How do you feel about history?
I’m not a huge history buff. Mythology and folklore are far more up my alley, but I do sometimes like research and learning little things. With all the research I’ve had to do for Night Fall’s 13th Century chapters, I thought I’d share some of the information I’ve found.
Vikings were from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. There were normally just farmers or men of certain trades who picked up arms when needed.
There were actually female vikings! This has been debated for some time until records were discovered that proved they did exist. You may know the name from folklore, but female warriors were called shield-maidens or skjaldmær in Old Norse. Old Norse is closest to Old Icelandic, which is, unfortunately, dying out. Modern Icelandic is spoken more often then not, as well as English due to tourism.
One of the facts that amused me the most was Viking’s naming conventions. The last name, Haraldson was son of Harald, Erikson, son of Erik, and so on. Last names could also be areas the family was from or family trades.
When it comes to travel, roads were first constructed in the Middle East. And because I needed to get wardrobes for the period correct, corsets were not created until the 14th Century.