The Archaeological Discoveries
Through archaeology we are still learning many things about the Viking culture. Evidence of settlements has been discovered in their homelands, as well as England, Ireland, Iceland, and Greenland. Remains of dwellings and everyday objects have been found in numerous sites. But the most exciting discoveries are the remains of buried ships.
In 1867 the remains of a twenty-meter long ship were unearthed in Tune, Norway. According to recent analysis it was built around 890. In 1880 the remains of another ship were found in Gokstad, Norway. It was also built in 890 and measured twenty-four meters in length. The year 1906 saw the discovery of another ship in Oseberg, Norway. It measured 22 meters in length, was built around the year 820 and apparently buried in 834. Coins, weapons and other valuable objects were found inside the ships, confirming the tales of Viking funerals.
In 1960 a group of Norwegian archaeologists discovered the remains of eight long houses on the Canadian island of L’anse aux Meadows. They were proven to be of Nordic design. Other typical Viking objects were also found, such as pins, stone lamps, and some carved wooden pieces believed to be ship fittings.
Further excavations—from 1973 to 1976—uncovered even more utensils and about 2000 pieces of worked wood. It was mostly debris from smoothing and trimming logs, as the Vikings prepared wood to be taken back to Greenland. The Canadian Government reconstructed three of the Viking buildings, and the locale was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978.
To this day it is still unclear just why the Viking culture literally spilled over into neighboring countries from the eighth century onwards. Some scholars believe a growing population demanded the search for new territories. Others think that a divided and unstable Europe proved fertile ground for Viking raids. Yet there are those who believe that the superiority of Viking maritime technology and tactics gave them a distinct advantage over other cultures, prompting such raids. We may never know for sure.
-*-
Arturo Rubio is a freelance writer from Tijuana, Mexico. He enjoys writing about history, international affairs and computers. Currently, he is working on a series of articles about the Middle East.
Further Reading:
Scientific American article on Viking ships
The Lief Ericson Vikingship of Philadelphia
The Viking Navy
The Rus Project (Finnish Viking ship)
The medieval Viking ship Helga Holm
All of Google’s resources on Viking ships
One-Eyed Jack
By Connie Wilkins, illustration by Noel Bebee
8/6/01
He might have been reduced to one eye, one arm, and scarcely more than one good leg, but Lightning Jack lacked nothing in between. Nothing at all. Half a man? Miss Lily’s first impression had been wildly off target. Two or three men put together (and of course you never could put the good bits together) couldn’t equal his endowment.
No one judged better in these matters than Miss Lily, better known as The Schoolmarm.
Not that she often took gentlemen into her own bed these days. She might, for a substantial fee, apply her other, very specialized skills where they would do the most good; but any customer with the fortitude to seek a bedmate after Miss Lily had latticed his hairy butt with her lash could make do with one of her girls.
Jack, though, was an investment. An unwise one, she had feared, watching him hobble from the train; but an investment nonetheless. And rumor insisted that he still possessed that legendary aim and speed, and a gun with new notches earned only weeks ago.
More certain was the cold fire of revenge consuming him. Miss Lily understood the power of that fire. And, since his enemy was her enemy, she had welcomed his written offer and guaranteed his personal safety up until the shoot-out, as well as a handsome fee upon completion, payable to an address in San Francisco in the event that he was unable to collect it himself.
Jack’s personal safety was best guaranteed in The Schoolmarm’s well-guarded establishment. That it required sharing her own opulent rose-and-ivory bedchamber was less self-evident, but Miss Lily had acquiesced. Something in his blend of frailty and rage recalled men she had nursed in the war, long ago, before she had come west to teach and learned a lesson or two herself, the foremost being that she might as well make men pay for what they were determined to get anyway, the second that there was no limit to what some men would pay for.
Miss Lily would have drawn the line at taking her whip to Jack’s already-ravaged body, but she was expert at reading men and doubted that he wanted anything more than the softest bed in the Territories and maybe a little womanly comfort. It came as no surprise that before dawn he was sobbing into her ample breasts. The surprise was that those breasts were heaving as though the Grand Tetons had been tossed on the waves of an earthquake. It seemed forever until she could catch her breath, and even then she was still shaken by the best time she’d had since … since … but there was no comparison in all her years of experience.
Lily stroked his scarred face and made soothing sounds and let him fall asleep atop her, then gently eased him off. She tried to lift the bedclothes just enough to get a glimpse of what she’d been enjoying, but he gripped the satin comforter and muttered, “No … no … please … ,” so she let him be.
In the morning Jack accepted a hot bath, but refused assistance, even from Slow Joe the bouncer, who carried the steaming buckets up from the kitchen. Only when fully dressed did Jack re-enter her boudoir.
“Miss Lily,” he said, sitting awkwardly on the slippery rose satin edge of the bed, “there’s one more thing I’d like to ask of you.”
“No harm in asking,” she said, feeling an urge to ask for a little something herself but knowing that what lay ahead would require all his concentration. She hoped he hadn’t already lost the edge he was going to need.
“Well, it’s just, if it should turn out … if you should feel you could handle it … I’d appreciate if you’d look after that.” He nodded toward the long gun-case sitting on the marble-topped bureau.
“Don’t you worry any about that,” Miss Lily said. She decided it was time to fan fires that might have got a little dampened last night. “You just fix your mind on dealing with Rigby. Is it true what they say? He’s the one who tied you to that railroad track like a dime-novel virgin?”
Jack’s smile would have been grim even without the scars. “Is it true what they say, Miss Lily, that you near to killed Rigby with a bullwhip after he and his boys cut up one of your girls, but you weren’t tough enough to finish the job?”
“True enough,” she said. “I stopped too soon.”
“I won’t.” He stood and limped to the bureau. Lily heard him opening the gun case.
“Jack,” she said over her shoulder as she slipped on a lacy peignoir, “should I … if there’s a need … should I send your things on to that San Francisco address?”
“No need,” he said, closing the case and turning back. “If you don’t mind keeping them.” She noticed the single holster slung low on his right hip, empty sleeve dangling above it. “There’s somebody in ’Frisco I owe, but it’s not what you’d call personal. Old Chinaman there fixed me up about as well as anybody could, after the train crew got me that far. I couldn’t pay him right then, but he seemed to think my reputation was guarantee enough.” He twitched his shoulders to adjust the fit of his shabby black coat. “Amazing what those pig-tailed doctors can do, what they’ve got, dried stuff hanging on the walls, pickled stuff in bottles, live things in big jars and baskets. Truly amazing.” He avoided her eyes; she figured those memories must be hard to handle.
“I’ll see your debt paid,” she assured him. “I might go to San Francisco myself, one of these days. Once I know Rigby won’t be carrying out his threats against my place and my girls.” She let her peignoir fall open, and was only mildly disappointed that her rose-and-ivory charms sparked no interest in Jack’s dark, single eye. His focus should be on the coming confrontation, the bizarre, balletic ritual wherein men could kill with honor, publicly, face to face in the dusty arena of Main Street under the blazing sun of high noon.
“Go on down and have breakfast with the girls, Jack, while I take my bath,” Miss Lily said. “Slow Joe won’t let anybody in, and I have men outside on watch.”
“Just some of that coffee I smell, Ma’am,” Jack said. “That’s all I’ll need. But thanks, Miss Lily. Thanks for everything.”