[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Ralph Grinly]

I'm wondering whether archers should really be considered "peasants",( as we today consider peasants..one step above slaves) ? What many forget is that to be an effective archer takes *lots* of practice, and that means having plenty of free time to have that practice. True peasants are not very likely to have that free time..if called to war, they are most likely to be armed with spears or some form of club. So, I'd consider those fighters who came as archers , while not maybe of the middle or upper classes, certainly weren't simple peasants. Maybe the "blue-collar workers" of their day ?

[Ralph Grinly]

Ignore please..accidental duplicate post

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Alexander Hinman]

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Alexander Hinman]

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[T. Kew]

Some sketched thoughts follow. Sadly I don't have time to develop this in detail for at least a few weeks, or even properly extract and consult my degree notes on the early Viking age.

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Alan E]

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

[Pedro Paulo Gaião]

[Niels Just Rasmussen]

Pedro: About mutilated bodies possibly sacrificed in viking graves:

The thing is that even high status men and women can also have seemingly mutilated bodies. The state of the bones can often make it hard whether it was done pre- or postmortem.
We don't know whether these persons are even thralls, we haven't found ant rune inscriptions saying so around their necks.

Ibn Fadlan tells us about the Rus Volga burial, that the woman being raped and sacrificed under the Rus burial at the Volga volunteered. People today don't believe that (because of how modern people think, so they assume that its was a thrall that have been forced). Its not even clear if the woman is a thrall or a wife.
Ibn Rustah tells of another burial where the wife of the diseased is buried alive in the mound with her husband. So clearly here she is not a thrall at all.
Could be like the burnings of wives in India (Sati) before the English banned it, but then the person is NOT a thrall.
In many graves it can be very hard to tell the relationship between those in the grave. You do occasionally find people apparently bound before killed in the grave; but we actually don't know if they are thralls (see below).
You know from mythology that Kings were also occasionally sacrificed. In myth Swedish Kings actually specifically be being drowned in mead or beer. King Vikar is speared and hung simultaneously by Starkadr (a double Odin killing, as Odin also was hung and speared on the world tree).
Saxo writes this about the Christian Danish King Olaf Hunger, who died under vague circumstances in 1095.
"Saxo Grammaticus writes that he "willingly gave himself to loose the land of its bad luck and begged that all of it (guilt) would fall upon his head alone. So offered he his life for his countrymen."[5]
He is the only Danish monarch whose burial site is not known. It has been postulated that his body was divided among the regions of Denmark as a kind of scapegoat which was to take away the blood guilt of Denmark and restore it to its previous fortunes."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_I_of_Denmark
So according to Saxo the King Olaf Hunger willingly gave himself to sacrifice?, to make the land prosper again.

Modern western people have a hard time believing that, but some people are actually blowing themselves up with bombs and Christians wanted to be martyrs so much in the early church you had some actually volunteered to be eaten at the circus. Dying for the faith mattered to them more than life. The lure of the afterlife can be strong in a hard world.

An example if what seem to be a clear case that actually isn't, when you know the endless viking variations in burials:

Source: http://naukawpolsce.pap.pl/Data/Thumbs/_plugi...892967.jpg

So who is who in this grave?? (Stengade grave FII, Denmark): Clothes, hair & beards and rope are unknown, so notice positioning in the grave.
The guy on the left is not mutilated and the guy on the right is seemingly sacrificed with his head chopped off and with hands and legs in a positions in the grave that makes it very likely he was bound these places. Clear cut?

Yet, they spear actually have the blade over the right mans torso. It would make more sense that he was the owner of the weapon as the guy on the left only has it across the legs (it is presumed since only the spearhead survives).
Strangely the weapon is a winged Anglo-Saxon spear type not so common in Denmark.

The guy on the left is 1.93 cm tall and ~25 years old. So from his height alone he probably was a man of some standing (being well fed in childhood).
The guy on the right is 1.74 cm tall and 30-35 years old (still above standard viking age height in Denmark for the time).
So the classic description is nobleman buried with thrall. But that is just an assumption.
Source: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/skaldic/db.php?id=22109...;table=mss

A) If the guy on the left is a nobleman the guy on the right could be a warrior and part of his "Hird". That would explain that the spearhead is across his chest and also explain the foreign weaponry. A King or Jarls hird would be comprised of elite warriors from all over the Viking world. So is the guy on the right an Anglo-Saxon warrior?

If so why is he bound and beheaded? The beheading is actually very interesting as it is described in sagas to be a way to avoid/prevent the person to be a Draugr/Aptrgangr that walk up from the grave. This would be dangerous if the man was a noted warrior! If the guy was a thrall you could just kill him, no need for beheading him (just strangle him with a rope instead).
Sometimes we hear descriptions in the sagas, that the head is placed behind the ass of the dead; but it is also clear that chopping the head of in itself is enough to kill the un-dead.

