Keep your hands to yourself

I like Viking sensibilities better than Republican sensibilities.

@FreyjaRN 100% agreed

@FreyjaRN me too

Sometimes I wonder where Humon gets her sources from. The Vikings didn't write down the laws until the introduction to Christianity and all the stories we know about the Viking society was primarily written down by outsiders, found in archaeological excavation or the Sagas which was written down hundreds of years after the introduction to Christianity. I guess this must be the Viking kingdoms in England or something, as I've never heard of such laws existing in Scandinavia. I do know that Olaf Haraldsson II of Norway did introduce something called the Christian Right, no Americans it's not some Republican right-wing movement, it was a series of laws which said a lot of different things and one thing they did was make punishment of rape and female kidnappings harsher.

In any case, what Humon tells might be true for all I know, just like the part about Vikings being particular concerned about their appearance, but just like that comic she doesn't tell how we know this. There are no records that the Vikings were particular brutal in cases of rape from either Christian or pagan sources. That's not to say they didn't rape, only that this was not something the Vikings were known for. Since women did enjoy more rights in Norse society than in the European society this does fit with women being having a high view on. But I'm also always careful when I read or hear patronising things about the Vikings as many people are biased and want to use the past to make a modern point. I see this all the time, whether it's about women's rights, democracy, abortion, gay rights, religious tolerance and etc. In any case, the patronising of the Vikings must also be understood as a counter reaction to the very negative view people in scholarship and many laypeople have had in the past.

@NorwaySwedenDenmark I don't know anything about vikings, but this does indeed sound like ProtoChronism, only that instead of Romanians there are Scandinavians. Protochronism was started by the communists. It was basically propaganda. I don't know if it was used in other communist countries or just here, but here is what it was: Due to low national esteem, the communists decided they should raise it somehow. There was nothing there could be said about Romanians that was good enough, so they took Dacians( the population thatwas romanised in order to create Romanians, there isn't much known about it) and started to lie about it, that they were first to *insert here*. So I guess that could be related to this, that Vikings were known to be quite brutal and primitive so...

@Pumanul What's important when you look into the past is to see all sides. It's so easy to become judgemental when we're sitting in the 21 century and look back at our past ancestors and think what monsters or saints they were, instead of having a nuanced picture of things.

I know historie for example is a magazine in Scandinavia which is particularly left-wing in it's presentation of history. It's even told several things that are actually not true but present it mainly because it fits their own biases. Not all Christian rulers and leaders were bloodthirsty warmongereres and the Viking pagans weren't the nice flower jumping, pacifist hippie people we see today in Scandinavia either.

@NorwaySwedenDenmark Well, the first written Danish laws were very early and supposedly just commiting ancient legal customs to paper.

Anyway the sexism of "Viking" culture is a debatable issue. They appear to have had equal legal rights for women and anti-rape laws, but they also had slaves, including slave "mistresses" that might have been expected to follow their master in death. And in the first writen laws, the women's rights were not as equal in Sweden as they were in Denmark.

@NorwaySwedenDenmark I've seen something like this before somewhere. It had always kinda stuck in my head as odd …

A pop history book, The Vikings, by Robert Wernick, part of the The Seafarers series by Time-Life Books, Amsterdam, 1979, ISBN 7054 0626 1
page 28
"Another law decreed a series of fines for unseemly touching of a woman: four ounces of silver for touching her wrist or her ankle, 2 and 2/3 ounces for touching her elbow. But a touch above the knee, the law continued (whether with tongue in cheek or in dead earnest is not recorded) is called the fool's clasp; no money is payable for that -- most women put up with it when it goes that far."

There's quite a long bibliography of presumably more serious history books, but no specific mention of which is relevant.
Humon's interpretation makes a bit better sense of it.

I'd love references too.

@Koradji The book doesn't mention were we find this law or how we know of it? It must either be mentioned in one of the Sagas or it must have been written down later as the Vikings did not know how to read or write.

