Viking comment on review page.

by Nate
(USA)

QUESTION:There's a global goods sword I think it was, and the review was great until I got to the part about "vikings" killing for everything...

Unfortunately due to heavily biased Christian influence and disinformation, a lot of people believe this, so I don't hold it against you, I just was hoping you could take the part in parenthesis out... The so called vikings were nothing more than traders and only fought for freedom and control of their land. They were a nomadic tribal society, and there is not much known about them until you dig deep into family history and legend, which really doesn't have much historical credibility. Many tribal leaders and groups around the world kept records of the vikings and they were respected more than feared. Nowadays they've been demonized as horned helmet wearing crusaders that went around killing women and children so they could shovel down all their food. lol

Ironically this is almost exactly what the Christians did to our land in Scandinavia and all over the world to others' land. They raped, killed, tortured, and destroyed. The vikings merely traded and I'm sure didn't take kindly to those who didn't want to do business or offer hospitality.

Anyway I don't really know much for sure myself but I just know there is a lot of pride in the culture and disproving the misconceptions and proving more historical evidence of interaction with the legendary nomadic traders we call the vikings. The religious beliefs and rituals have been passed down for thousands and thousands of years. preceeding Christianity, and setting an example for many other religious beliefs and teachings/legends. If you go back far enough, we all came from the same place, but still, there are good people and bad people, and some of each from every society, but it doesn't make the whole society bad unless one bad apple really does ruin the whole bunch.

=)

Anyway I type fast, and I'm gonna buy a nice sword from ya. I like the Cheness Shirasaya with the differentially clay tempered edge but they don't have any in stock. Do you have any of these?

I'd settle for the regular 9260 one but I don't really trust the edge holding abilities. Also I don't like a fake hamon as it is not as respectful to tradition as I'd like.

I also had some questions about cutting with the shirisaya. I saw your review of another company's shirisaya cutter, but I'd like to see more extensive test cutting with the Cheness one. Would you want me to do a review? Would Cheness sponsor such things? I have some experience in Iai and in cutting myself and would love to review a sword.

My email is nathankavanagh@hotmail.com

Thanks for your time and the AWESOME site! I might do a review of the Kris Cutlery Yagyu sometime soon. Do you accept reviews from other sources? My friends would say I'm constantly writing a review out loud of everything I put my hands on, lol

Take care bro,
-Nathaniel

ANSWER: Hey Nate,

Yeah, it was said a bit tongue in cheek - and kind of playing up to popular beliefs on the Vikings, though to be fair I do not think they were any more brutal than any other peoples of the age...

Anyway, I can pretty much get any of the Cheness swords available on their site for a slightly better price - just send me an email and I'll see what I can do.

With regards to reviewing, I've pretty much paid for almost everything that I have reviewed myself, so unfortunatley I don't think they will send any out for review purposes. But new reviews are always welcome! And of course, if you qualify you can become a part of my review team and I will personally buy swords to send you to review that you can keep afterwards!

Details are all here - just in case you missed it. ^_^

Best,

- Paul

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Jan 15, 2018
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Correction on word Viking NEW
by: Adam Pendragwn

I’d like to make a correction to my above statement. Having written that a long time ago I was mistaken as to the origin and meaning of the word Viking.

As it turns out, the word Viking did not exist until around the middle of the nineteenth century. It is, in fact, an English word made up by using the Old Norse word Vik, meaning estuary—where a river empties into the sea. The literal English translation of this word would be estuarying, which is nonsensical. The suffix ing means the action or process of, so viking would mean the action or process of estuary, or river-emptying-into-the-sea-ing. Beyond doubt, whoever created this word either thought Vik meant something other than it does, or, borrowed the word without caring what it meant.

And so, strictly speaking, there were no such things as Vikings! Scandinavians, yes; but at no time during the Middle Ages would anyone have called a Scandinavian, regardless of his profession, a Viking (or a vikinger)! This would not happen until an Englishman created the word in the middle of the 1800s, to describe not actual Medieval Norsemen, who were really no different than any other Germanic people such as the Anglo-Saxons of England or the Franks of modern Germany and France, but the mythical giant warriors of fiction!

The reason I wrote what I did was because, like so many others, I made the mistake of just taking other people’s word for it, as apposed to looking it up—doing the research—myself. I broke my own golden rule: Don’t take my word for it, look it up! And so, like the real origin of the Ulfberht sword, and so many other popular Medieval myths, I’ve debunked another popular but false belief about the Middle Ages.

Dec 06, 2011
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A viking we will go!
by: Adam Pendragon

The word viking comes from the Old Norse word "vikingr" from the root word "vik" meaning fjord, creek, etc. It refers in a general way to Norse raiding parties who gained access to the land by way of creeks or small rivers and such. Today we refer to all Norsemen (Skandinavians)of old as Vikings, but of course not all of them were. In fact, most of them (like most people in the middle ages)were farmers, or husbands, meaning "house-bound-man".

However, I don't know what history books you're reading (I have been a medieval historian for more than 30 years) but, many Norsemen most certainly DID go raiding and plundering in other lands. In fact, the Norsemen ended-up conquering most of medieval England, Scotland, and Irland; as well as much of Western and Eastern Europe. Normans were "Northmen" who ransacked France to such an extent that the French decided it was cheaper to just give them "Normandy" in hopes that they would leave the rest of the country alone. The English (Anglo-Saxons)also often found it cheaper in many cases to just buy them off out-right, in hopes that they would stop plundering the countyside and killing-off all their peasants. Unfortunately these bribes, or pay-offs, didn't last for long.

Furthermore, the Danish word "slav" refering to the Slavic people is where we get the word "slave". The Norsemen were notorious slave-traders and slave owners. And, the Norsemen have also devised some of the worse forms of torture known to man: Cutting a man's back open and pulling out his lungs, so that they inflated and deflated like flapping wings while he took his last dying breaths, was known as the "blood eagle."

Again, I don't know what kind of history books you're reading (no disrespect but I get the feeling that you're not reading actual history books at all but, rather, you've decided for some reason to recreate history in you're own image--perhaps to push you're anti-christian agenda)but to assert that "The so called vikings were nothing more than traders and only fought for freedom and control of their land" is not only generally absurd and wholely historically inaccuate, it is down-right irresponsible.

In response to your claims of "heavily biased Christian influence and disinformation (that should be misinformation)" and that "this is almost exactly what the Christians did to our land in Scandinavia and all over the world to others' land" this is not only historically inaccurate and prejudice to the level of racism, I am both greatly personally offended, and appalled that someone would use a forum like the Sword Buyers Guide (of all things)to spead his personal religous hate messages.

I am very disapointed, Paul, that you would allow such religious attacks to be posted on your otherwise wonderfull site.

Sincerely,

Adam-Pendragwn ap Glyndŵr, House of Lancaster (a proud Christian Welshman who is respectfull and sensitive to all the races and religious beliefs of other peaple.)

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