34 Griffon vultures went on a Summer Holiday in Denmark

Griffon vulture (from wikipedia)

34 griffon vultures arrived last week for some days to the North Jutland village of Volsted south of Aalborg. This is really a rare event. Only about six griffon vultures have been since in Denmark since 1858.

Usually there are no griffons in Denmark. They live in the Spanish mountains and in South Eastern Europe, but sometimes they might fly north with the summer heat. Flocks have been located in Holland .

The 34 griffons in North Jutland are probably young birds from last year - and they might fly south again when it gets cold in DK. They cannot find much food here, there are no carrions out in the Danish fields. 

The griffon vulture is black, brown and white with a wingspan about 2,8 meter and a weight of ca. 11,3 kilo. 

source: various articles in the Danish News. 

The Vikings - the Danish Ships.

Havhingsten, Vikingeskibsmuseet.

The importance of the ships in Denmarks history is not easy to exaggerate. The Danish kingdom and its achievements in Viking Age depended on well-built ships and good seamanship. The contact to other countries and places depended upon ships, no matter whether they were friendly or hostile contacts to other parts of Scandinavia, to the Baltics or to the Christian countries to the west. Denmark had a land border to the Saxons in the south, but when they went out to attack their neighbours, their army was usually supported by a fleet.  

The earliest Danish coins depict ships, both trade- and warships, while most contemporary literature count the ships as a matter of course. There are rarely details about sea voyages or information about the ships. When the travels are described it is only said that missionaries, tradesmen and others went from Dorestad to Denmark or from Hedeby to Birka - no mention of the ship at all. One exception is Ansgar's first voyage to Denmark where he and his companion got a ship from the archbishop of Cologne and discovered they had to share rooms with the Danish king. 

The contemporary texts give barely information about the size of the vessels, the names of the ship types are known to us from poetry and a few runic inscriptions, but it is almost impossible to decide the difference between a skeith, a snekkja and a knarr. The scalds might have used these words randomly. From the 1000s a seagoing tradeship is called a knarr, but since this word in the early poetry was used for a warship, a knarr was possibly just a seagoing ship, whatever it was used for trade or war.

Bayeux tapestry, Viking ship

The only descriptions of the ships and the fleets are written in contemporary literature, like the Scald-poems of tribute and in Encomium Emmae, written in the 1040s to Cnut the Great's queen. The knowledge of the ships from the period is high however, since there were made many important archaeological discoveries. Some ships were found in burials/graves, but the ships or ship-parts found in the Scandinavian waters and in the Baltic are even more valuable. The most important discovery was made in Roskilde fjord at Skuldelev, where five ships, apparently from the late Viking Age, deliberately had been sunk to block a shipping passage, called Peberrenden.

By help of dendrochronology and other scientific dating methods the archaeologists have established a pattern of development for the Scandinavian ships. Even lesser ship-parts can be dated. The finds are so numerous and so clear that there is now a safe and precise knowledge about the development of the art of ship-building. The recovery of these ships has given a more versatile image of the shipping of the Vikings.

There were various boats for various purposes, the simplest was the oak, a canoe hollowed from a log. This type of boat was created long before our time and was still used in Danish lakes and rivers only a hundred years ago. The Vikings built also small barges, one was found at Egernsund in Flensborg fjord, it was 7 m long and 1,9 m broad and is dated to the end of the 1000s. But their larger vessels, both trade- and warships, are more wellknown. Small freightships, less than 20 m long, were found  near Larvik in Norway, in the Gøtaelv (river) in Sweden and at Skuldelev, and at the same place were found two warships. The rest of a warship was found in a pretty gravehill at the shore of Kerteminde fjord  (the Ladby ship ). The wood in the Ladbygrave had rottened, but the shape of the ship was clearly drawn in a pattern formed by the iron-nails, which kept the ship planks together. In the sea were important finds of individual ship-parts, like a 2,8 m long side-roar, which was fished up from Kattegat and a 3,8 m long mast-part in Mariager fjord . Many ship parts, both used and new, were found at the island Falster in a shipyard from the 1000s, where the old ships apparently were repaired.