Well, thank you for giving me a reference anyway. Appreciate it

@NorwaySwedenDenmark There are basically no citations in the book, sadly. There are about a hundred sources listed in the bibliography, some of them are sagas, but not much in the way of clues as to which bit came from where.
The Seafarers series doesn't seem intended to be academic, rather to look credible, look nice on a bookshelf, and not offend USAns too much.

@NorwaySwedenDenmark actually there was a written language during the "viking era" (I use the term losely as the vikings were not a people but an occupation, viking translates as "sea raider") and there are many surviving reccords of written proto-norse and old norse (the language used during the viking era) which constisted of the runic alphabet (most commonly associated with divination and neo-paganism these days) written fragments of pro-norse date back as far as the 5th century while old norse writings date to the 8th century it wasn't until the 11th century that old norse runic was translated into the latin alphabet and even then the two alphabets co-exsisted for a long time.

we actually have a large collection of letters, official documents and gramical treatises in old norse runic

the earlist inscriptions in the norse language (actually proto-germanic) date back as far as 150AD

the whole idea that the early norse people (and other "barbarian tribes") could not write were due to roman propaganda so they could claim to be more enlightened because they did not speak or write their language (it's like how people today make fun of people who do not speak their language because it sounds like nonsense to them)

ironically enough the runic futhark script derived from the eldar futhark of the germanic people which itself can be traced back to the italic scrips such as etruscan (italian).

as for the law itself. try looking up Leaf F91r of manuscript SKB B74 which details crimes of passion. (writting in old norse using the latin script) and prior to that there are records of door knockers of public buildings being inscribed with runes which list crimes and their fines, such as the Forsaringen (from the door of a church) which is dated to the 800-900AD (the height of the viking era)

@crwydryny Yeah, I know about the Futhrak, but that's not what I meant when I said that they didn't know how to read and write was that they didn't know how to read and write in terms of manuscripts. I might have given the impression that I have a negative view on the Vikings as Barbarians, but I do not, but the negative view I do have is forced out when I hear a lot of patronising of the Vikings.

The Runic inscriptions are very brief and they don't tell us that much about Viking history except for a few pieces. They are very brief for the most part. Laws and treaties were not written on runes which is my point. The laws were memorised by people called lawspeakers. Manuscript SKB B74 is from after the Christianization of Scandinavia which is when laws were written on manuscripts but the Vikings didn't use manuscripts until they became Christian. I haven't read it, so if that's where we find this law then that satisfies my question, but I still wonder if you're able to trace this back to the 9th and 10th century.

@NorwaySwedenDenmark actually the runic inscriptions were not always that brief, some were very long (it's actually how we know the structure of proto-norse and germanic scripts)
true the most common ones (such as those found on weapons) were brief usually just a name, but there are long inscriptions that have been found.
and while yes it is true that the norse used "law speakers" to recite the laws this does not mean that they did not or could not write.

it's also worth mentioning that christianity was in scandinavia as early as the 6th century. they didn't suddenly become christian but it was a gradual process over which time both the norse and christian religions exsisted side by side.

the only diffrence between the latin writing system brought by the christians and the norse writing system is that the christians used expensive parchment while the norse used specially prepared wooden staves on which to write (which was cheeper and more plentyful than the later manuscripts)

for the earliest example of written law dating back to around 900 look at
Inger Larsson, 'The Role of the Swedish Lawman in the Spread of Lay Literacy',
in Along the Oral-Written Continuum: Types of Texts, Relations and the Implications, ed. by Slavica Ranković,
Leidulf Melve, and Else Mundal, Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy

there are records of runic inscriptions found on doors dating to the 900s that have been translated as a list of laws and fines

@crwydryny Yeah I know, but my point still remains that the Vikings didn't write laws on trees and stones with futhrak. And I know that long ones have been found, the one on jelling stone is pretty long in my opinion, but I have heard that some have sagas written on them but I'm not too sure about that one.

