Welcome to Norse by God, a substack centered in the Department of History at Marshall University. Thanks to an extremely generous grant from the Hedrick Family, we have three years to devote ourselves to the study of medieval Europe, with a particular focus on Viking Age Scandinavia. We will be writing a book, organizing experiential workshops and classes, holding an annual conference, and chronicling our experiences throughout this substack. As we are about to embark on our journey in the heart of West by God Virginia, questions will no doubt arise. In terms of resources and accessibility, West Virginia is hardly the ideal location in which to study any aspect of the Middle Ages, let alone a deep dive into the Viking Age. Yet we find ourselves, as West Virginians, incomprehensibly infatuated with all things medieval, and we know we are not alone.
After all, the United States possesses a unique relationship to the Middle Ages. Despite not experiencing it as part of our national history, the medieval past remains deeply etched into our modern consciousness; it acts as a form of unifying mythology in a disparate world, forming the language of our fairy tales and our fantasy novels. Regardless of our individual heritage, as Americans, every time we speak English, we are unconsciously echoing the syllables of Saxon migrants and Norse warriors. It is no wonder that the Middle Ages permeates our thoughts and our television screens. We regularly use phrases like, knight in shining armor, crusade, dragon-slaying, and plague with mutual understanding. As Americans, the Middle Ages represents a multitude of meanings beyond ethnicity, ancestry, and memory. Humans have a universal drive to explore their roots, and thus pursue local history, regional history, the history of migration and diaspora. And here the connections proliferate:
West Virginians, by nature, are deeply rooted in their land; whereas we know that what drove the “Vikings” was their nomadic lifestyle, as they embarked on great adventures to far off lands, exploring, conquering, and often settling in various places in Europe and even North America. But before they began their storied travels, many Viking Age Scandinavians, much like past and present West Virginians, were rural farmers tied to an oftentimes unforgiving land. Their ongoing struggles combined with domestic political turmoil prompted Scandinavians to charter ships and travel the world, an attractive notion for anyone locked in a hapless, rural area. West Virginians are famously proud of the lands they call home; yet our ancestors often risked everything for adventure, profit, and the lure of new horizons. And they hailed from places close, far, and wide, with the result that our state and the entire Appalachian region is a quilt of different ethnicities, cultures, beliefs. In the similarities between the two we can establish connections, and through the differences we can build a bridge forward. By learning about the Vikings, their journeys, and exposures to different peoples, culture and ways of life, we can create a more informed outlook about our own communities. History and the world today would be virtually unrecognizable had the Vikings never built a ship or written a saga. Fortunately for us, they did all these things and more, and that deserves remembering.