Viking Ship buried beneath a pub on the Wirral
- Thread starter Mungo
- Start date
Personally I blame Nogbad the Bad - Graculous should have ratted him out to Noggin!
Or am I showing my age?
Or am I showing my age?
Noggin the Nog is a sign of high cultural standards John as indeed is being able to sing along to "I'm Dill the Dog" 
Red (A very grumpy bushcrafter who is neither friendly nor indeed called Parsley)
Red (A very grumpy bushcrafter who is neither friendly nor indeed called Parsley)
Im told that he (King Knut) took a courtier to task, the courtier told him that he was more powerful than any king, powerful to command the sea. The king ordered the tide to come in/rise, but it didnt. The king proved the courtier wrong, never wore his crown again.
Ruled from 1017 to 1035 followed by his two sons, whose names escapes me.
Yep. that's the proper story. Most people just hear the story of a foolish king getting his feet wet.
I can still do the "woodentop walk" (no elbow or knee bending allowed).Dill the dog ?? Spottydog from the Woodentops was the cultural icon of my childhood
Doug.
I can still do the "woodentop walk" (no elbow or knee bending allowed).
I enjoy embarassing my teenage kids by doing Spottydog impressions
We seem to have wandered a bit away from Viking ships on the Wirral
Doug.
rancid badger
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
So he was only the king for 18 minutes?:sadwavey:
( I know but Couldnt resist)
regards R.B.
Didn't that programme also conclude that the "Vikings" left virtually no genetic trace in Ireland? There was a sizeable Viking enclave at Dublin but samples taken from modern Dubliners and people from other parts of Ireland showed them to be "celtic" (another loaded and much abused term) ergo the Vikings of Dublin didn't inter-marry with the local population.
That's pretty much my memory of it too.
As you say, "Celtic" is a grossly misused term in Britain and Ireland as the celts probably never even came to these islands.
What did come here was the culture of the celtic peoples, in artwork and new technology but these things were, by and large, adopted by the people already living here.
( Ducks behind barricade knowing he'll regret opening this can of worms......:togo: )
As you say, "Celtic" is a grossly misused term in Britain and Ireland as the celts probably never even came to these islands.
What did come here was the culture of the celtic peoples, in artwork and new technology but these things were, by and large, adopted by the people already living here.
( Ducks behind barricade knowing he'll regret opening this can of worms......:togo: )
There was a programme on Radio 4 a few years ago - Melvyn Bragg's "In Our Time" I think - which looked at the concept of the "celt". As I recall they poured very cold water on the idea that cultures as widely dispersed as Romanised Gaul, bronze-age Britain and an aristocratic Gael in the 16th century could be termed "celtic".
But as you say...try and tell people that and they'll stand up and proudly declare their celticness...
But as you say...try and tell people that and they'll stand up and proudly declare their celticness...
Ooh, fight!
The big problem I have with the term "Celtic" is that it's used in a number of completely different ways and nobody ever specifies what they mean by it. If you mean a group of people speaking a language from the Celtic group, or sharing a basically similar material culture, then the Celts were very widespread. If you mean an ethnic group then it's extremely debatable - although modern genetic techniques may shed some light. If you mean to refer to a political or social culture, then you've got a heck of a problem with lack of evidence. If you mean something vaguely similar to a modern empire or nation state, you simply haven't got a clue what you're talking about since such concepts didn't exist.
Of course the truth of the matter is probably far more complicated. There's plenty of evidence for long-distance cultural and genetic interchange from as early as the neolithic - at least as far as I understand such matters. I've certainly heard learned sorts make the point that the exchange of marriage partners were almost certainly a key form of "trade" very early on.
What I think is fairly safe is that the people at the time would not have considered themselves in such terms - they'd have thought in terms of family, tribe and alliances. Once you get into the mid-to-late first millennium, there's plenty of evidence of "celts" allying with "saxons" against other "celts" and so forth. Lots of intermarriage, lots of shifting alliances...
I think a very large part of the problem is that we're really not very clear on what we mean by "culture", and we've inevitable got a whole bunch of racial and imperial baggage from our more recent history. I'm not convinced that any of the proxies we use for "culture", such as language or ethnicity, actually map very well onto what we're interested in, unless we're linguists or ethnographers.
However, it can get extremely awkward when talking about "pre-Roman P-Celtic-speaking Britons"... Using the term "Celt" does set my teeth on edge, but sometimes it's a tolerable approximation. Far better of course to refer to a specific tribal grouping where possible, but that overlooks the undeniable fact that there were very important cultural similarities across diverse groups.
The big problem I have with the term "Celtic" is that it's used in a number of completely different ways and nobody ever specifies what they mean by it. If you mean a group of people speaking a language from the Celtic group, or sharing a basically similar material culture, then the Celts were very widespread. If you mean an ethnic group then it's extremely debatable - although modern genetic techniques may shed some light. If you mean to refer to a political or social culture, then you've got a heck of a problem with lack of evidence. If you mean something vaguely similar to a modern empire or nation state, you simply haven't got a clue what you're talking about since such concepts didn't exist.
Of course the truth of the matter is probably far more complicated. There's plenty of evidence for long-distance cultural and genetic interchange from as early as the neolithic - at least as far as I understand such matters. I've certainly heard learned sorts make the point that the exchange of marriage partners were almost certainly a key form of "trade" very early on.
What I think is fairly safe is that the people at the time would not have considered themselves in such terms - they'd have thought in terms of family, tribe and alliances. Once you get into the mid-to-late first millennium, there's plenty of evidence of "celts" allying with "saxons" against other "celts" and so forth. Lots of intermarriage, lots of shifting alliances...
I think a very large part of the problem is that we're really not very clear on what we mean by "culture", and we've inevitable got a whole bunch of racial and imperial baggage from our more recent history. I'm not convinced that any of the proxies we use for "culture", such as language or ethnicity, actually map very well onto what we're interested in, unless we're linguists or ethnographers.
However, it can get extremely awkward when talking about "pre-Roman P-Celtic-speaking Britons"... Using the term "Celt" does set my teeth on edge, but sometimes it's a tolerable approximation. Far better of course to refer to a specific tribal grouping where possible, but that overlooks the undeniable fact that there were very important cultural similarities across diverse groups.
The way I've read it the Romans had come across the Germanic Keltoi people and used the name afterwards to describe tribes and races with similar habits. "Celtic" being an early 20th century version of the word.
Even "Pict" was just a Roman name applied to them, rather than what they called themselves.
Even "Pict" was just a Roman name applied to them, rather than what they called themselves.
The problem is I've read loads of books on the subject and I don't think any two of them agree.
As mentioned it's a label applied to a whole bunch of different ethnic types, material cultures and language groups in a totally haphazard way.
If the academics can't agree, then it's not too surprising that Joe Bloggs on the street simply has no idea of what the term really means.
Just think about the arguments we get on here about what is or isn't "Bushcraft"
As mentioned it's a label applied to a whole bunch of different ethnic types, material cultures and language groups in a totally haphazard way.
If the academics can't agree, then it's not too surprising that Joe Bloggs on the street simply has no idea of what the term really means.
Just think about the arguments we get on here about what is or isn't "Bushcraft"
You mean Keltoi is Hellenic, surely.
This could be a long thread.
Where did the name "Viking" come from?
...to drag things kicking and screaming back on topic.
Is that what they called themselves or what someone else called them when they wrote up the history books?
.This could be a long thread.
Where did the name "Viking" come from?
...to drag things kicking and screaming back on topic
.Is that what they called themselves or what someone else called them when they wrote up the history books?
