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Documentary, Vikings Journey to New Worlds (2004)
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00:00On a calm summer morning in the year 793 A.D., the Viking Age is born.
00:30A.D., the Viking Age is born.
00:40A.D., the Viking Age is born.
00:46A.D., the Viking Age is born.
00:58A.D., the Viking Age is born.
01:04A.D., the Viking Age is born.
01:20A.D., the Viking Age is born.
01:26A.D., the Viking Age is born.
01:33It begins with a raid on the Christian monastery at Lindisfarne, on the northeast coast of England.
01:44A.D., the attack is swift, savage, unexpected.
01:50The pagan raiders know full well, but monasteries hold great riches.
01:55Great, unprotected riches.
01:58A.D.
02:22The flu spreads quickly throughout Europe.
02:24A new prayer rises in Christian churches.
02:28Lord, protect us from the fury of the men of the north.
02:35It is a brutal beginning for a remarkable age of adventure and discovery.
02:45Over the next 300 years, warriors, farmers and explorers from Scandinavia venture out to the limits of the world they know and beyond.
03:03In the end, the Vikings reshaped the world.
03:33The Vikings fascinate us, but some beliefs are simply not true.
03:56The Vikings never feared fog.
03:58On the contrary, they could take advantage of it when raiding.
04:03Nor did the Vikings ever wear those horned helmets made familiar to us by Wagner's operas, Hollywood, and comic strips.
04:14The men from the north weren't all fearsome seafaring warriors either.
04:19During the Middle Ages, most people were farmers.
04:22The Vikings were no different.
04:23At the time of the raid on Lindisfarne, they were setting out to find new riches, fame, and especially new land.
04:33In earlier times, the people living in today's Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were mostly known as traitors.
04:42In the 8th century, this changed rapidly, thanks to a great technological advantage.
04:51Viking ships.
04:53Viking ships made the Viking Age.
04:57Viking warriors and raiders sailed aboard revolutionary longships whose dragon-shaped prowheads inspired terror.
05:05Viking traders, explorers, and settlers used a different kind of ship called the Gnar.
05:12It was made deeper and wider to carry goods, livestock, and people across the ocean.
05:19All Viking ships had hulls made of thin, overlapping planks, nailed together and sealed with tar, producing strong yet light and flexible vessels.
05:36They were steered by a side rudder hanging on a steer board, the origin of the nautical term starboard.
05:47The ships were fast and symmetrical and could reverse their course readily.
05:52The longships had a shallow draft, meaning they could sail far up rivers and could be beached easily.
06:01Shipbuilding required a variety of skills.
06:04Large square sails were woven from linen or thin wool, later waterproofed with fat.
06:09On longships in particular, oars were used for precise maneuvers and in windless weather.
06:19Shipbuilding was an art, and master shipwrights commanded great respect.
06:25Their craftsmanship was legendary.
06:27So much so, that tales of huge longships carrying 200 warriors were long thought to be the exaggerations of storytellers.
06:35Then, in 1997, a longship measuring 120 feet and capable of carrying 180 men, was unearthed in Roskilde, Denmark.
06:48The giant longships had indeed existed.
06:53These ships give Vikings a strong superiority at sea, and thousands of them head out in search of wealth, land, and glory.
07:02In two centuries, the Norse, Danes, and Swedes, or Russe as they are known in the east, are everywhere in Europe.
07:13They take over large areas of England and Scotland as well as Ireland, where they found Dublin.
07:18In France, the Northmen take over a region of France that becomes known as Normandy.
07:25Viking raids reach as far south as the Mediterranean.
07:30To the east, the Russe use rivers to reach the Middle East, creating a thousand-mile trading network and founding their own kingdom, Russia.
07:38Success makes the Vikings even more ambitious.
07:46Large fleets mount major attacks.
07:50The city of Paris must pay an enormous tribute to be spared.
07:56Soon after, a great Viking army conquers York and much of eastern England.
08:01In the east, the Vikings attack Constantinople, today's Istanbul, with fleets of hundreds of ships.
