6 Reasons I am Proud of My Viking Ancestry

[1truekhaleesi]

Until recently, Vikings were portrayed as dumb, brutal rapists, and villains. None of that is true. Half of viking warriors were women. Another myth is that women had no rights. Again, not true. Men couldn’t even touch a woman without her consent. And if a man abused his wife, she could cut off his balls, hang ithem in her home, and he would be forever shamed. Men today complain that they can't even touch a woman without her getting upset. The Vikings had similar laws and they were badass.

Because my ancestors wisdom is still important to know

I have a stressful job and I am feel like I am learning something new every day. I recently started feeling insecure but I just reminded myself what my ancestors would say. And I know they wouldn’t want me to stop my dream of becoming a surgeons first assistant because of my insecurities.

We know how to party

A lot of Christmas traditions come from Yule, which the Vikings celebrated. The Vikings knew how to party. They were like a bunch of bearded Martha Stewarts.

It's always been a part of me

Your ancestors deserve respect because you are the result of a thousand loves.

It means so much to me, I refuse to ever change my last name

My last name has centuries of history attached to it and in my ancestors language, it means “warrior.”

I do have my own Viking sword. It’s name is Witch’s Wound. It can kill someone and I keep it for protection. My dad forged it himself.

We have a lot of history

Enough that we inspired a tv show. Vikings is a good tv show and I recommend it.

It always serves as an inspiration to be strong

My dad made me a necklace with a Viking rune on it. It means “find strength in new beginnings.” I wear it everyday.

[MlleCake]

I think it is excellent to have a proud heritage like this, the REAL heritage, not the mythical one - to love and feel proud of.

I'm incredibly proud of my various ancestors and what they did for me to have the life I have today. There's surely some viking in us somewhere - but I have focused more on who were my ancestors that came to the US - just where my interest lies.

Norse mythology is incredibly fascinating, and worth studying for everyone.

I just feel very very sad when white supremacists, racists, and thugs take up the banner of "Viking Heritage" as a cover for their ill intentions.

None of the rest of us who actually know our individual lines of heritage deserve to be lumped in with those guys. My German ancestors came here well before the Nazis, heck, some before there was a unified Germany at all - and when I talk about my German heritage, I don't want my pride in the hard work of MY ancestors to be confused for pride in one of the greatest abominations to happen in modern history.

I like your rune. Hope you post a picture some time and tell us more about Vikings.

I wear a symbol of my French ancestors, who were Huguenots driven out of Europe to find a free place to practice their religion here. I'm proud of that rebel heritage - that's all over the place in my family tree. here is what it looks like:

www.oocities.org/hugenoteblad/huguenot-cross.gif

Good work on this MyTake. Organized thoughts, coherent, well written with proper grammar and punctuation, interesting reading. (Those are my observations as a writing coach.)

[Himig_Ng_Pag-ibig]

Summoning the techno viking!
media.giphy.com/media/3W0vjXgLj4rg4/200w.gif

[englisc]

I have some Viking ancestry and I'm pagan myself. However, the trouble is that much of the history surrounding the Vikings has been twisted by liberals and as a result much of it is false.

The biggest myth is that half of the warriors were women - they weren't. It makes no sense to have female warriors - they aren't strong enough to fight men, and if they get killed in battle they can't have children, thus the tribe can't sustain itself. Nowadays we have guns and women are still less capable than men, however back then they fought with swords and axes, which meant that the physical strength difference was even more important. Even today for example, in MMA there are separate divisions for men and women of the same weight because the strength difference is too big, this is despite the fact that those women are the best female fighters in the world. In these wars the men would have been much bigger though, and the strength difference much larger, there's no way that a woman would stand a chance against the men.

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote a book about Germanic tribes outside of the Roman Empire in 98AD titled "The Germania". In it he wrote that the women would accompany the men to battle to offer encouragement, and that the men would fight hard to protect the women so as not to lose them to the opposing tribe. The women would also if a warrior of their tribe somehow lost a weapon throw them a spare, this was the real role of a sheildmaiden. They certainly weren't warriors.

Imagine if they were like Lagertha from the Vikings show - a 130lb woman isn't gonna defeat a man twice her size in a sword fight. As much as I enjoy the show, a lot of it is completely inaccurate. It's true that they were a little more egalitarian in that they respected women and their opinions, however they weren't these liberal feminists who liked to sleep around and share their wives and engage in homosexual relationships and they didn't view the Gods as literal beings in the sky in the same way that Christians do. They didn't sacrifices humans the way they do on that show either. The Vikings show is a false portrayal of real Viking culture.