Havhingsten, Vikingeskibsmuseet

The Skuldelev ships.
The times were harsh and violent in the late 1000s, and the Vikings built a system of blockage in Roskilde fjord as a protection against hostile navy attacks on the town Roskilde, which then was the capital of Denmark. The five ships in the hall of the Vikingship Museum origin from a blockage of Peberrenden at Skuldelev ab. 20 km north of Roskilde. The ships were excavated in 1962. An iron pile wall was framed down around the blockage in order to drain it. In less than four months the ships were dug out and brought up in thousands of pieces. After this came a huge work of preservation and collecting the pieces into the five puzzles, which represent the Viking ships. The finding includes five different ship types, which collectively give a unique impression of the shipbuilding and craftmanship of the Viking Age. 


Skuldelev 1 (Havskibet)

Skuldelev 1, wikipedia

Wreck 1 is a heavy, seagoing cargo ship, maybe the type knarr. The ship was built in heavy pine planks at Sognefjorden in West Norway and was later repaired with oak in several stages, both in Oslofjorden and in East Danmark. The ship had a deck both fore and aft, and an open cargo room midships.
The ship and cargo might have been owned by a magnate/chieftain, who went on trade with his entourage or owned by merchants, who in commmunity were sailing the ship and do some trading in the marketplaces. The crew was 6-8 men. Havskibet could sail overall in the North Sea and the Baltic and on the North Atlantic. In favorable wind it was able to keep an average speed of ab. 5-7 knob. The Vikingship Museum's  reconstruction of Skuldelev 1 is in the Museum harbour.


Skuldelev 2, (the big longship)

Skuldelev 2, wikipedia

Wreck 2 is a seagoing warship, maybe of the type skeid. Staffed with 65-70 warriors it belonged to the big chieftain-ships which are being praised in scaldsongs and Sagas.
The ship is built in oak, the analyze of the timber has shown that the ship was built in the Dublin-area ab. year 1042. The Vikings came to Ireland in the 800s, and they established several fortified bases along the Irish coast. The bases later developed into cities with Dublin being the most important. The Vikings lived here as merchants, mercenaries and shipbuilders.

The long narrow shape of this ship gave it a good speed potential. 60 oars secured the progress of the ship even without wind. Havhingsten fra Glendalough, the Vikingship Museum's reconstruction of Skuldelev 2, has reached an average speed of 2,5 knob with every second oar staffed. Under sails the Havhingsten has reached a top speed of 12 knob. Havhingsten fra Glendalough ( The Sea Stallion of Glendalough) is in the Museum harbour. 

   Skuldelev 3 (Kystfareren / The Coastal Trader)

Skuldelev 3, wikipedia

Wreck 3 is a small, elegant freight and travel-ship, maybe the type byrding. The ship was built in Danish oak. It had a deck of loose planks fore and aft, and midship was an open cargo-room with room for 4 tons cargo.  The crew was 5-8 men.
The ship was useful when the farmer and his entourage had to go to markets or meet at The Thing. It was well suited for sailing in the Danish waters and in the Baltics. The wind was its most inmportant driving force, but during maneuvres and in short distances in no wind the oars could be used. In favorable wind the ship could keep an average speed of 4-5 knob. Roar Ege, the Vikingship Museum's reconstruction of Skuldelev 3 has been sailing with a top speed of 8,5 knob. Roar Ege in the Museum harbour,

Skuldelev 5, (the small longship). 

Skuldelev 5, wikipedia

Wreck 5 is a lesser warship, maybe the type snekke. The ship is built in Danish oak, ash and pine, partly from re-used wood from other ships. With 13 pair of oars and a staff of ab. 30 warriors it belonged to the 13-sesserne, the smallest longships in a war fleet. Along the upper strake are still seen parts of where the shields were placed, and upon the 6th plank starboard is seen a carved decoration. The ship was ideal for sailing in the Danish waters and in the short, choppy waves of the Baltic. The average speed on longer trips was 6-7 knob in a favorable wind, and the top speed probably double. Helge Ask,  the Vikingship Museum's reconstruction of Skuldelev 5 is in the Museum  harbour.