Well perhaps in Denmark Christianity can be found in the 6th century, but in Norway and Sweden Christianity didn't get a strong foothold until around the 9th century, but this is still earlier than the first Christian kings. The early form was not very orthodox though and old pagan beliefs was still held strong until later which is why they could live side by side. This also goes up in what I said about using the past to prove a modern point. Just because we can find evidence that Christians and Heathens lived in the same area doesn't mean that this is evidence of proto-pluralistic ideas. There might have been quite hostile towards each other for all we know.

If these Runic Inscriptions on doors state fines and laws which Humon site here than I am glad for telling me, but post-pagan Medieval laws are not appropriate to call "Viking Laws".

@NorwaySwedenDenmark Thinking on it, considering how demonised the Vikings were in the writings of those they pillaged (I recall reading that the horned helmets was an embellishment to align them with the Devil... it certainly wasn't a common feature on authentic Viking helms), if they weren't known for rape, it probably indicates that they were in fact fairly civilised in that particular respect.

Would also explain that discussion the other week about England having a surprisingly small amount of Viking ancestry (apart from the ones that actually settled) if you assumed a 'normal' level of rape associated with the pillaging.

@Draxynnic Sorry, but I couldn't keep myself from laughing at the " the horned helmets was an embellishment to align them with the Devil". I've never heard any credible scholar say something like that. The horned helmets are a modern invention from the 19 th century.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Just because nobody wrote that the Vikings didn't rape during raids on villages doesn't mean they didn't rape. As I said, the thing is that the Vikings most likely did rape during certain raids or conquests, just like all soldiers did back then. However, they were not known for it and didn't do it as much as many laymen believe they did. They didn't rape more than the other Europeans did and since this was the norm back then, people knew it happened. The Vikings raided monasteries and churches a lot, were there were mostly men. Rape would only occur when invading a city or village.

The ancestral thing I do not find to be a very convincing argument against Vikings committing rapes. Try go to the Middle East and see how many of the people have European genes in them and from that conclude that the Crusaders didn't rape.

I honestly don't find it surprising. the vikings were huge on gender equality.

1. Research has found that in invading vikings, there was literally a 50% chance that the invader was female.
2. The mere concept of Valkyries nuke a lot of "traditional gender role" ideas from orbit.
3. Although the words "man" and "woman" originate with the norse/germanic, they actually didn't originally mean male and female. You actually had to go out of your way to specificy gender (a person could be a male man or a female man.) Man literally meant what we mean by human now. (And human meant a man who acts like a man... aka, humanely.) Women didn't mean female, it meant a man who wasn't head of household (which could be male or female. In fact, all boys and girls were all considered women). Further, a term that is now gone, is Werman, which meant head of household. Both a male or a female could be a Werman. It was completely fine to have a female Werman and a male woman. (Or a male and male werman and woman even).

The whole "man is male" and "woman is female" didn't come about until the Christian religions invaded the north and forced their religion and their gender roles onto the Norse social roles.

Reading between the lines, it seems it's possible that's where the term "Were-" as in werewolf got it's name... Wermen were used to being in charge of their area and taking care of those under them, and the church saw that as how the *church* should be seen, and told the wermen that they weren't wermen, just men. Then stories turning wermen into beasts... werewolves... cicrulated. Basically social engineering to dominate and destroy the culture and instil the catholic church as dominant.

@joshupetersen actually woman is female but man is synonymous with person. Woman is litteraly wombman, a person with a womb.

