Blimey.....Vikings!

[tail end charlie]

TEC, you gots to give them something to cook: BANGERS? KIDNEY PIE? PLUM PUDDING that has no plums or pudding in it?

Years ago I went to a formal dinner in ermany wherte there were many people from Sweden (from the Sandvik company) the German host being a bit of a wise guy started joking about the Vikings (ie Swedish) kidnapping the British women and taking them home. I pointed out that after two days of eating the slaves kooking they took them back and set off for America


try mincemeat it doesnt have any meat in it (but is delicious) and yorkshire pudding which is a starter made from cooked batter but our piece de resistance is a pomfret or pontefract cake which isnt a cake but a sweet made mainly from liquorish and is disgusting but must be tried like Ratzeputz in Germany

 

[mikewint]

TEC, I was in england and scotland back in 1970. My dad loved mincemeat and we always had several pies over Xmas. Yorkshire pudding I've tried and its not bad. the pomfret is new to me but i don't care for licorice.
Ratzeputz i tried in Germany, what a kick, not a big fan of ginger either but i couldn't get the taste out of my mouth for days

 

[tail end charlie]

TEC, I was in england and scotland back in 1970. My dad loved mincemeat and we always had several pies over Xmas. Yorkshire pudding I've tried and its not bad. the pomfret is new to me but i don't care for licorice.
Ratzeputz i tried in Germany, what a kick, not a big fan of ginger either but i couldn't get the taste out of my mouth for days

Mike mince meat is a corrupt spelling it should be mince mete which is all the small things left in winter mainly fruit. By december everything fresh had been eaten and so what was left was minced with spices to make something tasty and edible.

My family are from yorkshire and cooked correctly and served with gravy made from the roasted meat it is a delicious starter, its origins are from the peasantry who had lots of milk and eggs but little meat. To eat meat you have to kill an "asset"


the first time i drank ratzeputz the host said "youve got to try this in Germany, it tastes like **** but you cant leave Germany without tasting it, Ive got to agree it tastes like **** but its great at the end of an evening

 

[bobbysocks]

mike, no i didnt think vikings took on the indians to any great degree ( or even at all for that matter)...but with metal weapons and armor...shields, chain and batted clothing against stone and wood weapons...and with the training and experience they had the vikings could have put a world of hurt on them. and yeah i am aware of all the prophesies running around the aztec/incan world....and all the factors ( smallpox, insurrections, drought) involved. but still 168 men coming out on top against thousands is impressive. if the inca would have booked for it and ran for the hills...their death toll would have been substancially less. so i am lead to believe they stood and fought. the matchlock rifles of that day took forever to reload ( and not everyone soldier had one)... a good cannon crew could still only pump out 2 or 3 rpm. so after your first initial volleys its down to fix bayonets time. then it was obsidian weapons vs steel. fear and superstition played a huge role but these were also fierce warriors...it wasnt a cake walk for the spaniards.

 

[Colin1]

we lack the cultural experience to interpret some very complex symbolic designs. what will scientists 1000 years from now make of "Kilroy was here" drawings? remember those same stylized drawings were used to prove the "Gods" arrived on spacecraft.

Talk about irony
could the same lack of cultural experience preclude the arrival of other-world visitors with such cavalier certainty? Far too easy to point the finger at the tin-foil hat brigade and shout 'little green men'

You are over-simplifying a much more complex and interesting debate and possibly wandering a little off-topic

 

[mikewint]

Colin, I don't preclude anything, my point being that complex stylized drawings that were obvious to someone within the culture become very difficult to interpret when that culture disappears. the 9 runic tablets found in the US are a mixture of several runic alphabets though mostly Elder Futhark is used and some characters match no known runic alphabet. there are also other linguistic problems. thus most experts in the field view them as hoaxs.
Aztec carvings show a man riding something that looks (to us) like it is belching fire and his head looks (to us) as if he is wearing a helmet. is this a spaceman riding a rocket ship or would any common Aztec looked at it and see the local milkman.
some of these thing will remain mysteries until we can resurect Vikings and Aztecs

 

[GrauGeist]

Well, the prophecy and it's details were close enough to keep Montezuma (and others) from slaughtering Cortez and his men when they first came onto the scene.

So at some point in the South American, pre-Columbian time period, fair-skinned, armored people made contact with those peoples and left an impact to the point where they were incorporated into the native folklore and religion.

While the artwork and religious/folklore can show some real imaginitive characters and stories at times, it is unmistakable that there were people with european features portrayed both in the art and tales.

Unfortunately, it's now left to speculation if they were Romans, Phoenecians, Vikings or what.

 

[JohnAnthony]

Well, the prophecy and it's details were close enough to keep Montezuma (and others) from slaughtering Cortez and his men when they first came onto the scene.

So at some point in the South American, pre-Columbian time period, fair-skinned, armored people made contact with those peoples and left an impact to the point where they were incorporated into the native folklore and religion.

While the artwork and religious/folklore can show some real imaginitive characters and stories at times, it is unmistakable that there were people with european features portrayed both in the art and tales.

Unfortunately, it's now left to speculation if they were Romans, Phoenecians, Vikings or what.

I'm not so sure. The annals of human folklore are full of fantastic creatures that have little basis in empirical reality: angels, demons, fairies, dragons – the list is long. Human imagination is prolific, and the fact that South American mythology had some tall blonde, blue-eyed gods does not constitute proof (in my mind) that they were visited by ancient Europeans. Now I think it's entirely probable that they WERE visited, given the fact that certain cultures (like the Romans and Vikings) had not only the propensity but the technology to do some extensive globe-trotting. But without solid archeological evidence it remains conjecture – fascinating to be sure, but conjecture nonetheless.

