Sloveni na severozapadu Evrope

...Type IV buildings were of a completely different construction, and they and the Type III houses represent the period of highest building density during the Viking period in Dublin. They are rectangular in shape and are built with a sunken floor dug into the clay, somewhat like the Grubenhaus buildings of Germany or the belowground storage buildings or defensive enclosures of early Ireland, but they resemble most closely a building technique more common in England than in Ireland. They seem to be of a comparatively early technique, and will be discussed more extensively in the section on Waterford, where they were more common....


...The ancestral tradition of these building types seems to have been a prehistoric rural house type common to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Three-aisled construction is known in Scandinavia during this period, but is by no means common. Similarly, no common Scandinavian house types are found in Dublin; this would argue for the local development of the Dublin houses. The homogeneity of building construction in Dublin would therefore indicate a “high degree of cultural integration” and point to an established, ordered Viking society who assimilated various building traditions in order to best accommodate themselves in Ireland....

...Six Type IV houses were excavated in Waterford, as opposed to only two in Dublin, and their location in Waterford may be the reason for their greater popularity there, though they were no longer built after the middle of the twelfth century. Whereas the Dublin pit-houses were dug into clay, which does not drain water so easily, all the Waterford houses were located in gravel subsoil, which would provide drainage quite easily. They were dug to a depth of 1.5 meters, and the upcast positioned around the perimeter of the pit to a buildup of about .5 meter above ground. The house would be entered through a sloping, stone-lined staircase or passage, and through a doorway set in a squared jamb. The walls were of radially split ash staves set vertically in a narrow trench along the base of the wall, and the substantial earthbound support posts would be set along the side walls and in the corners of the room, with two posts resting on plank base plates positioned toward the center of the room. This hefty frame may have supported an upper floor that would have been accessible from the street, but conclusive evidence for the upper floor does not survive. ...

...The Ribblehead site outside of Dublin shows a Viking-Age farmstead dating to approximately 850-875 CE, excavated in a limestone field outside of York. The farmstead consisted of three buildings, the largest of which, measuring 19 by 4 meters, is assumed to be the farmstead and primary residence. It is constructed of an inside layer of limestone slabs and an outside layer of placed stones, infilled with rubble to be almost 1.75 meters thick. The gable ends curve in a half-circle and have “centrally-placed paved doorways” built from 50-kilogram stones. The floor is made of sandstone paving slabs, so it is not possible to discern post holes or any hearth area, but the western wall features a row of limestones parallel to and butting the limestone paving, interpreted as a bench like those in the Type I houses, but the paving stones change direction toward this side, and that could imply some sort of partition from the rest of the house.

The second limestone building measured only 6 meters by 3.3-3.7 meters and is nearly rectangular in shape. Its doorway is double-walled, paved with sandstone and widens outward. The function of this building is unclear, but in the northeast corner, a twenty-centimeter flue is place above limestone slabs atop broken sandstone pieces, possibly indicating an oven or kiln of some sort. A third building was quite poorly built, and by iron-rich cinders and working stones found inside, it was quite likely a workshop.

Each of the buildings “clearly” had ridged roofs of thatch or turf extending to a point close to the outer edge of the wall, as the roof could not have shed rain anywhere else. Debate continues as to whether these roofs were straight, hipped, or gabled, but general consensus at the site was that they would have been hipped.

While these houses seem to be of typical Irish Viking construction, without indication of the location of the support posts or any idea as to the roof structure, it is impossible to discern this building type from that of the curved Trelleborg houses or rectangular houses of southern Scandinavia. ...

...A radical change in building construction took place in the last twenty or thirty years of the tenth century, after the end of Viking rule in York but while many Scandinavians still lived in the area. Every house seems to have been leveled and all rebuilt as a Type IV house, with a pit dug into the ground and walls approximately 1.75 meters high built from oak planks or posts from the ground up. Below-ground, vertical planks would be set into a channel and resting on horizontal wooden pads similar to those in the sill-beam buildings in Ireland, and would provide support for the walls to prevent the collapse of the earthen walls inward. The walls above the 1.75-meter planks above ground are purely conjectural, but the houses may have had upper storeys like those in Waterford. This change toward the Type IV house seems to indicate a return to traditional British construction, where earlier Type I houses were more typically Viking....

