User talk:Dan Koehl

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Archive: 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 (It is more likely to get fast connection to me on my swedish user page)

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[edit] Norse history and culture wikiproject

Wikipedia:WikiProject Vikings and Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Scandinavia both appear to be defunct at this point. I would like to set up a new Wikiproject to oversee articles on ancient and medieval Scandinavian and Nordic history that would cover what these inactive projects used to. There are literally hundreds of great articles on obscure sagas, historical figures and the like (largely through the efforts of such users as User:Berig and User:Wiglaf). Since you have edited many Norse-themed articles in the past, I would be interested in your thoughts on how best to proceed. --Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 21:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Norse history and culture

Thought you might be interested in contributing... Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 16:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Norse project

Hallo Brian, I did become interested to join the project until I read the first page containing:

Category:Battles involving the Vikings Category:Viking enemies and allies Category:Norse hundreds Category:Image stones Category:Viking Age monarchs Category:Viking exploration of North America Category:Viking Age people Category:Viking practices

As well as "did you know" section claiming that wikings made the pirues lion.

You know, I do not share the opinion that its wise, logical, correct or scientific, to use the term viking, for anything than vikings. You will get trapped in the same trap as the page vikings where norse people are described, where very few vikings are described, and where documented NOT vikings are described as vikings. And in my experience, for people who apply the term viking as it has been used between 1903 and almost today, there is less ambition to waken up, and study the prime sources, its more fun to play around with the mythology. Still, I see you have very positive ambitions, and this project COULD, be the ice breaker that finally starts to clean up around the different myths.

I guess you are fully aware of that we dont know the profession of the guys who wrote on the pireus lion. But upto a certain degree, we can guess they were Varingians. Now, only in lexicons from 1903, and in peoples imaginations varingians were vikings. No written prime source (of course) confirms that those both terms had the same meaning. (and WHY should 2 different terms have?)

  1. Category:Battles involving the Vikings. Among the very few battles were vikings are named, they fought against the norwegian king, when he cleaned out the shores from vikings. But that was not vikings fighting vikings, that was a norwegian king, using his fleet, against vikings. Vikings ws among his most important enemies for some time, and made several outlows, and was not satisfied until they were killed or driven to Iceland.
  2. Category:Viking exploration of North America: Reg the ships that went to america, sorry, no evidence what so ever that this was a viking raid. Some of the peoples may have been adventorous farmers, some of them was if I recall correct german and french. No vikings there...but most of them probably scandinavian, a word which for some very pecualir reason is not used between 800-1066 for svandinavians, only before and after.
  3. Category:Norse hundreds: The hundreds was a way to aministrate the Ledung fleet, which was among other functions used as defence, against among others, vikings. One runestone in sweden even names a man who was a "viking watcher". (the only time the word viking was used on a runestone in sweden, except for some four known occasions when it was used as a persons name, and another where it was told about men who went ON VIKING. Now, those guys didnt went on that every day thorughout their lifes. Why the stone tells this, is because they were involved, for a certain period of time, in viking activities. before, and after, they were probably just farmers.) This guy, most probably the son of a jarl, the honorable vikingwatcher, was not moving around in the village, looking on nice girls and handsome guys, he had a honorable duty as guard against vikings who could treat the village, he was watching for enemies in ships that could threten his village.

Category:Viking practices. As for their practicies, we know very little. Adam of Bremen, one of the few who gives a description and definition, stated there was a group of men living at the danish coast, he called them pirats, and noted that the local people called them vikings, while Adams own people called them askomans. He also and noted that they actually pay tax to the danish king. Until the icandic sagas, thats about all we know about REAL vikings (and not the late misinterpretation of the word).

On the other hand we know more about norse people. Among other things, their defence against vikings.

Now, when you already, in the beginning of this project call all norse people vikings, you will run into big troubl, describing the norse peoples most important enemies: the vikings! How will you describe the well documented norse defendce against vikings, if you call norse people vikings. The real vikngs Adam met may even have been foreigners. What if they were from england? or northern germany? Pirats may have been from various etnic people?