B) The beheading and the binding of the guy on the right could have been done postmortem. So for the reasons above avoid having a dangerous warrior running around un-dead.
So in theory the guy on the right could have died and people decapitated him and bound him to avoid having him rise as an un-dead. (Would be a good precaution as he then is buried away from home and would be restless).

C) Neither were sacrificed. They both died to some unknown episode and some connection between them made sure they were buried in the same grave. One was regarded as a possible dangerous undead, the other not.

D) Then it could be as the classical view is a nobleman on the left and a thrall on the right, but we can't say from bones whether they volunteered-or-not to follow their master into the grave. The guy on the right could also in theory be a prisoner-of-war, so not a thrall either (remember if he has kin somewhere they would make blood-revenge if he died).
Thralls do not have kin (socially) to conduct blood revenge.

E) The tall guy on the left could be a thrall (only his height makes the case he is not as he lack grave goods which is noteworthy) and the guy with the spear his owner. A man so dangerous he has to be bound and decapitated in death.
I feel this is unlikely, but still its possible.

Yet really think about it. Did you want to spend your time in Hel (or simply lived in the burial chamber - death conceptions vary from place to place in Scandinavia) until Ragnarok with a thrall or prisoner-of-war who was forced-sacrificed to follow you; or a dearly loved thrall that volunteered to live with you? Also remember that most viking graves only contain 1 body, even for some people seemingly of very high status. It was absolutely not the norm to have other people in the grave with you. It actually strengthens the volunteering part (being rare), whereas it if was a forced sacrifice of a thrall one would expect double (and with even more people) graves to be a lot more numerous

As almost every viking grave is different from the next one have to be extremely careful to jump to any conclusions of what really happened.
If a person entered a Catholic Church not knowing anything about it, wouldn't the immediately think that "They have body parts of sacrificed slaves in containers" to which they still conduct rituals over? Catholics would "know" they were the bodies of Saints. Who the bones in actuality belongs to is in many cases a big mystery. Some saint bones are clearly not from the age they claim to be. So how did you get these bones? Your local dead monks? Dug up from the local cemetery?

So Kings could be sacrificed - some might volunteer, some not?
Free people could be sacrificed - some might volunteer, some not?
Thralls could be sacrificed - some might volunteer, some not?
Prisoners-of-war was definitely sacrificed (in bogs in the Iron Age) and they didn't volunteer, but less clear in the Viking Age. Ransomed instead or just executed and left to "feed the ravens" on the battlefield or some other place - drowned in the sea or a lake and left there? If so then we won't find them in graves.
So it is really hard to easily give a quick judgement of what happened in these graves.

The Rigthula (preserved in one 14th century manuscript - dating of the original composition is still a hot scientific topic) clearly gives three different classes of people where the name describes how they look and how their life would be. Yes thralls lives are hard; yet that doesn't mean they were sacrificed "en masse in graves". Being an industrial worker in 1840's Manchester and you would probably look the same and be regarded the same by the nobility. Doesn't mean they were sacrificed in graves either.

It is important to remember that Rigthula is a mythological poem. What is really interesting about it is the age descriptions. The Thralls are the oldest family, the Karl's family are younger and the Jarls family the youngest and the youngest son of Jarl will be King.
Is this a successions of conquest by different people then ruler over others OR that being youngest is just a positive thing (Classical Romans on the contrary hated "new" things, so everything old was good) -> if a succession of conquests, then it is from an Indo-European perspective a mythological parallel to the different invasions of Ireland, which brings in new ruling peoples.

Was the life of a thrall hard? Definitely, but depending on who owned you and what kind of thrall you were. As in the Roman Empire you would have different social classes of thralls. "Bryti" were clearly higher status thralls.
For some it would have been hell, for other not. Life was hard for basically everybody in the Viking Age, also the farm owners - only the very rich could afford not working themselves.

In the viking world "manly men" are piercers (swords, spears and softer things) and "manly men" are thus piercing others.
An "unmanly" man is at the receiving end. Being filled instead of filling others.
Apparently "seidr" magic was so "female" and such a stigma for a man that you wonder where their staff were inserted when the made their trance-voyages to see the future (essentially something "shamanistic"). Again exact method of seidr varied from family to family. Seid-women seems like Berserkers also to often be running in families, mother to daughter (and son occasionally?).
Later witches are said to ride their brooms - probably later depictions of witches got the angle of the broom all wrong when the witches rode it. "Seidr" was likely done on a raised platform publicly, so it is perhaps much more "charming" with a woman than a man doing it? The staff was likely smeared with special substances to provoke hallucinogenic effects and to work then it has to be inserted somewhere.
Sex was not a taboo for vikings.

