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Feast of Uppsala Contest Thread~

Joined
Oct 8, 2008
Messages
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temple.jpg


As many of you know, I'm an aficionado of all things Viking except that purple football team, and an amateur scholar of Viking Age history, culture, folkways, and mythology.

Sooooo . . . October 8th will mark NINE years you good BOTL have been putting up with me (Nine years? Really? What were you thinking?) and as it happens, nine is a pretty significant number in Viking lore---Odin hung on Yggdrasil nine nights to win the runes, Thor was born of nine waves, and so forth and so on.

And every nine years a Great Feast was held at the temple in Uppsala, Sweden, and nine kinds of animals were sacrificed and their carcasses hung from the Great Oak, which St. Boniface, I think it was, later chopped down.

"And one of those nine kinds was man," it's said, but let's not go there. o_O

febcba26f81d60e895ea71507396927b--les-vikings-vikings-tv-show.jpg

Anyway, to mark the occasion, I'm launching a simple contest: Post something about Vikings (but not that damn purple team) in this thread. Could be history, archaeology, mythology, art, humor, folklore, festival, anything. As long as it's Viking related.

After an appropriate amount of time but hopefully sometime around my anniversary here, October 8th, I'll pick nine responding posts to draw from among:

1-3: Three most liked posts.

4. Most scholarly
5. Most unusual
6. Funniest

7-9: My personal favorites of those left not chosen for 1-6.

Then I'll either asperse my grandniece Cloey with mead sprinkled with a hlauttein and have her draw one from a Viking helm, or I'll, you know, use an online random selector of some kind.

Winner will receive 9 different cigars from my "flocks and fields" for Uppsala sacrifice.

battle_hamster_raid_by_ursulav.jpg


~Boar
 
Thanks for the contest!

I always thought the concept of Valhalla to be really interesting.

Valhalla is essentially Viking heaven however...

Dead Norse folk do not all go to heaven. If you die an inglorious death, you go to Helheim (Hel). If you die in battle, you then have to fight your way to Odin's Valhalla- only half make it. Then once you get to Valhalla, you just practice fighting all day. Valhalla seems much more like a reality than an afterlife.

The rest of the dead go to Fólkvangr to hang out with the goddess Freyja (a goddess associated with love, sex, beauty, fertility, war, and death... so that can't be that bad). I for one would prefer this afterlife.

Valhalla is also the name of a coffee shop in my home town of Tacoma. They make some excellent beans.
 
I didn't learn that Wednesday was named after Odin until American Gods came out.

Seems I've know forever that Thursday was Thor's day.

After looking up the history of how the days got their names, it turns out that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday all have Norse history.
 
Sunday and Monday, too---Sunna's Dag and Manni's Dag. The only one that doesn't is Saturday, which is named for the Roman god Saturn, because they were working a theme, after all, and the the Norse name for Saturday was Laugr Dag . . . . "Bathing Day."

Hence the fusty English cleric, in the days of the Danelaw, who fulminated about my ancestors seducing English maidens with "their combed hair and regular bathing." :D

~Boar
 
Sunday and Monday, too---Sunna's Dag and Manni's Dag. The only one that doesn't is Saturday, which is named for the Roman god Saturn, because they were working a theme, after all, and the the Norse name for Saturday was Laugr Dag . . . . "Bathing Day."

Hence the fusty English cleric, in the days of the Danelaw, who fulminated about my ancestors seducing English maidens with "their combed hair and regular bathing." :D

~Boar

Ah, bathing day.
 
The Norse god Thor decided to become a mortal for a while and went down to earth. He met a beautiful girl and they spent the evening together. In the morning Thor decided to reveal his identity to the woman. "I'm Thor" he said. "You're thor!" she said, "Lithen buthter, I'm tho thor I can hardly thit down!"
 
The Norse god Thor decided to become a mortal for a while and went down to earth. He met a beautiful girl and they spent the evening together. In the morning Thor decided to reveal his identity to the woman. "I'm Thor" he said. "You're thor!" she said, "Lithen buthter, I'm tho thor I can hardly thit down!"

