Seven’s religion to take on much more of the mythologized story/poems/hymns of Ancient Greece, with that strange sort of circular and concurrent timeline, rather than the sort of linear arc that Jewish and Christian texts often seem to be (like, I don’t think, first there was Westerosi Adam and Eve, then Cain and Abel, the Noah, then Abraham, then Isaac and Ishmael, etc. or the idea of a House of David that eventually leads to Jesus, etc within Westerosi religion). It’s not a chronicle. There also appears to be no Savior figure, not in the Christian conception of a deity come to Earth. We have Azor Azhai but that is more reminiscent of Arthur—an extraordinary man with magical friends and strength of character rather than a literal God—and has the vagueness of many prophesies that appear in Greek or Roman mythology.

A lot of Southron Westeros is very Italian/Roman to me. The Lannisters are blatantly copied from the Borgias imo (side note: Tyrion’s storyline is literally about GRRM’s journey to atheism you cannot change my mind), the High Sparrow storyline is literally just Savonarola fanfic (the way the tale of Baelor the Blessed contains elements of George III fanfic). So the form that religion takes in Westeros is Catholic and thus really tactile as opposed to the more academic Protestant religions. Even though we have maesters, I think a lot of the social programming is provided by septons and septas. We also have, however, the sept taking indulgences, lots of man-created liturgies, cult sites, pilgrim tokens and relic tours—all the hallmarks of medieval Catholicism. Can you imagine how sexy Westerosi sainthood could be?!?! They don’t mention it like that but like—I love this idea!

I think it would be interesting to lean into that—are there different varieties of septon, the way there are Cistercians and Benedictines and Franciscans? (I literally am obsessed with monasticism don’t mind me) I think it would also be interesting to consider potential schisms—Like Eastern Orthodoxy and the Western Churches. To me, the schism would clearly occur in Dorne. Do the Dornish practice the Seven? I don’t remember tbh but any form of the Seven would be distinct in Dorne from the rest of Westeros.

The North reminds me of Christianized Scandanavia where many of the indigenous mythologies were re-adapted to folklore and superstitions and occurred alongside the practice of Christianity. The Northern religion is fascinating to me—there is no pantheon. I like to envision its stories as being Celtic or Norse but I think this would take the form of the non-god related stories: giants, fae, brownies, Tolkien-style dwarves. I think there’s something apocalyptic about Northern mythologies—celestial battles, etc. Their traditions are oral, often sung—later developing into troubadours—and stories of heroes similar to Beowulf, Fionn mac Cumhaill, etc. would be popular as well as fabled histories similar to the Aeneid, Arthur, or the Iliad. I don’t think they would have fondness for trickster characters like Loki or Odysseus and would instead focus on the moral or chivalric meanings of the myths.

The Red Priests and Priestesses are Zoroastrians. And I think that’s cool because Zoroastrians are cool.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. More will bubble up—this is my literal favorite topic. What about your head canons?

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Hi! I saw your tags in that post about identifying skeletal remains, and what is the book you mentioned about gender? Do you have any other you recommend about gender marks in burials or gender in history? This sounds amazing, now I want to read more about it!

Hey!

 Yeah, I was referring to Neil Price's Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings. I believe he also gets into it a little bit in his The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia, but it's been a while since I've read it (still recommend as an overall text on magic in the time - also for anyone who has read my Grima stuff and thought: huh, that seidr shit sure is interesting). He's very good at saying archeologists can, at best, determine the sex of remains but gendering them is beyond the reach of science.

A small excerpt from Children of Ash and Elm to give you a flavour of his approach (any grammar or punctuations errors are mine):

However, in many cases the deceased were created an the resulting ashes are hard to sex reliably. More often, presercation conditions in the soil are unfavourable for the survival of bone in any state, and there are many graves without human remains at all (although they were evidently originally present). In these cases, for centuries archeologists have resorted to determining the sex of the dead through associated with supposedly gendered objects--this weapons in a grave are held to suggest a man, jewellery sets donate a woman, and so on. Beyond the obvious problem of conflating sex and gender, and also effectively sexing metal, these readings risk simply piling one set of assumptions on another in what forensic-decision-makers call a 'bias snowball' of cumulatively questionable interpretations. Clearly this is unsatisfactory, and at worst can lead to a potentially vast misreadying of Viking-Age gender from the literally tens of thousands of burials that have been analysed in this way over the years.

[...]

At Vivallen in Swedish Harjedalen, there was even a male-bodied person buried according to Sami rituals, in a Sami settlement, but wearing conventional Sami man's equipment over a Nordic woman's linen dress, complete with jewellery to match--a crossing of both gender and cultural norms.

