Saturday, July 3, 2010

I was off line during our big Midsommar Holiday, and have lots to share about it, but I'll start by telling about today... a midsommar post is forth coming!

Sweden: Land of The Vikings
When we arrived in Sweden, we noticed a national love affair with pirates and the jolly rodger flag. Swedish children seem to love pirates, and their tree houses often fly a pirate flag. I think they should turn their eyes homeward to their own mythological heros, and play viking more often.... There are certainly many inspirations to be found in Skåne. We visited the Foteviken Reserve for the viking Market again this year, and found there are plenty of grown ups willing to play viking.

Children Happily playing Vikings. The Skelton in Armour by Longfellow is a good Viking poem, and The Sea Fight of The Jomsvikings a good tale of battle.
At Foteviken, people from all over the world are invited to come camp for two weeks at the viking historical museum grounds as long as they vow to act like authentic vikings, and eat over cooking fires and drink from ceramic wares, sleep in canvas tents on furs, and wear period clothing.

For authentic Viking Literature, you can read The Poetic Eddas in English, the sagas of the Vikings. My girl fell in love with a young Viking warrior she watched in the reenactment battle named Saga. It is a Swedish name, the name for the Norse Goddess of the Runes, writing, poetry, and history. The strong position of women in Scandinavia is guessed to go back to the viking era. Women could own property and go into battle. There are viking era homes to be toured, all the wood in the cabins is axe cut since vikings predated the use of saws
The Viking Fortress at Foteviken
Overlooking the Sea towards Denmark
The Viking Market viewed from the Fortress
Bag Pipes
A little sound of the Vikings
Horns used for Drinking and Blowing as Horns for sale at the Market
Wild Boar Skin, many many animal skins for sale at the Viking Markets

And handmade fabric dyed with plant dyes
Fabric
Patterns for Viking clothing can be found at Wikingerkleidung, use google translate function to translate from German
Hand made leather shoes
Plant Dyes for Sale
Yarn!! Maybe this is the year I will learn to knit.
It takes careful weaving to make these trims. I met a weaver making them on a small loom last year.
I am not sure I could get away wearing this next winter....
Armor for Sale
Viking Carving
Wood carving
Baltic Amber.
Glass beadsViking Family
The Skåne Elag hold viking weapons practice every day of the week in a different location in Skåne
About to begin a Viking war reenactment
Love this helmet, and the red beard with it.
Ready to start a war
Charge!

Battle
The Carnage
Showing off a Skåne Shield
Warriors
The Tents used for Camping
Th Fur, wow.
Working Iron at his campsite on an anvil
Viking Kitchen
Many things cooking over fires
Making Handicrafts in the Tents
The fur covered be in the background
Another Kitchen
Vikings at the Fortress
People love dressing up like folks did back in the day and trying their hands at nearly forgotten crafts. I went to a cracker homesteader craft fair with a civil war reenactment in Florida when I was in the USA this winter. Let me say it is alot more enjoyable to watch Vikings battle it out in Skåne than to see people reenact the civil war. I get too creeped out watching people who wish to dress lik rebel soliders camp out under the Dixie flag. It feels good to know however bloody the history of the vikings, they were battling it out on their own land with their own people. But if not for Leif Erikkson and the Viking sailing expertise, perhaps europeans would not have headed to the Americas. So perhaps it is all a tale of viking bloodshed anyway.

Reenactment, Florida Style from Winter trip Home

6 comments:

Rose said...

Awesome! Looks like more fun that the medieval fair, and certainly more authentic. My boy would love it!

JentheHumanist said...

How totally fun! Yeah - way more fun then any of the re-enactments done here in Florida, and way cooler then the medieval fairs as well.

arianne said...

Very impressive.

Valarie said...

Greetings. This looks so great. We are off to Gotland for the rest of our summer and we will be going to viking camp over there. We also celebrate much of the middle ages too. It's so much fun isn't it?
We love pirates too and spent a whole week jumping into the pages of Treasure Island. Lots of pirate activites. Please feel free to have a look and enjoy some good clean pirate fun. It's over at our Jump Into A book site. Let me know if you need the link. It's on my blog as well. We wish you and yours a very happy summer.

Anonymous said...

Hej da , from Berlin - Germany
all Times the best for you
send
http://www.kupferklopfer.de/

Anonymous said...

Hey! I still enjoy your writing and would like to invite you to oure fb group Trelleborgen Trelleborgen.
We also do handycrafts and maybe the nitting ( or for vikings- needlebinding) will finally ''emerge'' out of youre creativ depths?
Greetings from Anette
the mom of youre dauthers favorit warrior Saga!