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SillyWabbit
Disgraceful
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posted October 18, 2004 11:24 AM |
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Poll Question:
Celts or Vikings?
Which of the these cultures from the ancient world do you all think were the most fearsome warriors? Which do you think were the biggest hardasses? Both were respected in history but which do you all think were the greatest warriors?
CELTS
The Celts/Picts would go charging into battle totally naked with blue woad on their faces and a claymore in their hands! That is amazing courage! They of course had pants, but being naked with blue paint on your face would un-nerve the enemy. When another soldier saw a tall, muscular guy charging at them in the nude with blue paint on their faces, screaming at the top of their lungs they didn't know whether they had come to fight them or to snow them! Celts also had their women battle too as archers and the Celts were real good at guerilla warfare.
VIKINGS
Vikings were of course feared warriors! All they did was raid and like the Japanese, their culture tought their men that death in battle was glory. That way their warriors would not wuss out in battle or hesitate. Plus Vikings would often get really drunk before a battle, or they would eat mushrooms that made them trip out. This is where the word,"beserker" came from because some vikings would wear bear pelts and eat mushrooms that sent them into a fit of rage. Either way, most times a viking would be totally hosed during the battle and wouldn't even think about running or retreating. Just fighting.
So which do you think?
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted October 18, 2004 04:08 PM |
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Edited By: Consis on 18 Oct 2004
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I Vote Vikings
I really loved their annual hit & run strategy via the sea routes and channels leading inland. It never ceases to amaze me how they were one of the initial leading causes for european castle erectors. I love their mythology, their unmatched skilled seamanship, and all the glory of their hoarding riches through conquest. They would then go home to an otherwise unknown location safe from the revenge of those whom they had theived upon. Die in a glorious battle, taken up by the Valkyries, and at last to sit upon a thrown next to the king of all gods Odin. Glorious indeed, vikings will forever capture the warrior in my heart.
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Roses Are Red And So Am I
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pandora
Honorable
Legendary Hero
The Chosen One
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posted October 18, 2004 04:13 PM |
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Penalty applied for profanity and failing to censor.
SillyWabbit, it doesn't matter what name you choose to use, the CoC applies to them all.
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"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
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Sir_Stiven
Honorable
Legendary Hero
banned
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posted October 18, 2004 05:07 PM |
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is a sad thing when foobums tries to inform history...
as for vikings, they were indeed fighters... but that doesnt make a leading civilization. Vikings had some of the best warrior tactics when it came to fighting, and their knowledge in seatravel was exceptional.
They made ships faster and easier to travel with than anyone else.
Learning about vikings is actually really funny and also seeing what influence they had on the world at that time.
Because they started out as a specialpeople, but when they lost their supremacy it was due to that vikings had learned and adapted to other ways of living, as the other places had learned from the vikings. Read about the vikings and you will see that their are people still today that comes from the vikings who colonized different parts of the world.
The good parts that is, places as "new foundland" (america) did they leave after just 10 years... alrdy then they must have known what kind of nation that would develope there 
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terje_the_ma...
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Disciple of Herodotus
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posted October 18, 2004 06:04 PM |
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I voted Vikings, since I'm Norwegian...
Just two minor things about the first post in this topic:
1. First a question. I imagined that the Picts and the Celts were two different peoples; that the Picts were the ones living in Britain when the Celts got there... Am I right or wrong?
2. A comment. You said something about how the Vikings did nothing but raiding.
This is very untrue. The Viking Culture was a culture that traded with other cultures, some as far away as Iraq (Vikings were spotted on the Eufrat/Tigris from time to time). They travelled eastward, exploring the open seas and settling Iceland, Greenland, to a minor extent New Foundland, and many of the islands of the North Sea.
So if you choose to depict them just as thieving barbarians, you kinda looses parts of the picture. Which is always sad.
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"Sometimes I think everyone's just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending to be brave is how you get brave, I don't know."
- Grenn, A Storm of Swords.