08:11Twice, the great city resists.
08:14But the Byzantine emperors are so impressed that they hire Viking warriors as an imperial guard.
08:20Europeans saw the Vikings as heathens assaulting Christianity.
08:31But it went beyond that.
08:33It was a collision between cultures with different traditions and religions.
08:43Giants, dwarfs, beasts, and gods fill the crowded Viking pantheon.
08:48Warriors who die sword in hand gain a place in Valhalla, a paradise offering an afterlife of fights and feasts.
08:56Here, Viking gods are mortal.
09:00They can be tricked and lose battles.
09:02Still, wisdom reigns supreme among the gods.
09:05Odin, chief deity and a god of war, exchanges an eye for knowledge.
09:12Thor rules over weather and sends thunder and lightning.
09:18Frey gives fertility to nature, men, and their lands.
09:23These gods are still present in our daily lives.
09:26Odin's day is Wednesday.
09:28Thor's day is Thursday.
09:31And Frey's day is Friday.
09:32South and east of their homelands.
09:37Vikings come largely as raiders and warriors.
09:41Out west, they become mainly settlers and explorers.
09:46They have the North Atlantic to themselves.
09:50After settling several small islands,
09:52they find a huge land where only a handful of Irish monks has ever set foot.
09:57There, the Vikings build a new world.
10:01Legend has it that a man suffered an extremely hard time.
10:31harsh winter on this island and that he vengefully named it Iceland.
10:37Yet, Vikings from Norway and the British Isles came in droves to this unspoiled country.
10:43A country sculpted by volcanic forces and immense glaciers.
10:49Iceland is a place of otherworldly beauty.
10:51An island of mountains, lava plains, sandy beaches, and deep valleys.
10:58It is a supernatural land.
11:01A land of the gods.
11:03A land of the gods, rocks and wandering fora.
11:10A land of the gods.
11:11Dear, kingdom and peace.
11:11굉장히ED
11:13Benjamin is a place of otherworldly beauty.
11:15So far, they are always there.
11:15A land of the gods behind the island,
11:17They are already there.
11:18Hail, thân of the gods,
11:19Theaving island of the gods.
11:21Scottish KARP.
12:52By coming to Iceland, many Vikings are also fleeing the rise of self-proclaimed kings in Norway.
13:06In a new country, settlers can stake out property using the custom of land-nam, or land-taking.
13:26It allows any free man to claim a lot as large as he can walk around in a day.
13:32In a few decades, all of Iceland is settled in this manner.
13:39I am Leif the Lucky, son of Errik.
13:46I was born on a farm in Iceland.
13:49There, I learned the skills and customs of my people.
13:52I learned to praise virtues like wisdom, courage, and justice, and to honor warriors, poets, and artists.
14:00Art is ever-present in our lives.
14:03It enhances everything from our most prized possessions to the most common objects.
14:08My family and my clan have always been my pride.
14:16Like every Viking, I have strived to excel in diverse skills.
14:20Warfare, farming, craftsmanship, seafaring.
14:24Like every Viking, I hope to gain the most desirable thing, a favorable reputation.
14:31For only fame is undying for those who win it.
14:37I hoped our poets, the Skulls, would tell our story with well-chosen words, generation after generation.
14:45Vikings put as much value in the telling of stories and the reciting of poetry as in the skills of warriors.
14:58And although they had an alphabet called runes, history and tradition relied essentially on the spoken word.
15:09Fortunately, two centuries after Leif, learned Icelanders wrote down these tales,
15:15including Leif's own story.
15:18Together, they are known as the Icelandic sagas.
15:21The word saga simply means what was said.
15:26The sagas contain a blend of history, poems, myth, and religious fables.
15:37They tell us how the Vikings lived and what mattered most in their lives.
15:45The thousands of beautifully handwritten pages of the saga manuscripts are a cornerstone of Viking heritage.
15:58The sagas are among the most important documents of the Middle Ages.
16:03They are kept in a secure vault and are under the permanent responsibility of the saga keepers.
