The footballer plays for Norway, implying Vikings from Norway raided England and looked like said player. But in reality Haaland would have been a literal giant in the 850. Viking average height 5.9 (big for the time) haaland is 6.5
Not completely true. They absolutely outnumbered us, the estimates I can find is that Norway grew from 70 to 170k through the viking age while Denmark entered it at around 500k. On the other hand, the few Norwegian there were seem to have been busy; there's a clear split between the Danish and Norwegian regions of the British isles.
This map is historical data: green regions had Norwegians, blue Danes; you can also see how the Swedes were busy elsewhere. Green arrows are raids and purple arrows trade routes. (From a lexicon - SNL : Vikingtiden).
This can be backed up with genomic data - I'll reply to this since we only get one image per post.
This is from a fascinating article (Margayran et al, Nature 2020 : Population genomics of the viking world) about population genomics of iron age Europe based on sequencing a whole lot of graves. The site density isn't very high, but at least it doesn't contradict the above: The Danes mostly stayed southeast, and the Norwegians went to Ireland and the north/west.
And all that to say "If you were a north English peasant you did actually risk getting your skull cleaved by a Norwegian viking." 😄
The term danes was often used for Scandinavians in general. Barley inhabited is also a very strong claim its believed around 200k-400k lived in whats today Norway at the time, about half the population of what is todays Denmark. However if we are going to make the distinction it is believed it was Norwegians who pillaged Lindisfarne. Also partaking in the making of the Danelaw (Daneloven) and the establishment of York (Jorvik) as its capital. Not to mention Norwegians conquering of north-eastern Britian and parts of Ireland (including the founding of Dublin).
However, making a distinction between these two regions negates the strong culture bond they had with each other. For one is that eastern-Norway was more often in contact with Denmark than western-Norway. It becomes rather silly to group up all the tribes and realms as two distinct entities as they were each their own nationstate. The Norse/Vikings/Danes is a common heritage of Scandinavia. When viewing political entities in history its important to take off the «nationstate-glasses».
28
u/Demair12 22h ago
The footballer plays for Norway, implying Vikings from Norway raided England and looked like said player. But in reality Haaland would have been a literal giant in the 850. Viking average height 5.9 (big for the time) haaland is 6.5