I wanna be a VIKING

[Dave Womble]

I'm currently reading the Saga of the Jomsvikings...fascinating group...basically mercs...lived by a strict code...I like them a lot...sounds very much like a group I'd associate with. There was a lot more to them than that though. I'm not too familiar with the Jomsvikings re-enactors though, but from the casual browsing I did on their site awhile ago, it seemed to be a decent site/group.

Dave

[Greenshield]

They are a fine group. Some of the best fighters around.

Cam

[Jehan de Pelham]

How are they on the research and portrayal side of the house?

Jehan de Pelham, esquire and servant of Sir Vitus

[Greenshield]

Some of their kit can be very detailed. Many focus heavily on the Slavic and Eastern Viking/Rus side and their can be alot of mix and match.

However, their main focus is being the premier fighting organization in Europe. Now, oppinions may vary across European groups but from what I have seen they have some of the best fighters around.

Cam

[Ny Bjorn]

...that goes for Hell's Angels as well!

Nasty tounges has it that the main reason for Phil et confidi to aim for the US-market is that they've pretty much blewn their cred here in Europe. As stated they are bloody good fighters - 'nuf said.

/N B

[Endre Fodstad]

However, their main focus is being the premier fighting organization in Europe

By their own admission?

[Egfroth]

Certainly good at self-promotion, if nothing else . . .

[Hrolfr]

Well, try Dirk's site for you "viking wanna-bes"
Heck, you'll run into Halv, Theo, Thorfinn and a few more there-

http://jomsb.org/forum/index.php?sid=34 ... 62eb039a71

[Cap'n Atli]

Under the twin dictums of "No ship, no Viking." (mentioned in my previous post, above) and "Why try to reinvent the wheel?" I am taking the liberty of posting the link to the Longship Company's bibliography:

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~eowyn/longship/references.html

Unless you've tried rowing while wearing/sitting-on a long horseman's byrnie, you just can't really appreciate the comfort of a shorter Viking byrnie.

And swimming in mail; there's another experience!

So, if you're interested in Vikings, and their general cultural environment, consider the Longship Company as a resource. Some time at the rowing bench usually brings some form of enlightenment.

[Dyffid Schabe-McLewis]

A question came up on sword forum about viking ‘scale’ armour, actually no question came up, more like “there never was such a thingâ€Â

[Mord]

[quote="Dyffid Schabe-McLewis"]A question came up on sword forum about viking ‘scale’ armour, actually no question came up, more like “there never was such a thingâ€Â

[Dave Womble]

scale and lamellar were likely known to Scandinavians (through trade contacts from the Slavs and Byzantines mostly) the Franks as Mord said, but there's no artistic, or archeological evidence (aside from the Birka plates which have pretty much been determined to belong to a foreign garrison stationed at the fort) of Scale or lamellar being worn by Scandinavians within Scandinavia.

There are however scant few literary mentions ( in the Sagas) of body armour that could *possibly* be something other than mail. However, the Sagas were written down a few centuries after the events theyre depicting, so those sources are not the most reliable.

Dave

[guthrothr]

Hi

Just a word about a new book that folk going down this road will find very useful:

Viking Clothing by Thor Ewing
Tempus Publishing ISBN 9 780752 435879

Amazo has it here :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 63-0840604

But with a 4-6 week delay.

If you can't wait, you can get a copy direct from the author - at published price - just email him here : thor@historicalarts.co.uk

It's large paperback (6.5 inches x 9.5 inches) size and runs to 192 pages with 100 illustrations (14 colour) but with only 4 chapters. The chapters are :

1) Women's Clothing (50 pages)
2) Mins Clothing (60 pages)
3) Cloth and Clothmaking (30 pages)
4) Clothes, cloth and Viking society (12 pages)

and each chapter has subsections on various points of interest.

I'm not an academic, but Thor seems to have drawn together most current thinking into a handbook which I believe re-enactors will find useful, although if you have detailed knowledge already, it may not go as deep into some aspects of the subject as you would have liked to see.

One point of warning is that on a first skim through I can find very few references to the Danelaw, Dublin or other non Scandanavian dress. As such he does not touch on how Viking dress may have influenced or been influenced by the other cultures into which Viking migration took place.

