Goths, Celts and Vikings

[gamerprinter]

No links...

The Romans did not walk across the English Channel. By the way do you have references for the ocean going capacity of Celtic shipping. I would be interested to hear of them because as far as I know Celtic shipping was pretty much costal with a quick dash across the Irish sea or the English Channel at best.

While I should I don't have time to dig up specific links, but... there are several skeptical to many mentions in the historic record. On the west coast of Britain, the term 'Black Shields' refered to pirates from Ireland who regularly raided coastal communities. The 'Black Shields' are mentioned having raided all the way to the coast of Spain. But arguably could have still remained a coastal ship rather than an ocean crossing one.

St. Andrew, a monk in Ireland in the 5th century recorded a manuscript of an ocean voyage to the New World, though highly disputed he describes seeing mountains and towers of glass on the ocean (ice bergs), a giant throwing burning rocks from a violent island (Icelandic volcanoes), and reaching a great expansive land to the west. He stayed for three years, then returned and wrote his manuscript. Whether you can believe it or not, the manuscript does exist.

St. Andrew crossed the ocean in a corracle. A bowl shaped ship capable of holding 20 or more people consisting of wood and whalebone timber framing, with skins tied and bound with pitch as the hull surface. Burning pitch was kept hot aboard ship to repair leaks as necessary. A single masted square sail was used for propulsion. With a deck, a large underdeck area existed for food, storage and barracks area. 3-5 corracles served as St. Andrew's fleet.

The Black Shield Celts used wooden single masted ships, rather than corracles. The Irish pirates we preyed on communities in the Mediterranean, they weren't exclusively in the Irish sea.

I've even read 'extremely skeptical' scholarly discussion regarding where the Tuatha de Danaan went, rather than a mystical land of fey (Tir na Nog), they went west... to the New World - and this wasn't at RPG board, but a university's Celtic studies board. Suggesting the first Celts of Ireland 'sailed to the west' 1500+ BC.

GP

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Terms such as "Goth" and "Celt" are ill-defined, insofar as no particular consensus exists. "Celt" is particularly problematic, and Celtic might be better understood as a shared set of cultural significators rather than any "race" as such.

To go i viking is to engage in a particular activity, and so doesn't really lend itself to any kind of anthropological classification. Terms such as Dane or Norseman are somewhat interchangeable. The Old Norse and various Anglo-Saxon languages/dialects were probably mutually intelligible to a large extent; whether the Jutes were the Geats is debateable; whether the Geats and the Goths spring from the same source is also debateable. So it goes.

Frisians, Swedes, Franks, Thuringians.

All of these people spoke relatively similar Indo-European languages. Many of their core beliefs and practices were probably the same; they probably had pretty much the same original pantheon of deities, but with different names.

If you looking for some kind of essence which identifies these peoples as distinct from one another, I think you have to start with the literature.

The Ulster Cycle and Mabinogion for two different Celtic perspectives; the Eddas and Sagas for the Viking mentality.

 

[Baron Opal]

I'm not sure I get what you're asking.

Still working it out, myself.

Point being... I think you need to define your question a great deal more before anyone can really narrow things down to a coherent or succinct answer.

...you can do what you want, but Viking doesn't belong in a setting with Celts and Gothic tribes. Goths don't belong in a setting with Vikings and Celts...

Terms such as "Goth" and "Celt" are ill-defined, insofar as no particular consensus exists. "Celt" is particularly problematic, and Celtic might be better understood as a shared set of cultural significators rather than any "race" as such.

These were the answers I was expecting, unfortunately. From what I remembered, those terms were rather muddy and a bit self-referential.

In the past I've posted some things about my next setting. I'm taking the Cenozoic geologic record and attributing various things to strife between the forces of Order (titans) and Chaos (dragons). Ultimately, I want to have a human-centric campaign with some other races that are really humans at heart.

Dwarves are set. Lord Neander lead his people to the mountains at the headwaters of the river they called home. He lead them deep under the ground and there hid as the millennia passed. They have the most ancient culture, with many customs and lore that is strange to others. Not truly human, but cousins and close enough to not feel too threatened. They still have millennia old histories of first hand accounts of the excesses of the primal powers.

Elves are set. When Gallogaich started his thread he posted a picture and a theory that the stories of elves were extrapolated from the Nordic people. There was a picture that really caught my imagination. I thought, "with all of this strife, Ragnarok has happened. While Lord Neander was able to hide his people, Baldr, Magni and the rest lost theirs. Líf and Lífþrasir are the first elves. Now the population is big enough that some can go adventure, they are revealed to the world, and their gods have made them strong enough to survive."

I really enjoyed Monte Cook's vision of the giants from the Thomas Covenant stories. The Anakim have their massive buildings and ancient rituals in ruined lands. They have long labored to fix the wastes and their understanding of the rhythms of the world is showing them success. They have a strong Greco-Persian feel to them; an alternate universe's take on Alexander's and Aristotle's vision.

Now, to a certain extent the above are just reskinned fantasy races. But the conceit is that they are all human (except for the dwarves), they just have a different culture. And it would be perfectly acceptible to have an elf friend in town and get jumped by some dwarf bandits in the wilds without too much clash of expectations.

Since I wanted a total of six races, cultures, flavors, whatever, I was going to have Egyptian, Celtic and Goth to be more "human" rather than "was human and then diverged a bit". The problem is, I couldn't get a good handle on the differences between Goths, Celts and Nordics.

And, here I am.

 

[gamerprinter]

"Celt" is particularly problematic, and Celtic might be better understood as a shared set of cultural significators rather than any "race" as such.

