Today, our chill day, we’ve been learning Viking lore. All Vikings were Norsemen but not all Norsemen were Vikings. The majority of Norsemen were peaceful farmers. Actually The word “Viking” is a verb meaning to adventure, plunder and make-way for the peaceful settlers. And Vikings were vain…they dyed their hair with lye, which also got rid of their lice. They had combs and ear spoons and devoted one day a week to bathing.
And we learned about the Faroe Islands where it rains 300 days out of the year. Yes, it rained yesterday and was very misty. But very beautiful. It did clear up as we sailed away. Magical. The native language is the closest to Old Norse.
And we learned about Iceland whose first settlers were the Irish and Scottish priests who were trying to get away from the Viking raiding parties. (The Vikings would kill you if you didn’t fight. They saw it as a weakness which was not to be tolerated.)
Icelandic people don’t eat whale meat, by the way. They export it to Japan and they also put it on the menus for tourists to eat. They also serve puffin to tourist. (How could anybody eat a cute, adorable puffin?). However, they love eating sheep’s head.
Little random fun facts for your reading pleasure….
Here’s another one. The temperature outside is about 57 degrees and the water temperature is about 56 degrees. I thought the water would be so much colder, but it’s the Gulf Stream that makes everything so habitable up here so close to the Article Circle.
I leave you now with pictures of the Faroe Islands….like I said, it was raining, so I took most of the pics from a bus tour through the front window because it was a rain-drop-free-zone…we did brace the weather, however, to walk into town and I took some pics there, as well. The walk to town was quite something….wind, rain, sleet (!) but it still felt warm- Ish. Enjoy!