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Binabik
Responsible
Legendary Hero
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posted October 18, 2004 08:41 PM |
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Quote:
The Celts/Picts would go charging into battle totally naked with blue woad on their faces
Doesn't sound so fearsome to me, it just creates a new target.
Archer Captain: "OK men, first one to hit an enemy in the b*lls gets a keg o' ale. LOOSE ARROWS"
A moment later from the ranks: "But Captain, we never had a chance, they all turned and ran the other way covering their *****. Does an a** shot count?"
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frostwolf
Famous Hero
livin' in a bottle of vodka
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posted October 18, 2004 10:53 PM |
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I theink even more fearsome were the huns. They muttilated their faces with their daggers in order not to grow beards. They ate almost anything in desperate times, including their own horses. Because they were so fearsome, the romans didn't even consider them human, they thought they were demons.
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted October 19, 2004 01:46 AM |
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The most fearsome beast tribes in recorded history, are as follows:
Americans
Huns
Mongols
Vikings
Celts were my favourite "barbarian" folk by the way, since they were gleaming with culture, mystery and dignity.
'Bout the Vikings. True that they were traders and colonizers too, but who are we kidding (except the little Scandinavian kids)? Making pottery and fishing isn't really what they are famous for, is it? 
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The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.
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viking
Known Hero
Rock'n'Roll
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posted October 19, 2004 01:57 AM |
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Hurray for vikings 5:3
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One powerful hero is good, two is better
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SillyWabbit
Disgraceful
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posted October 19, 2004 08:49 AM |
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Heh, I give up.
I guess posts with a few curse words here and there are unacceptable here but posts about people commiting hate crimes and pullin a gay guy out of a car and jumping him with bats (hey, why does it take 5 guys to fight one gay guy, the gays must be STRONG) is acceptable.
I'm really through now, heh.
oh, and btw,
Quote:
A moment later from the ranks: "But Captain, we never had a chance, they all turned and ran the other way covering their *****. Does an a** shot count?"
Heh..one situation doesn't represent the entire culture. I'm sure if they all ran all the time then history wouldn't care about them all that much and the brits wouldn't have built Hedron's Wall or whatever it's called..but anyway, people still run from fights now today..I't been that way forever and it won't change anytime soon. Lates.
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Defreni
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 20, 2004 03:32 PM |
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Quote:
I voted Vikings, since I'm Norwegian...
Just two minor things about the first post in this topic:
1. First a question. I imagined that the Picts and the Celts were two different peoples; that the Picts were the ones living in Britain when the Celts got there... Am I right or wrong?
2. A comment. You said something about how the Vikings did nothing but raiding.
This is very untrue. The Viking Culture was a culture that traded with other cultures, some as far away as Iraq (Vikings were spotted on the Eufrat/Tigris from time to time). They travelled eastward, exploring the open seas and settling Iceland, Greenland, to a minor extent New Foundland, and many of the islands of the North Sea.
So if you choose to depict them just as thieving barbarians, you kinda looses parts of the picture. Which is always sad.
Im sorry Terje, I am dane, but its actual a common distortion in the scandinavian history view to look at Vikings as traders and colonizers. Allmost all archaelogical evidence points toward a culture purely based on raiding. The misconception stems from "trading"-cities such as Hedeby, which the Vikings constructed, actually it was just a place where they could trade their loot. The few written sources we have of Viking-culture mostly comes from Arabian and Byzantine traders, whi clearly gives a picture of a culture that only trades when they are not strong enough to loot.
Concerning the Celts, at the prime of their culture they stretched from the Iberian peninsular, all through Gaul (Which is common days France) covering the British isles.....
Got to reurn to this topic a little later as I have to go now
Regards
Defreni
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pitsu
Adventuring Hero
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posted October 20, 2004 10:15 PM |
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Quote:
The few written sources we have of Viking-culture mostly comes from Arabian and Byzantine traders, whi clearly gives a picture of a culture that only trades when they are not strong enough to loot.
"Vikings trade fairly or take goods by force." Not surprising statement form foreign merchants. However, not enough informative to tell whether vikings had a culture or not. As an argument of culture, I would mention their own alphabet (runes).
