Viking mythology and all that goes with it

Shopping? Bah, that's why I build my own forge. :p Read and article on lock and key making not that long ago, it gave me some ideas. Still sticking with the simpler stuff for the time being, tho. I'm not that good yet, hehe. Going to make an attempt at another seax this weekend, tho. Got some better stock to work with. :)
 
The Vikings werent as unorganied as you think. They used many different war formations (such as the boar head formation, shield walls) The Vikings were much taller and fierce looking and especially the berserkers would have scared the shit out of the samurai. In their eyes the Vikings would be like demons and their superstition would definately play a great part in it.

The Japanese manuscripts of Bushido have till now been perfectly preserved, and it was always thought that the speedy quick skilled samurai would surely best the slow crude european warriors, but with the latest archaeological findings, it has been proved that the samurai would not be able to beat them that easily. (with factors such as: the samurai swords had only one sharp edge and european swords had two. The Samurai did not have shields, the europeans did.) The Viking warriors were also very skilled (duuh they took more than half of europe over.)

But Im not an expert......
 
The Vikings werent as unorganied as you think. They used many different war formations (such as the boar head formation, shield walls)
I am guessing that you are reffering to svinefylking.. which is not a very "organized" formation :p

As for the samuraj vs Norse, there were infinately more samuraj than Vikings, so more canon fodder, and they were appx 1000 years after the first Vikings, and thus must had better steel = weaponry. My vote is with the japs, but I am not an expert on samuraj warfare...
Don't think with your brain, think with your heart! It's all about vikings who own everyone!
 
Shields were pretty universal, AFAIK. The weapon varied. Pretty much everyone had a spear, most also had an axe. Swords were generally for the rich, good, or lucky. :)
yeah thats what I was thinking. not many had swords because you cant really just make a sword unless you know what you're doing.
Axes were probably very easy to come by. but were shields really that wide spread. Its not exactly easy to make
 
I know a lot of folks on this forum like mead, so I thought I'd give a report on my latest batch of Thor's Hammer mead. I flavor this mead with dandelion blossoms. This provides some special nutrients to the yeast, so it ferments very strongly. The result is a mead that packs a wallop. The drinker of it feels as though they've been smacked on the head by Thor's Hammer :loco: hence the name.

Well, this current batch did not clear very well - even after 2-1/2 months in the carboy. It cleared a little bit, so I thought I'd at least rack it into a clean carboy to get rid of some of the dregs. Well, as I was racking it I noticed a lot of carbonation - it was still fermenting! I tasted a bit of it, and it is really strong. This mead is going to be an @$$-kicker when it finishes! :kickass:
 
One new sword = appx. one year's wages. One used sword from a dead guy = proceless to a poor man. Shields only need wood and leather to be made, swords both expertise craftsman, expensive iron and the money to pay for both. Don't forget the bow and arrow, either. They were every man's tools. Axes were still expensive and hard to make, but could be used in daily life, and were therefor more likely of more importance than a sword, which really only has one purpose.

R, I went to the Midsummer thingy again. Holy fuck, this was the wettest break-down ever! It rained so hard I could barely see to drive hom - the freeway was veeeery slow! Anyhow, we had a maypole, and I did the blót for us all, and I burned an offering. Not sure if Thor got jealous, but he decided to open up some whoop-ass on us right when the event was over and we had to break down. Have not seen rain like that for years, and we were dead centre of the thunder! The godi from Salt Spring, Dan, came out, too, which was very cool. Anyhow, loads to tell y'all, but I have to run off to school with the kids.
 
..or you could just come visit with us, and we'll arrange for you to have a ride in Munin. http://www.digitalnorseman.com/bcvsp/
But then again, you could save up for the trip and delay until my Norse culture group is done building ours. It'll be spectacular, no doubt.
The Munin almost lost a crew member yesterday, cuz she was at the midsummer thingy, displayed beside our Viking village, and one of their reps got somewhat awfully drunk and very obnoxious. He very nearly found out what some of the alternate uses for his blowing horn are after he insisted on trying to..."hug" (read: molest) myself and one or two other Norsewomen while we were dropping Jotun (Bates, imagine the biggest ass Norse A-frame you've ever seen, then add 5 feet lengthwise) and five or six other A-frames and a merchant's tent in the middle of a hail storm. Make a mental note: Norsewomen are not necessarily cold or frightened just because Thor decides to throw a hissy, and really do not require a really large mallet to fold tent canvas and collect rope in four inches of water. You're better off staying the hell away from our bussiness, especially if you're going to be blowing your dumb ass blowing horn ever two minutes, or else you may find it and the mallet rammed up places where mallets and horns don't usually go.