[boggij]

There are lot of speculation about the vikings these days. Some of them tend to glorify Vikings , but there are also some new discoveries about them.
Fore some reason women often try to exaggerate their role in the glory of Vikings.
Of course there were female viking fighters , but they were very very rare.
When the Vikings " went to viking" as we called it , women were almost never present. The few that went were almost certainly lesbians according to their behaviour.
When Iceland was occupied , there was only one woman amongst the leaders.
She was a widow of a recently killed warrior.

Vikings were not stupid at all , and they shaped the politic of Europe for hundreds of years.
But they were extremely brutal warriors. It was really their war tactic.
People were horrified when they heard about Viking fighters in the neighbourhood and often gave up without a fight and handed over their silver and food. Even the major of Paris once gave up without fight and send a wagon load of silver to the Vikings to pacify them.
.
If I can compare them to something today, it would be ISIS , and there is a reason for this.
It is the brutality of the warriors and their fighting tactic.
One of the things that made them so brutal and fearless was their religion.
Like ISIS warriors they believed that if they were killed in action , they would gain eternal life in the best place thinkable.
That is why they did not fear death. It was a win win for them. If they won the battle , they got a lot of silver and women.
If they lost, they got eternal life in unimaginable luxury.

There are few other things that were the root of their success.
They had excellent war strategy.
They had the dreadful Viking sword.
They had the Viking ship , the by far fastest ship on the Atlantic.
And they had discovered drugs to help them in the fighting.

[lord_chilled]

Good to know that you are proud of your anvestors, but im sorry to say that no.1 is pretty much a lie. Maybe vikings werent always raping and pillaging, but im sure that the land they took over and they resources they took with them werent simply given to them because they asked really really nicely.

There may have been some business, sometimes threats and intimidation from either sides, and sometimes all out war. Im sure there were some raids. There are records of such.

" Half of viking warriors were women. "

As for this, i guarantee that this is very likely not what you think it was.

[1truekhaleesi]

I am not denying that rape didn't exist. I am just saying it wasn't as prevelant as people think. People say the same thing about modern day America. And I have resources that there were shiledmaidens like Lagertha that existed.

[lord_chilled]

Exeptional female warriors have existed in some armies troughout history. If you show exeptional fighting prowess, in an age where the best man for the job, was given the job, of course you get in. But given that men are stronger, faster and built better for combat, on average means that claims like "50 percent of vikings were women" are fictious. Why would you want to deliberately have a weaker warrior force?

[lord_chilled]

For example, you have fighters like ronda rousey, holly holms, cat zingani, meisha tate, etc who would defeat a solid 95-99% of the human male population.
But an average woman couldnt.
And those women would lose to guys like connor, nate, gsp, or any top male fighters.
Still , if we were to say hand to hand combat was the main means of warfare, you would still take those girls in order to get rid of a number of average joes. Bit that doesn't mean you would take a whole section of average janes

[looneymalooney]

now I have a question in regards to the part of "we know how to party" and usually the society in the Nordic countries in general.
First the party: is it true that Corporate Christmas parties end up with people having sex? (not necessarily a free for all gang bang where everyone joins, but people slowly going for hotels or their homes and having sex)

2nd: How do you see marriage over there: is it normal for the two to actually meet others and have sex, is it acceptable OR is marriage exclusive as supposed to be in most parts of the world?

Asking this because I know some nordic people that say the office Christmas parties end up with people having sex and they were laughing at how everyone feels embarrassed the first time they get in the office after the New Year.

[FýrdracaDócincel]

Dost thou even hoist, heathen?
http://www.medievalwarfare.info/pics/knight..jpg

[1truekhaleesi]

Hahaha love it

[FýrdracaDócincel]

On another note..
"Half of viking warriors were women. Another myth is that women had no rights. Again, not true. Men couldn’t even touch a woman without her consent. And if a man abused his wife, she could cut off his balls, hang them in her home, and he would be forever shamed."

Do you have any sources for this?
I've heard similar things about women being trained to fight, but I never saw anything saying half the warrior force was female.

And I've seen nothing for the idea that a man couldn't so much as touch a woman without consent and similar.

[1truekhaleesi]

www.hurstwic.org/.../women.htm
This article does a good job covering how surprisingly progressive Vikings were. Probably more so than America in the present.
At first the bodies were assumed to be men, but after DNA testing, they were in fact women. This article talks about a woman who was an officer. She did battle strategies and led troops into battle.
phys.org/.../...c-proof-women-viking-warriors.html

[1truekhaleesi]

Oh yeah forgot to mention that there wasn't any written laws. All of their laws just went without saying and the Vikings were very concerned about consent. A lot of ancient cultures were probably more progressive than modern day cultures. Just like how native americans respected teansgender people. I believe they had five genders before the Europeans came and forced the two genders mindset on them.

