Else Roesdahl > Quotes

“Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumbria.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“An element of the burial custom which today seems particularly macabre was the possibility of being buried with a companion, a male or female follower, presumably usually a slave, killed for the burial.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Bee-keeping was no doubt important in many places in Scandinavia. Honey was the only known sweetener, was used as a preservative and was an important ingredient in alcoholic drinks, while beeswax was necessary for certain metal-casting processes and it was also the best material for candles.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Rollo, and especially his son William Longsword, revived and strengthened churches and monastic communities with very large gifts. Both were buried in the cathedral in Rouen and it appears that most of the Vikings quickly became Christians.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Cattle die, kindred die, every man is mortal: but the good name never dies of one who has done well.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Many Vikings joined the armies of foreign princes, and some chieftains achieved high rank. In Western Europe and the British Isles Christianity had to be accepted before any such office could be held and in order to marry a nobleman’s daughter. Religion was the most important cultural distinction between Scandinavians and foreigners.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“The Vikings concentrated on monasteries, not because they had a vendetta against Christian religious communities, but simply because they could get the greatest loot here.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“In pagan times women were buried with accoutrements that reflected the female role in society. Instead of the tools, weapons and hunting dogs that accompanied men, women took household utensils, implements for needlework, spinning and weaving, jewellery and lapdogs with them on their journey to the next life.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Odin’s Valhalla was for chosen warriors,”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Scandinavian conquests and settlements, such as Stearsby in northern England, where both the prefix Stear-, derived from the Scandinavian personal name Styrr, and the suffix -by (settlement) are Scandinavian, or Toqueville in Normandy with the Scandinavian personal name Toke as prefix and a French suffix: ville. An analysis of place-names also makes it possible to distinguish between areas settled mainly by Norwegians and those settled mainly by Danes.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“The sexual roles were so deeply rooted among the warrior aristocracy that the two sexes had different realms for the dead in pagan times (cf. p. 156).”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“The enormous energy which characterized the Viking Age and which had sent waves of people across many parts of Europe had now dwindled, but the deeds of the Viking Age inspired Scandinavian literature, history and politics, and enhanced national pride and identity.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“On the coast the mild climate meant that cattle and sheep could stay outside all the year round and find their own food. If food supplies such as heather were plentiful, considerable numbers of animals could be supported. In other places on the coast and on the islands, fishing was the main source of food, supplemented by a few animals and a little grain. Settlements along the fjords would also exploit the mountain pastures during the summer and build up supplies of winter fodder from there.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“The violence of many Viking raids must not obscure the fact that the Vikings also enjoyed peaceful relations with the world around them, based on accepted norms for social behaviour and on special agreements.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“In this way they bear up under the unfruitfulness of their own country. Since accepting Christianity, however… they have already learnt… to be content with, their poverty…”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“the right to divorce among them belongs to the women; the wife divorces when she wants,’ one wrote. Adultery by both sexes was punished harshly. Around 1075 Adam of Bremen relates that in Denmark men were punished by death for adultery, while women were sold, and that there was also capital punishment for the rape of virgins.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Childhood and youth were brief in Viking times. As in every age all over the world children had stories, songs, rhymes and a few toys modelled on the adult world – miniature ships, weapons, horses and tools – but from an early age they were given daily tasks to do. Cnut, later Cnut the Great, was only a teenager in 1013 when he accompanied his father, King Svein, on the expedition that began the conquest of England. After his father’s death in 1014 he became the leader of the army, probably in fact as well as in name, and two years later he was ruler of all England.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Norway’s first Christian king was Hákon Aðalsteinsfostri. He grew up and was baptized in England and remained a Christian after he became king of his native pagan country c. 935. According to the scalds, he did not destroy sanctuaries, but he brought priests from England and churches were built in the coastal area of western Norway. Further north and in Tröndelag Christianity did not take root. When Hákon was killed c. 960 he was interred in a mound in traditional pagan fashion; the scald Eyvind described his last great battle, his death and his reception in Valhalla in the poem Hákonarmál. Ironically, this poem about a Christian king gives some of the best information about Odin’s realm of the dead. Olaf Tryggvason became the next Christian king of Norway when he returned home c. 995 with much silver after many years abroad. He had also been baptized in England and brought clerics back with him. A systematic and ruthless process of conversion was initiated in conjunction with efforts to unify the realm. The greatest success was in western and southern Norway and around the year 1000 Olaf was responsible for the conversion of Iceland, probably under threat of reprisals. Shortly after this he was killed in the battle of Svöld. The conversion of Norway was completed during the reign of Olaf Haraldsson. He had also become a Christian on expeditions abroad and his baptism is said to have taken place in Rouen in Normandy. On his return to Norway in 1015 clerics were again in the royal retinue, among them the bishop Grimkel, who helped Olaf mercilessly impose Christianity on the people.