Nono, there are many dragons in norse mythology. Just because they are not named, dosen't mean they were not there. C'mon, the Viking-culture was a worm(dragon)-worshipping culture. Why do you think they put dragon-heads in front of their ships?

@ NorwegianRaddis. I thought it meant 'pirate', but your explanation makes perfect sense. ThankU.

Several errors in ur comment.

If you have read the fornalder sagas, and know Norwegian folklore, you know very well that there were several dragons. Kjetil H?ng kills one in his saga, to mention one.

Up to year 700 there was little diffrence in the names the Angles or Saxons used, to the ones we Scandinavians used(as both comes from germanic), just some variety in spelling mostly. Though the germanian parts of the anglo-saxons started getting wateredout from then on.

Fur was very common to use here, if you been here during winter you know why.


And Scandinavians are a north-germanic tribe. So using the tem 'germanic' actually includes them, rather then exclude as you seem to think.

Nidhogg corpse-chewer, Fafnir, Jormundgandr, there were a lot of things that fit the loose definition of "dragons."

Either way, I think that whether it's influenced by the popular butchering of the least appreciated major European culture (damn you academia), the actual culture, or something else entirely Skyrim will be stylized and fun to look at.

I apologise for my lack of Scandinavia knowledge. When I say Viking and Scandinavian, what I mean is "What TV has brainwashed me into thinking they are like".

There is no cultural grouping known as South Germanic. The Germanic languages are broken up to North which developed into the modern Scandinavian languages, West which developed into English, Frisian, dutch and Saxon and finally east Germanic of which the only known derivative language is Gothic (i.e. the Visogoths). Either way the derivative languages from original Germanic are a moot point. The styled architectural and artistic styles traditionally associated with barbarians (dragon head motiefs and 'celtic' knots) are Anglo Saxon and west Germanic in nature. Modern Celtic art (the style used in movies and games to identify 'barbarians' is in fact an Anglo Saxon style defined as Salin's Style I and/or II art (I refer you to anything written byTania M. dikeenson for evidence).

Also old English and old Norse are not close really. The closest language to old English is actually Frisian and is still spoken in the province of Frisland in the Netherlands.

Also the notion that you are Germans that moved north is ridiculous. By that standard we're all Africans that moved north as well! The migratory period that led to Scandinavia being populated occurred right after the last glaciation period at roughly 12,000 BC (although there is evidence of earlier habitation which died out during the glaciation periods. There were no cultural or national identities at that time.

Yes, we are all africans. My point was that we norwegian hail from Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, but I see you point. But we norwegians are north-germanic, and are influenced by other germanic tribes like Frisians, Visigoths, Anglo-Saxons etc.
Scandinavia is quite influenced by Germany, and that is what I meant. I know that the country called Germany is something different, but I was pointing out were geographically we came from.

So could someone show me an example of some interesting ORIGINAL Scandinavian art, architecture, clothing etc.? From what I've seen, accurate or not, it doesn't really interest me.

On the dragon head thing: I was thinking these were accurate to the history, as I had seen what looked like them on Norwegian Stave churches, the most interesting thing I've been able to find. However, on closer inspection, they seem to be some other similar shape.

http://imagecache5.art.com/p/LRG/21/2159/W32CD00Z/gavin-hellier-the-best-preserved-12th-century-stave-church-in-norway-borgund-stave-church-western-fjords-norway.jpg

But yeah, that's the only Scandinavian style thing I've seen I can get excited about.

It is Scandinavian aswell, you dont even need to go to a museum or stavechurch to get proof of that, you can just look at the Norwegian building traditions still in use today.


It is close, they didnt have much trouble understanding eachother. Remember that York and rest of Northumbria was dominated by vikings the entire viking age, mostly Norwegians. It was influended by norse heavily for over 200years.
And entire England was 2 times under danish throne. Still today if you take a sample of the genes of people in east England at the coast, the majority of their genes are Scandinavian(as was tested last year). Even the law-system in England in its core is based on the law system of the vikings.



We are Germans that moved north. Even today Norwegians have most in common in genes with north-germans in Germany. The first wave came at the end of the Ice age at 12000-11000 BC, the oldest settlement being a few kilometers from where im from.

Previous games give plenty of indications. Nords with norwegian words for names (Skjorta, for one), and names being compiled by different norwegian words (Udyrfrykte = Udyr + frykte), or old norse monsters (draugr) all indicate at least some influence from nordic culture. Nords aren't norseman, but they sure are inspired by them, and I'll be surprised if that influence won't be visible in TES V.

Edit, Arghoz; I take it you mean that the ICE AGE ended 11-12.000 BC, not the viking age?

