Any Vikings around here?

[Hendrik the Great]

Because I think there are that many people around here who might know about what I am looking for, unless, of course, you would be Viking.
But on the other hand maybe you are. So here are my questions.

I want to make a scenario about the viking exploration and colonisation of Iceland, Greenland and North America.

1.Does anyone know what the "capitol", if one may call it that, of the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish Vikings were? The centre of rule would also suffice. I have some very contradicting info on this.

2. Should I start before or after the unification of Norway?
Expansion began in the 790s but unification was only a century later which triggered the emigration of many Norwegian Vikings to Iceland.

3. Does anyone have information on the native population of Greenland and East-Canada and the Northeast USA between 800AD and +/- 1450?

4. Any other suggestions are welcome, of course.

Oh, and you may also help me by answering those questions when you are not a Viking.

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[This message has been edited by Hendrik the Great (edited April 26, 2000).]

[Stefan Härtel]

1. The Vikings had such things as "provinces", which they called Things. These Things had, I believe capitals. If I'm right, then you can and should put palaces in following cities:
Eidsvold
Borg (hey, that does sound Swedish!)
Gula
Frosta

(Again, I can help you out with a map )

2. What you can do, is make it start in 872. This was the date of the first unification of Norway. You can cover the struggle between Norway and Denmark (which was unified in the 10th century). Denmark held Norway from 1028-1035.

3. Maybe I can help you out. I've got the "Chronicle of Canada", and I'm very sure that there's some info in there. If I'm successful, I'll write that in the next mail (this evening).

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[Sten Sture]

Let's go viking!

Hendrik - do you know the text by Gwyn Jones The History of the Vikings?

I have a couple of other reference sources and I'll check them out this evening...

[Hendrik the Great]

I thought skraelinger means something like ugly looking people. But I guess thin trolls are ugly looking, too.

-Provinces, Things are good! Frosta is very good. I was planing to put one there anyhow.
-872? Hmm...I thought it would be nice to let the player unit Norway on his own and then move on.
But it would take care of some problems...

"Gwyn Jones The History of the Vikings"
No, never heard of it. But I'll be going to a good bookshop tomorrow perhaps they have it and I can take a look.
I'm really interested in those sources...


The most important thing at the moment are the cities I can put a palace in, starting locations and when to start.

I have very detailed chronologies of the history of the viking expansion and so accounting for almost every year after 500AD right up to the 15th century.
I even know when how many ships arrived where and under what circumstances.
I love the Internet
[This message has been edited by Hendrik the Great (edited April 26, 2000).]

[The ANZAC]

I know Vikings had local warlord-controlled town areas called jarls, if that helps. That good be a high trade, shield, and food terrain in the middle of bleak Scandinavia.

[Coug]

I'll see what I can do...

preliminary info: The vikings called the indians "skrælinger" which basically means "thin trolls" or something like that.

[Harlan]

I've got a ton of Viking related units available for you to use over at the Cradle of Civilization site, in both ToT and pre-ToT form (I'm in the middle of making a Viking related scenario too).

As for the capitals, those countries really weren't unified in the modern sense back in the 800s. Capitals tended to move around a lot too, but Jelling was a pretty consistent one for the Danish. If you're focusing on western colonization, you don't even need to include the Swedish, since they were focused on Russia.

[Hendrik the Great]

Well, I was at that bookshop and I couldn't have been more disappointed. Not a single usefull book about Vikings! Darn!

Every bit of information helps ANZAC. No matter how small.

Thank you Harlan I will take a look at them at once. So I could basicly not give them a capitol at all, right? In order to get to that stage unit Norway and get a tech for that allowing you to build palaces.
That would allow for some nice events.
Make research to unit Norway, do unit Norway, receive tech throu events that allows palace construction and also create Viking Refugees that run off to Iceland becasue they don't like the new King.
Nice.

I have been thinking about not going to use Sweds. They won't be playing a big part in the scenario anyway and it would allow me to use two native civs instead of only one.
One in Canada(shraelinger) and one in the northern Islands with Greenland(Inuit).

[Coug]

Triple post...
[This message has been edited by Coug (edited April 27, 2000).]

[Coug]

Triple post...
[This message has been edited by Coug (edited April 27, 2000).]

