| They came from the cold and hostile North. They pillaged monasteries, set the villages on fire or put them to the sword and profaned the churches. From the 8th century all English places of worship resounded with a new prayer: "Save us, oh Lord, from the fury of the Northmen!" In vain... For more than three hundred years, from the 8th to the 11th centuries, the Vikings voyaged ceaselessly and invaded neighbouring lands. It was they who pushed into the coastal and river towns of the north and left a permanent mark on the civilization which developed in Europe, including England and Russia. They were the Old Norse, the men of legend who roamed the Atlantic and the North Sea, finding their way to Iceland and the New World long before Columbus. Little by little they acquired distinct national identities and became the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians. Each took over its own theatre of operations. The Swedes went east and the Danes sailed west, as did the Norwegians, who regularly indulged in piracy and in seizing unoccupied or sparsely peopled lands. |
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Male domination was a part of the world of the Vikings; it was a basis of leadership among them. Any one could rape a women, they reasoned, but it took a real man to rape a man, especially a warrior. Whether in fact or through symbolism, when a warrior challenged a rival he evoked sex. He would use expressions like those old Anglo Saxon invectives we still use today, like the modern "screw you": what he was saying, and felt, meant "I can and will mount you and I can and will penetrate your anus". A Viking warrior making such an assertion was putting his rival on notice that the rival was considered to be at a lower status than the man making the challenge… It is inherent in our culture to resist the idea that great and powerful warriors would engage in homosexual activities, but it can be confirmed through the accounts of victims and in the study of their language. Old Norse is a language which is rich in words describing sexual matters… |