16:08One story of interest is recounted in two sagas.
16:19A major turning point came when a few neighboring chieftains,
16:23each ruling over several families,
16:25gathered in a Viking assembly called a Thing.
16:29This assembly acted as a local tribunal,
16:32resolved disputes,
16:34and, if needed,
16:35decided punishment.
16:41In the year 930 A.D.,
16:4436 chieftains,
16:45representing all such assemblies in Iceland,
16:48came together at a site called Thingvellir.
16:52There, they created the All Thing,
16:54a national assembly that defined the laws of the land.
16:57Every summer, when it met,
17:00a law speaker would recite the code from memory,
17:03adding any new laws or rulings.
17:06It remains the longest-running national assembly in the world.
17:10Many came freely to Iceland.
17:22Erik, my father, had little choice.
17:25He was banished from Norway for a killing he couldn't defend.
17:31My father was a quick-tempered man who had all the qualities of a leader.
17:36Feared or respected,
17:39he was Erik the Red.
17:43In Iceland, Erik marries into a rich family,
17:46descended from Irish kings,
17:48and gains in reputation.
17:50But as the sagas tell us,
17:53Erik cannot escape his fiery nature.
17:56A dispute with a neighbor turns violent.
17:58People on both sides are killed.
18:01Erik is brought before the assembly.
18:03My father had as many supporters as opponents,
18:12but law prevailed.
18:14Erik the Red was banished from Iceland for three years.
18:26Erik, my father, made the best out of his exile.
18:29He headed for none-named land out west,
18:33a place seen by some sailors who had been blown off course.
18:40Vikings sailed without maps or compasses.
18:43They relied on landmarks,
18:45the sun,
18:46the stars,
18:48the presence of seabirds,
18:49and the color of the water.
18:51Despite that,
18:52they often got lost.
18:55Sailors sometimes used ravens,
18:57mythical messengers of the Norse god Odin.
19:01Within 200 miles of land,
19:03a raven released into the sky
19:05would head towards it.
19:07unknown to Erik,
19:26his destination was in fact
19:28the largest island in the world.
19:31The Moon
19:43The Moon
19:45The Moon
19:49The Moon
19:58For three years,
20:00Eric explored the island's western coast. The climate at the time was warmer than today.
20:07Icebergs abounded, but fjords weren't clogged up by ice during winter.
20:20Eighty-five percent of this island is covered by ice up to two miles thick.
20:24The land is harsh, mountainous, and barren.
20:31But Eric discovered areas of fertile land around the southwestern fjords.
20:35Eric did find traces of human occupation, but no one was there to challenge his rule.
20:56but no one was there to challenge his rule to make the place sound appealing to a community
21:13of farmers Eric named the island Greenland when his exile ended Eric returned to Iceland
21:25and gathered volunteers to settle the land with him
21:32hundreds of people filled 25 ships with everything they could carry
21:36to start a new life in a place they had never seen
21:40they had faith in Eric the Red
21:47our journey did not go quite as well as we had hoped
21:55so
22:02so
22:09so
22:16so
22:23so
22:30so
22:37so
22:44so
22:46so
22:47so
22:48so
22:49so
22:51so
22:52so
22:54so
22:55so
22:59so
23:00so
23:01so
23:06during his exile Eric explored what became known today as Eric's fjord
23:13there he had found some of the most fertile land in Greenland
23:20it is from this place called Bratelit the steep slope that Eric ruled Greenland under his leadership
23:27the westernmost vikings the westernmost vikings vikings settlement became a thriving colony
23:34at the same time
23:41at the same time
23:43vikings everywhere were becoming Christians were becoming Christians were becoming Christians
23:50Eric's wife had a chapel built on their farm and raised her children in the new faith
23:52but Eric remained faithful to the Norse gods
23:53but Eric remained faithful to the Norse gods
23:59we were still new to Greenland when a man named Bjarni arrived at Bratelit
24:06sailing from Iceland to Greenland
24:09sailing from Iceland to Greenland
24:13Bjarni got lost in a fog and drifted far to the west
24:18he had come close to three unknown lands
24:21but never put ashore
24:24and he had come close to three unknown lands
24:27but never put ashore
24:30he had come close to three unknown lands
24:33this moment changed my life
24:40it took fifteen years for my time to come
24:50I had earned the respect of my peers
24:53and I had the temperament to lead
24:56yet I still had to make a name for myself
24:59a name to surpass even that of
25:02Eric the Red
25:13I bought the very ship Bjarni had sailed
25:16and gathered volunteers to retrace his journey
25:19I had dreamed of these new lands
25:34since childhood
25:36I could only hope they would be worth the trip
25:40by the end.
