"How different were Swedish Danish and Norwegian Vikings?" Topic

"Today we refer to Viking Age Scandinavians generally as Vikings as though they were one group. But the people known as Vikings weren't an entirely homogeneous mass of people. There were Norwegian Vikings, Danish Vikings and Swedish Vikings (We won't have a separate category for the Icelanders since they were originally Norwegian, after all, and didn't really go Viking like their counterparts eastward did, they also developed a more settled society.

But here are the following problems that makes this claim really difficult to dispute over. First to start the early viking raids don't have the right sources, there are low or even none written sources showing the early raids of the vikings from these regions. The second is that they weren't united like today into states so it would be harder to know which tribe or what raid came from. The tribes and earldoms were in constant conflict and it's hard to follow who owned and occupied who. We know that they spoke the same language, however there would've been some change due to geography; mountains between Norway and Sweden, water between the Nordic countries and Denmark. So it's safe to say that they were a big culture that was regionally divided…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Most of what we know about norse mythology comes from very late (10th and later) Norwegian interpretation of the norse religion.
We know that a lot of the big gods weren't big in the previous centuries. Thor was only at the end one of the big ones Tyr used to be much bigger. But things change.
Also many of the heroes English speakers learn about are the same we Norwegian learn about, but the swedish Vikings had their own heroes that are far more obscure now.
Also Sweden would naturally be influenced by the eastern trade more then Denmark and Norway.

I think Gunfreak meant 12th or 13th century – there's precious little evidence from the 10th.

The best-known Swedish viking hero is perhaps Ingvar the Far-Travelled; symptomatically enough he's known chiefly from an Icelandic saga.

(Assuming here that kings don't count. Eric the Victorious is presumably better known – but he too largely from West Norse sources.)

No the stories and mythos are 10th century. Naturally a religion stops evolving once it's no longer on active practice. So the norse mythology they knew and wrote down in the 12th and 13th century. Was the most updated version which would be 10th century. As after that norse religion was banned. And even if a large minority might still follow aspects of it. Without a large living user mass. It didn't evolve.
A common example is thor, he seems to have come to the forefront as Christianity grew. He became the defender of the norse.
He was always one of the big ones, but before this he wasn't considered second to Odin as we often think of him now.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand

Then I'll just point out we have very limited means to judge how close what was written down in the 12th and 13th centuries is to what was believed in the 10th. The religion may have stopped evolving, but it doesn't follow it was transmitted without modification through a century or two.

Yes the 12th Century writers were busy interpreting the old tales into a Christian narrative. Then there was Beowulf (yes, I know he was a Goth and not a Swede.)