An Iceland Update

I alluded to the troubled financial situation in Iceland yesterday, but if you want a proper explanation check out Claus Vistesen's post at A Fistful of Euros which will explain what's happening. The comments thread, meanwhile, turned to an argument over whether or not it's correct to say that Icelanders are descended from Vikings. Daga says this is a kind of slur:

Its much like saying that all palestinians are terrorists. to "go viking" was an action,neither a profession nor an ethnic entity. At the time it was either "landnaam" (landgrabbing) or pillaging-depending on the strenght and size of the party.

Iceland was settled by people from the West coast of Norway,opposing our first king's unification og the country. Normandy was settled for much the same reason--this time by "viking" -i.e. by force.

Given that Iceland was completely unoccupied at the time of Norse settlement (no aboriginal population whatsoever), it would seem wrong to suggest that any landgrabbing was involved. My understanding is, however, that many of the settlers stopped off in Ireland en route to capture slaves, giving Iceland's population its mixed Nordic/Celtic character.

Comments

...to "go viking" was an action...

Time to get some new viking boots!

Posted by El Cid | April 1, 2008 10:22 AM

My 5-year-old would take issue with the idea that calling someone a viking is in any way a slur, ethnic or otherwise. Because vikings are awesome. Also pirates. And ninjas.

Posted by Noah Millman | April 1, 2008 10:27 AM

"Time to get some new viking boots!"

The plural is "Boote".

Posted by Njorl | April 1, 2008 10:29 AM

So, Reverand Wright traces his lineage to Nordic enslavers of other peoples? I KNEW IT! I call shenanigans!

Posted by steve duncan | April 1, 2008 10:32 AM

Hey, ask around norseland back then and nobody was a viking. "Vikings?" they'd say. "Never seen a viking. That's a big myth." To which you'd then have to ask, "Then what's with all the longboats filled with booty over there?" And that's when they'd split your skull with an axe and then tell people you died from a headache.

Posted by Rid | April 1, 2008 10:35 AM

Its much like saying that all palestinians are terrorists. to "go viking" was an action,neither a profession nor an ethnic entity.

And so, in the interest of ethnic sensitivity, I demand the Minnesota Vikings change their racially offensive team name.

Posted by James Gary | April 1, 2008 10:38 AM

"Given that Iceland was completely unoccupied at the time of Norse settlement (no aboriginal population whatsoever)"

The two halves of this statement do not necessarily fit together. There was no aboriginal population, but Norse and Irish tradition asserts, and most historians believe, that a certain number of Irish monks inhabited Iceland at the time of the Norse arrival - mostly of the hermit type, called Papar. These men were apparently slaughtered or fled (where?) when the Norse settlers appeared. I guess if this is so, a teeny bit of "viking" did in fact go on in Iceland.

Posted by Estrien | April 1, 2008 10:38 AM

By the way: Icelandic kids feel the same way about Vikings as mine does.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107100/

A good movie, by the way. Did you know that Iceland makes more movies per capita than any other country?

Posted by Noah Millman | April 1, 2008 10:48 AM

Icelanders are now offended by being called Vikings? Weird. They should be offended that people have been using that heritage to trick them into eating rotten shark once a year.

My nasal passages still haven't recovered.

Posted by nitpicker | April 1, 2008 10:49 AM

Is saying 'Iceland is a nation of vikings' kind of like saying 'Australia is a nation of convicts'? Sounds like it. And so I can see why it would be a bit of a sore point.

Posted by Ryan | April 1, 2008 10:49 AM

I was going to point out that MY was wrong to say that Iceloand was compeltely unoccupied when the Norse arrived, but Estrien beat me to it.

But of course, "Viking" is something of a synonym for "pirate". The Norse who settled Iceland were probably not above a little piracy as opportunity presented itself, but primarily they were settlers, looking to engage in agriculture and trade.

Posted by rea | April 1, 2008 10:55 AM

Everybody knows the Papar escaped on the backs of dinosaurs. Sheesh!

http://www.answersingenesis.org/about

Posted by Ken Ham | April 1, 2008 10:56 AM

RE "stopped off in Ireland en route to capture slaves, giving Iceland's population its mixed Nordic/Celtic character."
---------------
If Matthew had said "stopped off in Ireland en route to capture SEX SLAVES" , his blog would have gotten a GAZILLON more hits. But he's gotten all genteel lately.