 

[Colin1]

I'm not so sure. The annals of human folklore are full of fantastic creatures that have little basis in empirical reality: angels, demons, fairies, dragons – the list is long. Human imagination is prolific

Dragons appear in the mythologies of most cultures
including Egypt, Babylon, Korea, India, China, Japan, Aboriginal Australia, Europe and the Americas. You will find the term dragon used several times in the Old Testament. One can argue the point over the reliability of Herodotus, but he wrote of 'flying reptiles' in Egypt and Arabia.

Prolific imagination or incredible coincidence?

 

[JohnAnthony]

Dragons appear in the mythologies of most cultures
including Egypt, Babylon, Korea, India, China, Japan, Aboriginal Australia, Europe and the Americas. You will find the term dragon used several times in the Old Testament. One can argue the point over the reliability of Herodotus, but he wrote of 'flying reptiles' in Egypt and Arabia.

Prolific imagination or incredible coincidence?

I don't know but show me the fossil remains of a dragon and I'll believe in dragons. Is it possible that all that dragon mythology is based on various cultures throughout history stumbling upon dinosaur bones? After all, dinosaurs spanned the globe at one time...

 

[mikewint]

I'm with John, conjecture is always fascinating and it is always tempting to feel that legends are based in fact which also may or may not be true. Even today, we have our mythological beasts, the yeti, sasquach, big foot, jersey devil, nessie, etc.
which may or may not be real. I guess i'm pragmatic about these things. when i see hard evidence i'll believe
If dragons roamed the globe where are all those bones?

 

[GrauGeist]

Well...I've seen the skull of a T-Rex up close, sporting teeth up to 12 inches long...if I lived back in the ancient world, I would immediately believe I had seen the remains of a dragon (and probably swear off drinking for a long time).

Also, a point to ponder: Has anyone seen Trojan armor or weapons? Keep in mind that Troy was just a "myth" until the 20th century, when the remains of the city was uncovered. Very little exists of that city and even less of it's people, but it's impact on the area was felt even as far as the Egyptian kingdom.

If a solitary expedition of Vikings, Romans, etc, managed to land in South America, if by accident (blown off course, trapped by Atlantic currents) or otherwise, there's a good possability that they never made it home and even less of a chance for them to leave any significent artifacts behind. So far, the only real artifact is a Roman shipwreck off the coast of Argentina but nothing beyond that.

There is also the chance that a viking ship led by Ullmann, could have ended up in Central/South America after it was blown off course around the year 967 A.D.

 

[JohnAnthony]

Well...I've seen the skull of a T-Rex up close, sporting teeth up to 12 inches long...if I lived back in the ancient world, I would immediately believe I had seen the remains of a dragon (and probably swear off drinking for a long time).

There is also the possibility that certain ancient creatures survived into modern times. We know that it's possible because of the Coelacanth, an animal thought to have become extinct in the Cretaceous Period. It was discovered ALIVE and well in the 20th century!

Coelacanth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It may be possible that some type of flying reptiles survived into human history as well. The proof in the pudding would be finding the bones of said animals, bones that could be dated within the last 50,000 years or so.

 

[mikewint]

JohnA, the coelacanth lives in the ocean and even today we have classified about 10% of the critters in the sea and dead critters sink so nothing from the ocean would surprise me. we know more about the surface of Mars than the deep trenches of the sea. So while anything is possible i wouldn't bet the ranch on it.
Grau, agreed, most likely dragon legends are based on fossil dino's. by the way all t. Rexs come from the US and there are only about 8 or 9 skeletons as i recall

 

[RabidAlien]

Kinda makes one wonder how many partial skeletons have been uncovered, and mis-classified as something else, since they appeared to be similar to a dinosaur we know about already?

 

[mikewint]

Most of those errors have been cleared up in the last 15 years or so as the bird-like nature of the dinos began to catch on. one of the biggest blunders was in england with the very first dino skeleton ever assembled the iguanodon. They made it quadrapedal instead of bipedal and put the front legs on rotated 90 degrees. here in the US they had the wrong heads on the brontos. there are,of course, many unanswered questions abot soft tissues and especially about their outer hides. the idea of feathers is begining to catch on

 

[Maestro]

Speaking of dragons... Ever heard of the legend of George and the Dragon ? Well, during my trip to Prague I figured out that the George in question was in fact a Czech king, and the head of the "dragon" in question was exposed in a room of the Castle of Karlstejn... It turned out to be a crocodile skull.

So, as crocodiles must be pretty rare in Czech Republic, it is understandable that a medieval king could have taken it for a fantastic/deamonic creature.

 

[Colin1]

Ever heard of the legend of George and the Dragon ?

Well, during my trip to Prague I figured out that the George in question was in fact a Czech king, and the head of the "dragon" in question was exposed in a room of the Castle of Karlstejn... It turned out to be a crocodile skull

Yes I have

Reads like a pamphlet handed to British beer tourists. George was born in what is now Turkey, a serving soldier in the Roman army who was beheaded for defending the Christian faith against some typically megalomaniac Roman head of state. He didn't become the Patron Saint of England until England's victory at Agincourt.

He is also the Patron Saint of (the former) Czechoslovakia and around a dozen other places; I think Beirut, of all places, is one of them.

 

[mikewint]

Thanks guys, learn something new every day. That crocs were not known is surprising because the Romans used them in the Coliseum when they flooded it for navel battles

 

[tail end charlie]

Yes I have
He is also the Patron Saint of (the former) Czechoslovakia and around a dozen other places; I think Beirut, of all places, is one of them.

St George is the patron saint of moscow, there is relief sculpture of him over the entrance to the Kremlin.