He also draws heavily on the Birka finds to illustrate his discussions, and this should be borne in mind before slavishly following all his conclusions.

Pete

[Robert of Canterbury]

What is the likely hood of a Islamic Viking..
Is it feasable that this could happen?

Much more feasible than a scottish Ninja, you'll b epleased to know.

Read "Röde Orm" or "The Longships."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Ships

Its a cracking read, with a lot o finspiration drawn from the sagas. The only problem is figuring out which bits are saga inspired and which are the authors whimsy..

[Dave Womble]

An Islamic Viking?

A viking in the employ/service of an Islamic personage of note is feasible, but a Norseman abandoning his own culture to adopt that of a Muslim? Just as unrealistic as my notion of viking lamellar armour. You'd be a bodyguard for an Arab merchant or diplomatic envoy...you wouldn't likely be a viking in arab lands alone...you'd be part of a larger trading entourage to Bagdhad.

More likely for Arabs to travel amongst the Norse and Rus as in the case of Ibn Fhadlan (what 13th Warrior is loosely based on).

Dave

[Mord]

Islamic Scandinavians of early middle ages? Possible, but right now, I don't think it could be proven. After all, the "pagan" vikings converted to Chirstianity for the sake of business, so why shouldn't these same pagans convert to Islam for business reasons?

However, I believe according to the Russian Primary Chronicle (a rather disputed document), the King of Kiev did not convert to Islam because drinking was banned. Our knowledge of Scandinavian activities in the East is only opening up to examination these days, since the fall of Soviet Union. Right now, we have no proof of an Islamic conversion.

Mord.

[Mord]

Ah thanks for the information. At this time what I think I will do is similar to what Womble stated. Mor elike a guardian etc.. in the employ. The suttle traces of Islamic pieces in my armor could only testify to how long I have been exposed to Islamic culture. I very much plan to stay with the roots of Norse culture.

Oh, I almost forgot...the flow of Kufic (which is to say Islamic) silver in form of coins is well known. Numismatics is not speciality. Thomas Noonian is. So, I believe is Peter Sawyer.

Certainly there was contact between Scandinavia and the Islamic world.

Mord.

[SirOlafr]

An Islamic Viking?

A viking in the employ/service of an Islamic personage of note is feasible, but a Norseman abandoning his own culture to adopt that of a Muslim? Just as unrealistic as my notion of viking lamellar armour. You'd be a bodyguard for an Arab merchant or diplomatic envoy...you wouldn't likely be a viking in arab lands alone...you'd be part of a larger trading entourage to Bagdhad.

More likely for Arabs to travel amongst the Norse and Rus as in the case of Ibn Fhadlan (what 13th Warrior is loosely based on).

Dave

The actual adoption of the religion is probably not as likely, but I see no reason as to why some other aspects of the culture and dress would not be adopted by a noresman if travelling or living within the muslim world. There was much trade obviously so I think you can have a fair amount of multiculturalism with the norse. You get into this gray area as to what is very likely to have occured and what may have feasibly occurred. I think its feasible. Just my two cents.

I am going to be incorporating a lamellar shirt into my kit, I've ben using kydex EGG armor, so this is definitely a step in the right direction. As I see it, for purposes of SCA fighting with an early period persona, some flexibility on choosing armor is needed. For example, we fight blunt weapons, for which chainmail is largely ineffective. My understanding is that lamellar was around in that period, evidence of metal scales for sure I believe. Now it seems to me, that if metal scales would be used, it is also likely that leather scales would have been used by those unable to afford the iron. Now this is obviously difficult to prove due to the decaying organic nature of leather; but again, it doesn't seem to me to be outside the realm of possibilty. Perhaps I'm all wet on this, and I'm certainly open to discussion on it.

With regards to the 13th Warrior, I don't think you can discount that while it incorporates some stuff from Ibn Fhadlan, it is almost completely derived in essence from Beowulf.