Witchcraft report from 1324:
"In rifleing the closet of the ladie, they found a pipe of oyntment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin when and in what matter she listed".
Source: https://books.google.dk/books?id=YS-T8dfZ5hMC&pg=PA197&lpg=PA197&dq=In+rifleing+the+closet+of+the+ladie,+they+found+a+pipe+of+oyntment,+wherewith+she+greased+a+staffe,+upon+which+she+ambled+and+galloped+through+thick+and+thin.&source=bl&ots=h6lXcuKSfA&sig=Ew19Jyy9fqf8Z8ZwWdxdjKxUyWM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xXJyUquWFebksATF2oGwBA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=In%20rifleing%20the%20closet%20of%20the%20ladie%2C%20they%20found%20a%20pipe%20of%20oyntment%2C%20wherewith%20she%20greased%20a%20staffe%2C%20upon%20which%20she%20ambled%20and%20galloped%20through%20thick%20and%20thin.&f=false

In Scandinavia the worst thing you could call a man was argr/ragr -> an unmanly man - passive (perverse) homosexual receiver.
Being unmanly = ergi.
You must kill the offender instantly OR you make his word true by your passive inaction.

Here is a famous example from Iceland.
"Nine children
has the Bishop born
Thorvald is father
of them all".
Danish translated version: http://denstoredanske.dk/Nordisk_Mytologi/Lit...genrer/nid

This was a "nid-verse" about Bishop Frederick and his friend Thorvald. The two first Christian missionaries on Iceland - apparently spending a lot of time together.
So it is important to know that it is the Bishop being the one really humiliated, Thorvald much less so (only by bad association).
It is Thorvald that make the revenge and killing the two men responsible. He is a real "piercing manly man" proving that he is clearly not on anyones receiving end, by this revenge killing.
Bishop Frederick does not take active revenge, so you wonder what people thought about him afterwards? In the Scandinavian worldview he made the accusation true.

Blood revenge was normally a private matter between two families. They could continue it or settle it of their own.
But if it dragged out and started to hurt other people's businesses then a third party could take it to the Ting to force an end to it.
One party could take a killing to the Ting directly if there was a killing, but that was not very manly and you would lose honour (yours and your family's) of being so afraid and cowardly you didn't even kill one person from the other family in revenge.
It would be dangerous, people would smell weakness and perhaps at the Ting some "professional duelist" would insult you to get a duel and if you also tried to settle, then a Nid-verse accusing you of passive homosexuality could be created and then you would really be trouble if you stayed passive through that as well. All help from allied families would likely disappear immediately as non one would be friends with such unmanly men. Even your own family would shun you.
It's called Nid-verse as by proving the accusation true by your inaction you would de facto fall to the status of Nidding (one everyone could kill without retaliation). Giving any kind of help to a Nidding (one that has commited a crime) would make you a Nidding yourself: But an unmanly Nidding others could probably take that person as their bitch and kill them, without society giving a damn.
[Male Seidr dressed as females in pagan times were possibly more accepted as their "gender" would be female; but into Christian times were gender and sex becomes one, they are not accepted any more].

"Respect" was the only defense you had in this world. Forgiveness smells of being cowardly and fearful.

Settlements could happen fast if the two families actually was on good and friendly terms - 1 killing each and done - an unfortunate hothead in our family and you showed yourself manly in return. Otherwise a family could show goodwill that we clearly state that one of our family member is utterly moronic: We send him far away the next many years and pay you a good sum of money; then the offended family might accept without retaliation (especially if that family is not so strong or they are on friendly relations to start with). They have the right to settle it among themselves as a private matter.

If the two families disliked or hated each other to start with - oh boy it would get bloody.

On Iceland in Christian times it becomes Illegal to make Nid-verses as it was the cause of much unrest (probably by professional duelists? or just general trouble makers). In Christian times killings are probably taken faster to the Ting than it would have in pagan times; but you still see wild blood-feuds between some families.

Sami people seems to have two very different lifestyles and with all likelihood being two old very different people partly now merged together, where one of them have changed language-group (most likely the Norwegian group?!). They arrived in the stone age from two different areas. The Norwegian fishers probably going up along the Atlantic coastline as the ice retreated and the hunter-gatherers going west from modern Northern Russia (?) following reindeers to hunt arriving later.
Coastal Norwegian Sami were fishermen, whereas Inland Sami and a people called Kvens were apparently hunter/gatherers (the reindeer herds of the Sami's today seems to only really take off in the medieval period). Todays Sami's on the Russian Kola peninsula are the last little remnant of Sami's who apparently are still living as nomadic hunter/gatherers hunting reindeer (if you can even find them to check).