Northmen: The Viking Saga AD 793-1241 Read Online Free PDF

Angles and Jutes, who joined the Saxons in settling Britain, both certainly came from Jutland. Writing around 550, the Gothic historian Jordanes described Scandza as ‘the womb of peoples’ because it had given birth to so many tribes. The Viking expansion was really just the last phase of an extended period of migrations out of the north.
    The genesis of the longship
    Conflict is the essence of what is possibly the single most important archaeological find of the early Iron Age: a near-complete ‘war canoe’ and a hoard of weapons that were buried together in a bog at Hjortspring on the Danish island of Als around the time of Pytheas’ travels. The boat itself is the oldest plank-built boat yet found in Scandinavia and has enormous significance as the earliest known ancestor of the Viking longship. What is immediately most striking about the Hjortspring boat is its distinctive double beaked prows, which closely resemble those of the boats depicted in the Bronze Age petroglyphs, so it is likely to represent a well-established tradition of boat building. The boat was 56 feet (17 m) long by 6 feet (1.8 m) broad and was built from just five lime wood planks: a broad bottom plank with two overlapping planks on each side. This method of building a hull from overlapped planks, known variously as clinker, lapstrake or Nordic construction, is what marks the Hjortspring boat out as the earliest known ancestor of the Viking longships, whose hulls were built in the same way. The ends of the Hjortspring boat were closed with two carved wooden blocks that served as stemposts. The function, if any, of the projecting beaks is unknown. They may have been intended to ride up over the gunwales of an enemy boat and capsize it, or they may simply be a hangover from an earlier stage in the development of the Nordic boat-building tradition that were retained for cosmetic reasons: they do give the boat a racy appearance. No metal was used in the boat’s construction: the planks were sewn together and fastened to internal strengthening ribs with ropes made of lime tree bast. The boat was paddled by a crew of twenty – a useful number for a raiding party – who sat on thwarts set at the level of the gunwale. There was a steering oar at both ends, so the boat could be sailed in either direction. This would have been a great advantage for raiding because the boat could run right up a beach and the crew would not have had to turn it around if they needed to make a quick getaway. The boat was skilfully built to be as light as possible and sea trials with a replica have shown that it was fast, stable and relatively seaworthy. The boat was sunk in the bog with enough weapons to equip a small army: 138 iron tipped spears, thirty-one bone- or antler-tipped spears, eleven iron swords, sixty to eighty shields, and around twenty coats of mail, all but one of which survived only as rust prints in the peat. Plates from a bronze cauldron and the bones of a horse, a dog and a puppy, a lamb and calf were also found. Both ship and weapons survived thanks to the acidic and anaerobic (oxygen deficient) conditions found in peat bogs, which preserve organic materials like wood, textiles and leather by pickling them, while the lack of oxygen retards the rusting of iron.
    The Hjortspring find is one of the earliest examples of a practice of sacrificing the spoils of war that became widespread in Scandinavia and adjacent areas of north Germany during the early Iron Age. No other known sacrifice approaches the Hjortspring find in scale, however, and its deposition must commemorate a major battle. The most likely scenario is that the ship and weapons belonged to a large army that invaded Als only to be defeated by the local inhabitants, who offered their plunder to their gods as a thank-offering for victory. There are enough weapons to equip at least eighty warriors, so the invaders would have needed a fleet of at least four Hjortspring-type boats and, of course, we