In the cold northlands of Scandinavia,
where the sun barely rose in winter,
the Norse developed their distinctive culture,
preserving Indo-European mythology longer than their fitter.
While most Europeans had been Christianized for centuries,
the Norse remained pagan into the eleventh century.
When they finally converted, they preserved their mythology
in writing, unlike most lost pagan sanctuary.
The Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson
(1179-1241) in Iceland preserved the myths.
Snorri was Christian, but he loved the old stories
and wrote them down for scaldic poets' discipline myths.
Odin, the Allfather, who hung on Yggdrasil
for nine days and nights to gain the runes.
Thor, the thunder god with Mjölnir the hammer.
Freyr and Freyja, fertility gods of the dunes.
Loki, the trickster, who birthed monsters
(Fenrir the wolf, Jörmungandr the world-serpent,
Hel the goddess of the dead), and caused
the death of Baldr, gentlest god, attendant.
The cosmology: Yggdrasil the world tree with nine realms.
Asgard of the Aesir gods. Vanaheim of the Vanir.
Midgard of humans. Jotunheim of the giants.
Niflheim of ice. Muspelheim of fire. Alfheim of elves' affair.
Svartalfheim of the dark elves or dwarves.
Hel the land of the dead who didn't die in battle.
Valhalla in Asgard for warriors killed in combat,
brought there by Valkyries on horseback in rattle.
Ragnarök was the end: Fenrir would devour Odin.
Thor would kill Jörmungandr but die of its venom.
The fire giant Surtr would burn the world.
And then a new world would emerge, clean, a new millennium.
This cyclical eschatology distinguishes Norse myth
from the linear Judeo-Christian end.
After Ragnarök, two humans hide in Yggdrasil,
come out, repopulate, become friends again.
The historical Vikings began raiding in 793
with the attack on Lindisfarne monastery.
For three centuries they raided, traded, settled
from Ireland to Russia, an unexpected quandary.
They founded Dublin, Waterford, Cork in Ireland.
They conquered much of England (the Danelaw).
They served as mercenaries in Byzantium,
the Varangian Guard, the emperor's personal crow.
They sailed to Iceland and settled it around 870.
To Greenland under Erik the Red in 986.
To Vinland (North America) under Leif Erikson around 1000,
five centuries before Columbus' trick.
They sailed up the Russian rivers to trade
with Byzantium and the Islamic world.
The Kievan Rus were founded by Swedish Vikings,
the Rus tribe, whose name on Russia is unfurled.
Rurik founded Novgorod. His kin took Kiev.
Vladimir the Great in 988 converted to Orthodoxy
after sending emissaries to investigate all religions.
They came back from Constantinople with advocacy.
"We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth,"
they reported. The beauty of Hagia Sophia's liturgy
had converted them. Kievan Rus became Orthodox.
The Slavic Orthodox church was born with liturgy.
Back in Scandinavia, conversion came slowly.
Harald Bluetooth of Denmark converted around 965.
Olaf Tryggvason of Norway forcefully converted his people.
Olaf II died a martyr and was canonized alive.
Sweden was the last to convert, into the twelfth century.
The Uppsala temple with its human sacrifices
was destroyed in the early twelfth century.
The Old Way was ending, despite its old vices.
But in Iceland, the conversion was peaceful.
In 1000, the Althing (parliament) voted
to officially adopt Christianity, though
private pagan worship was temporarily floated.
Iceland's conversion by parliamentary vote
is unique in world history of religions.
It reflected the democratic nature of Icelandic society,
where legal decisions were made collectively, with provisions.
The Icelandic sagas would later be written down,
historical narratives of the settlement period,
Egil's Saga, Njál's Saga, Laxdæla Saga,
great literature of a unique historical interlude.
William the Conqueror of Normandy was
a Viking descendant, whose ancestor Rollo
had been granted Normandy by the French king
in 911 to stop the raids, a settlement deal to follow.
Norman French absorbed Old Norse words and
preserved Norse traits of boldness and administration.
In 1066, William invaded England and
won the Battle of Hastings, changing England's foundation.
The Vikings had ceased to be Vikings,
assimilating to Christian Latin civilization.
But they had shaped the map of Europe permanently,
from Russia to England to Sicily's nation.
Stand.