Anyhow, we had a couple of thousand people come through. Some of us, including my own family, set up Thursday night and some on Friday, and a couple of the guys stayed there from Thursday until yesterday. Sunday we woke up to the kitchen floating, becasue the rain started coming down like nothing I've seen in the last several years. Hard rain in big drips driven by wind. Somehow, nobody seemed to care, so people just kept wandering through, huddling in our tents. The ladies learned how to use a drop spindle, and our black-smith had a few of them come in and sit down to learn how to do wire weaving and how to make needles. I tagut a bunch of lucette weaving - I think I made enough to string a whole A-frame tent... We had boffer swords and shields out for the kids (always a huge attraction), and kubb and tafl and a whole whack of other games that people came and learned. Saturday was just right in terms of weather, overcast, but no rain. We all got sunburned... In the evening, we had a huge feast (roast ham, chicken, barley, roast beef, veggies and all sorts of period-style foods..and drink), then we formed a shield wall and marched on the beer garden. Obviously, we won, and then I don't remember much after that....
 
I've been reading the eddas and there is one thing that confuses the hell out of me. Do you pronounce the "r" at the end of the names? For instance, Snorri writes Baldr and where ever I read or hear his name it is always pronounced Balder. But then he also writes Jormungandr, Freyr, Haraldr, and so on (almost every single name in the books has an r at the end), and I have never heard any of these names pronounced with the "r", such as Freyer, or Jormungander, or Haralder. So, IF the "r" is even pronounced (which is my main question) how do you know when or if it is?
 
You know, I wish we still had the boat me, my brother, and dad built. I'll bet we could manage a longship, the construction is pretty similar. Well, except for the fact we made the bends by blocking up one end, driving a Jeep onto the beam and steaming it. :p Seriously tho, one of these days, I will come out and visit for one of the events. Err, assuming they'll let me into Canada again. :)

As for the pronunciation, generally speaking, it was written as it sounds. I, personally, tend to pronounce an "r" at the end of those, but my 'r' sound isn't standard English, it's more like 'ehr'... or something like that. But you'd probably best wait for an answer from someone who does natively speak a Nordic language.
 
Hej Tyra,

Yeh, we had the same thing at the Midsommar fest in Seattle too. It was a cold as a well-digger's @$$, and it rained like a cow pi$$ing on a flat rock. We heard Thor swinging his hammer here too.

A downer was they cut 25-feet off the sommarstang, because they raise it by hand,and they thought it would be just tooooo dangerous :cry: I mean, what is midsommar unless a few people get seriously injured. Seattle's sommarstang used to be the biggest in the country. Now they're they're the biggest pansies in the country. :rolleyes:

It sounded like your midsommar was waaay better than ours. I should have come up there.
 
Vikingkid,
in Old Norse, the nouns are declined in cases. "Masculine" words (the ones with "der" in German or "el" in Spanish or "le" in French) end with an -r in the nominative. In many languages (such as German, French and Spanish) this is done by changing that little word that preceeds the actual noun (the der, el and le), but in ON, the thing that shows us that the word as masculine, the
-r, is attached to the end of the actual word. If you were to change the case to a different case, for example accusative, you'd loose the -r on the end: in ON, the word for "king" was "konungr" in nominative, and konung in the accusative, so if you'd say "The boy gave the ball to the king" the word king would be in the accusative, and therefore lack the -r, but if you said "The king gave the ball to the boy", then the king is in nominative, and thus it'd retain the -r, whereas it'd be the boy who'd loose the -r. Get it?

So, yes, you'd have to pronounce the -r, or nobody would know which case you were refering to and your sentence would be jibberish. Technically speaking, there is supposed to be a difference between some words that have an -r and others with an -R, also to do with grammar, but this invariably gets lost in translation into English, so never mind. For the sake of your head, just pronounce the -r if there is one in a reliable translation, because it is not wrong to do so, since you're not speaking the original language anyhow, and it therefore is better to stick to the nominative at all times to be consistent.
 
that answered my question and more. Cleared alot of things up, thanks tyra and bates for the help.