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“It is not known precisely when the earldom of Orkney became Christian, for the saga account of King Olaf Tryggvason’s forced conversion in c. 995 may not be reliable. It may have happened gradually here and elsewhere in Scotland, according to personal choice, during the tenth century, when pagan burial customs were abandoned (Plate 24) and Christian funerary monuments were adopted.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“On account of the roughness of its mountains and the immoderate cold, Norway is the most unproductive of all countries, suited only for herds.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“the body of a wagon, to symbolize a whole wagon. Food and drink were usually placed in the graves. All this indicates that the realm of the dead was reached by a journey,”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“good missionaries practised these qualities in their way of life, by redeeming prisoners of war and slaves, for example, and giving alms to the poor. They also preached non-violence and man’s equality in the face of God. They stressed that it was a person’s own actions that decided whether they did well in life and came into ‘light and paradise’, as it says on an Uppland rune stone; it was not the thread of the Norns, nor Odin’s arbitrary decision. In the one true realm of the dead all would meet again if they had lived as they ought.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“It is likely that the woman normally brought a dowry and that the man contributed a certain sum, and that both were the personal property of the woman in the marriage.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Arabic silver was to provide the impetus for the expanding economies of Russia and Scandinavia for most of the Viking Age. Huge amounts reached Scandinavia between about 800 and 1015. Much was melted down and made into jewellery, but more than 85,000 coins, mostly from the tenth century, have been found there: more than 80,000 in Sweden, particularly in Gotland; about 4,000 in Denmark; and 400 in Norway. Although these figures reflect to some extent the degree of involvement of the various regions in the Baltic areas and Russia-Ukraine, they are, as far as Sweden and Denmark are concerned, also determined by the local economic systems: where it was more common to pay with silver and coins than with goods, the silver remained in circulation rather than being hidden as hoards, as on Gotland (cf. p. 112). The coins were obtained along the Baltic and in Russia-Ukraine in various ways.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“The economy of the three countries was of course dependent on local conditions. In most places agriculture was the backbone of the economy, but the life of a Danish farmer was very different from that of a farmer in northern Scandinavia, where crops were much less important and people’s livelihood (mainly sheep and cattle) was often heavily supplemented by fishing and hunting reindeer, elk, birds and animals for their pelts. Seals, walruses and whales were also hunted, and natural resources such as iron deposits, or certain types of stone suitable for making cooking-pots, whetstones and querns, were another source of wealth.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Christianity brought completely new rituals, beliefs and rules of conduct, such as baptism, church services, bell-ringing, burial in consecrated churchyards without grave-goods, a belief in one God (or the Trinity), very strict regulations about marriage between relatives, while exposing unwanted children, eating horseflesh and worshipping the old gods were prohibited.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Cattle, horses, pigs, sheep were common farm animals in Denmark, and goats were seen. Hens, geese and ducks were also kept.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“The man who stands at a strange threshold should be cautious before he cross it, glance this way and that: who knows beforehand what foes may sit awaiting him in the hall? Better gear than good sense a traveller cannot carry, a more tedious burden than too much drink a traveller cannot carry. The tactful guest will take his leave early, not linger long: he starts to stink who outstays his welcome in a hall that is not his own. It is best for man to be middle-wise, not over cunning and clever: no man is able to know his future, so let him sleep in peace. Not all sick men are utterly wretched: some are blessed with sons, some with friends, some with riches, some with worthy works. The halt can manage a horse, the handless a flock, the deaf be a doughty fighter, to be blind is better than to burn on a pyre: there is nothing the dead can do. K”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Erik called the land Greenland because the name would encourage people to go there.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings

“Christian documents praised missionaries for their sincere preaching of the Gospel, their piety, learning, good sense in daily life, chastity and good deeds. That they lived according to their teaching impressed the pagans. On a purely practical level, they often bought boy slaves in order to bring them up in the Christian way of life, and acquire acolytes. As Christianity is an exclusive religion, it was considered important to destroy pagan sanctuaries.”
― Else Roesdahl, The Vikings