26:04His crew first saw a rocky and icy land without trees or meadows.
26:09Unlike Bjarne, Leif was eager to go ashore.
26:13He called the land Heluland or Flat Rocksland.
26:29They next found a land of vast forests touching the sea.
26:34This was of great interest for people from a country like Greenland, where a tree was
26:39no taller than a man.
26:41They came ashore, Leif named the territory Markland or Forestland.
26:51For more than a day, Leif and his crew sailed the coast of Markland along extraordinary
26:56stretches of white sandy beaches.
27:00The sagas call them the Wonder Beaches.
27:17We reached yet another land.
27:20Coming ashore, we saw dew on the grass, collected it in our hands and drank it.
27:29We had never tasted anything as sweet.
27:34I decided we would build our camp nearby.
27:41The sagas tell us that, as they explored this region, they found great grassy fields and
27:47grape vines with sweet grapes.
27:50There was no snow, and even in winter the sun stayed high in the sky for many hours a day.
28:04Leif named this new land Vinland.
28:07But centuries later, scholars wondered, was there really a Heluland, a Markland, and especially
28:14of Vinland?
28:20In the 19th century, many interpretations of the sagas emerged.
28:25Looking for places where wild grapes could grow, scholars first looked towards Cape Cod,
28:31then Newport, Rhode Island, and even New York City.
28:35Others later proposed that the Gulf of the St. Lawrence River, or the coasts of Nova Scotia,
28:40could have been Vinland.
28:44The Vinland sagas contained conflicting information about who found what and where.
28:52And there was no proof to be found.
28:57Skeptics wondered if the sagas could be trusted at all.
29:01Most people still thought that Christopher Columbus had discovered America, just like all the textbooks
29:06said.
29:12One Norwegian couple, explorer Helge Ingstad and archaeologist Ann Steen Ingstad, set out to
29:19resolve the Vinland mystery.
29:22In 1953, Helge Ingstad first sailed to Erik the Red's Bratelid, where he started thinking
29:28that Vinland might be further north than previously thought.
29:36His impressions were reinforced by the Skalholt map.
29:40Drawn up in 1590, it shows Greenland, a Heluland and a Markland, as well as a Vinland promontory,
29:48were mindful of Newfoundland's great northern peninsula.
29:55In the summer of 1960, Helge Ingstad sailed along the coast of Newfoundland.
30:01In every little fishing village, he asked about old sights and drew only puzzled looks.
30:06But when he got to his last port of call, Lasse Meadows, a fisherman named George Decker mentioned
30:13old Indian ruins.
30:20As he saw the traces in the ground, Ingstad was instantly reminded of the Norse sights he
30:25had seen in Greenland, a thousand years and put only six inches of dirt over the foundations
30:31of three Viking houses and five small buildings.
30:41Ann Steen Ingstad led seven years of archaeological digs at Lasse Meadows.
30:47She found indisputable evidence that this was a Viking settlement.
30:53Carbon testing dated the site to the year 1000, the time when Leif Erikson was said to
30:58have traveled to Vinland.
31:03The Sagas had it right.
31:08Leif's itinerary became clear.
31:10Baffin Island was Heluland and Labrador, Markland.
31:14There Leif Erikson had set foot in America nearly 500 years before Columbus.