Skuldelev 6, (the fishing boat)

Skuldelev 6, wikipedia

Wreck 6 is a combined row- and sailboat, probably built for fishing and catch. The boat was built in Sognefjorden in Norway in pine planks. It was later enheightened with a plank in each side in order to transport fish or other products, or persons. In the rebuild the original oar-plan was removed and the oar-number reduced. The rebuild probably meant that the boat was more used as a freightship than a fishing boat and with a smaller crew. Before the boat  was used as a part of the blocking at Skuldelev it was repaired in the bottom with oak-planks. Kraka Fyr,  the Vikingship Museum's reconstruction of Skuldelev 6 is in the Museum harbour.
 






The small warship from Skuldelev (nr.5) was 18 m long and was intended to be driven by 12 pair of oars. The big longship (nr. 2) is not so well-kept that it is possible to tell the oar-places, but it was apparently 28 m long and with probably 20 pair of oars, maybe more. 

A few very large ships from the 1000s might have been built for kings and other chiefs, but they are always mentioned as something very special. An ordinary warship had probably ab. 20 pair of oars, corresponding to the staffing of the warships in the Middle Ages, which usually had a crew of 42 men. 

Below three photos from the Vikingship Museum in Roskilde: grethe bachmann 2001.

The Skuldelev ships were products of a long boatbuilding tradition in Scandinavia and the Baltics. There is only a little difference between the Danish ships and the ships from the Slavic areas. The basic construction consisted of keel and bow. When a ship-timber had made these, the shape of the vessel was largely determined. A ship could usually not be longer than the straight trunk of an oak.
Both the sailing and the landing wore out the slender ships. The small warship from Skuldelev had been repaired with planks from another ship. Finds from the ship yard at the island Falster illustrated, how the old ships were broken up in order to re-use well-kept timber. But the keels were not suitable for re-use, since they had been worn out from the eternal pulling on land. The effort the Vikings did to re-use ship-parts and to repair the ships show how valuable the ships were. They represented a big investment. A reconstruction of the trade ship Skuldelev 3, which was built with the use of the tool-types and methods from the Viking period, took 15.000 working hours. Skilled workers were probably able to do it in the half time or at least lesser time, but even this was a big effort.


A well-functioning seagoing vessel from the Viking Age could handle very rough weather conditions. This was demonstrated dramatically when a reconstruction of the big trade ship from Skuldelev came safe through wind gusts of 35 m/sec at the coast of Greenland. Lesser sea seaworthy ships would have been shipwrecked - and many Viking ships probably did. 


Links:
 The Five Skuldelev Ships Vikingeskibsmuseet Roskilde

 Archaeology in Europe/Havhingsten fra Glendalough


Source: 
Gyldendal og Politikens Danmarkshistorie, bind 3, Peter Sawyer, Da Danmark blev Danmark , 700-1050;
Johannes Brøndsted, Vikingerne, V. Materiel kultur, Skibe,  Gyldendal 1960.
Vikingeskibsmuseet,Roskilde

The Vikings /The Expeditions

Norsemen, Danes, Swedes

The Viking expeditions are grand. They include all of Europe, to the east along the large river-roads through Russia, to the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, to the west along the Atlantic coasts down past Arab Spain through  the strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean. But they also include the wild unknown North Atlantic with the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland, even America. 