In order to tell the history about norse people, its important to realize that docuemts only gives evidence for altogether some 2-3 norse people from present sweden that were vikings. The others were just norse.

The page viking does not clearly tell people about vikings, and who they were, since most people wants to belive that all scandinavians died in the year 800, grow beards and became vikings for 200 years, and then became scnadinavian again. Which is not true. The term has been misunderstood and misused.

Its my srongest belief, that you will soon run into logical problems describing norse people if you falsely give them the lable viking between 800 and 1066. Because they were not, they were as much against vikings as people in France, Germany and Britain.

To be clear, we associate Australia with sheep and shepherds. Now if we staumble on a story, telling about an australian man, its still wrong to lable him as shepherd. He may be an wool allergic priest, a fisherman who never saw a sheep, or a carpenter. So, if he is refered to as australian, thats perfecty enough, theres no use to invent his profession out of phantasy?

The same goes for norse people. Please, just cll them norse. Or scandinavian. Do not call christian priests, carpenters, farmers, fishermen, soldiers, vikingwatchers, rune carvers etc for vikings, unless they were described as such: Othervise the whole misunderstanding will just be repeated. let the project deal with norse people, not using other labels, if theres no evidence that the terms really are identical.

Ill wit to join the project, giving you some time to consider what I mean, and evaluating how crazy it sounds. But I can never participate in project where its is actually written "the pirates organized their defence against the pirates in a very effective way, namley..." it will just become un unlogical porridge again, like the page about vikings.

I do hope you may see my logical objection here, and that at least it may we worty to think about it just for 2 seconds. I mean no harm, does not want to argue with you, if you disagree, then its fine for me. I just hope that finally, at least one project risa above the old myths, and tries to give a more scientific insight in the norse culture. Which was for sure, maybe upto 99%, not a viking activity at all. It was more or less similair to more southern nations cultures. And theres need to start to see the norse people and cultures as for what they were, even if its less exciting than the imaginal myths that was developed during the nationanalromancy period from 1903 and onwards, when the word viking started to be used for people who were not vikings.

Vikings were vikings. Sometimes norse, sometimes not.

Norse were norse. very seldom vikings, according to the prime sources.

same goes for tradesmen. Not one single written prime source says that vikings were tradesmen.

Contrary, Snorri Sturlason writes in Egils Skallagrims saga: Björn var farmaður mikill, var stundum í víking, en stundum í kaupferðum; Björn var hinn gervilegasti maður.

english: Björn was a great traveller; sometimes as viking, sometimes as tradesman.

It is not logical to say that the terms are same, if Snorri says there were different. Its not logical to apply a term on people, who were the opposite of the term. Regardless if thousands of peoples believe it was the same. Most people believe Napoleon was short man also, although he had avarege height for french men. Its actually just a misunderstanding, shared by hundreds of thousands of peoples, thats all.

Sorry for putting those thoughts on your page. I mean no harm, just hope youll see the point.

Dan Koehl 00:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


Dan: Obviously I did not name those categories, they were pre-existing. Your points are all well taken, and most of them I had already thought of myself- note that it's "Norse history and culture" and not "Viking history and culture". Why not join the project and help us sort out this mess? Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 02:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Really? very well, then of course Im happily participating!

Dan Koehl 02:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

May I post this conversation to the project talk page? Maybe others will have a better idea than I how to fix the problem. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 13:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


Dan, one thing you should keep in mind, though, is that "Viking Age" is the standard English term for the relevant time period, even though it is understood that not everyone was a viking. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 13:50, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes of course, theres a big difference between viking and Viking Age. Still, it seems many people have a problem of separating them. Dan Koehl 06:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject_Norse_history_and_culture#Adopting_a_page

Take a look at this new section and see if one of the articles interests you, or if you prefer, add a new one to the list. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 14:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MfD nomination of Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Sweden