[Josht13]

I see a why the vikings are important in your post but how do these reasons apply specifically to you and mean you should be proud because you just so happen to be born from people like this. I never understand why people care about this stuff myself though

[JackofSpades]

I think this girl has her history confused with fantasy novels.
Yes heathen women had more power and agency then their catholic counterparts.

But the idea of half of the Norse warriors being women, is complete bullshit.

The sagas mention various shield maidens, but they were always notable exceptions, not the norm.

The only time half of your warriors would be women is when your village is being raided and literally everyone is fighting for their lives.

[pervertedjester]

i.pinimg.com/.../...lagertha-lagertha-lothbrok.jpg

[COCOCHANEL]

nice. i have some distant norwegian ancestry (before they decided to become wankers in the south of england) but mongol blood is very strong and stubborn.

[disgustingweebtrash]

I'm proud of my British ancestry, good to see you're proud of your viking ancestry :)

[1truekhaleesi]

I am glad to see you are proud of your history. Our ancestors have a lot to teach us.

[InTimoreDei]

My Celtic ancestry is a major part of my identity. We traded and mingled with the vikings and then fought the Anglo-Saxons together.

[YHL6965]

You can litterally copy and past these 6 reasons and apply them to any other culture. You're just proud of your heritage and that's great. Never forget where you come from.

[Waffles731]

I prefer being italian-american, if my ancestors wanted someone dead, it was either a sawed off shotgun at close range, a knife or pistol in an alley, or simply poisoning someone.
Brutal pragamtism

[Waffles731]

@1truekhaleesi do you know what your first image refers to?
Cause its got basically nothing to do with this.
Its talking about coming out of the broom closet. Coming out of the broom closet is when a Neopagan or Wiccan tells his family that he is a neopagan or Wiccan, I guess im in it right now since my family doesn't know. But its about as dangerous in some parts of the south as coming out of the closet as gay

[PaulMarrow]

Beware of what you read, communist subversion is everywhere and has been for a long time. The "progressive" ideas being pushed are often historical revision to trick you.

[Alpha89s]

You have my respect !

[oddwaffle]

Wait, I thought Vikings were like raiders. Not an actual group but more like a job title.

They would do the fishing and the farming in one season and raid other people on another season.

[JackofSpades]

You are correct. People who have no idea what they're talking about refer to the Norsemen as vikings.

[snowshy]

I see no point in being proud of something I had no part in

[1truekhaleesi]

No one is asking you to be.

[snowshy]

And I didn't say that people did

[1truekhaleesi]

Go ahead and be apathetic. No one's stopping you.

[snowshy]

Lol wtf? How did that comment offend you? Are you that sensitive? Fuck off. Don't post articles if you don't want people to be able to have their say.

[1truekhaleesi]

If anyone is offended, its you. If anything, I support your decision to be a hard ass who pretends to not give a damn. I did say to go ahead and be apathetic.

[kayeleva]

wahit powah !!!
heathenwomenblog.files.wordpress.com/.../...ng.jpg

[smahala1991]

Impressive! I learned stuff about vikings I never knew. I am czech./German with apparently some Cherokee ancestory

[Jan_Classic]

Oh that article is a leet fake =D. Today people treat history as they want.

[1truekhaleesi]

Have you met google? Google is a dear friend. You should try it.

[Jan_Classic]

Google does not study history. The people do.

[1truekhaleesi]

And what is google run by? People.

[Jan_Classic]

Your article is as related to history as your avatar, honestly =D

[1truekhaleesi]

Are you a historian? Cause if you are, I had no idea. Where'd you get degree? What did you do your dissertation paper on?

[Jan_Classic]

Just basic history courses at my university. I'm specialised in science.

[1truekhaleesi]

Ohhh cool. I took basic history too. And I took history classes that were not basic. And every humanities class. Not all at once of course. I am not that crazy.

[PaulMarrow]

Goolag is NOT your friend.

[1truekhaleesi]

@PaulMarrow Is it really? Because I totes thought it was. Totes my goats.

[PaulMarrow]

Well it totes isn't it's Marxist as hell. Look up "American invetors" you'll get a load of black guys inventing stop lights and nearly no mention of air craft, the telephone, or any other invention created by the 90% or more actual American white majority. Goolag lies their ass off for Marxism. Read about James Damore. Be careful of what they link you to. If it has that sickly rotten smell of "social justice" it's communist garbage.