31:22Using Lasse Meadows as a gateway, the Vikings would sail across the Gulf of St. Lawrence into
31:27a vast region called Vinland.
31:33I had high hopes for Vinland and the promise it held as a new Viking settlement.
31:38I spent a year exploring and gathering supplies before returning to Greenland.
31:45But there, within a few years, my father, Erik the Red, died and I became chieftain.
31:55I never returned to Vinland.
32:01Still more expeditions follow, including one led by Leif's brother, Thorvald.
32:06Only a few women make the journey to North America, including one known as Goodrid the
32:18Well-Traveled.
32:21While in Vinland, Goodrid gives birth to a baby boy named Snorri.
32:25He is the first European born in North America and the only one for another 500 years.
32:38Over the course of a decade or so, relatives of Leif's family come to Lasse Meadows several
32:43times.
32:57Thorvald's expedition reveals an extraordinary fact.
33:02In these new lands, the Vikings are not alone.
33:06Only for humankind, this encounter has an exceptional meaning.
33:14Since the dawn of humanity, our human ancestors had been migrating around the Earth.
33:21They crossed Europe and Asia, entered the Americas, and traveled as far as they could.
33:27When the Vikings landed in North America, humankind had come full circle around the planet.
33:37When Vikings and natives looked into each other's eyes, the world became smaller than ever before.
33:49The relations between Vikings and natives eventually turned into conflict.
34:03One saga tells us that Thorvald Eriksson once attacked nine natives as they slept.
34:08Eight were killed, but one escaped.
34:19And the natives struck back.
34:36Thorvald's death showed that conflict with the natives was a serious obstacle to a permanent
34:41Viking settlement.
34:46Oscar Wilde said that the Vikings discovered America, but had the good sense to lose it
34:51again.
34:52He was only half right.
34:54Vikings regularly returned to Labrador to gather supplies, especially lumber.
35:00Evidence shows that they had regular contact with the ancestors of the Inuit people.
35:05Vikings.
35:06Meanwhile, the Viking homelands were now ruled by Christian kings, much like other European countries.
35:18In places like Normandy, England or Russia, the Vikings blended in with local populations until
35:28they could no longer truly be called Vikings.
35:33Ironically, it was a Viking descendant who put an end to the Viking age in Europe.
35:38Duke William of Normandy led an army of French knights, not Viking raiders, to defeat English
35:44King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 A.D.
35:49The event is immortalized in the Bayeux Tapestry, an amazing 230 foot long embroidered narrative.
36:08Viking Greenland lived on for nearly five centuries after the Vinland voyages.
36:14The Greenlanders traded precious goods like walrus ivory and falcons, but farming slowly declined
36:20as the climate turned colder.
36:24Adapting might have meant living more like the Inuit, but the Greenlanders insisted on living
36:29like Europeans.
36:31The last recorded event in Greenland is a wedding at Valsey Church on September 16th, 1408.
36:40A few decades later, the Vikings had disappeared from Greenland.
36:56In places like Iceland, Viking settlements withstood the test of time.
37:01There, something of the Viking culture still survives.
37:08In their untamed, otherworldly island, Icelanders speak a language that the Vikings would have understood.
37:16Schoolchildren read the Saigus as they were written centuries ago.
37:21It is an invaluable connection with their past.
37:25More than their warrior image and wide-ranging conquests, the Vikings' most valuable heritage is found in their love for words,
37:35their passion for memory, their sense of beauty, and their powerful drive to explore the world in search of a better place to live and prosper.
37:47The worldwide and sustained fascination for the Vikings endures.
37:52Thousands of companies, products, sports teams, and even space probes bear the name Viking.
37:59It is a badge of honor, a symbol of conquest and exploration.
38:05The best of the Viking spirit sails on.
38:09The place is a symbol of conquest, the world and the future.
38:10The world and the sea.
38:11The most enjoyable Pleasant in the world.
38:12The 4230.
38:13The 4430.
38:14The 4430.
38:29The 4930.
38:31The 503.
38:33The 5130.
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