I've nominated Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Sweden, a page you created, for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Sweden and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Sweden during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. FPT 19:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Schagerstrom

Who? I don't know a thing about it. Sorry. The name was used in the article so I used it. But - don't go away yet - we have something new here since a year ago last March and that is Google Books. I personally think Google are a bunch of greedy jerks who are doing a very bad job of putting books online under slave labor conditions (you didn't really think I could sign away my rights, did you Google?) However they are the only ones doing it in a major way, and for a great profit, I may add. They've done some whole libraries and as a result books are available to us now that we never dreamed existed 2 years ago. Too bad someone kindlier didn't get the idea. So if you will pull up Google Books - I keep a permanent tab to it on my machine - select Book search and search on Schagerstrom 1931. You will turn up quite a number of results and many of those are in Swedish. I will be very surprised if the reference for which you are looking is not there.

As for the etymology I keep remembering a seminar I took with Watkins (quite a character). He would be explaining an etymology and appear very enthusiastic about it and just about had us sold on it and then would turn around and say "but there's a better one!" Etymologies are like candy in a candy store. They all taste good if you like candy and you just can't make up your mind which one to buy, and you can only buy one.

I still like sea people but in fact I've been doing work on Suebi (I have not finished yet) and there I went for "our men." Not for nothing do the gangsters calls themselves cosa nostra (if they do. So did Julius Caesar). I guess I have two creeds on this one. I admit to being influenced by random articles by Finnish scholars. The non-Finns all want to say, well, this or that word is from Finnish. But the Finns turn it right back and say, well, this or that word has a Baltic or Germanic origin. So good luck with it.

You express some lack of confidence about your English. I don't suppose it would help if I said that most English speakers have trouble with their English. The idea that we English speakers all know English is a myth. Don't let the critics get you down. I once saw a filmed lecture by a former head of Middlebury College language department. He said that the fear of being thought a fool held people back from trying their new language. He paused a moment. Then he ripped his tie off. Then he started shredding his shirt until his torso was bare and dancing around. Then he said to the camera, "vivre, c'est etre fou! And said it twice with great emphasis. He was a great teacher. I wish I could remember his name. So don't let the critics get you down. People are just people. They are no worse on Wikipedia than elsewhere. My respect for the printed word has diminished considerably since I've been working on Wikipedia! On the other hand it offers stability. I think I'd rather jump in and be a fou than get up on a pedestal, but I've always been that way. So if they want to delete something you did, let them and go on.

By the way I still do not feel up to editing the Suiones article. I see now it does need to be Wikified better. We are making full citations now with cite book, cite web, etc, and putting all the refs in auto-numbered footnotes. Other than that I'm impressed by the scholarship (at first glance anyway). I would say we can certainly use someone up on North Germanic lore if that is what you want to do, work on the English Wikipedia. I know we're the biggest one. I got no idea why that is and I will not speculate. Bonne chance mon ami.Dave (talk) 00:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

NZ Jeremy, aka. Zoophilia Hey Dan just made heaps more changes to the Auckland Zoo page, you might wanna check it out. I'll probably have to start a new NZ Zoo soon. I'll have to check out the pages you've edited when I get a chance. My bet is a lot of Elephants..! See you at Zoobeat.Zoophilia (talk) 08:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

(Please delete this when read, I'm new on the editing thing..!)



In Lithuanian language Saga is Saka/sakme/sakai/sakmes from the word 'sekt' which means to tell stories...and Vikings or Variags (in russian) in Lithuanian language comes from the word 'vaikytis/varyt/vytis' and that means to drive/pursue/hunt/chase/be after...Pagan in Lithuanian language 'Pa-ganyti/pa-ginti' means to herd/depasture/drive...from the same word english have the word to hunt and one Empire was bearing the same name Huns meaning 'Ganiai/ganytojai'...moreover even the word to defent in Lithuanian language is the same 'ginti'...what do you think? I have never ever heard that Vikings would be attacking Lithuania or Latvia