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Norðvegr – Norway: From Sailing Route to Kingdom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2014

Dagfinn Skre
Dagfinn Skre*
Affiliation:
Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, PO Box 6762 St. Olafs pl., NO-0135 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: dagfinn.skre@khm.uio.no
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Abstract

Along the West-Scandinavian coast, agrarian settlements, which are found along fjords and in valleys, are separated from each other and from the lands to the east by high mountains. Thus, seafaring was the main mode of communication from the Stone Age onwards. Unlike the coasts of Britain, Ireland and continental Europe, this 1000 km long coastline is littered with thousands of islands, islets and reefs, which create a protected coastal sailing route – the Norðvegr – from which the kingdom took its name. The author discusses this sailing-route's significance for the creation of the kingdom as well as for the Viking incursions in Britain, Ireland and the Continent c. 790–1050.

Type
Sea, North, History, Narrative, Energy, Climate: Papers from the 2012 Academia Europaea Bergen Meeting
Information
European Review , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 34 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2014 

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References

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