My Favourite Vikings

The other day I finished teaching a class about heroic archetypes. We studied The Odyssey, discussed King Arthur, and, because it was me teaching it, read a version of Beowulf, that Anglo-Saxon epic and testament to the Viking hero, flaws and all. Then I showed them the 1999 film The 13^th Warrior, as a means of explaining how the Beowulf legend could be interpreted. A good movie, not a great movie, but along with the animated Beowulf (2007) really all we've had showing true Viking-ness in the past while. (Okay, How to Train Your Dragon has its moments, too).

That very evening, my wife discovered this: http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/12/19/history-vikings-trailer-exclusive/

I’m excited, even if I don’t get that channel or really watch TV at all anymore (to be continued March 1). Whatever, I’ll download it. Apparently the story is about Ragnar Hairy Breeks (Vikings have the best nicknames). Good choice, as he's a pretty famous one, most significantly he was played by Ernest Borgnine in the surprisingly-decent The Vikings (1958). We do need some better titles, though . . .

So, anticipating a possible renewal in all non-Avengers things Norse-related, I thought I'd tell you about about my favourite Vikings, some fellas who could do well with a little film treatment of their own.

1. Harald Fairhair (c.850-932)

The most important king of the early Viking Age (it ran about 870-1066). He was the first ruler of a pretty much united Norway, and he got that job by forcing petty chiefs to obey him or leave. Many fled to Iceland, forming the first modern democracy and leading to that country's Golden Age. In the half-legendary Heimskringla, it's related how Harald got his nickname when he tried to woo the lovely Gyda, who refused his advances until he was king of something substantial. And so, he refused to wash, cut, or comb his hair until he had conquered Norway (going by the nickname Tangle Hair for a few years). You say, what's the big deal, he was a barbarian. Well, the Vikings have suffered in historical accounts because these are written mostly by their victims (especially sissy Christian monks), and so their virtues--such as better hygiene than their French, British, and Byzantine contemporaries--have been ignored. Anyway, dude put his enemies to the sword, birthed a nation, rinsed, lathered and repeated, and rode up all shiny to marry his queen.

Movie moment: The Battle of Hafrsfjord, where Harald beat everyone who dared oppose him, his greasy locks flowing in the breeze.

2. Egil Skallagrimmson (c.910-990)

A butt-ugly, foul-tempered alcoholic Icelander. He would fight anyone, any time, and for the dumbest reasons. Apparently, when he was seven, another boy cheated in a game of kickball and Egil split the kid's head with an axe! However, he was also a fantastic skaldic poet, and a respectable farmer as well. A Renaissance man 500 years before the Renaissance. Basically makes me think of a half dozen of my uncles . . .

Movie moment: Drunk at a party, he takes revenge on a tormentor by grabbing the man and puking all over him. Dude. 

3. Leif the Lucky (c.970-1020)

Unlike most of these guys, you've probably heard of Leif Ericson, and his rambunctious pappy Eric the Red. That Eric. Pissed off everyone in Norway and fled as an outlaw to Iceland--which was named such so no one followed the new settlers to the surprisingly green island. Then he pissed off everyone in Iceland and fled to an ice cube keeping the North Atlantic cool which he named Greenland, possibly the first ever tourist trap. He was lonely, and some suckers without a decent sense of irony joined him there. Bloody and ill-tempered, Eric had a son who was considerably more level-headed. Leif seemed to get a kick out of life, and despite being a rotten sailor, had a great sense of wanderlust. Blown off course from Greenland to Iceland, he discovered North America (suck it, Columbus!), which he named Vinland (wine-land). Hey, if Dad could false-advertise . . . There, he settled in Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows, before his dumbass brother Thorvald lethally picked a fight with the natives and they all had to head back to frosty Greenland.

Movie moment: "Guys, c'mere! Look at the size of these berries! I bet we could sucker people into thinking they're grapes for making wine. Say . . ." 

4. Knut the Great (c.985-1035)

As for the Danish kings, Knut (say the K: "Ca-NUTE") barely edges out the much better-monickered Harald Blue-Tooth because, despite the remains of the latter's rule peppering places like Jelling and Trelleborg, I just can't respect a Viking who converts to Christianity in the 4th quarter. It's like selling out. So, Knut. Remember, kids, Vikings were kings not by birth, but because they were the most ferocious and generous warriors, and attracted the biggest followings. Knut truly was great, both as a conqueror and a politician, and he was for a time the king of Norway, Denmark, and England--an impressive empire if his sons wouldn't have blown the whole thing after his death, leaving England ripe for lame-ass Anglo-Saxons and ambitious Normans looking for nickname changes (see below).

Movie moment: Many Danes wanted it, but Knut actually conquered England. The Norse influence on the British Isles (re: York and Dublin) is significant, but how about, just before the credits role Knut is flushed with victory and sees his own mug on a newly-minted English coin. Then his jarls gather around him like Michael at the end of The Godfather.