@joshupetersen Except the Danish word for woman (kvinde) comes from Old Norse "kvenna," a conjugation of another word, "kona," which means a (married) woman.
Woman comes from wīfmon, which means "wife man", and the "wer" of "werewolf" also means man in old English. (Both origins are according to the Oxford Dictionary)
Another example of wer=man can be seen in the word weregild, or "man price". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild

@ThymusVulgaris Old Norsre= Icelandic my friend ;)

@joshupetersen Like all hell on earth! Your bullshit demands some serious citations you god damned idiot!
50% of viking invaders were not women. I know there was a bullshit thing passing around that they were, but if it were true it would be seen in every record talking about vikings outside of scandinavia, and it doesn't. Women were sometimes part of the viking warbands as shieldmaidens but it was far from the majority you moron! The only thing that was a common thing was that women and family followed their men to new lands to live there (Which might explain scottish people a tad bit more) but they were not 50% women! You LITERALLY are WRONG!!!
And the idea that Vaklyries changes gender roles are probably pulled out of your arse, they acted as servants to Odin, ALL OF THEM, so if anything that fact that female GODS was a far greater reason for it!

@joshupetersen As a professional medieval historian, I regret to say that you're wrong here. That study that purported to find that 50% of invaders were women said nothing of the kind. The media collapsed two different archaeological studies into one. The first found that 7 out of 16 bodies in a Norse burial site in England were women, and the second reported that a couple of female bodies had been found buried with weapons. They are both interesting, but for unrelated reasons. All the evidence strongly suggests that most Viking warriors were men.

Valkyries are not proof that the Norse did not have 'traditional gender roles'. Valkyries are male fantasies of 'strong' women, roughly the same way that Lara Croft or most female superheroes are. They're sexual fantasies, not evidence of gender equality.

The evidence we have from the pre-Christian period in Scandinavia strongly suggests that while women had more legal rights than they did at many other times and places in medieval Europe, they were distinctly subordinate to men in many ways. The political system of Scandinavia had no room for women exercising formal political power, for example. The local male rulership controlled the religious system, with only a minor role for women. Men appear to have controlled most of the economic power, from what we can tell. Iceland may have been slightly more egalitarian, but its political structure was still entirely male controlled.

@joshupetersen
I'd hate to burst the postmodern neoromantic bubble you seem to live in, but I suggest you start studying some actual history and archeology, and not Hollywood and whatever else you seem to be on.

There was no such thing as "gender equality" in any early european society, including the scandinavian tribes.
Male and female roles were clearly defined, and quite practical: Man is the provider, Woman the home-maker. Different, but equally important roles in any "non-technological" society, and as far as laws and customs were concerned this was clearly reflected in them.
Women could not inherit, the closest male living relative did.
They could not bring their grievances to the Things themselves, but needed their husband or male relative to do so.
While they were most definitely, and quite often "combatants" , they were not allowed the use of saex and sword. Valkyries are spear-carriers for a reason..
Speaking of Valkyries.. They served in Odinns' Hall. That does *not* make them servants. They were "valiant" women who in the afterlife continued to perform their role: Home Making. Serving guests ( the status of the deceased warriors) was an important high profile job with a very distinct pecking order, which you did *not* delegate to servants. Unless you really wanted to offend them, of course.
And of servants.. There was a clear distinction in rights between (either gender) Freemen, Housebonded ( also free , but beholden by oath or economics), Servants/Thralls ( "slaves" due to judiciary reasons ), and Slaves ( spoils of war/conquest ). With rights diminishing in that order, and slaves having the status of livestock. Debt, or oathbreaking could land you into Thralldom, especially if you made the wrong enemies, and *could* be for a specified time, but quite often wasn't. Slaves were indeed treated as livestock, with the distinction that maltreatment of livestock heavily reflected on the perceived ability of the owner to run his Household ( and those dependent on him) in a proper manner. As you generally would find in any society that kept slaves. Which was pretty much *all* of them at the time.

The above is a common theme in the societies that did not get Romanised. The Celts, Picts, Angles, Saxons, Goths of various denomination, Huns, Frysians, Allemanni, etc. All have roughly the same distinctions between gender, staus and rights. Partly because of common cultural ancestry, and partly because , like it or not, we're still basically apes, and our basic instinct is still primed towards the dominant-male led tribal structure, with a male *and* female pecking order rubbing shoulders.