Mike Tyson called...he wants his joke back....lol
 
I googled Viking lore and on the 9th page/9th article was this : http://www.terrapsych.com/gods2.html

When looking at the 9th definition, you'll find Ari: an underworld giant eagle who scares the dead in Niflheim.

It's a funny coincidence, because growing up, we had a HUGE Great Dane named Ari. He was the most gentle dog. He'd lay on the carpet and we'd wrestle/fight/climb all over him and he'd barely raise his head. Ari was such a huge dog, that anyone who came to the door, would immediately take 4 steps back, if they didn't know him. He'd just stand there and give a bark or two and that was it. Now, he had such bad gas and if you said "Ari, you stink", he'd get up and walk out of the room. I think his gas would scare the dead, it sure scared the living!

I'm not even sure where that name came from, guess I'll have to ask my parents.
 
Did I win?

I'm a Nordic deity, Tone-NY means Fenrir in old Norse.

*cough*

Fenrir's not a deity, man, he's fucking Ragnarok! :confused:

"The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond will break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand,
Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim."


~Boar
 
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Vikings in North America?
Not the football team​



Space archeologist, Sarah Parcak may have found a Norse wine mecca in North America! According to a Norse saga, there was colony called "Vinland," which means land of wine. In this saga there is a place that is described as "warm enough to grow grain and grapes." Many scholars believed this place to be somewhere in North America. As Vikings sailed from Greenland they would write about each parcel of land they encountered. For instance, they described an area with lots of rocks and miles of beaches that sounds like modern-day- Labrador, the northern edge of Canada.

Back in the '60s some adventurers followed the Viking's descriptions and discovered an ancient site on the tip of the island of Newfoundland called L'Anse aux Meadows. This site dates back to 1000 AD, and is so far the only confirmed Norse settlement in North America. However, it's discovery didn't end the debate on where Vinland may be.

For the past 50 years, people have scoured the province of Newfoundland and Labrador - even looking as far south as New England - for Viking sites. Some people think that Vikings may have ventured as far as Minnesota. No, seriously. No proof has been able to support such notions that there were any Viking settlements in Minnesota however.

Sarah Parcak and her space archeologists took a different route. They started off using Google Earth to scan for anomalies in vegetation health, looking for circular or rectangular formations that wouldn't occur naturally and that might match patterns of historic, indigenous or Norse settlement structures. Through Google Earth they were able to narrow down 50 potential sites, but they needed better resolution to proceed. They ordered high-resolution aerial photographs and were able to narrow down 3 potential sited for them to dig. From there they were able to order high-resolutions multi-spectral satellite imagery that let them use chemical signatures on the ground. That final step helped them identify the two most promising sites.

In June of 2015, a six-person team started a dig far south of L'Anse aux Meadows. one of which was Frederick Scwarz, an expert with more than 30 years of experience working in eastern Canada who would be able to tell us immediately if they were digging in a historic or indigenous site. During the dig, they found a hearth and probably turf walls - "not typical structures for indigenous or historic cultures (at least not outside the Arctic)." Frederick told them that he ".... didn't know what he was digging anymore." He'd never seen anything like it - it was completely unfamiliar.

The experts told Parcak that if the site they were digging was an indigenous North American site, it would have flint. If it was historic European "... they would be able to fill buckets with ceramics." They weren't able to find either.

Meanwhile, the Vikings needed a lot of iron for their farming equipment and ships. Iron production was a major part of their culture - it's no coincidence that one of their gods, Thor, was a master smith. The Vikings wouldn't have settled anywhere where they didn't have a good source of bog iron, a favorite raw material. Bog iron gathers at the base of roots in swamps; it's rusty and crumbly until you roast off the impurities and smelt it down. Guess what the group DID find while digging. They found 18 pounds of glassy, blackened material, which they had analyzed by a Norse metallurgy expert. As it turned out, the material is evidence of bog iron roasting, the first phase in Norse iron production. No indigenous groups worked in metal in Newfoundland. Neither did any other known historic groups.

