Talk:Vikings/Archive 3

message: They founded cities such as Jorvik (York),... 
But on the York page it makes quite clear that York is at least 800 years older than the Danish invasion. One of the pages must either be in error or vague. - stet 20:03, 19 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Foundation of York

message: ok, the intro is structured like this now:
*loose sense: Northmen
*narrow sense: raiders
*other names: Danes, Normans, Rus, etc.
*Modern nations descended from them
*Prose bit about the Vikings being extremely skillful craftsmen, extremely ruthless warriors, extremely competent sailors and extremely adept warriors.
dab 15:11, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It is fine by me.--Wiglaf 15:15, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro

message: I agree with all that is said in the 'myths' section, except: is it even a myth that the vikings were particularly uncleanly? is that not rather a prejudice applied to the total of the middle ages and not to the vikings in particular? Much to the contrary, the vikings in England were reputed to be dandies of excessive cleanliness. They bathed and combed their hair every week and the locals were annoyed with the success they had with their women because of that. So I am not sure the myth that is debunked here even exists. (See also Ibn Fadlan) dab 10:11, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps this is not a popular myth at all - I included it because of Ahmad ibn Fadlan and the Hagbard comics. Feel free to remove it if it adds nothing to the article.. --moliate 16:20, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I explained it all in more detail now. dab 13:26, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: "dirty vikings"

message: The article randomly mingles "viking" and "Viking". We need to decide whether or not we want to capitalise the word (as opposed to just capitalising coined expressions like "Viking Age") dab 13:26, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that the article both treats Vikings as an ethnic group (cf. Scandiavian and Swede) and vikings as an occupation (cf. pirate and trader).--Wiglaf 15:19, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I'll try to disambiguate accordingly. It's difficult, though.  viking may be an occupation, but Viking may also be a proper name, like Varangian, for people of this occupation. In the intro, we also have "population" now, followed by a pronoun "they", which should be rephrased somehow. dab 15:58, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Halfway through my disambiguation, I would like to suggest to capitalise "Viking" in both meanings. The difference is sometimes too subtle, and "Viking" as a proper noun may refer to both the raiders and the general population/culture -- what do you think? dab 16:18, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It sounds fine! :)--Wiglaf 20:23, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Ok. Capitalising throughout (Viking as in Dane, and Viking as in Varangian). dab 09:41, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalisation

message: britannica encyclopedia.com catholic encyclopedia The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.  2001. 
Sam Spade Arb Com election 12:09, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: you are supposed to click on the links. your browser will open a new document which you then can read. the articles are about the change from raiders into settlers. raiders do not include women and childern, settlers do. and in this case, it is hard to draw a clear line between the two. dab 13:24, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  other encyclopedias 

message: There is a section of famous vikings, where among others, king Harald finehair of Norway is mentioned as "famous viking". The text in the article about old Harals says: At last Harald was forced to make an expedition to the west to clear the islands and Scottish mainland of Vikings. Numbers of them fled to Iceland, which grew into an independent commonwealth, while the Scottish isles fell under Norwegian rule.
Question: is there any source that states that Harald was a famous viking, or that the viking found him a famous viking? (Except the sagas written by the expelled vikings? (true vikings, I have no doubt.) Dan Koehl 12:49, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Famous vikings