In service,
Olaf

[Lawrence Parreira]

I’d like to give my two cents on the whole Lamellar thing. I think that it all depends on what your group wants to portray. If you are Viking raiders that stayed in the general vicinity of Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Germany, Britain, or France), then Lamellar would be out of place. But I don’t think that Byzantine was the only place the Vikings would have come into contact with Lamellar. Three quarters of the Iberian Peninsula (modern day Spain and Portugal), and most of the Mediterranean was under Muslim control during the “Viking ageâ€

[Lawrence Parreira]

http://www.scandinavica.com/culture/history/iberian.htm
heres one source on the matter.

[Lawrence Parreira]

I've read that those men who could not afford armor would wear some type of leather protection. Is there any evidence of this, and what type of leather body armor would have been worn during the "Viking" age? A leather gambeson maybe?

[Dave Womble]

Where did you read this? None of the sources I have mention anything about leather defenses except for a reference of Reindeer hide armour aquired by the Lapps as tribute....the passage says the armour was enchanted by sorcerers to turn aside weapons better than mail did. As far as I know, its the only reference to leather/hides being used for protection....and take that with a grain of salt.

Other than that, possibly leather aprons around the homestead, but theres no evidence.

No evidence for hardened leather being used for defense.

[Mord]

In the book "Leather and Fur. Aspects of Early Medieval Trade and Technology" edited by E. Cameron (1998, Archtype Publications Ltd. ISBN 1873132514) there is a short discussion of the use of leather in Anglo-Saxon arms and armor (pages 50 to 56, with references). The author spends 2 paragraphs refuting the use of leather as armor. That leather was used as armor was based upon an idea that the shoulder clasps found in Sutton Hoo, mound 1, were attached to a "Roman style" body armor of earlier times. This idea has been rejected.

Leather was a common material in Early Medieval Scandinavia. Material eveidence for this was found at Hedeby and I believe at Ribe. This evidence points towards the use of leather for shoes, knife-shealths, sword scabbards, and to cover shields. I have encountered no information, credible or not, that leather was used for body armor, except for the speculation that a leather was used for a helmet, parts of which were found in one of the mounds at Old Uppsala, Sweden. I believe this evidence was dated to the Vendel (Pre-Viking) Period.

As for the Viking "infantryman" idea, I would be very wary. As I have stated before, our knowledge of the details of any kind of heirarchy or any other sort of order is small. Credible information is mostly limited to archaeological speculations with evidence found, for the most part, in graves. However, while parallels are found in some of the graves with in the "Viking Sphere" enough anomalies exist to question many an idea.

Mord.

[Dave Womble]

You'll find that armour was pretty rare in Viking Age Scandinavia and abroad. It'd be like people owning a Bentley nowadays. Hence all the mysticism attributed to such rich war gear like mail shirts and swords...they were rare and highly prized items...body armour and swords were viewed not only as practical tools of war, but as status items...the upper crust were the only ones that had it...the common rank and file "infantryman" as you stated, would typically have only had a shield, perhaps a helmet.

I'm still wondering how common multiple thick wool/linen tunics would have been used, and how defensive would they have been...

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

Quick question, and I figured this was the best place to post it. When did the ordinary seax fall out of style? Did they tend to change a lot from about 7th-11th century, or were they mostly a one sided tapered blade with a blunter looking tip? How late can I get away with wearing one, before it would have been seen as low-class?

[Michael B]

Quick question, and I figured this was the best place to post it. When did the ordinary seax fall out of style? Did they tend to change a lot from about 7th-11th century, or were they mostly a one sided tapered blade with a blunter looking tip? How late can I get away with wearing one, before it would have been seen as low-class?

How late do you want?

The Museum of London's 'Knives and Scabbards' has a very small number of seaxes (ie. with the stepped/angled back) dated roughly to the late 12thC. However, the catalogue begins with this period and only has 10 knives in that section. There are a few others later that have angled backs, but, based on this evidence at least, I think it would be stretching things to take seaxes (in London at least) as being reasonably common much past the second half of the 12th C.