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Defreni
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 21, 2004 04:38 PM |
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Quote:
"Vikings trade fairly or take goods by force." Not surprising statement form foreign merchants. However, not enough informative to tell whether vikings had a culture or not. As an argument of culture, I would mention their own alphabet (runes).
Very good point. But the question here, is not if the Vikings did have a culture, which Im well aware that they had, but rather the misconception in scandinavian countries, that the Viking culture was mostly about trading and colonizing, and secondly about looting.
Archaelogical finds in Russia and Ireland, aswell as in Scandinavia clearly shows that colonizing and trading was a spin-off from looting and pillaging. Incidently I, as a dane, had to find that out from a Oxford historian Norman Davies in his book "Europe: A history".
Regarding the Celts. Who we first come across in written sources around 150 BC, where we are told that they sacked Rome in 384 BC. Julius Caesar wrote about the conquest of Gaul, in his "Gallic wars", where we get a picture of a highly civilized (Loaded word, I know. By civilized I mean it in a western sence of the word) culture, primarily centred around towns, such as Alesia.
This is the main reason Gaul was to become a province in the Roman empire, while Rome never succeded in subjugating the Germanic tribes on the other side of the Rhine, which didnt have any city culture at all.
When the Roman empire fell apart during the "Great Migration" in 300 to 500 AC, the Celts where first forced to move to the british isles. And then again from all of the british isles, to the outer rim, namely Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
The people that forced this last move around 800 AC, where the Saxons, who had been pushed from their original land in Scandinavia by the Danes, which later was to become known as one third of the Vikings.
Saxons where replaced in England by Normans after their defeat at Hastings in 1066. The Normans where Vikings who settled in Normandy around 900 AC, actually bribed to settle is closer to the truth. The hope was that these settlers could protect the interior land from more Viking raids. This was a succes.
As a curl to the history, the Celts where like most other people original from the interior of Asia. In 500 BC the Celts where forced to move from what today is Germany, by the Germanic tribes, who originate from the same place. This is the reason that some of the oldest english literature, namely "Beowulf" actually takes place in Germany.
As to wether who was the most fearsome warriors. My vote would have to go to the Germanic tribes around the year 0. Who can forget Emperor Augustus lamenting in 9 AC "Varus, where is my legions" after the complete annihilation of 3 Roman legions in Teuterburger Forest.
This effectively put an end to Roman expansion in Germany.
Regards
Defreni
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Svarog
Honorable
Supreme Hero
statue-loving necrophiliac
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posted October 22, 2004 12:58 AM |
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Quote:
When the Roman empire fell apart during the "Great Migration" in 300 to 500 AC, the Celts where first forced to move to the british isles. And then again from all of the british isles, to the outer rim, namely Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Nice summary, Dafreni. However, the Celts actually settled in Britain a lot earlier than the IV-V centuries. About more than a millenium eerlier, to be more precise.
When the Romans arrived in Britain there was already a very well developed Celtic culture there.
However there was second wave of Celtic migrations around that time (V-VI AD), but this time in Scotland, from Ireland.
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The meek shall inherit the earth, but NOT its mineral rights.
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Defreni
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted October 22, 2004 10:03 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
When the Roman empire fell apart during the "Great Migration" in 300 to 500 AC, the Celts where first forced to move to the british isles. And then again from all of the british isles, to the outer rim, namely Scotland, Wales and Ireland.
Nice summary, Dafreni. However, the Celts actually settled in Britain a lot earlier than the IV-V centuries. About more than a millenium eerlier, to be more precise.
When the Romans arrived in Britain there was already a very well developed Celtic culture there.
However there was second wave of Celtic migrations around that time (V-VI AD), but this time in Scotland, from Ireland.
Im well aware of that Svarog, as I wrote earlier, the celtic settlements stretched from Iberian peninsular through modern day France and covered the british isles in 400 BC. What I meant with my statement where, that the Celts where forced away from modern day France to The british isles during the Great Migration.
But I can see why it looked confusing
The down side at writing in your second language.
Regards
Defreni
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