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Eulalia

Eulalia

Poet Laureate
Staff member
It might be helpful for some storytellers and others interested in such matters to have a thread here for (reasonably) serious information about slavery and such matters in historical periods outside the Roman era (for which we have our Roman Resources thread)

What's prompted me is this article from the AAAS magazine:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/vikings-may-have-first-taken-seas-find-women-slaves

I think it's quite interesting, though, as often, it hypes the 'newness' of what's being said. I don't think any scholars interested in the question have for many years believed the Vikings appeared 'suddenly' in the late 8th century. Sea-raiding, including slave-raiding, including indeed slavegirl raiding, was certainly going on around the coasts of Britain and northern Europe (including Scandinavia and the Baltic) in Roman times, it went on even more as the Empire shrunk, the Vikings of the 8th - 10th centuries were the last - but perhaps the most efficient - who came chasing us!

Still, it's interesting research. The idea that huge numbers of slave-women were needed to weave and sew the enormous sails for Viking longships is one I've not come across before. They probably did! :devil:
 
Eulalia said:
It might be helpful for some storytellers and others interested in such matters to have a thread here for (reasonably) serious information about slavery and such matters in historical periods outside the Roman era (for which we have our Roman Resources thread)

What's prompted me is this article from the AAAS magazine:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/vikings-may-have-first-taken-seas-find-women-slaves

I think it's quite interesting, though, as often, it hypes the 'newness' of what's being said. I don't think any scholars interested in the question have for many years believed the Vikings appeared 'suddenly' in the late 8th century. Sea-raiding, including slave-raiding, including indeed slavegirl raiding, was certainly going on around the coasts of Britain and northern Europe (including Scandinavia and the Baltic) in Roman times, it went on even more as the Empire shrunk, the Vikings of the 8th - 10th centuries were the last - but perhaps the most efficient - who came chasing us!

Still, it's interesting research. The idea that huge numbers of slave-women were needed to weave and sew the enormous sails for Viking longships is one I've not come across before. They probably did! :devil:
Click to expand...

Imagine being tossed naked in the bottom of a long boat for the voyage back to some cold and primitive place and a life of sail making in between whippings and so on :rolleyes:
 
Eulalia said:
I think it's quite interesting, though, as often, it hypes the 'newness' of what's being said. I don't think any scholars interested in the question have for many years believed the Vikings appeared 'suddenly' in the late 8th century. Sea-raiding, including slave-raiding, including indeed slavegirl raiding, was certainly going on around the coasts of Britain and northern Europe (including Scandinavia and the Baltic) in Roman times, it went on even more as the Empire shrunk, the Vikings of the 8th - 10th centuries were the last - but perhaps the most efficient - who came chasing us!
Click to expand...
That Vikings was active in the first century was already told in my Amica story! ;)
 
The tv series Vikings is filmed partly in my Uncles farm in Wicklow. The town of Wessex is his yard! Anyway i like nothing better than going into the costume tent when they are filming and trying on costumes. And yes some of them are perfect for modern Irish slavegirls. Great thread Eulalia.
 
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A very long time ago , 25 years + there was a programme on BBC2 called The Vikings. The group i was with did all the stunts for it because the BBC stuntmen and women thought them too dangerous. The name of the re-enactment group was The Norse Film and Pageant Society. The sequences were shot on a field above Cheddar Caves. Yes it was dangerous but bloody good fun. I do believe the girls enjoyed the rape and pillage sequences.lol
 
There is an old movie in which the opening scene shows a Viking raid with the women being carried off ... I can't remember the name of it and there is no nudity of course, but I remember seeing it when I was very young and thinking that part was very exciting (in my weird way).
 
There probably wasn't that much nudity back in the first millennium either.
Though there is a lurid contemporary account - I'd need to check the source -
of the ghastly Gallowegians leading off women naked as slaves
after one of our jaunts into northern England in Norman times -
we had a grim reputation :devil:
 
Barbaria1 said:
There is an old movie in which the opening scene shows a Viking raid with the women being carried off ... I can't remember the name of it and there is no nudity of course, but I remember seeing it when I was very young and thinking that part was very exciting (in my weird way).
Click to expand...
Ahum, I remember something like that too! There was also an unfortunate local man who tried to resist and was quickly stabbed and left to die while the girls were carried away around him. No idea if that was the same one...

Anyway what's well known is that the mitochondrial DNA of Icelanders is two-thirds of Irish/British heritage. Mitochondrial DNA only ever gets passed on through the mother. That means that the 100% Scandinavian men settling on Iceland reproduced in two-thirds of the cases with women of Irish/British descent. So it was probably 'wife-raiding' as much as pure 'slave-raiding'.
 
malins said:
That means that the 100% Scandinavian men settling on Iceland reproduced in two-thirds of the cases with women of Irish/British descent. So it was probably 'wife-raiding' as much as pure 'slave-raiding'.
Click to expand...

I seem to recall reading an article some time ago that suggested the main purpose of the first trading markets in Europe were so that widely dispersed group could meet up to trade women. They were aware of the impact of inbreeding from observation. So the other trade goods while pretty were mostly a bonus and the biggest prize was good genes.

I imagine those poor in goods but strong in warrior instincts may well have been tempted to cut out that rest of the trade.
 
malins said:
Ahum, I remember something like that too! There was also an unfortunate local man who tried to resist and was quickly stabbed and left to die while the girls were carried away around him. No idea if that was the same one...

