History Opinion Poll 2?

Question

Vikings: Big Blond Brutes or Really Assertive Businessmen?

Answer 1

Really Assertive Businessmen.

Answer 2

Hmm, not all blond (Eric the Red).  Not great businessmen, largely expansionists.  They reaped what they did not sow, destroyed what they did not build but could not carry away.  They were adventurers and plunderers and "pirates".  They knew how to spend, but not how to save.  However, they did eventually settle Iceland and may have taken over England and Scotland (the Angles).

Answer 3

I watched a program where they excavated a latrine used by Vikings. Um, all sorts of combs, tweezers, nail files, perfume bottles, and other personal grooming items. Wading ashore swinging an axe on a raid after weeks at sea in a small smelly boat Vikings we're brutish no doubt...but lounging around the home fires they were a clean well groomed bunch apparently.

Answer 4

Neither. I think they were very cunning men and women who were honest about what they wanted. They knew what it was and how to get it, regardless of the consequences later (like burning their longboats on the shores and hoping for the best, whether it be victory or an honorable death, followed by those hottest of hotties, the Valkyries ushering them to Valhalla)

Honest, noble men....ahhh...those were the days...

Answer 5

Vikings did not attack all the time. If they ran into an armed party of men they would trade instead. Fairly aggressive by our standards but it worked for them.

Answer 6

Really assertive businessmen. although they didn't have one politically united area of influence like the romans did. they did have a huge trading and cultural network at their prime (1000 C.E) Collectively the Norse lands controlled a huge chunk of Russia,following the rivers from the black sea to the gulf of Finland. they also controlled their homelands of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland. they had colonies,or trading outposts in Vinland, and Dublin. they also controlled a large chunk of northeastern england Scotland, the Orkney's, and the faeroes.

Answer 7

Really Assertive Businessmen