The three Scandinavian countries had each their own geographic profile externally, and their own political interests. The names Sverige, Norge and Danmark show that each country had memories of old historic life. The name Sverige (Svearike) is the rige of the Swedes, a rige meant in that period a land where a king was the ruler  (= English: a kingdom). It is not a coincidence that the name of the land of the Swedes pointed to the authority and power of a king. The Swedish kingdom existed long before the Viking-period.

map from 1539 with Danevirke

Danmark means the mark (land/field) of the Danes. The old meaning of the name "marc"  = uninhabited borderland.The Mark must in this connection be the land at the south of Jutland's foot, the wild land south of Danevirke, which divided the Danes from the Saxons to the southwest and from the Slavic people to the southeast.The name Danernes mark = Danmark was gradually used in general already before year 900.   The Anglo-Saxon king Alfred the Great wrote Denemearcan in his foreword to Orosius' world history, and this is the first time the name Danmark is mentioned in the world literature.

The name Norge has an old root, but in a different way from the Danish and Swedish. Norge was also a collected kingdom under Harald Fairhair, but much later than what happened similarly in Denmark and Sweden. The name Norge has a commercial historical meaning. It means "den nordlige vej" (the northern road) or Nordvejen ( the Northroad), an appellation of commercial historical origin. This road was the trade route along the long, long coast of Norway, from south to north and back, a route which is described in the before mentioned king Alfred's document from the late 900s. It was a sea route from the trade center Skiringstal at the Oslofjord, via the seas of Kattegat, Skagerak and the North Sea up to the White Sea, where they fetched sealskin, polarbear skin and walrus-tooth. 

Sea Stallion model of Viking ship on its first voyage Denmark-Ireland.

The face of Norway turned west, towards the great oceans and their islands. It was mostly the Norsemen, who before and during the Viking period braved the immense, icegrey, stormy North Atlantic - and they started their voyage with no knowledge of, what they might meet or find. The Norwegian interest was split in two, the first one expeditons/raids to the southern, starting by a north-Scottish island, which was inhabited by Norsemen at the very first beginning of the Viking period; from here to the coast of Scotland, to Ireland, to the Isle of Man, to all Irish and English coasts around the Irish Sea - from here the Norse expeditions went deep into England from northwest, where they were fighting and competing with the Danes, but the Norse went still farther away, to the northern and southern France and into the Mediterranean - the French part of the expeditions is the same for Norsemen and Danes. The Norsemen's second interest, the northern expeditions went to the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland. These expeditions were probably due to the pressure, which king Harald Fairhair put on the Norse earls and free farmers, when he roughly forced them to accept Norway under one Crown in the end of the 9th century. These later Norwegian expeditions across the Atlantic were not raids or piracy, they were more colonization of desolate areas.

Sweden looked to the east. The Swedish expansion had started already in the 8th century (across the Baltic Sea). The mighty Swedish trade developed and branched in a grand manner southwards through Russia to the southern states. The Baltic Sea was considered common area for Swedes and Danes.

Thousand years ago the Viking Ingvar Vidfarne went towards the east. In 2004 a Swedish expedition revived his tour from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, a a wearing tour across sea, mountains and along tortuous roads. The magazine Illustreret Videnskab  was onboard on the almost ten meter long Himingläva.

The Fyrkat house, copy of Viking stone (London stone)

And south of the Scandinavian peninsula was Denmark with lots of islands and the peninsula Jutland, the main land. Jutland had its foot upon the Central European continent, but this did not mean a connection between Denmark and the countries south of the border. On the contrary was Jutland and thereby Denmark  withdrawn from their southern neighbours, the German Saxons to the southwest and the Slavic Obodrits and Wends to the southeast. The Vikings preferred to use the water routes on the sea and the rivers. The Danish interest went therefore not directly to the south, but to the southwest along the Frisian and Frankish coast and towards west to England. To the east was the western part of the Baltic Sea. To the southwest were all the coasts and rivers of the northern France deep into the Danish field - but the Danes did not stop here -  they went farther away and came to the Mediterranean together with Norsemen and Swedes.


Sea Stallion Vikingship Museum Roskilde


Source: Johannes Brøndsted, Vikingerne,1960; Illustreret videnskab, 2004.


photo: grethe bachmann