Vikings by Neil Oliver

 After many hours of listening to this book and working on a blog post, I ran into the problem that the post would bleed into the blog posts that followed it.  I do not know how to fix this problem,....and it is stopping me from making progress.  So I am going to keep the first part of this blog post a draft and start a new post so I can continue to work on the project.  I have hope this will work.  I can read what I have written so far by reading the draft,.  I could also send the draft to anyone who might want to read it..  Let me know if you want to see it for yourself.

So now I am starting this second part of the blog post at Chapter 7.  First we heard about a funeral in which the slave girl was readied and then gang raped and then killed to accompany her master when the boat was burned.  They did not burn her alive.  

Joe who is a buddy said that he felt I had interpreted the incident described above not in the same way the he had read the incident.  So I am adding his explanation of his interpretation from another account below:

Marsha, I haven't read that particular book but I do know of the funeral that you are referring to. IIRC it was originally recorded by the Arabic writer Ibn Butta who wrote about his travels to central Europe and to Russia in the 14th century. But to get to the point what you refer to as a "gang rape" was nothing of the sort. She had sex with four men prior to be humanely killed and sacrificed along with a dead Viking king. Ibn reported that it was a GREAT honor for her and something that she did very willingly.

Ibn explained that the men having sex with her wasn't about sex but was a display of their love for the deceased and that she was meant to carry their love to him in the next world. So she was in effect a Divine messenger for the Vikings.  It's a very odd notion by our standards! 

Joe also share with me the information about where this account can be read:

t was actually Ibn Fadlan who traveled into Europe and described the Vikings and that Viking funeral.   <https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ibn-fadlan-arab-among-vikings-russia

 

Next the author focused on the difference between the Vikings in the west and those who traveled east.  At this time the Vikings who had come down the German rivers had set up rule in Kiev.  And their ruler wanted to know which religion was best. Those exploring this idea found no joy in the Jewish religion nor in the Islam religion.  But the group that visited Constantinople were awestruck by the Christian religion that was in place in that city.  Constantinople was at the time of the coming of the Vikings the capital of the Byzantine Empire.  There was nothing like it...nothing to compare....The city was at that tine 500 years old.  It was the ruler Vladimir who sent out emissaries to report back to him which of the three religions was worthy.  By 988 the emissaries viewed Hagia Sophia: 

The Church of the Holy Wisdom, or Hagia Sophia, built by Justinian in the 6th century, was the centre of religious life in the Eastern Orthodox world. It was by far the largest and most splendid religious edifice in all of Christendom. According to The Russian Primary Chronicle (a work of history compiled in Kiev in the 12th century), the envoys of the Kievan prince Vladimir, who visited it in 987, reported: “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendor or beauty anywhere upon earth.” 

 That same year he had the Pagan gods torn down and thrown into the river....then had all of his people were led into the river to become Christians.

The next interesting fact the author suggests is that Kiev was important because it was on the river that led to the black sea....and hence to Constantinople.

The next interesting information is that St Petersburg was an area settled by the Swedes! It was Swedish until the 1700s.

And then back to the Vikings who traveled west,  The suggestion is that a man might spend the spring sowing his crops and then make his spring trip to plunder....getting home mid summer to harvest.  After harvest he would make a fall trip to plunder getting home early winter.  

Also there is information about the fact that the areas that had been under Roman rule were Christian.  But Ireland was later in being converted.  It was not until the 5th C that St Patrick and others converted the Irish,  And care was taken to incorporate old holidays and holy days so that the religion did not totally seem too unfamiliar.  And that the early Irish churchmen had families of their own.  Rome did not like this!  It meant that these churchmen had children to leave their money and goods to,,,Rome wanted the men of the church to send all money and goods to the mother church!

Ok....For some reason I decided to google if Rowland was Viking.  And I found the name could have origins in many cultures.  But the fact of most interest in the google search is this:

The name Roland/ Orlando/ Rolando symbolized all the strength and heroic, gallant, fighting defenders of the "faith" that a proud father could bestow on his son.It is certain that the Roland/Orlando version of the name entered England on, or shortly after 1066 AD,and the Norman conquest of England.I'm sure that the proud Frank/Viking followers of William the Conqueror used the name commonly.

It must be remembered that the Franks were not "French", as we now consider them. The Franks were a mixture of pre-Gallic, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic people, and the Normans were a mixture of Viking / Scandinavian / Danish people who, after invading and settling the Normandy region of France, and adopting the French court language as their own, then intermarried with the local Franks etc., before attacking and defeating the army of the Dane, Angle, Saxon, Jute, Briton, Celtic, Roman defenders of England.