While there were different dialects, the Celtic language was shared by the Celtic peoples, really between Goidelic (Irish/Celtiberic) and Brythonic (Britain/Gallic) enough to identify the 'Celtic' peoples, though its true a large variety of cultures described the Celts, and they were not unified.

Other aspects shared by the Celts were their gods and laws. The sacred nature of the rituals to deliberately not record them, thus intrinsically illiterate was specifically unique to Celts.

GP

 

[nedjer]

The Celts were short on opportunities at home so they moved to France and formed the Gaulish kingdoms. The guys liked ornamental facial hair and braiding.

The Goths were short on opportunities at home so they moved to France and formed the Frankish kingdoms. The guys liked ornamental facial hair and braiding.

The Vikings were short on opportunities at home so they moved to France and formed the Norman kingdoms. The guys liked ornamental facial hair and braiding.

No differences so far, but I'm working on it

 

[Tuft]

Let's start with this one:

The Vikings never ever wore horned helmets. The horned helmet is a 19th century fancy, perpetuated by a plenitude of look-alike Wagnerian Opera performances.

The vikings were merchants and traders, carrying trade goods really long distance along the coastlines of north-western Europe and the long rivers of the Eastern Europe. On those occasions when they did gather to major raids, it were very notable, though. One trade empire they founded survived, although in vastly different form. It was the one founded by the Rus Vikings, which later became known as - Russia. (This is not very popular by Russian historians, which like to stress the Slavic parts of their history )

They did wash up every day and bathed once a week, which was seen as very barbaric by their contemporaries. (The Swedish name for Saturday is still "lördag", which originally meant "bath day").

They had a habit of electing their kings, did not have proper nobility, and had regular parliaments to decide matters of importance (the Icelandic parliament has been around almost 1100 years) which also was very barbaric.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

The Celts were short on opportunities at home so they moved to France and formed the Gaulish kingdoms. The guys liked ornamental facial hair and braiding.

The Goths were short on opportunities at home so they moved to France and formed the Frankish kingdoms. The guys liked ornamental facial hair and braiding.

The Vikings were short on opportunities at home so they moved to France and formed the Norman kingdoms. The guys liked ornamental facial hair and braiding.

No differences so far, but I'm working on it

lol

 

[jonesy]

Whereas the Swedes just stayed home braiding their own hair. What?

The Vikings never ever wore horned helmets. The horned helmet is a 19th century fancy, perpetuated by a plenitude of look-alike Wagnerian Opera performances.

Don't say never ever. There is one, just one, depiction of a viking horned helmet:

Viking Navy Museum

There's always an exception. That guy might have been the laughing stock of the rest of the vikings.

"Here comes Olaf with his horned helmet. What a jester."

 

[Bluenose]

Let's start with this one:

The Vikings never ever wore horned helmets. The horned helmet is a 19th century fancy, perpetuated by a plenitude of look-alike Wagnerian Opera performances.

The vikings were merchants and traders, carrying trade goods really long distance along the coastlines of north-western Europe and the long rivers of the Eastern Europe. On those occasions when they did gather to major raids, it were very notable, though. One trade empire they founded survived, although in vastly different form. It was the one founded by the Rus Vikings, which later became known as - Russia. (This is not very popular by Russian historians, which like to stress the Slavic parts of their history )

It's a bit debatable how 'norse' they remained, to be fair. Archaeology suggests a very high level of continuity with the pre-existing populations, and byzantine influence is also noticeable.

They did wash up every day and bathed once a week, which was seen as very barbaric by their contemporaries. (The Swedish name for Saturday is still "lördag", which originally meant "bath day").

There was an English monk who complained about this, claiming English girls shouldn't go out with vikings just because they washed regularly.

They had a habit of electing their kings, did not have proper nobility, and had regular parliaments to decide matters of importance (the Icelandic parliament has been around almost 1100 years) which also was very barbaric.

Sometimes they were elected by the expedient of killing the old king and turning up at the election with a lot of heavily armed retainers, at which point it was usually concluded that they were the best candidate. Not entirely unlike the way the Mandate of Heaven sometimes passed on China, or god's favour in the Byzantine empire.

 

[gamerprinter]

Tannistry

The Celts practiced what is known as tannistry. Most 'kingship' concepts in later eras was based heriditary father to son progression of royalty.

In Celtic society the land holders were all of the noble caste, which includes all warriors, druids, bards, historians, scientists. Being based on clans, they were closely related families with a common ancestor (grand father or great grandfather). The king or clan chief was appointed by vote among all land holders, which included smaller land holders outside the immediate clan. The appointed king had to best fit the clan ideals, a perfect physical specimin (any permanent injury or just being too old disqualified you for kingship.) Kings were voted in and voted out. Former kings are still members of clan nobility, so they were'nt just killed off nor removed from kingship by force.

The next king does not automatically go to the son, in fact almost never does, after a king is removed from office, its the next best representative to the clan ideal among the clan nobility. This could be the last king's brother, cousin, a younger uncle, an older nephew or the son. Whichever clan member was the right age, with the right experience. In some instances the chief or king elected was a woman, such as Boudicca being the most famous, but not the only example of it, though it was still rare.

The practice of tannistry was held at clan levels, tribal kingdoms, regional kingdoms and high kingdoms. Celtic governorship was fairly egalitarian and civilized compared to later Roman and medieval governments, where assassination and coup d' tat were how politics were practiced.

GP

PS: and no the 'horned helmets' weren't worn by the vikings, they were worn by the Celts a thousand years earlier.