The ingress of Christian culture and customs *did* indeed change the "rights landscape" for genders (and status-privilege), because ultimately that social structure is based on the mores of the city state of Athens. You should read up on them.. Very succesful, brilliant in many ways, and ultimately extremely inbred and ...warped... in many, many ways. Oh, and incidentally, the attitude towards, and the rights of women in that society make the attitudes of ISIS/Daesh look positively liberal..

Even then the shift in rights did not happen overnight, and in fact, the "old rights and customs" stayed in force for centuries after the Christianisation of Europe. We know this simply because the *very much religious* writers of documents were incessantly complaining about people not adhering to their, sorry GOD's , Sets of Rules.
The first real universal shift in gender rights needed a full-blown near-depopulation of western Europe, coupled with the resultant, and very, very human flight into Religion for "rescue" : the aftermath of the Black Plague. But this didn't happen until the 15th century, with "resurgences" coinciding with both religious fanaticism *and* resurgences of interest in the "Classics" about every other century, the latest being the Victorian Romantics. Even then the shifts weren't universal across Europe, or even western Europe, and in most parts a quite pragmatic compromise between the Old Customs, Real Life, and whatever-the-Priest-sez was maintained. The focal points were mostly limited to the vicinity of Rome ( = Italy) , the territories of the religion-besotted Spanish and Portuguese monarchies that hadn't revolted (yet). And good old Britain, where Religion was part of Politics.

The very worst excesses of both religious fanaticism and the infatuation with the Greek Role Model can in fact be found in the US, whose cultural roots are based in both Puritanism and neo-Classicism, and the opportunity to form "communities" divorced from the mitigating effects of Other Opinions.
In fact some of the most iconic US-american communities are there, because even in a Europe torn apart by the religious wars known as the Reformation, they were considered to be "Too Far Out There" and a menace to society. Including the Pilgrims/Founding Fathers (they might have had fond memories of Leiden, the feeling was *not* reciprocal, as quite a lot of historic documents show... ).

In fact, there has not been a place and time in history where the social and legal position of women was as low since the Greek Athens era as in the late 19th/early 20th century United States of America. And even while the laws there have changed, *society*, especially the (upper) middle class that drive societal Mores, has not. Which may explain the ... militancy.. of US american based feminism.

And the need to romanticise a historical culture based on completely needs and values, regardless of what the historical facts have to say about it.

@Grikath Regarding not wielding seax and sword - I wonder if that's a response to women having less upper body strength on average, and thus funneling them into wielding weapons with more reach and a fighting style less reliant on brute strength? Similar to how Japanese samurai-class women had a different set of weapons, mostly based on the theme of staying out of sword's reach and not relying on strength to do damage.

@Draxynnic
Not really. I could write a whole dissertation about this stuff, but it comes down to practicality. [and of course, some solid generalisation for the sake of brevity.]

The arena where women would be expected to fight in ( the males having failed/died) was Last Line of Defense, near the "Nest". This means close quarters warfare in bottlenecks, where weapons requiring room to swing are pretty much useless ( old-style swords have no piercing tip to speak of....) , so it makes sense to train in stuff you can use in a small space *and* improvise.
The wakasashi was specifically *meant* for this kind of close quarter fighting. But a spear is ultimately just a knife on a stick for reach. The axe, meat chopper, skillet.. the list goes on.. Plenty of tools that can double up as weapons, most of them found in and around the kitchen..
Swords are useless as tools. They are true weapons, only suitable for very specific application of lethal violence, and as such would ever only be useful in/for the warrior class of any society. Which for various ( and very solid biological/ethological ) reasons is pretty much exclusively male.