Anyway what's well known is that the mitochondrial DNA of Icelanders is two-thirds of Irish/British heritage. Mitochondrial DNA only ever gets passed on through the mother. That means that the 100% Scandinavian men settling on Iceland reproduced in two-thirds of the cases with women of Irish/British descent. So it was probably 'wife-raiding' as much as pure 'slave-raiding'.
Click to expand...
Sounds like the same film
 
Barbaria1 said:
Imagine being tossed naked in the bottom of a long boat for the voyage back to some cold and primitive place and a life of sail making in between whippings and so on :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
So on or sew on?

Sorry ... I just needed to do that!

:spank:

See? I did it myself!
:D
 
Eulalia said:
There probably wasn't that much nudity back in the first millennium either.
Though there is a lurid contemporary account - I'd need to check the source -
of the ghastly Gallowegians leading off women naked as slaves
after one of our jaunts into northern England in Norman times -
we had a grim reputation :devil:
Click to expand...

Naked?
In Galloway?
It really was a savage age!

brrrrrrrrrrr!
 
Survival of the fittest! :devil:

A couple of points about the article.
The reference to 'British' DNA is a bit misleading, it should be 'Insular', i.e. from the British Isles,
as Malins says, the evidence points really to Ireland and (Gaelic) Argyll and the Isles as the main source for womenfolk
for the male Iceland-settlers. It's true, as the article says, that there were slaves (thralls, þrællar) in Iceland,
and they were sometimes given rude Norse nicknames. But not all, several women had Irish names,
the most famous being Melkorka:

Melkorka is the name given in Landnámabók and Laxdæla saga for the Irish mother of the Icelandic goði Ólafr Höskuldsson. According to Laxdæla saga, Höskuldr purchased Melkorka, who he believed to be a selective (sic, should be 'elective' - Eul) mute thrall-woman, from a Rus' merchant on Brännö while on a trading expedition to Norway, and made her his concubine while away from his wife Jórunn Bjarnadóttir.[1] When Höskuldr returned home to Iceland, he took her with him. Despite Jórunn's irritation, the concubine was accepted into Höskuldr's household, though he remained faithful to Jórunn while in Iceland. The following winter the concubine gave birth to a son, to whom they gave the name Ólafr after Höskuldr's uncle, Olaf Feilan, who had recently died.[2] Landnámabók mentions that Höskuldr and Melkorka had another son, Helgi, but he does not appear in Laxdæla.[3] According to Laxdæla saga, Ólafr was a precocious child, and could speak and walk perfectly by the age of two. One day Höskuldr discovered Ólafr's mother speaking to her son; she was not, in fact, mute.[4] When he confronted her she told him that she was an Irish princess named Melkorka carried off in a viking raid, and that her father was an Irish king named "Myrkjartan" (Muirchertach).[5] Shortly thereafter squabbling between Jórunn and Melkorka forced Höskuldr to move his concubine and his son by her to a different farm, which thereafter was known as Melkorkustaðir.[6]

Around 956, Ólafr, at Melkorka's urging, decided to go abroad to seek his fortune. Melkorka taught Ólafr Irish Gaelic and urged him to visit her family. Höskuldr was opposed to the expedition and would not provide trade wares, and the property of Ólafr's foster-father Þórðr was mostly in immobile goods and land. In part to arrange financing for his expedition, his mother Melkorka married Þorbjörn skrjúpur ("the Feeble"), a farmer who had previously assisted her in the management of Melkorkustaðir. Melkorka and Þorbjörn had a son named Lambi.[7]

Ólafr visited Ireland, where he met Melkorka's father and kinsmen, Myrkjartan.[8] He introduced himself as Melkorka's son and explained that their kinship was his reason for visiting. Myrkjartan was not immediately convinced of their kinship, but he was impressed with Ólafr's Irish and sure that he was of high birth nevertheless. Then Ólafr showed Myrkjartan the gold ring on his arm, which Melkorka had given him when he left Iceland. It had originally been a gift from her father. After this, Myrkjartan was sure that Ólafr was his kinsman.[9] Ólafr remained with Myrkjartan for a time, and the king, according to Laxdæla saga, even offered to make Ólafr his heir. Ólafr, however, returned to Norway, and then ultimately to Iceland, afraid of provoking Myrkjartan's sons.[10] Ólafr had wanted to take Melkorka's nurse back to Iceland to meet her, but Myrkjartan did not permit it.[11] After his journey, Ólafr became renowned, both for his travels and because he was the grandson of the Irish king.[12]

But when all's said and done, the Laxdææla and most of the other major sagas were written in Iceland in the 13th century, and tell of semi-legendary events there in the 9th - 11th cts. They are hardly reliable guides to what was going on around the North Sea and the Baltic in the 5th - 7th cts., which is what the article's supposed to be about.
 
Eulalia said:
There probably wasn't that much nudity back in the first millennium either.
Though there is a lurid contemporary account - I'd need to check the source -
of the ghastly Gallowegians leading off women naked as slaves
after one of our jaunts into northern England in Norman times -
we had a grim reputation :devil:
Click to expand...
As I thought, it was Richard of Hexham - a monk, or rather canon,
whose journalism was of the tabloid kind. But the story was picked up and recycled
by other Augustinian and Cistercian chroniclers, even the great Ailred of Rievaulx.
We Gallowegians were regarded a bit like Liverpool fans were in the 1980s
(topical comment that will make sense at least to UK cruxers ;))
 
Barbaria1 said:
There is an old movie in which the opening scene shows a Viking raid with the women being carried off ... I can't remember the name of it and there is no nudity of course, but I remember seeing it when I was very young and thinking that part was very exciting (in my weird way).
Click to expand...

Might be "The Vikings", a 1958 film starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh etc. It opens with a viking raid on an English village. Great film, long time since I saw it.
 
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