Posted by Don Williams | April 1, 2008 11:01 AM

I read the Fistful of Euros story and can only encourage economists to do 2 things when they speak to the rest of us: a) translate Economics into Human and b) lose the academic predilection for qualifying/neutering every tiny assertion. I read the piece and came away with the idea that Iceland is going to get trussed but I have no idea why or when.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 1, 2008 11:13 AM

Fortunately, men of today have evolved and are no longer the roving sexual predators we were 800 years ago.

Now,when they go roaming it is as tourists. A high percentage of Iceland's GDP comes from tourism -- from men who visit to see Iceland's glaciers, mountains, beaches and its pristine environmental treasures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eythor/1152062876/in/set-72157594298906410/

The New York Times had an article on it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/travel/19reykjavik.html?ex=1261112400&en=54f04323f24e3742&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

Posted by Don Williams | April 1, 2008 11:15 AM

When I was in Iceland a few years back there had recently been a study of Mitochondrial DNA (inherited from the mother) and Y Chromosome DNA (father, naturally) that found that the majority of Icelanders were decended from Scandinavian men and British women. So yeah, "sex slaves" would be more accurate.

Posted by Jason | April 1, 2008 11:28 AM

I read an article once where the Icelandic were pissed that Microsoft wasn't translating Windows 95 or 2000 or something into Icelandic. They're very protective of their language. They all speak english, but they've got some sort of council that creates new Icelandic words instead of just using the English word for new things (like Jeans or Computers). And supposedly, whereas as we have difficult reading Shakespeare or Chaucer or other very old English texts due to the evolution of the language, they can read something that was written in Icelandic 1,000 years ago and read it like it was written yesterday. Cool.

Posted by Seitz | April 1, 2008 11:48 AM

"Icelanders are now offended by being called Vikings?"

Just that one guy, surely.

Jeffrey Davis: I feel compelled to point out that Claus guest post isn't representative as far as our style, cf Alex' recent post "Outbreak of Arseholes in Central Europe".

Posted by David Weman | April 1, 2008 11:55 AM

Just noting that "A Fistful of Euros" is a pretty great name.

Posted by live | April 1, 2008 11:56 AM

Being offended when someone suggests your progenitors from 1000 years ago might have been a bit of a rough bunch is beyond silly. I doubt most Icelanders would find being reminded of their Viking origins to be offensive. The comparison to Australia's convict past is way way off. A better comparison would be to the roving Teutonic bands in Germany's past, I would think.

Regardless, a Swedish acquaintance once told me that when a bunch of young Swedes are pounding down the alcoholic beverages, they'll encourage one another to man up by saying "you must prove your Viking heritage." So the feeling is clearly not universal.

Oddly, though, I think the Swedes, Norse, and Danes probably have the weakest claim to Viking heritage of anyone in the world. The Irish, French, and certainly the Icelanders have a much better claim. The Vikings are, kind of by definition, people who left Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Those who stayed behind were the farmers and herdsmen and so on. This could be why the Scandinavian countries are such placid and civilized places these days.

Posted by Rob Mac | April 1, 2008 12:15 PM

They're very protective of their language. They all speak english, but they've got some sort of council that creates new Icelandic words instead of just using the English word for new things (like Jeans or Computers)

An example: The word "electricity" is ultimately derived from a Greek root meaning "amber," because the study of electricity originated in investigation of the static electricity produced by rubbing pieces of amber with other substances. So when the Icelanders needed a word for "electricity," they came up with rafmagn,which means "amber-force."

(Nevertheless the verb blogga, meaning "to blog," seems to have taken firm root.)

One explanation for this protectiveness may be that there are very few physical reminders of Iceland's history, because the principal building material was turf. The Icelanders have no Tower of London, no Notre Dame, no Angkor Wat; all they have is their language and their literature.

Posted by roac | April 1, 2008 12:41 PM

Rob Mac,

You do know some Vikings came back home, right?

I am a little surprised that nobody's mentioned how denizens of the eastern side of the Scandinavian countries usually went to Belarus/Ukraine/Russia (check Varangians in Wikipedia) and they went all the way down to Constantinople.

Posted by JRVJ | April 1, 2008 12:53 PM

Re Rob Mac's comment "This could be why the Scandinavian countries are such placid and civilized places these days."
-----------
Well, unless you fuck with them.