Dragonshead, found in shipgrave in Norway.
[img]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2267/2461186413_845dd0ba4d.jpg[/img]

Not to mention one type of the viking longships was called Drekiskip. Dragonboat. One of the most famouse being King Olav Tryggvassons boat, Ormin Langi (Serpent/dragon(means the same in norse) Long), it had a dragon head in the front, as usual, and a dragon tail in the other end.

The planks used to make a viking tent was also often decorated in wood carving with a dragon head, as these:
http://www.khm.uio.no/utstilling/faste/vikingskipene/telt.jpg
(which btw, is also from a ships-grave in Norway)

Yes ice age, typo XD

England was never fully conquered by the either the danish or the vikings, most of the south east was never under the rule of Saxon kings and the vikings never gained a complete control of England, just parts of it, furthermore the idea that all of England was under a single throne at any point during the Saxon period of the Viking migratory period is incorrect as well. It wasn't until the Norman invasion that that occurred. We know for a fact that Mercia never unified and the entire area we now know as England was broken up into multiple small kingdoms.

Furthermore while much of Scandinavian architectural forms have much in common with the Anglo Saxon and Germanic styles this is not uprising, as you said there was a migration north of Germain people into Scandinavia. Yet again i want to stress the point that that does NOT make Scandinavians Germans that moved north. There was NO unified Germanic culture, the term Germanic is used now to describe a genotype not a culture.

The point I'm trying to make is that the idea that barbarian style demonstrated in fantasy worlds is a viking thing is incorrect. Yes, they have much in common but they equally have just as much in common with other cultural types from Europe. Specificly art styles and architectural.

Okay I do understand your point now. Let us call it a truce. I disagree with you in some ways, but I am not going to waste my energy on arguing.

Friends?

I want a random encounter when you're walking by some kind of coastline and suddenly a viking dragon-longship appears out of nowhere to plunder.

Hiya, sweden dude here. Tell the eastern saxons in the 900th century that the vikings were peacefull.

Sounds good

I`m looking forward to all the horns, fur and leather type look as I want to create a "Conan" type Warrior.

Even more so since seeing the screenshot scans..the player character looks all barbaric in that horned helmet and armor :toughninja:

But the viking cliche is so old and dull. Barbaric is bleh.

By the danish OR the vikings? The danes were vikings too.
Danish Knut den Store(Canute), with help from the Norwegian Eirik Jarl, at that time the most skillfull strategist in the northern lands, did conquer England yes, all of what they at that time considered to be England in our tongue.





It is clearly visible in the north germanic languages that we are indeed from Germany, even i can understand parts of Frisian TODAY, just by the knowledge of my own tongue.
Same goes for the culture, there are plenty of things that bind the Germanic cultures together. That each germanian culture has diffrence, that is quite obvious, and we in Scandinavia managed to hold onto our culture longer then the others as we were further away from foreign influence. This is especially true for Iceland, mid,west and north-Norway and inland west-Sweden.




That they have been overused and sometimes adding things that have nothing to do with them(mostly the horns) i agree with. But the architecture and other things are mostly correct. As you would know if you had actually studied this. We use the same building style in Norway still today, both stavlaft and laft. Only out of the 3 building styles the viking use its grindbygg that is not used for houses anymore in Norway. But it is still used for eating-halls and various other things, aswell as recreation, a few recently put up in Romsdal by the viking organization there.
Woodcarving dragonstyle(called drageskurd) is also a old tradition in Norway, more common here then in Sweden and Denmark or Iceland, and still very much in use today, which i would know since im taking a course in it.


The biggest error hollywood and others do, when picturing vikings, is, apart from the horns, that they show us ONLY as warriors. And often too brutal or simply evil.
The movie Pathfinder is probably one of the best examples for that, piece of crap.
We were hardly any more barbaric or brutal then other people in Europe at the time. The diffrence is that the other Europeans, Charlemagne for instance, was christian, and the people who wrote the books were christians, we were not.
The barbaric view is mostly spewed out by christian monks in Britain. But the norse litterature dont do this.

The Vanir look will always be fashionable :dmc:

You can keep your elven/daedric/dwemer/glass armors..meh.

Doesn't explain the abundance of specific references to nordic culture, especially norwegian words, names and mosters.

Maybe for you but I dont even remember the last viking game i've ever played. I just remember the awesome dark age spawn figures. Im looking forward to it, especially the scenery! Mountains, woods, rivers, streams, it sounds like its gonna be so cool.

Im glad its skyrim and not summerset isles!!

Well, we haven't reached a full 900 centuries yet, but back in the 900's, basically everyone was violent. Look at Ireland - who were worse, the vikings or the anglo-saxons who arrived several centuries later?

There are pretty much no good viking-games out there :\.

But one of the reasons im extra hyped for Skyrim is indeed because it will be a lot influenced by our culture(and probably nature aswell).

Tell that to the thousands of saxons Charlemagne/Karl den Store beheaded for not accepting christianity.