[1truekhaleesi]

@PaulMarrow thats nice dear. No one is knocking down achievementsmade by other races. This is all being imagined in your head. And no I wotn read about whats his face. My time is on other more important things.

[PaulMarrow]

Be smug while you can comrade, a lot of people are going to die soon because of your ideology and the world is going to change.

[1truekhaleesi]

@PaulMarrow we have never talked about either of our political ideations, so you can shut your trap and stop hallucinating.

[PaulMarrow]

I know exactly what your political ideology is. Your just one more brain washed commie.

[1truekhaleesi]

@PaulMarrow you’re
I am actually libertatian. But I never once did said my political ideals. I know that you don't know the difference between your, you're, you are. Come on now. That is fourth grade English. Try to be smarter than fourth graders. And whatever drugs you are on, can I have some?

[Jan_Classic]

@PaulMarrow whats wrong with the commies? I like them despite the fact they want equality lol =D.

[Jan_Classic]

@1truekhaleesi
The viking culture within a tribe is based on the tribe's very traditions and almost zero literacy (99.99% of vikings could not write and read). Hence, every tribe had it's own laws and attitude to women. The only thing in common was their pagan religion and very basic code. That means one tribe would treat women like slaves while another tribe could generally tolerate them.

[PaulMarrow]

https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=xw_gxEL0Q_A

[Jan_Classic]

@PaulMarrow haha tell that to the chinese

[1truekhaleesi]

Rape was punishable by death. The Vikings even had strist laws against unwanted attention. I have a link for that. Only 88-90 percent of modern day America can read. Plus, Brock Turner only had to serve 3 months of a 6 month sentence for rape. And he was literally caught in the act. So who is really the barbarians?

[Jan_Classic]

By the viking law that can be, but as within any tribe any epoch and any society, the rich and the powerful easily avoid the punishment. The only thing I like in vikings culture is the duel: the relative of a raped woman could've challenge the rapist to have a chance to bring justice. However this sometimes did not work as the jarl (or other person in power) could've hire a "lawyer" guy to fight for him. Normally the best warrior of his army. So if you are looking for justice, emancipation and women's rights you won't find it within any age, any culture or any sosciety. Modern culture haze some minor progress compared to the medieval, linked to communists Klara Zetkin and ROse Luxembourgh.

[boggij]

There is a little misunderstanding. Rape was not punishable by death.
On the other hand if you raped or harassed someone's wife, he would probably try to kill you.
There is a difference.
There was not so much trouble killing people back then.
If you killed someone that raped your wife, his brother or his sons would most likely kill you later.
All this referred to the rich people. If you raped a peasants wife , nothing happened.
Raping slaves was a common practice.

You have to keep in mind , that back then there was no government and no law enforcement.
It sometimes happened that someone was judged for killing some important person.
But there was no police to enforce the verdict. Sometimes you were outlawed but sometimes the killer had to pay a fine. If he was outlawed you were allowed to kill him if he did not leave the country. But you had to do it your self.
If the verdict was financial penalty, you had to collect thee fee yourself. If you could not force him, that was the end.

[Jan_Classic]

@boggij yes, that's the point. Provided one Jarl announce a bounty on your head while another Jarl make you his Thane. So basically one city could rape and rob another city without any consequence. Would we be happy living in such a medieval? No thanks! So ther are a lot of misconceptions in these medieval stuff. And the people who consider Game of Thrones a historic drama, discuss the things they have no idea about. Women's rights in medieval scandinavia? Forget about it until 1910. Ther were not even men's rights, only feudals and slaves.

[boggij]

Yes , the "women's rights" were mainly , that if you did something wrong to a rich woman, you had disgraced the property of a very bad tempered Viking.
And he would most likely kill you.
But women had some rights. They could divorce their husbands for any reason and there was nothing he could do about it. It was rather rare though.
When this happened she got protection from her father or brothers. And she could have some properties. In reality she owned the dowry given by her father.
If she belonged to some chief, she was the head of the household, but her husband took care of the silver and gold.
I speak the language of the Vikings, so if I met one of them I could speak to them. But there is some difference though. I would not understand everything.
But the Vikings were no barbarians.
They also wrote remarkable books and poetry.

[Jan_Classic]

@boggij yes, the literacy came to them with christianity. Before 11th century they just had a skald per village who could read and write runes. Yes, I heard something that you say, from the basic history course. The funny thing is that today people cry about the woman's rights in arab countries. But in fact the women of arab countries are 100 times more secure than anywhere in Europe. Well these days the refugees rape the women of EU just for nothing. In arab countries one-two decapitated bastards and the rapes are over for more than a decade or two.