Let's Make a Collage #7: The Vikings
A few years ago my brother told me that one of my early ancestors (in the United States) was named Thomas Baxter. The clue to discovering my heritage rested with this name. I traced it, through Plymouth colony, back to Scotland and all the way to Lord of the Isles. Another line led back to Roger de Montgomery, of Normandy. No matter how I looked at it, whether these noble lineages were truly mine or chimeras, it seemed pretty certain that I had Viking blood running through my veins.
What does this have to do with Shaka's beautiful picture?
As soon as I saw the picture, I thought of Lindisfarne and the brutal Viking raid in 793. While this was not the first Viking raid in Europe, it did seem to mark a change in the frequency and ferocity of attacks.
Back to @shaka and his delightful #letsmakeacollage contest. I know it's a contest, but for me it is a great exercise in fun. I don't know why anyone would pass this one up. There is no downside.
Without further ado, here is my entry for this round, of @shaka's #letsmakeacollage contest, #7. I'll give my effort a title: The Vikings.
If you haven't come across this contest yet, do yourself a favor. Just take a look. It's like a virtual art gallery. Every day a new concept appears. Some of these are truly remarkable.
Thanks, @shaka, for helping to make Steemit a place where creativity can flourish.
Some of the parts that went into making this picture (dolphins, flags, boat, figures) were derived from Paint 3D
What a terrible sight it must be to stand on that tower, looking on the calm sea and see those dragons slowly appear over the horizon. Especially with those small community sizes back then.
You sparked a vivid image and illustrated it very well :-)
I'm so delighted you feel that. It's what I felt as I made the scene. Wish there was a history niche on Steemit. I could really get into that.
Thank you for the kind assessment of my excursion into art--always a risky adventure for me.
BTW: I keep looking for pictures of Thor. He must be getting into mischief :)
I thought the #history tag has a decent amount of articles published on it per day. I know I was thankful for @geopolis for sorting through those back in the day so I could only read the cherry picked ones. Without any pre-curation I don't really feel like seeking through all posts :-P And a #viking tag is unfortunately non-existent. I checked a few times -.- Think I found 4 or 5 posts in total since I am on here.
I'll go through my phone and see if Thor made it in front of my lens. When @appics started to take 10% I felt a little hesitant to keep posting photos...
I don't even know what @appics is, though obviously it's related to photo posting. Introduced my husband to Thor--he shares my high opinion :)
Yeah, @geopolis was great. Been thinking about running a history contest. Maybe around a theme. Would want to open it up to Spanish and German language, as well as English. That would be a challenge for me. I'm not very nimble on this platform, though. Basically blog, vote and comment.
We'll see. I'll let you know if it ever gets off the ground. Vikings welcome :))
I like your seemingly simple approach to graphical elaboration. It's refreshing and new again. The programs equipped with the technical possibilities and the adaptation of the modern eye to almost perfect image processing demands a return or new edition of naive design.
So, so, you have Viking blood flowing through the veins of your ancestors. No wonder you wanted to learn German. Well, they're not quite their ancestors, but it's a bit obvious:)
The dolphins accompany the ships, they don't care who attacks whom here, they enjoy the bow waves and their wet element.
Hi Erika!
Thanks for taking a look at my effort. I really enjoy that assessment:
I have no skill in art. I imagine things I cannot produce, but that doesn't stop me from expressing in the best way I can. Naive, indeed.
As for my Viking blood. You know, we in the US are hybrids. Actually, everybody is, all over the world, but ours is more traceable. That ancestor, Thomas Baxter, was believed to be English. He turned into a Scot, and that ancestry turned into the northern reaches of Scotland (overrun by the Vikings) and Normandy (which was turned over to the Vikings in order to keep peace). The Vikings were just about everywhere, it turns out. Many people would be surprised to find they also have Viking blood in their veins.
I use my tracing as an excuse to explore history, one of my hobbies. There is actually very little German heritage in my background. 50% is Sicilian, and this is the culture that was most influential. Of course, I did learn that the Hohenstaufens and Normans, at different times, controlled Sicily. I will stop now... this can get tedious. I really do love history :))
Where is your collage?? Was hoping to see an entry from you.
Have a wonderful Sunday, though it may be over for you already.
Genealogy is really very useful and it opens very wide the personal perspective. It is often much more effective in its impact on ourselves, because the identification with historical events gets a more handy quality. I think everyone should deal with the ancestor line at least once in their life, if not much more frequently rather than always only in the historical events of the world, which in turn get much more to do with you once your own ancestors have been wrapped up.
So you and I are much closer, aren't we? As Americans, you can assume much more that there is something European to be found somewhere or other continental migrations such as from Russia or the Caucasus. The chance that my ancestors have Indian blood (the natives of the American continent) seems to me to be somehow smaller. But that can be deceiving, can't it?
The other day, in the episode of Startrek Discovery, the screenwriter had the brilliant idea to wrap the entire bridge crew in chaos because the Universal translator was defective. All of a sudden, Babel ruled and nobody understood the other colleague anymore. It was hilarious! In real life, of course, it's anything but funny, but I found this idea simply brilliant!
Imagine if we could talk in seven other languages besides English. How wonderful that would be. I envy everyone who speaks more than two languages.
Have you investigated any more details for Thomas Baxter? Who were those people you call your ancestors, do you know more about them on a personal level?
Characteristically wonderful response from Erika. I actually have tried to learn more languages. It's hard, in the US. Over the years I've studied Spanish and German well beyond any school requirements (even Latin, briefly). Have mastered none!😂
I love the Babel episode idea. Reminds me of Borges, really outstanding writer from Latin America. He wrote stories that tested boundaries--one of them was The Library of Babel.
Yes, ancestry can be deceiving, if we go back far, far, far into the past. Sicily was a crossroads. Everybody landed there :)
I do know a few Sicilian words, though 😁
Vikings moved comfortably over seas, pillaging new pastures, spreading and conquering new lands. Formidable in fight they succeeded quite admirably.
Sitting in that tower seeing the boats arriving leaves ones imagination open as to how scared the onlookers were at the time @agmoore
Thank you for stopping by! It's interesting, when we look at the history of the world, how people have traveled across in successive waves. The history of the human race, driven sometimes by need (they say the Vikings had scarce resources at home) and driven sometimes by greed.
Fascinating to contemplate, isn't it?
I love everything ‘viking’ and your entry is so cool, hope you win. 😊
Ah, thank you! I needed the reinforcement. After I posted the picture, I thought it looked a little bit inadequate. But I had great fun in planning and making it, so that is the point, isn't it? I appreciate your kind words.
Have a great day!
I can relate, I think I have som viking blood too, beeing Scandinavian 😎 Cool entry 👍
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Thank you! I looked at statistics once, for people who do genealogical research. I believe people from the U.S and Australia topped the list of interested parties. There is of course an indigenous population. Everybody else is an immigrant, or descendant of a immigrant. So there is a curiosity about origin--almost a national pastime. It's fun, but doesn't mean anything. We are who we are :)