Michael B

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

So, for the earlier half of the 12th century, they are still dated as being in use? Any idea what the attachment methods to the belt would be? Talking about something like this in ASCII:

___________________________
)
______ /
| /
|________________/

[Rizzo]

You will get yourself into a hairy mess whenever you want to use the term "seax" at the borders of everybodys conjecture of what such a thing is, either in shape, dimensions or in time. You can most of the time pull out any Big Knife and yell "this is my seax!" if your portayal is within a couple of hundred years from lindisfarne and a couple of hundred miles from Prästö. Everything else is a touch and go project. However, there are some easy leeways out of this;

1a. Portray any time you want, pull out Da Monster Knife and grind your teeth. This action will put you in the "Common Thug" class.

1b. Portray any time you want, pull out Da Monster Knife and yell "This is my hunting knife!" This action will put you in a much nobler class than 1a. Prehaps even SCA suitable.

2. Realise that Big Knives are as individual as there are opinions about them, fall in love with an extant one and create your persona around it. Sneak around and mutter "My precious!". Bring rock solid documentation of it should you bump into no. 3.

3. Yell "Unperiod, Unclean!" at everyone pulling out Big Knives. Since there are knives of every shape of every period you can always pull something identical out of your portable Library of Big Knives several centuries away.

Hmm. This post is beginning to reek of no-content. Lets add some for mods sake.

Somewhat Big Knife, sloped back, straight edge, prolly status item, early medevial, (13C).

http://mis.historiska.se/mis/sok/includ ... ?uid=22920

according to what i think your asc is showing you should get away with up to 20-30 cm bladelenght every concievable period. Just dont use the "S" word.

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

Sorry, what would be the proper term? Trying to add a documentable12th century knife to my soft-kit. I dont have the money to take an existing one out of an illumination, and pay a knifemaker to custom make it. Not really trying to justify it to anyone else, really, as if I run across said people (and there arent too many of them for the 12th century), but simply to myself, as an accurate historical item.

[Rizzo]

The unconspicious parallell edge, high point form is never out of date. The form has unfortunately such a modern/trivial feel about it that some shy away from it. Some times it is of course not the typical, but damn me if it cant be documented at, say, 25 cm blade from roman to now.

Certain dimensions will be rare/norm if your closing in on what funtionally will be a sword. What lenght are we talking about here?

It might be more fruitful to disregard the blade shape and concentrate on the handle. On handles, shapes and artwork place knives pretty firm on a timescale. These are also more regionally dependant.

Proper term.. well, its not that seax isnt a proper term, its just that i think its a runaway term. It kind of swallows every single edge weapon within a large timeframe and then boils all this variety down to something that make everyone think about a rockwool cutter.

[Greenshield]

<a href="http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a127/ ... nicCam.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a127/ ... nicCam.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
Eastern Viking

Scales are the Fluted darker Brass ones from Adrixos at Calontir trim. Little heavier than the ridged stainless he has but the darken up nicely after a few fights and alot of sweat.

[Karl Helweg]

I need help finding period art/carvings of vikings holding hands. Like in a dance. Does anyone have any such images?

[Yojimbo]

Check out the "Helgo Lovers " pedant about 2/3 of the way down the page.
http://www.urweg.com/list/pendants.html

[Bake Nasty]

Cheers lads-

Is this image historically accurate? If so, may be a good source of inspiration for helmets, shields, clothing, etc.
http://www.memphismuseums.org/media/vikings%201.jpg

[Grimr Hvitulfsson Ulfhamr]

I can't see all the details on my crappy monitor, so I cannot comment on everything. However, in the front row the second guy from the left is not wearing a viking helmet. It looks more like a Vendel helmet, which is Scandinavian but a couple of centuries older.

And there is no evidence that the gjermundbu helmet the guy in the mail shirt is wearing had a mail face protection. It did have mail for the neck however. And his helmet seems to be optherwise pretty accurate from what I can see.

The two other gjermundbu lookalikes have been constructed more creatively. And I can't really see what the guy on the left has as face protection. All I know is that that helmet didn't have anything on the lower face.

There is no archaeological evidence from Viking Age Scandinavia supporting the other helmets, however pictoral evidence seems to indicate that conical helmets did exist.

Sir GrimR

PS. But I'm a nitpicker, so put on anything in the picture and it's still better than 95% of any SCA armor