Viking revival

The rediscovery of the Viking past began in Norway during the 19th century when Norway saw a rise in nationalism. Having been in a personal union with Denmark under the Danish king for 400 years and subsequently in the union between Sweden and Norway under the Swedish king, Norwegians started looking back to their Viking Age kings and sagas. In 1867, the first Viking ship to be unearthed, the Tune ship, was excavated in Østfold, Norway. The ship provided new knowledge about the Vikings and their culture. The excavation of other ships and artifacts led to a higher consciousness about the Viking past in Norway. For example, the only complete Viking helmet, the Gjermundbu helmet, ever to be found was also excavated in Buskerud, Norway. In 1880, Norway uncovered The Gokstad Ship and is a great example of ship that represents Viking Age craftsman ship. "Central to the construction of the Gokstad ship is the clinker-built method, a hallmark of Scandinavian boat-building tradition." ==Denmark==

Danish antiquarian Carl Christian Rafn was noted for his early advocacy of the theory that the Vikings had explored North America centuries before Christopher Columbus's and John Cabot's voyages. Rafn published much of his work in 1837 in the Antiquitates Americanæ, considered the first scholarly exposition of the Old Norse exploration period. The Danish Viking Revival in Denmark was also largely initiated by poet and playwright Adam Oehlenschläger, whose 1802 poem "Guldhornene" (The Golden Horns) broke with earlier Classicist traditions by celebrating the nation's ancient, mythological past. ==Sweden==

The term Viking was popularized with positive connotations by Erik Gustaf Geijer at the beginning of the 19th century. His poem The Viking (Vikingen) appeared in the first issue of the Swedish periodical, Iduna. The word Viking was taken to refer to romanticized, heroic, idealized Norse seafarers and warriors. This renewed interest of the Romanticism of a historic past had political implications. The Geatish Society, of which Geijer was a member, popularized this ideal to a great extent. Another author who had great influence on the perception of the Vikings was Esaias Tegnér, another member of the Geatish Society who wrote a modern version of ''Frithiof's Saga'', which became widely popular in the Nordic countries, England, the United States, and Germany. One more man that contributed to Viking Revival was Per Henrik Ling (1776–1839). He was instrumental in the Swedish Revival, not only as a founding member of the Götiska förbundet but also through his unique emphasis on the physical and heroic ideal of the Viking. ==Germany==

The German composer Richard Wagner is said to have strong influences of the Nordic mythology in his musical pieces. His Nordic influences further enhanced the Romanticism of the Viking era during that time. Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly referred to as the Ring cycle, is a set of four operas based loosely on figures and elements of Germanic mythology—particularly from the later Norse mythology—notably the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Volsunga Saga, and the epic poem Nibelungenlied. Jacob Grimm was a foundational philologist who dedicated to studying the Germanic Norse past. His academic work directly inspired the 19th-century Romantic interest in the North. His monumental work, Deutsche Mythologie (Teutonic Mythology), systematically collected and analyzed Norse and Germanic myths, giving the German intellectual world a unified, academic framework for their ancient pagan roots. ==Britain==

English authors from the 16th century had been aware of the Viking impact on the countryside, though the numerous placenames of Danes Camp is better explained as a modification of dene, or hollow. Following the 17th-century first flowering of Anglo-Saxon studies, there was a similar wave of enthusiasm for Northern culture in Britain, identifying as Viking remains Iron Age hill forts and even Stonehenge and exemplified by the antiquarian interests of George Hickes, who published a Linguarum veterum septentrionalium thesaurus grammatico-criticus et archæologicus in 1703–05. In the 1780s, Denmark offered to cede Iceland to Britain in exchange for Crab Island (now Vieques, Puerto Rico), and in the 1860s Iceland was considered for compensation for the British support of Denmark in the Schleswig-Holstein conflicts. During this time, British interest and enthusiasm for Iceland and Nordic culture grew dramatically, expressed in original English poems extolling Viking virtues, such as Thomas Warton's "Runic Odes" of 1748: :''Yes – 'tis decreed my Sword no more'' :Shall smoke and blush with hostile gore :''To my great Father's Feasts I go,'' :Where luscious Wines for ever flow. :Which from the hollow Sculls we drain :Of Kings in furious Combat slain. ==United States==

Rasmus B. Anderson, the founding head of the Department of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, also founded a publication company, The Norrœna Society, which focused on republishing translations of texts devoted to the history and romance of Northern Europe. Anderson was the author of a number of books with Scandinavian themes. He brought to the American popular attention the idea that Viking explorers discovered the New World and was the originator of Leif Erikson Day. ==See also==