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According to a legend, and there are some sources both Scandinavian and Polish that seem to indicate that is more of a historical fact then only a legend, there were two Polish knights that went along with Swietoslawa to Scandinavia, and later joined the Norsemen on their journeys to Iceland, and possibly Greenland and the continental North America. These two Polish knights were named Wyzdarwoda (sometimes also known as Wyzdraw) and Tyrker (sometimes also known as Tyrkir); the latter is very frequently identified in Western sources as a "German", but the very possibility of him being Polish, or at least Slavic, will shortly be discussed here. Both eventually ended up at the royal Danish court of King Sven the Forkbearded, where they came into contact with, according to some claims, Eric the Red, or at least with some other Norse sailor who convinced the two Poles to join him on a journey to a distant island in the far north. In his companionship they sailed to Iceland, and then possibly on to Greenland, where they might have permanently settled. The notable Polish author and maritime researcher and historian, Jerzy Pertek has confirmed the existence of these two semi-legendary figures as being mentioned in the old Norse sagas, and he believes that it is possible that Wyzdarwoda, along with Tyrker, might have settled on Greenland....


...Considering that great many Western sources assume that Tyrker was a German, and there is nothing in the Norse sources to support that assumption, what evidence is there to support the claim that Tyrker was a Slav, and perhaps even a Pole to be more precise? To take a look at this issue one must realize that there is no very solid basis to assume the claim that he was a German - his "German origin" is more assumed than really proven.

Here is what the Tale of the Greenlanders (also known as the Saga of the Greenlanders) has to say about Tyrker/ Tyrkir and who he really was:

"Tyrkir, a 'Southerner' in Leif's crew, wandered off on his own and found vines, from which Leif named the country."

The land to which the saga was referring to was of course Vinland. But that is a very interesting passage in another way, for as the reader can see Tyrkir is not called a German but rather a Southerner, and this particular, albeit one must say vague, designation most certainly does not rule out his possible Slavic origin. All the Western Slavs, whose Poles, Pomeranians, and Polabians are part of, just happen to live directly to the south of Scandinavians, so there should be nothing surprising for the Norsemen to refer to Western Slavs as "Southerners".

There is another fragment of the Tale of the Greenlanders which indirectly suggests Tyrker's Slavic origin. Tyrker became "immortalized" as the one who allegedely discovered "grapes" in the land that the Norsemen would go on to call as Vinland. Whether he found genuine grapes, or rather some wild berries that were much more suitable for growing in a cooler climate is hotly disputed by many scholars, albeit so far all evidence points out to that the Vinland "grapes" were not any real grapes at all. For instance Merrit L. Fernald, a professor of botany at the Harvard University, put forward a very plausible explanation to the whole mystery of the "Vinland grapes" already in 1910 in a paper published in the magazine Rhodora. He pointed out that vinber, the word in the sagas usually translated as "grapes", really meant "wineberry", which might be the wild red currant, the goose-berry, or the mountain cranberry. That also puts to rest the claim that the saga's passage when Tyrker himself says to have came from a land where there is no shortage of either grapes or vines should be understood literally. Also, according to Dr. Helge Ingstad the Norsemen might have intentionally spread a false rumour about grapes being present on Vinland, or at least they misrepresented some wild berries as "grapes", so as to entice more settlers to go there. And in this case one must add that among Norsemen wine was greatly valued, especially the one made from grapes, and to them it was a symbol of great wealth and affluence. In this case, and all the archeological evidence gathered on the Norse settlement in the continental North America supports this stance, Tyrker did not have had to originate in the Rhineland, as many supporters of his alleged "German" origin claim, but he could very well have come from a more northerly and colder area like Poland, Pomerania, or Slavia.

The passage on Tyrker's discovery of the alleged "grapes" yields one more clue to support the thesis that Tyrker was after all a Slav. In the passage on Tyrker's botanical discovery, the Tale of the Greenlanders speaks that he returned very jubilant and enthusiastic to the bewildered Normans, and started to speak to them in his own native language which none of the Norsemen could understand. Therefore, apparently Tyrker's native tongue was not a Germanic one. That is very interesting because the Norse language and German are universally recognized as being related, and in fact back in the Norse days they must have been mutually understandable (and likely they still are mutually understandable to a certain degree even today). Then, why did the Normans fail to understand him? If he had been really speaking in German, then he still should have been understandood. Apparently Tyrker's native tongue was not Germanic in origin, and as a result no Norseman could understand what Tyrker was saying in his own native speech. One must remember that Slavic and Germanic languages were not mutually understandable; therefore, was it a Slavic tongue that Tyrker was speaking to the bewildered Normans? Considering the account as it is related in the Tale of the Greenlanders that is an entirely likely scenario.

And at last we have to face the question of Tyrker's name, since as sceptics might point out it does not sound Slavic (there is no such problem with Wyzdarwoda or Wyzdraw since both of these two names, or rather variations of the same name, sound unquestionably Slavic). Yes, it does not really sound Slavic, but that does not mean that it was Tyrker's original name. It is entirely likely that Tyrker was in fact originally known by the Slavic name of Tyrko, but after he spend many years in Scandinavia that Slavic name was "Normanized" to Tyrker.

The Slavic settlement on Norse-age Iceland is not just a mere hypothesis, but a proven historical fact. In his book Odkrywanie Swiata; Polacy na Szesciu Kontynentach the outstanding Polish author, researcher, and adventurer Ryszard Badowski has the following to say on this topic: "...scholars researching the contacts of Poles with the lands of Northern Europe have confirmed Slavic settlement on the early medieval [, or Norse-age,] Iceland. Unfortunetly, the precise names of these Slavic settlers are not known." Furthermore, it is even acknowledged in Western sources that, according to the Icelandic sagas, some Norse-age settlers on Iceland did in fact claim to have been descended from royal lineages of some Slavic countries - that is by no means an outlandish claim considering the fact that there was frequent intermarriage between the various princely Polabian families, the dukal family of Pomerania, and even the ruling Piast Dynasty of Poland, with the ruling houses of the Scandinavian countries.

Interestingly, there is some additional prove in the Icelandic sagas of contacts between Iceland and the Slavic countries; for example in these ancient sources Poland is known as Pulinaland while Poles are referred to as Polavi.

Could it be that there were Slavs among the Norse explorers of America? This is entirely possible, as according to the Saga of Eric the Red on the Greenlanders' third voyage to America there were as many as 160 men and women on three ships - taking into account the fact that some Slavic settlement on Iceland indeed took place, and considering the fact that most Greenlanders were in reality relocated settlers from Iceland and their descendants, it cannot be completely ruled-out that there might have been some Slavs on board of the Norse ships sailing to the New World. The Saga of Eric the Red reports that at least three journeys to the America were undertaken by the Norsemen. Furthermore, some scholars believe that the Normans from Greenland and/or Iceland made at least several additional landings in America on timber-gathering expeditions, which continued until as late as the 1300's. Again, some sort of Slavic presence cannot be completely ruled-out in this case as well. According to the American historian Samuel Eliot Morison "Some ships may have continued their voyage to Vinland in search of grapes, only to find berries and meet hostile Skrellings. But the tall timber of Markland was a valuable asset for the Greenlanders, although they could get it only in two summer months without being blocked by ice

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It is this latter idea — that pit houses may have been the dwellings of a distinct
cultural group — that has recently been at the forefront of the pit-house debate. Przemysław
Urbańczyk, noting similarities in the design of Icelandic pit houses and Slavonic semisunken houses with corner stone ovens, suggested that Icelandic pit houses were built by
a first generation of Slav settlers before they were culturally assimilated by the dominant
Norse population.32 He argued that Icelandic pit houses were so similar to Slavonic houses, and so different from contemporary Germanic pit houses (German Grubenhäuser,
Danish grubehuse, Norwegian and Swedish grophus), which are rarely found with corner
ovens, that they must have been built by Slavs or people who had grown up among Slavs
and were accustomed to building and living in such dwellings.

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arald "Bluetooth" Gormsson (Old Norse: Haraldr blátǫnn Gormsson, Danish: Harald Blåtand Gormsen) (probably born c. 935) was the son of King Gorm the Old and of Thyra Dannebod. He died in 985 or 986 having ruled as King of Denmark from c. 958 and King of Norway for a few years probably around 970. Some sources state that his son Sweyn forcibly deposed him as King.

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As part of an international team of researchers, archaeologists at Aarhus University can reveal that a large part of Harold Bluetooth’s Viking army consisted of foreigners – possibly from Poland.

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According to written sources, work on the Danevirke was started by the Danish King Gudfred in 808. Fearing an invasion by the Franks, who had conquered heathen Frisia over the previous 100 years and Old Saxony in 772 to 804, Godfred began work on an enormous structure to defend his realm, separating the Jutland peninsula from the northern extent of the Frankish empire.
Carbon-14 dating however, dates the initial construction to be in the second half of the 7th century, and Chronological dating suggest that construction began not very long after 737 (a few decades before the reign of Gudfred).[1]

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Gressbakken House
Arctic Norwegian Residence the Gressbakken House

The Gressbakken House is a form of residential structure built during the Gressbakken phase of the Younger Stone Age (ca 5000-1800 cal BC) along the coastlines from the island of Sørøy in western Norway to the Kola Peninsula of Russia. Gressbakken dwellings were rectangular, semi-subterranean structures with at least two rectangular stone-lined hearths along the long axis. Houses were primarily constructed parallel to contemporary shorelines, with an entrance passage facing the water. Midden deposits were placed outside the entrance and/or at the rear of the dwelling.

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Aggersborg, near Aggersund, Denmark
Circular rampart of Burg, near Celle, Lower Saxony, Germany
The Donnersberg, near Rockenhausen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Fyrkat, Denmark
The Heidenmauer near Bad Dürkheim, Germany
Celtic circular wall of Otzenhausen, Saarland, Germany
Saxon rampart on the Marienberg near Nordstemmen, Germany
Viking ring fortress of Trelleborg, Sweden
Varbola Stronghold largest circular rampart fortress built in Estonia (10th – 12th century)

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Trelleborg is a collective name for six Viking Age circular forts, located in Denmark and the southern part of modern Sweden. Five of them have been dated to the reign of the Harold Bluetooth of Denmark (died 986). The fort in Borgeby[1] has been dated to the vicinity of 1000 AD, so it is possible that it too, was built by the same king.

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Type 4 describe sunken-floored buildings (SFS) which have been recorded in ninth, tenth and early
eleventh century levels in Scandinavian Dublin and in late eleventh century and twelfth century
contexts in Waterford and Limerick. Five c. ninth century sunken structures were excavated at
Temple Bar West in Dublin (Simpson 1999, 13-16). Dug into the natural bedrock, the chambers of
these buildings were small and rectangular with average dimensions of 2.25m by 3m. They had
wattle walls with the roof supported by an arrangement of internal vertical posts usually located at
either end of the structure. Elsewhere in Dublin, tenth century sunken-floored structures (SFS) were
identified at Winetavern Street and Christchurch Place (Murray 1983, 15-16), Werburgh Street
(Hayden 2002, 67) and possibly Fishamble Street (Wallace 1992a, 17).
Larger, more sophisticated sunken-floored buildings emerge in Waterford and Dublin during the
eleventh century (Simpson 2000, 31). In Waterford, four late eleventh century sunken-floored
buildings at Peter Street, Olaf Street and High Street and stone-lined passages of a further two
structures in the Insula South have been recorded. They all had similar method of construction, set in
pits c.1.5m below the contemporary ground level and their walls formed of vertically set staves of
radially split ash placed directly in a narrow trench around the sides of the pits (chambers). An upper
storey at ground level was supported by opposing load-bearing oak uprights set along the lines of the
stave wall. The buildings also generally contained stone faced, steeped entrances leading into the
chambers (Walsh 1997a, 48). A row of three sunken-floored structures were excavated at King John’s
Castle in Limerick and are thought to have been used for storage (Wiggins 1990).
Sunken-floored houses (‘pit-houses’ or Grubehuse in Danish) have a wide distribution in Southern
Scandinavia, the North Sea Zone and Anglo-Saxon England. They first emerged on the continent in
the Late Roman Iron Age and continued to be built through the Carolingian and Viking periods
(Hamerow 2002, 31-35). It is unclear whether the sunken-floored houses in Irish Scandinavian towns
represent direct influences from the North Sea Zone or the Anglo-Saxon Grübenhauser tradition of
England. However, it has been tentatively suggested that the more sophisticated eleventh century
examples from Dublin and Waterford may represent influences from Anglo-Saxon England (Walsh 37
1997a, 52-53) but that those early examples from the ninth and tenth century levels might be more
directly related to the continental grubehus tradition (Sheehan, Hansen and Ó Corráin 2001, 101).

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A survey of recent research in Vik settlement structure, which in E Denmark and Skåne obviously differs from that in Jylland (Vorbasse, Omgård). Its possible relations to the Slavic area are pointed out. The causes of the éø/-regulation in Late Vik are discussed in a social perspective. (Cf NAA 1981/382). (UN)

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Two huts, E and G, were square pit buildings, dug into the ground. Hut C, on the other hand, was irregularly rounded and not dug into the ground. All were dwellings, huts E and G possibly also workshops. Hut E flanked hall D, a short distance north of it. This hut was set about 50 centimeters deep into the terrace, with slender posts in the corners and along the walls, holding up the roof. Excavation, in one corner, uncovered a stone oven consisting of slate slabs set on edge, and, near one of the walls, a fireplace. In the northwest corner, just inside what might have been the door, was a pile of 19 stones, the size of a clenched fist, mostly limestone (A.S. Ingstad 1977: 65). Hut G was next to hall F. It was set into the very edge of the terrace and cut more into it than hut E, undoubtedly because it is farther from the bog and therefore has drier ground. The function of the hut is uncertain. Like the other, it had a fireplace by a wall, the latter protected by a stone slab, so it probably functioned, at least in part, as a dwelling. In front of the fireplace was a large egg-shaped stone, resembling features in Iceland and Greenland that have been interpreted as anvils (Kristján Eldjárn 1961: 38, Roussell 1943: 93-94).22 Open huts like hut G occur on iron production sites in Norway (Martens 1972: 106).

24 Pit buildings are an old tradition in Scandinavian prehistory from at least the fifth century.23 They are extremely common in Viking Age Sweden and Denmark, where they usually exist side-by-side with halls (Hinz 1989; Randsborg 1980: 61-62, 66). They are common in ports-of-trade and early towns such as Århus and Haithabu (Roesdahl 1980: 87). They were often used as workshops, for the manufacture of amber beads, bronze jewelry, iron working, bone industry, carpentry, and weaving, but they were also used as dwellings (Randsborg 1980: 89, Nancke-Krogh 1978, Bjarni Einarsson 1992). Such pit buildings probably served different functions, as was required. They were simple to build and maintain. Many were equipped either with a fireplace or a stone oven; stone ovens were present in the pit buildings both at Grelutóttir and Hvítarholt in western and southern Iceland (Guðmundur Ólafsson 1980, Þór Magnússon 1972). Pit buildings with ovens have been interpreted as weaving huts, as loom weights are commonly found in them (Bjarni Einarsson 1992). The stones in the pile in the corner of hut E at L'Anse aux Meadows had undoubtedly been used as weights, but whether for a fishing net or a loom is difficult to say. A number of birch bark rolls and waste from wood working, found in the bog outside the hut, may clarify this issue. Birch bark rolls were frequently used as net sinker wraps for stones like those in the corner of the hut (a practice persisting into the nineteenth century), so hut E could be a workshop and storage place for a fish net (Martens 1972: 94, Myrdal 1984).

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...group of Norsemen who had settled in Scotland and Ireland and intermarried with Gaelic-speaking people".[13] Recent evidence suggests that approximately 60% of the Icelandic maternal gene pool is derived from Ireland and Scotland, much higher than other Scandinavian countries, although comparable to the Faroese one...[14]

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...Another study shows that quite a big group of Scandinavian males, in particular Norwegians and Icelanders (up to 31% of samples), carry Haplogroup R1a1a (Y-DNA)....

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...The real traditional Irish music is an unaccompanied vocals called sean nós ("in the old style") and are considered the ultimate expression of traditional singing. This is usually performed solo (very occasionally as a duet). Sean-nós singing is highly ornamented and the voice is placed towards the top of the range. A true sean-nós singer will vary the melody of every verse, but not to the point of interfering with the words, which are considered to have as much importance as the melody. To the first-time listener, accustomed to pop and classical singers, sean-nós often sounds more "Arabic" or "Indian" than "Western".
Non-sean-nós traditional singing, even when accompaniment is used, uses patterns of ornamentation and melodic freedom derived from sean-nós singing, and, generally, a similar voice placement....

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dublin:

sta je kalotna pec? ima li neko sliku.

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dublin:

nedavno sam naleteo na jako interesantne podatke o slovenskim kucama u severozapadnoj evropi. ..postoje dve vrste kuca:
prva vrsta povezuje linear ware kulturu i slovene ("kuca sa ukopanom peci")
druga vrska kuce povezuje luzicku kulturu, nordijsko gvozdeno doba i slovene ("kuca sa kamenom peci u cosku")

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Eric drew his inspiration for this knife from his research on Irish fighting knives in the National Museum of Ireland and from his research on the Viking scramasax.

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The slavic sheaths does not look like the gotlandic ones at all! My main interest is scandinavian 8-10th century and I have studied over 35 seaxes with sheaths from Gotland In person and none look like this.

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dublin:

evo ovde par primera prave stare irske muzike:

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nedavno sam naleteo na jako interesantne podatke o slovenskim kucama u severozapadnoj evropi. ..postoje dve vrste kuca:
prva vrsta povezuje linear ware kulturu i slovene ("kuca sa ukopanom peci")
druga vrska kuce povezuje luzicku kulturu, nordijsko gvozdeno doba i slovene ("kuca sa kamenom peci u cosku")

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Strangely enough Drums are not known in Scandinavia at this period..Of course the surrounding cultures have them, but no Scandinavian examples are found too date..for some reason.??

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so could it be that this cultural trait somehow went from Slavic countries directly to Ireland (or the other way round) bypassing Scandinavia?

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Thats a very good question. Possibly it has always been part of the Celtic tradition and came across Europe from the south east and made its way to Britain during their migration? The Celts did not penetrate the Germanic tribes so much in Northern Europe although there was always contact from trade and warfare. Its very strange really, because when you look at the Bronze age and early Iron age southern Scandinavia is filled with artifacts the are definitely Celtic, weapons, vessels , wagons, you name it. But no drums. Weird! Then again we also must remember that this drum is made totally of organic materials and its is possible that no example has survived. But to my knowledge there is no pictographs portraying this in Scandinavia either. I have often wondered about this myself. A drum is one of the most simple primal instruments..why not here? This type of drum was also used by the native Americans too..so its pretty much everywhere else. I would guess that Viking age Scandinavians did know drums from their contacts with the Sami, Finns, Balts, Slavs, and Steppe cultures, but why it didnt become a part of Scandinavian culture makes no sense to me. ???

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Bemerkenswert sind auch drei slawische Schläfenringe, die als ethnognomonisches Merkmal für einen slawischen Bevölkerungsanteil gewertet werden.

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Heute weiß man, dass derartige Kopfschmuckringe im frühen Mittelalter weit verbreitet waren, sowohl im alemannischen, fränkischen als auch im slawischen Raum.

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This Viking neck ring is made from three twisted silver wires and is fastened by an unusual conical knob and loop clasp. It was both jewelry and money to its owner. Large neck rings and smaller arms rings were buried in Viking hoards in Ireland, Scandinavia, and England, all important hubs of Viking sea trade. This neck ring was found buried with a plain arm ring (present location unknown), in Fenit, County Kerry, Ireland in 1880.

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Baltic Viking 'Plaited' Neck-Ring
Copper-alloy, 220 grams, 16.35 cm. Circa 10th century AD. A skilfully made neck-ring formed from four sturdy zinc-rich copper-alloy rods, each thicker at the centre (about 6mm) than the ends (about 3mm) to give an expanding profile to the finished article. The rods were first wound in pairs, then formed into the final complex plait, with the ends carefully fused to form the hook-and-eye closure. Each end has a collar of much finer wire (about 1mm) bound around the lower 1.5cm from which the hook and eye elements emerge. The form of the arm-ring is distinctively Scandinavian, and the find-spot is in the Kingdom of York where there was extensive contact with both Scandinavia and the Viking-dominated port and markets of the Isle of Man and Dublin. Similar rings were among the treasures of the Cuerdale hoard from Lancashire which was deposited in the opening years of the tenth century (from the coins, a date circa AD 905 is considered likely, although dates drawn from purely numismatic evidence can be revised from time to time). The form of the ring is of a standard ‘East Baltic’ type. Reference: Hårdh, B. Silver in the Viking Age. A Regional Economic Study, Stockholm, 1996, p.191ff. Published: Hammond, Brett. British Artefacts, volume 2 - Middle Saxon & Viking, Witham, 2010. Extremely fine condition. Provenance: from an old English collection.

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THE LATEST FASHION
Vikings usually fought on foot.Fashions changed in the late11th century, at the end of the Viking Age, when cavalry began to be usedin battle. This mounted warrior comesfrom a tapestry woven in Baldishol,Norway, in around 1200. He is wearing a helmet and chain-mail tunic,and carrying a kite-shaped shield. Against an opponent on foot, theselonger shields gave better protectionto the cavalryman’s lower body

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On Bornholm, an interesting 11th century cemetery near Grødby
was excavated during the 1990s. It has been interpreted as a
Christian graveyard due to the presence of children’s graves and
the separation of male and female graves (Wagnkilde 1999 and
2001). However, neither church nor chapel were found, and it is
rather peculiar that many of the graves were more elaborately
furnished with goods than the 10th century pagan graves (among
other things Baltic Ware, wet stones, knives, coins and typical
Slavic jewellery such as ‘Schläfenringe’ and ‘Gürtelhaken’). Christian
or not, this might be a population of Slavic people.
This could also apply to the 11th century settlement site of Mölleholmen
near Ystad in Skåne, located on a tiny islet in a lake,
which revealed Baltic Ware (Kelm & Larsson 1995; Kelm 2000).
The site’s topographical situation is very much akin to the location
of many Slavic settlements in Mecklenburg; for instance
Dümmer near Schwerin (Wietrzichowski 1991).
Thus, there is evidence of Slavic presence north of the Baltic
Sea during the 11th century, but how substantial this presence
was is unclear.

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Excavations in the harbour area of Roskilde (which in the 13th
century was called ‘Vindeboder’ - “the booths of the Wends”)
revealed a silver earring and a bone awl that can be identified as
typically Slavic, but are extremely rare in Danish settlements.
The bone awl is most unlikely to be considered as an import
in its own right, which indicates the presence of Slavic traders,
craftsmen or the like in 11th century Roskilde (Ulriksen 2000).

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Roskilde (Danish pronunciation: [ˈʁʌskilə]) is the main city in Roskilde Municipality. It lies on the island of Zealand, Denmark.
The city is ancient, dating from the Viking Age and is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network.[1]

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According to Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus, in the 980s, Harald I of Denmark built a church....

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Additionally, an extraordinary collection of artefacts, both in quantity and quality has been retrieved from most of these sites
during excavation - in particular through intensive metal detecting, stressing the fact that the settlements held an extraordinary
function in society. Lejre (T. Christensen 1993), Tissø (Jørgensen 1998), Strøby-Toftegård on Sjælland (Tornbjerg 1998) and Järrestad
in Skåne (Söderberg 2002) were established in the late 6th or during the 7th century. Uppåkra in Skåne appears to be
slightly different. Its thick occupation layer is unusual, containing houses and finds from the Late Pre-Roman Iron Age to the end
of the Viking Age (Larsson 2002). In this respect Uppåkra has a close parallel in Gudme. Nevertheless, the artefacts emphasise
that Uppåkra climaxed during the Vendel Period and the Viking Age, just like its sister sites on Sjælland.
New features in the Vendel Period were specialised landing places emerging along the seashores of sheltered, inner-Danish waters,
as well as appearing on the more exposed shoreline on the south coast of Skåne (Callmer 1994; Ulriksen 1998). While the
vast majority of agrarian settlements are situated at least 1-2 km from the coast, the landing places were established very close to
the shoreline on well-drained areas, such as beach ridges or areas of sand or gravel. They are generally characterised by the absence
of farm units, and if there were buildings, then pit-houses dominated, sometimes supplemented by minor three-aisled buildings.
There were also workshops, where iron working, bronze casting, production of textiles and comb making were common.
As a comparison, rural settlements contain refuse from a limited range of handicrafts clearly dominated by textile production, followed
by iron working (Ulriksen 2002).

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Cemeteries are well known in Skåne, Halland, Blekinge and
Bornholm (Isendahl 1997; Jørgensen 1990; Jørgensen & Nørgård
Jørgensen 1997; Nagmér 1982; Strömberg 1968), while only few
have survived the intense ploughing in other parts of Denmark
(Jönsson 1992; Madsen 1994; Ramskou 1976). The variation of
burial rituals is both interesting and puzzling. Cremation and inhumation
were practised, and the dead could be buried beneath
a mound or within a stone setting formed as a circle, an oval, a
triangle, a square or ship shaped. Secondary use of Bronze Age
mounds is also known (Ørsnes 1966).

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SIGVALDI. Snorre names "Sigvalde?earl over Jomsborg in Vindland?a son of King Strutherald who had ruled over Skane", recording that he captured Svend King of Denmark, took him to Jomsborg and threatened to deliver him into the hands of the Wends unless he made peace[13]. He led a fleet of Jomsborg Vikings who invaded Norway and fought Haakon Jarl of Norway at Hjorungavag but was defeated[14]. m ASTRID of the Wends, daughter of BURISLAW King of the Wends & his wife ---. Snorre names "Astrid, a daughter of King Burizleif" as the wife of Sigvalde

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in the KING OLAF TRYGVASON'S SAGA" it says:

"King Svein made a magnificent feast, to which he invited all the chiefs in his dominions; for he would give the succession-feast,or the heirship-ale, after his father Harald....(..)...The Jomsborg vikings came to the festival with their bravest men, forty ships of them from Vindland, and twenty ships from Skane." So, from the 60 ships on which the Jomsvikings came to visit Sven (father of Canute the Great) who just become the king of Denmark - 40 were slavic.

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According to the Knytlingasaga and Fagrskinna, Jomsborg was built by the Danish king Harold Bluetooth (910-985/86) in the 960s

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