Some additional resources to consider (there are more Neil Price pieces in this list since early medieval Scandinavian burial practices are a cornerstone of his research). It's a mix of books and journal articles as well as a mix of more "layman" friendly and more true-academic texts. For the journal articles, I'm not sure if you're associated with a secondary educational institution, but some local libraries will grant access to online academic journals, as an FYI.

(Apologies in advance for the lack of correct accents and other things on names (e.g., Th instead of the proper thorne), I'm working with a north American keyboard and doing this off the corner of my desk at work, so to speak)

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Stfean Brink, Neil Price, The Viking World

Hilda Ellis, The Road to Hel: A Study in the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature (this is a broad study of death rituals in the era, not really gender-archeology focused, but it's 100% worth the read and very thorough)

Anders Andren, Jens-Peter Schjodt, and John Lidow, Pre-Christian Religions of the North: Histories and Structures (Neil Price has a good essay/chapter contribution in here on death & mortuary behaviour)

Howard Williams, Death and Memory in Early Medieval Britain

Marianne Moen, Matthew J. Walsh, "Agents of Death: Reassessing Social Agency and Gendered Narratives of Human Sacrifice in the Viking Age," Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2021

Leszek Slupecki, Rudolf Simek, Conversions: Looking for Ideological Change in Early Middle Ages (has some stuff of "deviant" burial customs and concepts of the "dangerous dead" - stuff I fucking wet myself over, honestly)

Andrew Reynolds, Anglo-Saxon Deviant Burial Customs

Joanne O’Sullivan, "Strung Along: Re-evaluating Gendered Views of Viking-Age Beads," Medieval Archaeology, 2015

Judtih Jesch, Women in the Viking Age (note: it's from the early 90's and very much reflects academic gender and feminist work at that time - still always worth reading older texts for the sake of good historiography alone. Also to see what has been explored before and why we might have new approaches, or to see wher current views originated etc)

Sarah Tralow and Liv Nilsson Stutz, The Oxford Handbook of the Archeology of Death and Burial

Duncan Sayer, Howard Williams, Mortuary Practices and Social Identities in the Middle Ages

Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, Anna Kjellström, Torun Zachrisson, Maja Krzewińska, Veronica Sobrado, Neil Price, Torsten Günther, Mattias Jakobsson, Anders Götherström, Jan Storå, "A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics," Wily Online (link to article, it's open access)

Jacob Bell, "Magic, Genderfluidity, and queer Vikings, ca. 750‐1050," History Compass, 2021

Isabelle Algrain, "Gender and diversity in archaeological contexts," Revista Arqueologia Pública, 2021

Thora Petursdottir, "Icelandic Viking Age graves: Lack in material--lack of interpretations?", Archeologia Islandica, 2009

Anna Wessman, "Death, Destruction and Commemoration: Tracing Ritual Activities in Finnish Late Iron Age Cemeteries," Finnish Antiquarian Society, 2010

Ahmad ibn Fadlan was a 10th century Muslim traveler/explorer who visited these areas and wrote about it. You can find various translations of his works around. He has a description of at least one burial and related practices. Also some fun descriptions of sexual/fertility rituals though he sadly "fades to black" before the good stuff starts.

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I hope this helps! I am always very excited to talk about anything related to early medieval Scandinavia (also early modern Europe) and so always happy to get these asks <3 <3

[keefechambers]

Me, trying to plot a novel: it doesnt have to be a big conspiracy just because it's a high fantasy story. make it small and personal.

Me: oh, look, a medium sized conspiracy!

The First, more sensible me: ....fine.

[absolutebearings]

viking age reading list

because i like to go full ham when it comes to my hyperfixations, i have acquired a small course of material to devour -- since i am working on an original viking age project thing (along with my dumb fanfic) there’s lot of application so i expect to be working through it for at least the rest of the year

general study

the oxford illustrated history of the vikings, sawyer

the world of the vikings, hall

a brief history of the vikings, clements

the vikings, magnusson

the vikings, oliver

the vikings, ferguson

the viking wars, adams

the vikings, roesdahl

the age of the vikings, winroth

a history of the vikings, jones

ivory vikings: the mystery of the most famous chessmen in the world and the woman who made them, brown

the vikings and their age, sommerville

beyond the northlands, barraclough

myths

tales of valhalla: norse myths and legends, whittock

viking myths and sagas, kerven

the prose edda

poems of the elder edda, terry

norse mythology: a guide to the gods, rituals, heroes, and beliefs, lindow

the norse myths, crossley-holland

myths of the pagan north: the gods of the norsemen, abram

song of the vikings: snorri and the making of norse myths, brown

specialized studies (the shit that actually cost me textbook money)

