What is a Sexy Viking?

Hollywood paints a vivid picture of huge axe and shield bearing killers and thieves.  Hollywood would have us believe the Viking were blood thirsty folk who travelled to pillage, rape, loot and burn for profit.  History tells a very different story.

It is absolute fact that a period of poverty brought about the barbarism during the era we call the 'Viking Age'.  However, the word Viking predates the 'Viking Age'.  Prior to a crashed economy, the word indicated travel, thus camping.  The word indicated only that travel and camping was a routine part of a person's life.  To fund those travels, there was first trade.  When trade became less profitable, plunder came into the picture.

However, even during the Viking age (about 800–1050 CE) the Hollywood image of invading barbarians is quite a bit off.  While scores of Americans were taught in school that Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover the Americas, Leif Erikson (c. 970s – c. 1018 to 1025) was in North America about 500 years before Christopher Columbus.  This was during the Viking Age.  And yet, rather than the classic Viking raiding and plundering, his journey involved building a port and shipyard to further trade.

Christopher Columbus, on the other hand, was likely responsible for more plunder, thief, murder, and enslavement than the whole of the Viking Age.  His visit was so full of rape, that a new race of sorts was created.  Although Mexican nationals are of different ethnicities, most are what the Spanish called Mestizo.  There is no historic record, account, or evidence that the Viking Era Vikings ever even considered that level of barbaric behavior.  Vikings were in North America to explore, settle and build boats to further trade.

Because the classic Vikings were a preindustrial people, they traded exclusively in hand made and hand processed goods.  In the case of the ventures to the Americas, it is likely hand processed skins and pelts.  In the case of Leif Erikson, it seems boats and tools were the majority of trade goods.  We know he did not plunder monasteries for their gold because monasteries did not exist in North America.  Lumber and furs did.

To claim Vikings were blood thirsty pirates is kin to claiming black folk love watermelon.  Sure some black folk love watermelon.  Yes some Vikings were blood thirsty barbarians.  But basing a view of Vikings on Hollywood movies is like basing your view of bikers on the TV show Sons of Anarchy.

In fact, entire villages of modern day Vikings exist.  Consider the folk of the Tune Towns.  Although the term toon town was likely to have first been used as the title for a village outside of the Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF), today the term is sometimes used generically to reference other similar villages.

As I understand the TRF Tune Town, the Texas Renaissance Festival sold some of its property to participants.  From there, it grew into an independent community of sorts.  Because most of the TRF participants travel to other renaissance fairs, Tune Town became a sort of home base where many winter.  Each year, when the weather breaks, the inhabitants of Tune Town travel to other festivals for trade, mostly in hand crafts.  Just like Leif Erikson.  On there travels, they tend to stay in encampments at each of the renaissance fairs they visit.  That brings us back to the root of the word Viking.

They winter together and they travel together for trade.  As a handcrafter, I will even go so far as to say some plunder.  If you knew the wholesale price of the imported goods vs. the retail prices at renaissance fairs, you would likely agree the resale folk are a plundering.  But that is a personal opinion.

In general, these folk are hard working men and women with a desire to improve their state of being while exploring those parts of the world they can reach.  No, not by long boat.  But a longboat is not in the definition or etymology of the word Viking.  I feel these people are modern day Vikings.  They certainly have the spirit and wanderlust of a Viking.  I suspect there are Vikings other than we migrant renaissance festival workers.  Some bikers come to mind.

Upon presenting this view, I am often told Vikings worshipped the pantheon of heathen gods.  This too is an image created by Hollywood.  It has long been known Christians were part of the Viking Age.  Recent discovery indicates Muslims were sometimes Viking.  Viking bodies have been unearthed with the word Allah on their Muslim style burial shrouds.  So no, a Viking need not worship the Heathen pantheon og gods and goddesses.  That too is Hollywood.  So if neither heathen or pirate is required to be Viking, what is?

Consider the song My Mother Told Me.  The song was composed by Egil Skallagrímsson (c. 904 – c. 995) was a Viking Age poet.  His writings were some of the few historic accounts reportedly written by a Viking Age Viking.  Most references were created from oral tradition by Christian monks after the fact.  My Mother Told Me was created during the thick of it.  His song begins: