Trivia

The historic Viking culture is rich and hearty, and as such, was a good fit for our club.

The word "Viking" was originally a verb, describing the action of seafaring, and so applies only to Scandinavians who were seafarers- not necessarily all Scandinavians.

To encourage his fellow Norsemen to go to a large, snow and ice covered island that he discovered in 982 A.D., Eric the Red named it Greenland. In a few years, twenty-five ships filled with eager settlers sailed for the island.

Viking ships were steered by rudders on the right side, which the Vikings called styrbord, Old Norse for "steer side", from which the English word "starboard" comes. The Vikings docked their ships on the left side, which they called the ladebord, the "loading side". This eventually became the English "larboard", which sounded so much like "starboard" that it caused problems. Eventually, the British Admiralty ordered that the left side be known as the "port" side.

The worst possible death for a Viking chief was to die peacefully in bed.

At Viking victory celebrations, they drank draughts of their enemies' blood out of drinking vessels fashioned from human skulls. The toast "Skol!" may be derived from this custom.

Bluetooth, is named after a tenth-century king of Denmark and Norway, Harald Bluetooth. Harald was known for uniting various warring tribes in Denmark and Norway, as the technology is intended to unite various other technologies.

The Vikings had a god of snowshoes. His name was Ull. It is for this reason that a modern day Viking might remark to another, during a snowstorm, "May Ull smile upon your car."

In Iceland, the Vikings developed a code of laws, a version of a Parliament, and a court that had the power to pass judgment and legislate laws. This was the world's oldest parliament, which first met in the year 930 when Viking chieftains met outdoors to argue their differences.

The Vikings were traders as well as raiders. One Viking tribe known as the Rus penetrated deeply into what is present-day Russia to trade. As the Vikings settled and mixed with the native population they became the first Russians.

It has recently been discovered that Vikings of old did not in fact wear horned helmets. We maintain that modern ones do- the horned helmets are too much fun to exclude on the basis of historical accuracy.

Lastly, the week day name of Wednesday is derived from “Wodin’s Day,” an Anglo spelling of Odin’s day, with Thursday of course being “Thor’s day."