The Vikings

Austin and I were reading his Barbarians book together last night. We read about the Goths, the Huns and the Vikings. I commented that Austin is a descendant of the Vikings on his Papa's side of the family - the Swedes. One of my dad's cousins has done some genealogical research and thinks that we may be related to Erik Eriksson. My maiden name is Olson (changed from Olsson in the late-1800s, when the family immigrated from Sweden to Canada).

Skye was listening in as I read the book aloud, and drew our attention to the possible route the Vikings took, to the "New World," or North America. Skye showed us that if we change our perspective of how we look at the globe, from looking at it with the north pole at the top, and viewing the distance between Scandinavia and Greenland across the Atlantic Ocean, to looking at the globe from "above," ie. looking down at the north pole, it doesn't appear to be as great a distance. Particularly, as Skye pointed out, if there are significant stretches of ice to bridge the gap.

The book explained that the Vikings traded furs and hides, wax and amber. I wondered what amber is, and Skye described it as petrified sap. It is sold/traded as a jewel. We discussed how it would have been likely for amber to be found in regions where they found coal deposits. Skye explained that coal deposits are found in bogs, and Austin has some understanding of bogs. Austin suggested that large trees would be able to live in regions of decaying biomatter.

One internet definition of coal is: "the world’s most plentiful fossil fuel. It is a mineral formed from the remains of land-based plants buried hundreds of millions of years ago and subjected to tremendous heat and pressure."

Austin made several observations while I read the section on Viking Beliefs and Law. The illustrations are rich with detail on "The Nine Worlds of the Norse Universe," and Austin was intrigued by some of the names ... "Gimle," "Asgard," "Midgard," ... and how they reminded him of names appearing in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Skye and I agreed that Tolkien was influenced by Norse mythology. When I read the claim, however, that "'the Thing' -- the governing group of freemen that met to create and discuss laws" was "the earliest known lawmaking body in Europe," Austin immediately challenged this. "But what about the Romans?" he asked. "They had laws." The Viking era took place between the years of 793 C.E. to 1066 C.E. Austin will bring this question to his history teacher on Tuesday. As luck would have it, Austin knows they will be learning about the Vikings in the next class!

Austin was interested to learn about a famous battle, "The Battle of Stamford Bridge," which took place in England in 1066 and marked the end of the age of the Vikings. In the battle, the King of Norway (King of the Vikings), Harald Hardrada, was surprised by the King of England, Harold Godwinson. Skye had known about this battle, and remembered learning of a huge Viking who single-handedly held back the English forces on the Stamford Bridge, allowing time for the Vikings to run back to their camp, gather their weapons, and return to fight. The only way the English were able to win against the huge Viking, was to attack him from beneath the bridge, from a boat.

I've noticed that Austin enjoys learning about history most, when he can learn about specific historical characters (Alexander the Great, Christopher Columbus, Napoleon, Queen Elizabeth I...), so this book is quite engaging, as it includes stories about individuals in history, among the general overviews of life and events of those times.

A suggestion from Katie: The Code of Hammurabi