[Coug]

On Greenland:

There were two Grends on Greenland. The Northern and Southern Grend. A Grend is not a village, more a concentration of farms. The Northern Grend had 100 families, approx, at it's peak and the Southern Grend had 200 families at it's peak. This was around 1300. While both Grends could sport a church, the Southern Grend could even brag to have a bishop. There are records of several "incidents" between the Inuits and the Vikings. One such incident was described, more or less, as this:

quote: When the Inuits came, they banged some sticks together. They made an awful noise, so we fled. Knut, however, stood his ground. He ripped off his shirt and started shaving his breast with his sword until he bled. Then the Inuits fled.

Those were the days.

On Vinland:

Vinland does not mean "Land of the Grapes" as it was first believed. Instead, it means "Lands of Meadows", or as it does today, L'Anse aux Meadows. 8 houses were found there, a quite small Grend, but there were believed to be more Grends as the Vikings on Greenland had to travel to Vinland to get the timber they needed for their houses on Greenland. It is also believed that the Vikings traveled as far south as Florida. Proof: Shells found in Florida can only be found in Florida can also be found one other place on the earth, the North Sea. Rumor: They have even found a Viking settlement as far south as that. I cannot confirm this though.

Also, in the 1500s, British and French mapmakers even wrote "Nortumbega" on the maps of America. Nortumbega being the old name of Norway. Hugo Grotius himself said that all territories north of Mexico should be considered Norwegian.

[Hendrik the Great]

This is beginning to get interesting...

Just wondering; are there any good Viking-English dictionaries on the internet? Or lists of common Viking words?

Unfortunatly my map only extends as far south as the Great Lakes Region. It sounds very intreging but I would like to stay with the more known and proven part of history.

When was the approximate time the colonies on Greeland vanished? Around 1450?

[Captain Nemo]

You were looking for Viking city names. I know that Jellinge was a Capital of some tribes for some time. Definitely an important one. Another one is Trelleborg where they found the remains of a huge Viking army camp, very organized and structured. I used it as the model for the "walled viking cities" that I made for Alex's scenario: Conquest of the North, though I could only fit in 6 "longhouses" within the walls as opposed to the 16 in the original.
Here is a list of the Danish Viking Kings from 900-1100:

Gorm the Old 900-950 approx.
Harald 950-985
Sven Forkbeard 985-1014
Harald Sweynsson 1014-1018
Knud the Great 1018-1035
Knud (Another one)1035-1042
Magnus the Good 1042-1047
Sven Estridsen 1047-1074
Harald Hen 1074-1080
Knud the Holy 1080-1086
Oluf Hunger 1086-1095
Eric the Very Good 1095-1103

Some of them may have been Kings of Norway too, since there was a lot of connections there.

[Sten Sture]

Trelleborg did have a great design! Four squares of four longhouses surrounded by a rampart and an array of longhouses out side the wall.

Some other Viking cities - Hedeby, Birka, Gamla Uppsala, Sigtuna, Helgo, Valsgarde, Truso in Estonia, Wollin in Germany, Kaupang (Skiringssal), Dorestad in Frisia, Lindholm, Skara, Lund, Ribe, Viborg, Arhus, Alborg, Odense, Roskilde, Grobin in Latvia.

[Hendrik the Great]

Yes, Jelling was an important centre of the Danish. For Norway I will use either Frosta or Trondheim, depends.
What's more concerning me right now is when to start and how long to give the player in matters of time. Till 1066/1085 or until the end of the 15th century when the last colony in Greenland disappeared for good.

The map is relatively small. I can get about 3 cities max. onto Denmark for example. If I really pack them together with only 1 square apart. But the ocean is more than big enough.

I do have enough material to find appropiate city names. What I'm looking for is starting locations because the player(if he's playinbg the vikings) won't have more than one or two cities to start with. I'll probally remove the palace then from the vkings so they have to make progress towards this. As pointed out there wasn't really any capitol or real unified Viking country until 872(well, more or less) when Harald Fairhair unified Norway under his rule and triggered mass emigration to Iceland whcih had been discovered in 860.

I will be going to the the city tomorrow to get some books on Vikings when I go to the library. Hopefully I'll find some with good pictures for units and cities...

Oh, and Cpt. Nemo. May I use some of your terrain graphics? Some of the ones that are in the "Nemoland" collection.