When Russia tried to invade Finland, a Finnish farmer named Simo Häyhä killed 542 Russian soldiers using a bolt action rifle -- and another 200 or so with a submachine gun when they got too close. Eventually, the Russian Army was calling in ARTILLERY STRIKES on Simo. Heh heh heh

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4#Early_life.2C_World_War_II_service

Posted by Don Williams | April 1, 2008 12:53 PM

Weren't you praising Iceland to high heaven the other day for its high tax/light regulation economy? Isn't the "light regulation" side of that relevant to the fact that Iceland's economy is currently being pillaged by Vikings with MBAs?

Americans, naturally, pillaged our own country. This is because we're descended from Scotsmen.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | April 1, 2008 2:01 PM

Don,

Finns are not Scandinavians and are not descended from Vikings.

Since the Russians actually took Finland from the Swedes and kicked the Swedes' ass all up and down the Baltic right through the 18th century I don't think the Russians are afraid to fuck with the Swedes.

Posted by vanya | April 1, 2008 2:28 PM

My son dove head first into the family records box a few months back. While his patrilineal line decided make Minnesota what it is, another line was part of the Swede minority in what's now Finland, and got mixed up in Czarist politics in the Rodina proper. That led him to tell his friends that he's actually Russian. It took me a while to remember that only I can let him push my buttons.

Damn Swedes, just couldn't stay put.

Posted by cmholm | April 1, 2008 3:13 PM

Re: Jeffrey Davis, I agree that the "coverage" of the effect of the credit crunch on Iceland could use translation into standard English. IANAE, having had no formal training in Economics since my undergrad macro and micro classes.

Per Wikipedia: Credit default swaps resemble an insurance policy, as they can be used by debt owners to hedge, or insure against credit events such as a default on a debt obligation.

If I lean on that simplification, Iceland is like the insurance company that holds too many policies on the Gulf Coast after Rita and Katrina roll through. They were stuck with a lot of worthless CDS' when the US credit market melted down.

That sounds a lot less like "foreign banks are trying to screw Iceland" than the post from yesterday suggested.

Posted by cmholm | April 1, 2008 3:32 PM

In the Icelandic Sagas, of which they are so (justly) proud, there seems to be quite a bit of that Viking stuff going on. It's just what they did with their summers.

Posted by Bill Jones | April 1, 2008 4:05 PM

What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in---
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you---
Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken---

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.
You steal away to the lapping waters,
And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.

Kipling.

Posted by roac | April 1, 2008 5:06 PM

apropos of nothing, the Scandinavian toast "Skool!" is actually the same word as the English word skull. This is because the early Norse had a habit of toasting each other out of goblets made from their enemies' skulls.

not to suggest these people were ever uncivilized, or anything like that....

Posted by Diana | April 1, 2008 6:01 PM

1. Population pressures are moot now in Scandanavia and in the 19th century were relieved by immigration the U.S.A. The Scandanavians have seen that modern war is not a profitable enterprise that it was in the old loot and plunder days.

2. Yep, Ireland was a nice reservoir for slaves, of both the workers and the financial variety for the Icelanders.

3. As for the viking aspect of the Icelanders, they have only there own sagas to blame.

Posted by Rick Kane | April 2, 2008 11:23 AM

Hi Matthew.
I've read many of your articles the last year..and find them both interesting and informative.
It is true that you find a lot of Celtic and Pict Genes in the Icelandic population. You also have Norse Genes in England and Irland.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1689955.stm
Fact is that 1200 years ago the North Sea and North Atlantic was kind of "Mare Nostrum" for the Vikings so Genes , Goods and Gods were frequently exchanged. My Guess is that you will find much the same Gene-pool in Orkney and Shetland as in Iceland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Mann_and_the_Isles

Posted by Daga | April 3, 2008 2:01 PM

Diana wrote:
apropos of nothing, the Scandinavian toast "Skool!" is actually the same word as the English word skull. This is because the early Norse had a habit of toasting each other out of goblets made from their enemies' skulls.

not to suggest these people were ever uncivilized, or anything like that....
.........................

Of course an interesting theory,but I'm afraid you have read too many bad cartoons.
A human skull has a lot of holes for veins and nerves.
"Skaal"-(Cheers) derives from skaal..in english: a bowl they used to drink their mead from.
Some norsemen..called "skald" (later english scholar) connected with the "wise" Odin when they had been drinking mead..and told a "kvad"..a poem praising the king and his latest feat..and speaking ill of his slain enemy. Much the same as the biblical profets, but less exaggerated--God knows what they had been drinking, must have been pretty strong stuff.

Posted by Daga | April 4, 2008 6:40 AM