history is totally cool

When I was little, and went to school, I didn't give a shit. NOW, I do....

History is AWESOME now, I read up on shit all the time. I read up on Norwegian history, cus I'm from Norway, I read up on Spanish and Peruvian, cus I'm from there too, then I read up on places I'm not from at all, all of them, systematically, I want to know everything!

But then i also know, that all written history - is just that: Some dude (usually, most likely a dude.) wrote this. Not only once, but like a billion times over, in tons of languages, and in many different ways of expressing something.
This is especially problematic in Norwegian history, where you dont have to go very far back, before a lot becomes guesswork, and you have to look at drunken songs in order to reveal actual history.
If a drunken song is your ONLY source for an important battle, you know for sure took place, and the song goes on about "tens of thousands of men", what do you then write into the history book?
Such numbers have indeed been used in old sources, but the population of Scandinavia as a whole, at the time, would rarely allow for such armies to gather, its likely no such armies were raised untill at least well after the medieval era was over.
The only refuge against very "uncertain" history, somehow, at least for me, becomes to go further back, to when everything inevitably becomes uncertain by default.
My city name for example, Trondheim, both roots Trond and Heim are ancient. Heim means home, and Trond is a tribal name.
The interesting part is this: the region has ALWAYS been "Trondheim", even after we forgot who the "Trond" or "Trønder" was, even the vikings had probably forgotten, but they also used the same names. Same goes for Rogaland and Hordaland, of the Roga and Hordar. Estimates put the "activity" of these tribal kingdoms several thousand years back.
The "Dane" of Denmark, whos ancient name was "Daneland", is also of unknown ancient tribal origin. Nobody knows who the "Dane" originally was, except that they were, along with the Tronds, Rogar, Hordar, Svear and Götar, they were pre-nordic germanic tribes, who quite possible had the exact same language at this time, its possible that they did not even have had the time to develop regional dialects, as these became apparent as late as the viking age.



Their reality, was to hunt for food, and to easily blabber away with a distant man.
If a guy didnt understand what you talked about, he was most likely some sort of pre-romance tribal, or proto-celtic.

I read somewhere that northern scandinavia, and finland became inhabited by uralic people as early as the rest of the peninsula was inhabited by proto-nordic germanics, which is estimated to have happened between around 30 000 and 15 000 BC

Since that time, and untill around 1800 it has been a rough place, with lots of starvation and war, and this reality puts things into perspective. Norway wasnt always one, it was many, and they were all at war, norwegians killing norwegians all the time, and sometimes so much so, that it was written about by horrified monks all way south in england.

I like that.
We're so peaceful now, but we used to litter the ground with bodies, norwegian bodies, swedish, danish, celtic, english, saxon, french, spanish, egyptians, arabs, turks, you name it.
The Varangian Guard was made out of elite soldiers, from all over Scandinavia, who found brotherhood in their similar languages, their - by now - unique faith, and similar clothing and weapons styles. They quickly found a liking to the Byzantine emperor, and worked faithfully for him as his personal army of assasins, performing missions all over the middle east and north africa.
There are stories told about Varangian Guards coming home from service, wearing alladin-pants and turbans, bringing board-games and technologically advanced sabres and other treasures, filthy filthy rich or course, as the Byzantine emperor paid well.
Many prominent viking kings and warlords have travelled to turkey, to join and fight for the Varangian Guard, at some point in their life.

In return, turks, arabs and persians would enjoy thick fur coats and rugs, made from polar bear and whatnot, and the spanish and portuguese - to this day, enjoy north atlantic codfish as a delicacy, dried to preserve it, as it was brought to them by the vikings.

But i like the killing and mayhem.

I wonder if its possible to calculate the ammounts of lives taken by viking raiders, only driven by expansion and greed. Harald Hardråde's decision to invade britain wasnt very more noble than "It WOULD be cool, no? To invade them? Come on guys!"
Harald Hardråde was quite possible more messed up, as a person and political leader, than George Bush, as he actually went into battle himself, and got himself killed away from the country he was supposed to rule.
With disastrous effect of course.

There were a lot more public execution, torture and humiliation in the old days.
I wonder how that was acceptable then, and not now. Its still done in some countries, people there seem okay with it, to some degree. They did it here, and here we are, descendants, they obviously survived such cruel exposure.
Its interesting to note, for example, Trondeheim used to have heads on stakes around the city, at first facing out, to warn visitors into behaving, later, as the city grew, they were faced inwards, to keep the people in check.
Norway has only been rich since 1960, before 1960, Norway was a shithole.
Thats cool tool.

I read about kid-gang-wars in the 1920's, where kids in Trondheim would go to war against each others, w rocks, and bows and arrows, and often get seriously injured.
In the 1800's, there was a unit of city guards, armed with a huge morning star. Thats nice.
People were poor, probably starving, another thought i find interesting.

If you got nothing to do some day, now you know what to do :)