Warriors,farmers,fishermen and traders

South Pacific Familyadventure 2008
Claes Brodin
Tue 15 Oct 2019 17:31
The fame of the vikings comes mainly from their reputation as sailors and warriors. It has been much debated why they were so willing to risk their lives and it´s now generally beleived that the reason was their fatalistic way of looking at life and death. In the end of the ninth century over a hundred vikingships were lost in a storm south of England and 4600 vikings lost their lives. Mortality on forays must have been skyhigh which also made the women being a strong part of the viking society. The women had the right to inherit their men and in the abscense of their husbands, they where the bosses of the farms.
But vikings where also farmers where men and women worked in symbioses,as well as fishermen exporting stockfish to southern Europe. Finally they were keen traders both trading with the indigenous people (the Sami people) as well as with all Europe reached by sailing on their longships.
The viking age is considered to have started with plundering of Lindisfarne (a monastery on the eastcoast of England) 793 and ending with christianity reaching Scandinavia in the middle of the 11th century.
Allthough a comparably short period of history,the narrative of the vikings have had quite an impact worldwide.

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