5. Harald the Hard Ruler (1015-1066)

My very favourite Viking. Where to begin? A descendant of Harald Fairhair, Harald Sigurdsson Hardrade was fierce and tall (nearly 6 feet), and a warrior before he was ten years old. When his older brother King Olav was killed at the Battle of Stiklestad, he fled to Kiev to work as a mercenary warrior for the Rus Vikings. Next he served in the Byzantine Emperor's illustrious Varangian Guard, a group of hired Norsemen who the emperor kept as his personal bodyguards, famous for their battle prowess, their intimidating stature, and their fiery hair and tempers to match. He fought all over the Middle East, acted as a pirate (pure Viking) in the Mediterranean, before returning to Norway and taking the country back. You knew Harald by the trail of bodies.

In 1066, yet another Harald (Godwinson) took the English throne. Both the Norwegian Harald and William the Bastard of Normandy opposed this claim. Harald of Norway invaded and took York. Godwinson retaliated, and a drunk, unarmored, and recklessly overconfident Harald prevented Norwegian dominance of the Isles forever by getting himself killed at Stamford Bridge on September 25, effectively ending the Viking Age. Godwinson was delayed and his troops exhausted when he faced the invading William (a Norman of Viking descent) at Hastings, and Godwinson was slain. William changed from a Bastard to a Conqueror, and Western History and the English Language were forever altered.

Movie Moment: I love the image of a drunken, barely-dressed Harald going down in a bloody tilt on Stamford Bridge, because every great Viking story ends in spectacular tragedy. 

On Cursive

Teacher: So you never learned cursive?
Bart: Well, I know hell and damn and bi--
Teacher: No, no! Cursive handwriting! Script!
------The Simpsons, "You Only Move Twice"

     A friend of mine asked a group of us--that is, the online community--what we thought about cursive. Should we bother teaching it to our kids and expecting them to use it?
     Those who answered were split between two factions: those who said that it could die, being a form of communicating developed around the needs of a quill and ink pot, and long since past its best-before date; and then there were those who felt that it was worth keeping around as a relic of a more dignified time. Like pocket-watches, rotary phones, and customer service.
     I disagree with both factions, in that I feel that cursive should not die, but also in that it I feel it's still very pertinent and worth teaching to our kids (*). Pertinent: that is relevant, not that it's quaint and reminds us of Grandpa.
     The reason I'm not willing to bury writing with your letters touching as yet another victim of the almighty Digital Age (sigh, that old chestnut), is because it can be faster and is more convenient than anything else we've got going right now. You may note (hopefully in longhand) that most young people text or type faster than they print (PRINT, mind), due to practice  They're just gangbusters on them devices. However, there will never, ever be a time where we don't use a pen and paper for some tasks, and writing is simply faster and more convenient. You device-aholics can practice, train, and preach, but you'll never win out in practicality.
     Balzac, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy all used cursive because they wrote so much, so fast, that it was the best way for them to get their thoughts on paper fast enough. Ideas just poured out, to the detriment of thousands of geese rendered naked. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck were religious about their interaction with their work through a pencil first, for them it was just purer. Even your humble blogger scrawls most of his entries in a spidery black ink that would make a doctor proud for its sometime-illegibility before committing them to the Web.
     Now, as far as the pedagogical discussion asterixed above. Why do some kids learn it today and yet some do not? Because the curriculum is packed. Have you seen these kids type? The time to teach them how to do that--and how to make a PowerPoint, avoid cyber-stalkers, Google--has to come from somewhere. Are teachers just supposed to eliminate fractions? Handwriting should be a teaching priority, yes, but more importantly it needs to be a priority of the kids. Parents should never comment on what a teacher is implementing unless the parent knows the curriculum intimately, or unless they feel their child is being neglected. The first rule of education is that non-educators know very little about education but think they know lots. Point is, I want my children to learn cursive. I'll try to enforce it at home, and I don't intend to quit myself, but to demand it of an overtaxed school system is a bit much.
     In my own classroom, it's frustrating because as adept as the kids are at printing, they can't say as much in their fastest printing--or typing--as I can in my handwriting. On exams, essays, assignments, notes, they just can't churn as much out. Less content means the greater likelihood of less quality = lower marks.
     Probably you'll tell me that I'm not doing enough to embrace technology. My kids probably would do better on laptops or handheld devices. Nope. And besides, there's a balance. Kids will learn how to text just fine on their own. We need to help them for those times when you won't have any sort of device--yes, really--and when having the ability to write will be helpful, even vital. And no, this will not require a zombie apocalypse.
     Last--and I'll admit this is a bit philosophical, but the research and practical evidence support it--the more kids write, the better they read. Getting accustomed to the language, familiar with it, learning its subtleties and rules, its tricks and delights, through your own hand rather than through a keyboard or touch screen will make you a better reader. Yes, it will. And no one thinks reading is going anywhere, despite dropping literacy rates.
     Keep 'em writing.