nordic religions in the viking age, dubois

architecture, society, and ritual in viking age scandanavia, eriksen

viking worlds: things, space, and movement, ericksen

the viking age, a reader, 3rd edition, somerville

the viking way: magic and mind in late iron age scandanavia, price

the far traveler: voyagers of a viking woman, brown

the viking world, brink & price

the viking spirit, mccoy

myth, materiality, and lived religion: in merovingian and viking scandinavia,  wikström af edholm

the scandinavians from the vendel period to the tenth century: an ethnographic perspective (studies in historical archaeoethnology),  jesch

ancient acandinavia: an archaeological history from the first humans to the vikings, price

women in the viking age, jesch

rus

reimagining europe: kievian rus in the medieval world 988-1146, raffensperger

the emergence of rus 750-1200, franklin

the kingdom of rus, raffensperger

writing society and culture in early rus c.950-1300, franklin

[thatoddboy]

So, I know I'm late to the game here but I keep seeing people who find the whole "Please, kind sir, don't cut my hair" line in Thor: Ragnarok funny, and while I totally get it I'd like to say why I don't.

While Asrgard is very much not Medieval Scandanavia and Thor is very much not a Viking, it's also clear both are based of those cultures (or those cultures were influenced by them in universe). The Vikings had a very deep relationship with grooming in general and hair in particular. Both men and women took extreme pride in their appearance and their long hair - combs are one of the most common artifacts found at Viking sites and Medieval Christians writers accused Viking men of trying to seduce their women by being so damn clean and pretty. Hair was a big fucking deal.

Pretty much everybody had long hair, except the one group in Viking society that didn't: thralls, or to use the modern terminology, slaves. All slaves, male and female, had their heads shaved or their hair kept very short. It was something to separate them visually from freed people, and I'd wager there was no small element of humiliation in it as well to help break these people's spirits.

So back to Ragnarok. The scene isn't really set up to be scary or sad, but whenever I see it I think back on that little historical fact and I just can't find it funny. Thor is in the process of losing his freedom in this scene, and I don't think it a coincidence he gets a hair cut too.

Which, admittedly, is a great little detail, hats off to Taika Waititi for being amazing, as always.

[its-abroad-world]

Adventure #5: June 7, Tallinn, Estonia: Fortresses, cobbled streets, and herring???? June 8: Sea Day #3 June 9: Warnemunde, Germany: Sausages and Clocks

This stop on the cruise was one of the shortest ones (we had to be back on the ship by 4 pm), so we woke up early to have breakfast so that we could be off the ship as soon as the gangway was open for disembarkment. After purchasing shuttle bus tickets into the city we headed out to see the fortress “Kiek en de Kӧk” that the city was best known for. We got a little turned around for a bit which my dad was upset about for a bit, but eventually, we were able to locate Old Town. It was amazing to see a medieval city so well preserved in the center of a modern city; it was like a small pocket of the past amidst the present. All of sudden the streets were cobblestone instead of cement and we were surrounded by towering walls with watchtowers and old stone buildings.

Tallinn, a trading city on the Baltic Sea dates back to the 13th century and is a registered UNESCO World Heritage site. While Old Town is a historic landmark and a popular place for tourists to visit, it still functions much as it did back in the day with people living and working there as well as having commercial and religious functions.

As we wandered around Lower Old Town, we stumbled upon the entrance to the famed Town Wall. My parents didn’t want to join my sister and I, so we climbed to the top of the wall while they watched for us from down below. The steps were really steep and slightly slippery from years of being worn down by constant foot traffic. While we were up there, we were able to see this gorgeous view overlooking Old Town. We visited the Stout Margaret Tower (Paks Margareeta), a cannon tower that is best known as “Fat Margaret”. They say that the tower got its name from a large cannon that it housed or from a cook named Margaret who used to work there. It was funny going up there with my sister because she is deathly afraid of height. Every time that she thought I got too close to the railing or leaned over too much, she would start freaking out. I definitely got some butterflies in my stomach from how high up we were, but being the younger sister, of course, I had to mess with her a little bit. It’s safe to say that by the time we climbed down, she was stressed and sweaty.

After spending some time on the wall, we walked around for a bit longer, looking at the various highlights on the map before grabbing lunch at this pub. There were so many drinks that we wanted to, and since we were only going to be there for the afternoon, of course, we ordered everything we wanted: juniper beer, a le coq beer, a local pale ale, passion fruit cider, and rhubarb lemonade. We also ordered some herring, something that my dad and I had been wanting to try for a while after seeing it on various travel shows. Herring is a popular dish in Scandanavia and is served many ways, and the one that we wanted to try was raw cured herring. I was not a fan. It was served with fried potato balls and a garlic cream sauce. The flavor was salty and very fishy and a little bit slimy. The funniest bit was watching my sister try it, who is not a fan of fish to begin with. She dunked the smallest piece of fish in the sauce and was writhing as she put it in her mouth; she refused to chew it and then swallowed it whole. In comparison, the savory chicken mushroom cheese pancakes that we ordered were very yummy. They were more like crepes rather than American style pancakes.

