Long Before the US Navy Rolled Out The World’s First Hybrid Warship and Algae-Run Riverine Boats — There Were the Vikings!

Yes, that’s right – the fearsome but fearless Vikings of Middle Ages yore were indeed the world’s first eco-amphibious special operations team – precursors of today’s “United States Navy Seals” – both in their ability to navigate covertly and scout out landing beaches and their success in raiding and recycling coastal defenses.   Our argument is based on four recent scientific discoveries: 1) Their use of calcite crystals in open-sea navigation 2) Their recycling of broken and captured metal weapons 3) Their portable reuse of local building and boating designs and materials and 4) Their reliance on animals for land intelligence and land mobility.  Let us now look at these eco-elements of Viking warfare and travel.

1-    Icelandic Spar – Ancient Norse legends tell of Vikings sailing the seas using a mysterious ‘sunstone’ to navigate by night and day.  Now, an international team of researchers from the University of Rennes in Brittany, France believe they have found the answer to this age-old myth in the form of a transparent calcite crystal called “Icelandic Spar” – commonly found in Iceland and Scandinavia.  In this case, the crystal was found aboard an Elizabethan military shipwreck that had sunk in the English Channel during the time of the Spanish Armada in 1592.  Because a large cannon on board the vessel would have interfered with a magnetic compass, this crystal was used instead.  When light passes thru the crystal, the light is split in two and by rotating the spar towards the sky for a point where the beams line up, one is able to ascertain the position of the sun within a few degrees even when there is thick cloud cover.  Hence, this clear Icelandic spar crystal with optical bi-polarization properties allowed Vikings to navigate and sail around the world without having a magnetic compass or being able to see the sun with the naked eye.

2-    A Viking DIY Recycling Center – On Sept. 20, 1066, in the village of Fulford, located just on the outskirts of York, England, Viking King Harald Hardrada of Norway along with 10,000 of his men battled their way against the Anglo-Saxon Northern Earls of Edwin and Morcar and violently throttled them.  Fate completely reversed itself when five days later King Harold Godwinson of England and his fast-moving army defeated these very same Viking invaders at the Battle of Stamford Bridge.  The question then arises – what was the Viking army doing between battles to better prepare themselves as archaeologists have found hundreds of pieces of swords, axe heads, arrowheads left lying around the vicinity of Fulford as well as several “smithing hearths”?  Experts now believe that the unearthed metal artifacts had been purposely gathered together by Viking iron workers and blacksmiths after the first battle had ceased and were now in the process of recycling these metal objects when suddenly they had to drop everything to rush to Stamford Bridge on the border of North and East Yorkshire.

3-    Viking Longships and Longhouses – Whether on land or sea, Vikings were master craftsmen of wood – especially in the art of joinery.  Just as benches were used to run alongside the planked walls of their rectangular-shaped longhouses, the standard ‘clinker’ designed longship of up to 30 rowing benches were the pride of Viking Kings and Earls.  Indeed the lightweight design and structure of these long-shaped raiding machines with their shallow-draft hulls and symmetrical curves of bow and stern allowed any longship to land on any beach, penetrate any waterway in Europe yet be carried over portages, and reverse direction quickly without having to turn around the ship.  Note: that on expeditionary voyages to regions where wood supply was limited, Viking longhouses were made of turf or peat as can be seen in the new “Settlement Exhibition” in Reykjavik, Iceland or in some cases stone slabs were used for construction materials as in the newly discovered Viking longhouse on Orkney’s West Mainland at the Bay of Skaill.

4-    Viking Land Intelligence & Mobility – Just as the Viking god, Odin, the god of Warriors and Battle, used two talking ravens to gather information about news of the wide world, Viking mariners carried and released caged ravens on their ships when they were out of sight of land.  These birds would instinctively head for land giving the sailors a course to steer.  The Vikings also used their collective knowledge to identify where they were by the types of seaweed floating on the ocean, the types of seabirds flying overhead and the presence of whales and seals. They also carried with them an impressive array of animal-based modes of transport for when they landed – live horses in some cases, and Viking skates, skis, and sledges made from the foot bones of horses, cows, and elk for frozen terrain.  And once on land, with their formidable single-grip shields, swords, spears, and axes, the Viking raider’s goal was to grab as much valuable booty as possible before an effective defense could be raised.  Thus their hit-and-run tactics presaged our American amphibious assault procedures by over eight hundred years.