There's also the bit where "division of labour" and the need for training comes in: It takes pretty extensive and dedicated training to be actually useful with a sword. Contrary to popular opinion it does *not* take huge strength to use a sword, but a hell of a lot of training. Which means time free to do so. And women generally have better things to do than to train for killing. They've got males for that..
Strength wouldn't have been an issue in a society where *everything* was done by manual labour anyway. The women were , by "modern" standards *strong* Farmgirls. None of that "Lady" crap for most of them, even if they were high status..
But only the high status males had the wealth *and* the time to dedicate to training in the use of such a specific weapon as a sword ( let alone *own* one) on top of all the other training they received as males and warriors. Which pretty much also explains the saex as a male weapon, because effective grappling/wrestling takes dedicated training as well, and fighting with a saex meant exactly that: close quarters lethal grappling.
Both styles of fighting require *much* more training than the effective use of bows and spears, and will ultimately be exclusive to the warrior class in a society, which , because of our monkey social ancestry, is pretty much exclusively male.

It's a matter of offense ( including war) being a male "function" , and defense being a female "function" when it comes to gender division of the art of violence in our species ( and nearly all social mammals, and most animals in general ). The tools associated with violence will, as a result, inevitably be associated with the "agressive gender" socially and culturally.
There's variations and the odd exception, but globally you find this pattern everywhere mankind has gotten to "culture". To the point where cultures that have been isolated, but living in similar circumstances ( like the early vikings and japanese ) end up with pretty much the same division in both labour, and gender-associated rules of conduct when it comes to weaponry ( and a whole lot more...)

@Grikath I thoroughly enjoyed reading your comments. Very detailed descriptions. An engaging read. Thank you.

@joshupetersen

1. As I recall, all vikings unearthed in the Salme ship burial were male.
2. Swedes had to loan the gender-neutral personal pronoun from the finnic languages (finnish in particular).

Thus the germanic scandinavian medieval feminism was weaker than that of finnic feminism. The finnic matriarchy has survived in the finnic languages in several separate ways, while nothing similar can be observed in the germanic languages (at least that I am aware of, which admittedly is not much).

PS. There is a saying in estonian language
"paneb käe külge" = puts (his) hand on (her)

There is another saying as well:
"lööb külge" = hits the side of a person / hooks up with a person / is humping the side (of a person)

@joshupetersen All these people calling bullshit, but none of them down-voted him so this comment remains at the top.
BTW yes I agree this is a lovely story that happens to be bullshit.

@joshupetersen

The Wer(e) in Werewulf or german Werwolf comes from the old english or german wer(e) which just means man.
Thats a reason while you might find references to a Mannwolf in some old german texts (Mann being the german versjon of man).

There are other similar names for the Werewulf stemming from nordic and other languages, but all are a combination of man and wulf.
Even the scientific name lycanthrope is a combination of lykos (wolf) and anthropos (man).

@joshupetersen And this info comes from an American? You know that weird, selfish, arrogant race that destroys the world in a dosen different ways (ref. Mengele Zoo by Gert Nygårdshaug). Not too obvious that this is a joke, but I will make it clear that I do not mean any harm to anyone what so ever. Please don't hate me.

Fines for merely touching arm? So Sweden was the feminist stronghold even in the viking era.

Sort of yes...sort of no. This would only be true of a woman who had such protection. Most women didn't. Most were low-caste thralls. Also, all this went out the window during raids, in which case women were frequently kidnapped to be sex-slave-wives--obviously without consent. As a sex-slave-wife, you got what protections your high class owner-husband decided to give you and no more.

That last bit. No Trumps will be tolerated in Viking land.

@OneOfThemOregonians I heard this joke on Saturday Night Live.
How many Trumps does it take to screw in a lightbulb? We'll never know because he pays $130,000 for everything he screws not to tell anyone.

Everyone says that Vikings were ruthless, savage barbarians, and then I learn that they didn't allow sexual assault in their ancient communities. That's a ice thing to know.

@MB-Bergholtz

I think there's been a joke once or twice, of how the reason viking men sailed across the sea to kidnap and rape foreign women, had a lot to do with their own local women scaring the shit out of them. :P

@MB-Bergholtz They institutionalized sexual assault against the thrall class and the slave class and went on raids against both each other and foreigners during which a major part of the booty were young women to be turned into sex-slave-wives to whom they did not have to pay a morning-gift and could throw aside if they got sick of them without any consequences.