After lunch, we walked around some more, without anything particular in mind. Most of the buildings or landmarks worthy of note were on Toompea Hill, which was actually a bit of a steep walk. In Palace Square, there was Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church built in 1900. It looked so much like the churches that we saw in St. Petersburg.

The highlight of my day was really freaking my sister out while looking out over one of the oldest medieval towns. Next to one of the lower parts of the fortress, my family and I were looking at the Toompea Park down below and I asked my mom to take a picture of me laying on the wall, but my sister got scared and tried to pull me down. My mom got the picture mid-pull. I couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard.

After walking around a hilly, cobbled city, we were pretty tired so we headed to the shuttle so we could go back to the ship. Because we went back to the ship early, we were back in time to make it to tea-time. Princess Cruises has tea time from 3 pm to 4 pm every day. They serve finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, small pastries, and English tea with sugar and cream. On previous cruises, we always looked forward to going to tea time for the scones with clotted cream and jam. After tea time with my parents, I headed up to the pool deck to read outside, then later moved to the piazza in the center of the ship to listen to the string quartet perform.

Our night ended much like it did the other nights. At dinner, we ordered everything new (of course) and then listened to the performers in the piazza before heading to the karaoke lounge.

June 8 - Sea Day #3

Having a sea day after 3 days of non-stop touring, it was nice to be able to sleep in and get some rest. I slept into the afternoon and then grabbed some lunch with my parents. On sea days, there is usually a lot of activities to do on board but I usually like to spend my time reading or watching whatever is on the jumbotron on the pool deck. That evening, they would be hosting the formal night and everyone would dress up in tuxedos and evening gowns. Because we were grabbing dinner with the Flores’, we got ready earlier so we had enough time to take pictures before dinner.

Dinner with them was a riot and we were stuffed full of escargot and lobster. After our usual time at the karaoke lounge, we joined the dance party in the piazza and stayed there until we all headed to bed.

June 9: Warnemunde and Rostock, Germany 

Our 9th day on the cruise, we docked in Warnemunde, Germany. Because the ship would be docked until 9 pm that night, we weren’t too fussed about waking up early to head into town. This port was where cruises docked so that passengers could take a bus to Berlin about 2-3 hours away. We already planned on going to Berlin after the cruise so we instead spent our time going around Warnemunde and Rostock, a 15-minute train ride from the port city.

We started our day off going to Rostock. Rostock is a Hanseatic City that is considered often referred to as the “Gateway to the North”. True to its description of being a quaint town, many of the buildings were in an older style and just overall, very European-looking. We didn’t really know too much about the city before coming here, so we spent most of our time wandering around. There were a bunch of clothing and shoe stores lined along the way, however, because it was Sunday, almost everything was closed and the city seemed a little deserted.

As we walked around, we spotted a food stand selling sausages and currywurst, both of which I am a big fan of. My aunt married a German, so growing up, I ate a lot of German food because I was always spending time with my cousins, so of course, when I saw the sign of currywurst I had to get some. Currywurst is basically sliced sausage topped with curry powder that you dip in curry ketchup; we also ordered a Rostocker, the local sausage. We were shocked when the man handed us the Rostocker because the sausage was ginormous but the bread it was served in was the size of a dinner roll. I didn’t end up liking the Rostocker because it was so porky, but the currywurst was quite tasty.

We wandered into one of the older, larger churches, Saint Marien-Kirche, where we stumbled upon my favorite thing that day: The Astronomic Clock of 1472. The clock was built by Hans Düringer, a master clocksmith from Nuremberg. The clock shows, hours, days, months, years, phases of the sun and moon, and the Zodiac. The clock had computation of the dates of Easter up until 2017 but was updated in 2018 to add on more years. This is the oldest and last working astronomical clock from the Middle Ages that still tell the time, date, and more. The highlight of the clock is at noon when there is a procession by the Apostles. The Apostles circle Christ, then file through a door that is supposed to represent heaven, and just before Judas enters, the doors close and he is left outside. It was so cool that we were actually there at noon when the procession occurred.

After our time at the church, we headed back to Warnemunde to wander around there as well. It was a cute coastal town with restaurants and cafes up and down the marina. We wandered in and out of some of the shops that were open and tried fried fish sandwiches at one of the boats docked there.

By 4 pm we were done walking around and headed back to the ship to get a little bit of rest before dinner, which was, as usual, very filling and entertaining.