Viking Culture

Vikings, the people who run around with axes in dragon-headed ships and horned helmets, whack a couple of yokels, and run off with their stuff, or the people who have a thriving amber trade, a middle-class society, and the majority of their population farmers? Most people would say the first, but that isn't really true. Vikings, though they definitly were very warlike and their raids likely caused the downfall of several kingdoms, actually had a refined society when they weren't busting people's skulls open to grab their gold. Their social ladder was Jarls, sort of mini-kings, Karls, the middle class (Like the name Karl), and Thralls, basically slaves (Probably one of the reasons they raided so much). The majority of their population farmed for a living, but there were also blacksmiths, tanners, and everything else a society needed to function. Marriages were arranged by the men of the clan, so women didn't get a say in it, but the guy didn't either so they were even :/ . The last thing I'm going to say is really weird and creepy. The Vikings trimmed their nails as short as possible because at the end of the world a huge ship made out of the fingernails of the dead (Imagine building a ship out of nails. Would take forever just to build one board.) would be rose out of the sea by a huge serpent named Nafalgar or something like that. So if you kept your nails trimmed you would keep the end of the world from happening soon. So that's what I learned about Vikings today. Bye. #BluntEnding