The site they found is called Point Rosee and it would've been a good place to settle. It has streams for fresh water and a nearby beach for fishing - not to mention a landing area for ships. Beyond that, the site is close to the only valley in Newfoundland warm enough for agriculture. Could this site have been a Norse settlement? The bog iron processing certainly suggests it's a possibility. At this point all it points out is that the site doesn't match other known cultures in the area; the only culture it matches at present is Norse. The site appeared to be larger than their first survey suggested, so it will take multiple seasons of excavation to understand the site's specifics.


Sources:

http://ideas.ted.com/inside-the-search-for-a-fabled-norse-site-with-the-help-of-satellites/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160331-viking-discovery-north-america-canada-archaeology/
 
Vikings in North America?
Not the football team​



Space archeologist, Sarah Parcak may have found a Norse wine mecca in North America! According to a Norse saga, there was colony called "Vinland," which means land of wine. In this saga there is a place that is described as "warm enough to grow grain and grapes." Many scholars believed this place to be somewhere in North America. As Vikings sailed from Greenland they would write about each parcel of land they encountered. For instance, they described an area with lots of rocks and miles of beaches that sounds like modern-day- Labrador, the northern edge of Canada.

Back in the '60s some adventurers followed the Viking's descriptions and discovered an ancient site on the tip of the island of Newfoundland called L'Anse aux Meadows. This site dates back to 1000 AD, and is so far the only confirmed Norse settlement in North America. However, it's discovery didn't end the debate on where Vinland may be.

For the past 50 years, people have scoured the province of Newfoundland and Labrador - even looking as far south as New England - for Viking sites. Some people think that Vikings may have ventured as far as Minnesota. No, seriously. No proof has been able to support such notions that there were any Viking settlements in Minnesota however.

Sarah Parcak and her space archeologists took a different route. They started off using Google Earth to scan for anomalies in vegetation health, looking for circular or rectangular formations that wouldn't occur naturally and that might match patterns of historic, indigenous or Norse settlement structures. Through Google Earth they were able to narrow down 50 potential sites, but they needed better resolution to proceed. They ordered high-resolution aerial photographs and were able to narrow down 3 potential sited for them to dig. From there they were able to order high-resolutions multi-spectral satellite imagery that let them use chemical signatures on the ground. That final step helped them identify the two most promising sites.

In June of 2015, a six-person team started a dig far south of L'Anse aux Meadows. one of which was Frederick Scwarz, an expert with more than 30 years of experience working in eastern Canada who would be able to tell us immediately if they were digging in a historic or indigenous site. During the dig, they found a hearth and probably turf walls - "not typical structures for indigenous or historic cultures (at least not outside the Arctic)." Frederick told them that he ".... didn't know what he was digging anymore." He'd never seen anything like it - it was completely unfamiliar.

The experts told Parcak that if the site they were digging was an indigenous North American site, it would have flint. If it was historic European "... they would be able to fill buckets with ceramics." They weren't able to find either.

Meanwhile, the Vikings needed a lot of iron for their farming equipment and ships. Iron production was a major part of their culture - it's no coincidence that one of their gods, Thor, was a master smith. The Vikings wouldn't have settled anywhere where they didn't have a good source of bog iron, a favorite raw material. Bog iron gathers at the base of roots in swamps; it's rusty and crumbly until you roast off the impurities and smelt it down. Guess what the group DID find while digging. They found 18 pounds of glassy, blackened material, which they had analyzed by a Norse metallurgy expert. As it turned out, the material is evidence of bog iron roasting, the first phase in Norse iron production. No indigenous groups worked in metal in Newfoundland. Neither did any other known historic groups.

The site they found is called Point Rosee and it would've been a good place to settle. It has streams for fresh water and a nearby beach for fishing - not to mention a landing area for ships. Beyond that, the site is close to the only valley in Newfoundland warm enough for agriculture. Could this site have been a Norse settlement? The bog iron processing certainly suggests it's a possibility. At this point all it points out is that the site doesn't match other known cultures in the area; the only culture it matches at present is Norse. The site appeared to be larger than their first survey suggested, so it will take multiple seasons of excavation to understand the site's specifics.


Sources:

http://ideas.ted.com/inside-the-search-for-a-fabled-norse-site-with-the-help-of-satellites/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160331-viking-discovery-north-america-canada-archaeology/
TLDR hahahah
 
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