The only people protected by these laws were the daughters of powerful men.

Just signed up to add a comment on this. While I'm not really sure about the contents of early medieval Scandinavian law, I'll echo the comments that most are post-Viking age (isn't there a law manuscript in the form of an inscribed metal ring in Sweden, dating to the ?ninth century though? does that have anything about touching women?).

An interesting parallel though is found in the laws of the Salian Franks, clause 20 of the Merovignian 'Pactis Legis Salicae' and emedned to clause 22 in the Carolingian update the Lex Salica Karolina both adress the touching of women 's hands. Using Kaththerine Fischer-Drews English translation (which, I accept has many problems, yes), outlines fines of:
* six-hundrd denarii for if a freeman touches the 'hand, arm or finger' of a free woman,
* twelve-hundred denarii for touching her 'below the elbow',
* fourteen-hundred for touching above the elbow.
* eighteen-hundred denarii for touching 'a woman's breast or cutting it so that the blood flows'

Clearly this isn't a perfect parallel to the content of the Viking laws mentioned above, but considering that the nationalism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries considered these laws as variant manifestations of an underlying, widespread 'Germanic' culture it's possible that it was read across and into the pre/protoliterate Scandinavian legal context.

On the one hand, as the final part of clause 20 of the Pactis makes no distinction between 'touching' and a cut that bleeds, 'touching' may not be the best translation (i've not yet checked the Latin in critical editions or in the manuscripts) and grabbing or grappling may be intended. On the other hand, it's been argued across the 'barbarian laws' (e.g. by Lise Oliver in general and by Alice Rio for the Franks in particular) that the values given most probably represent *maximum* fines that could be awarded, and that judges might reduce the actual amount according to the broader circumstances.

...and I really need to find the time to go and read up more on this

There's literally no proof for any of this, whatsoever.

@kamakrazee_warboy That they broke their arm or the fine thing?

@Tudpool The fine thing.

@kamakrazee_warboy Any evidence of the opposite being true?

@daniboyi No, and i can claim that Vikings had ten foot electric robot penises that they used as walking sticks, whenever their organic jetpacks ran ot of fuel. You can't say it DIDN'T happen, so it must be true.

@kamakrazee_warboy
This is different.
What you are doing is basically accusing people of supporting rape and rape in itself.
By your logic, we can go around accusing everyone of rape and they must have to prove it wrong or they should be viewed as a rapist.

@daniboyi What the fuck are you talking about? When have i accused people of "supporting rape"? All i'm saying is that there's no source backing up the claims in this comic because of the simple reason that the Vikings never wrote down their laws.

@kamakrazee_warboy you must be fun at parties

@VikingBraixen Depends on how drunk i am.

I like that the punishment would fall on the man and not the woman. I mean, in some cultures it is the woman who will be punished for being raped or assaulted <.<''

@ACVE This only applied to Norse women. Vikings, which was the name of a profession, not a people) were free to rape whomever they liked when they sacked a village. And, of course, the differences in social status between the man and the woman were important: a high ranking man was much less likely to be punished than a low ranking man, especially if the woman was of lower rank than he.

@ShoggothOnTheRoof This is not entirely true.

There are examples of the vikings being hard on rape or attempted rape of women who were not vikings. There's a relatively famous case of a woman killing a viking man trying to rape her and when the other vikings were told they gave her all his shit

@ArcticAC Would you like to share some of those sources?

@ShoggothOnTheRoof of course it only applied to the Norse women, I don't assume that there was some great help-the-slaves-and foreigners-thing going on. I'm just saying that there are aspects of the Viking culture that aren't so 'savage' in my opinion :3 From what I've heard and read women did have more to say in Viking society than during the time that came after.
That doesn't mean they had much to say by today's standards of course.

@ACVE Okay, just trying to make sure that nobody got the impression that Norse society was some anachronisticly feminist culture.

@ShoggothOnTheRoof hehe xD