The Golden One - July 18, 2019


Swedish History - Viking Mentality and the Viking World


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

125.53022

Word Count

947

Sentence Count

52

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Greetings and welcome to the first installment of the Swedish History Project.
00:00:30.360 And to begin with I thought it would be a good idea to talk a bit about Viking mentality
00:00:36.120 because this is something that will reappear even after the Viking Age has ended
00:00:41.900 and that is the quest for glory.
00:00:45.020 And I stand here beside a glorious runestone and I will talk a bit about the purpose of a runestone.
00:00:51.840 And to explain both the purpose of a runestone and the Viking mentality is with a quote from Havamal
00:01:00.400 which goes as follows.
00:01:03.420 Kettle die and kinsmen die and one day you will also die.
00:01:08.340 But there is one thing I know which never dies.
00:01:11.800 The fame of a dead man's deeds.
00:01:13.860 And that is exactly what a runestone is.
00:01:18.260 It is a commemoration raised by someone's sons, someone's relatives, someone's friends
00:01:26.180 to commemorate a heroic and glorious deed.
00:01:29.000 So the Viking mentality was to a large extent about gaining that fame, gaining that glory
00:01:38.820 in the eyes of one's peers.
00:01:41.300 So it was important to live a life that could be held up as a model to others that could
00:01:47.720 inspire the next generation to greatness.
00:01:50.460 And we also have to talk a bit about what glory is.
00:01:54.600 Glory can be said to be respect earned among the men of your tribe or among the men of other
00:02:02.100 tribes.
00:02:02.960 It is about doing something daring, something courageous, something beyond the ordinary.
00:02:10.480 That is one interpretation of the metaphysical value of glory.
00:02:15.180 The Vikings were primarily out of two things, gold and glory.
00:02:18.980 The gold part is quite easy to understand.
00:02:22.080 Raiding and trading was the lifeblood of the Vikings.
00:02:27.000 But also the glory aspect.
00:02:29.300 And that can explain the adventures they partook in both west and eastwards.
00:02:35.260 So that is basically what a runestone is.
00:02:38.320 It's about someone who has lived a glorious life, a glorious enough life so that it will
00:02:45.060 be told to others even after he is dead.
00:02:48.500 So that is the fame of a dead man's deeds.
00:02:51.620 You have runestones to commemorate it.
00:02:54.200 Now, if we're talking a bit about the Viking expansions, we have to look upon the geography
00:03:00.980 of Scandinavia.
00:03:03.260 Back during the Viking age, most of Scandinavia was forest.
00:03:07.800 So you couldn't really get all too easily to other parts via land.
00:03:12.580 But going to other places with ships was much easier.
00:03:17.700 So if we look upon the connections of that time, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland were much
00:03:23.760 more connected via the coasts.
00:03:26.500 So if you look upon which Vikings went where, primarily Vikings from Western Sweden, Denmark
00:03:33.760 and Norway went west, whereas the Vikings from the eastern coast of Sweden went east, down
00:03:40.480 to Constantinople, also known as Miklagård.
00:03:44.060 Now we will go to another runestone, which is erected in a memory of someone who went west
00:03:52.300 with the Danish king to take Dana Gjeld, a tribute in England.
00:03:57.900 Now, of course, the Vikings who went east didn't only raid and trade or join the Veringian
00:04:03.240 guard to fight for the Byzantine emperor.
00:04:05.460 Some of them established kingdoms.
00:04:07.140 The most notable example is the name Russia, which comes from Roslagen, which is the area
00:04:13.280 I am in at the moment.
00:04:15.300 So eastern coast of Sweden in Uppland, Roslagen.
00:04:19.600 And from there you derive the name of the Rus, which in turn became Russia.
00:04:24.640 Although the Viking ruling class of Novgorod and the Russian kingdoms soon became assimilated
00:04:30.500 by the larger Slavic populations.
00:04:32.300 So behind me stands one of two runestones raised in the memory of a man called Ulfrik, who went
00:04:43.000 to England to bring back two Dana Gjelds, which is the tribute the English paid the Vikings
00:04:49.900 to get off their land, basically.
00:04:53.160 Now, of course, as we will discuss later on in another episode, Knut the Great, Canut the
00:05:00.200 Great, the Danish king created a North Sea empire and his influence was felt even here
00:05:06.900 in Sweden.
00:05:08.180 And again, if we're talking about the geography of Scandinavia, if you wonder why a runestone
00:05:15.580 is placed here, quite far from both Denmark and England, but in terms of actual time of
00:05:22.820 transportation, it was quite near considering the sea roads were so effectively used by the Vikings.
00:05:30.180 So when we're gauging communications and distances, it needs to be viewed from the point of ships.
00:05:38.020 And then also, if we're talking about Denmark, which would later become, along with Russia,
00:05:43.440 Sweden's greatest enemy.
00:05:45.240 Back in the day, there wasn't really much of a difference between Norwegians, Danes and Swedes.
00:05:50.640 And for those who are wondering, I can't understand Danish, I can speak Norwegian or rather I can
00:05:57.740 speak Swedish to Norwegians and they can speak back Norwegian to me and I can understand.
00:06:02.580 Back in the Viking age, we could understand each other perfectly because then the, as I said
00:06:08.340 again, the connections were via the coasts rather than the actual land.
00:06:13.800 So the cultural exchange, we were much more similar back then.
00:06:17.940 So there wasn't really Denmark and Sweden as you would see later on in history.
00:06:23.180 So that can explain why Swedish or rather Vikings located in today's Sweden went with Danish kings
00:06:30.280 and also Danes and Norwegians went with Swedish ships onto the lands in the east.
00:06:37.560 So basically, to conclude this first episode of Rune, Stones and Glory, Vikings were very
00:06:45.040 much indeed occupied with the quest for glory, the quest for fame and riches and conquest.
00:06:53.480 So thank you very much for watching.
00:06:56.060 Next episode, we will go to Uppsala, City of the Gods, to talk a bit more about the religion
00:07:01.820 of Scandinavia.
00:07:02.660 Thank you very much for watching.