re: #564 LudwigVanQuixote

I must defend the Vikings. While societal pressures did create a class of seafaring nasties, (no worse than Irish or continental pirates, come to that) Norse society was primarily one of farmers and merchants. Women enjoyed a relatively very high social status, and the rights of the common man were spelled out in law, and vigorously defended. They produced art, and excellent literature (the family sagas are essentially the first European novels).

And Norsemen in the Danelaw were, in fact, roundly criticized by English sources for taking baths weekly, and changing their clothes frequently—it was suspected that they did this in order to seduce virtuous English ladies.

And now I will add, to the white supremacist idiots, our mutual Norse ancestors prized valor and fair dealing. ‘Being white’, they never gave a second thought to, it was just what people from their part of the world looked like. So shut up and sit down, and get over your bigoted little selves.