Expressing the 'Top-Flex Identity!
Saga times in the Faroe Islands 🇫🇴 have largely been represented with a certain choral signature typical of the Faroese language.
Grani bar gullið av heiði, brá hann sínum brandi av reiði, Sjúrður vá á orminum, Grani bar gullið av heiði.
The Icelandic language is an enigmatic language associated with the isolated island nation. Surrounded entirely by the North Atlantic Ocean, the nation is at the convergence of the tectonic plates associated with Europe and North America. Despite the geographical distances between the island nation and the mainland (including Denmark and Norway), the Icelandic language continues to represent the insular Nordic region.
The particular focus on this article about the Icelandic language is about the Icelandic alphabet, containing numerous letters including, but not limited to, the notable letters ö, ð (eth), and þ (thorn). Not to be confused with Old English, the Icelandic characters are largely associated with distinctive pronunciations related to the nation.
While the most obvious evidence of traditional Viking culture is perhaps the Icelandic and Faroese sagas alike, traditional Norse music has also existed throughout the region either predating the sagas or, more likely, alongside the sagas though serving the Nordic mainland.
The most obvious associations with Nordic culture that have occurred throughout the region include, but are not necessarily limited to, the traditional works that have largely inspired later renditions of the general area. Such traditional Norse songs have included “Eirik Jarl,” “Ved Stanford Brua,” “Í Noreg búðu raskir menn,” and “Håkon Den Gode,” just to name a few.
The following list intends to represent the distinctive sagas associated with Nordic culture within the North Atlantic Ocean:
Though very different from modern songs, the sagas associated with Viking culture, particularly expanding throughout the North Atlantic Ocean, are often identified through the cultural and linguistic distinctions compared to other types of material. Many traditional sagas of the Vikings are associated with Iceland or the Faroe Islands; however, the Viking settlements had initially been associated with the Scandinavian mainland, particularly in much of modern Norway.
Though the Icelandic sagas are often more famous than the Faroese sagas, the latter are often associated with slightly earlier Danish and especially Norwegian settlement patterns. While many of the literary features have largely been associated with a dialect continuum over one millennium in the past, many of the features have largely transitioned in a northwesterly direction, with mainland Scandinavia largely identified as a base for the more distant insular settlements.
Finland was never part of Scandinavia. However, historic Viking connections have also occurred in select portions of the region, though not necessarily for the sagas that defined the seafaring Viking cultures that continue into the modern day (though Vikings no longer exist as a people). In general, the areas around Bothnia and the Åland Islands 🇦🇽 are associated with the Swedish language, and the Swedish-speaking Finns also maintain a distinct flag design, separate from either the Finnish or Swedish flags.
On the Mercator projection, the territory of Greenland is often distorted relative to the entire continent of Africa. However, the true size of the island of Greenland is far from continental, even with relation to the physical land area of Australia, which can indeed be classified as continental. While Greenland is simply part of North America, the entire territory is currently under the Kingdom of Denmark, along with the Faroe Islands further southeast toward metropolitan Denmark. One of the most gender-inclusive and LGBTQIA+-friendly regions globally, the Kingdom of Denmark has played a large role in providing counterweights to heteronormativity, with the island of Greenland expanding on the aforementioned counterweights in numerous regards.
Off the west coast of the constituent country of Scotland 🏴 within the United Kingdom, the associated islands can contain dramatic scenery and significant natural views and beauty. While the Inner Hebrides are already relatively notable for scenery, especially when associated with Ross and Cromarty, the Outer Hebrides may represent some of the most dramatic scenery in all of not just Scotland, but perhaps also all of the European continent, with striking similarities thanks to the geological connection with much of Atlantic Canada, now directly across the Atlantic Ocean and with the Viking influence of Leif Erikson throughout the region.
While the Inner Hebrides contain perhaps the most notable of the isles associated with Ross and Cromarty, the Isle of Skye, the Outer Hebrides can get significantly more dramatic, containing the Isles of Barra, Lewis and Harris, and the Uists, just to name a few. Beyond the aforementioned outlying and inlying islands, a number of additional islands, largely to the north of Buteshire and the Islands of the Clyde, may also be included within the Inner Hebrides, including the Isles of Islay, Jura, Mull, Tiree, and Coll, just to name a few.
While the short answer to the question posed is a clear and obvious “no,” with the fixed national and international borders of the modern day, portions of Scotland have indeed been considered at least somewhat Nordic in the past. If the Faroe Islands of Denmark can be considered Nordic, then so can the Shetland and Orkney Islands, both included within Scotland. Even further south are the Counties of Caithness and Sutherland, with Sutherland identifiable with a saltire overlaid on a Nordic cross on the modern flag.
Today, the Shetland Islands continue to celebrate the associated Nordic heritage of the region with a Nordic cross flag, white on the inside and blue on the outside. Though the flag is effectively inverted from the Finnish flag, the Shetland blue is supposed to be somewhat brighter than the Finnish blue, and the Shetland cross may be thinner as well, more akin to the Danish flag. Historically associated with the Kingdom of Norway and with general Norwegian rule, the region continues to represent a crossroads between modern Iceland, modern Norway, and the northern edge of the mainland of Scotland. Today, the county town of the Shetland Islands is known as Lerwick, also at least partly representative of the Nordic heritage of the region and general area.
To the south of the Shetland Islands are the Orkney Islands. While the modern population of the British Isles would not consider the Orkney Islands directly part of the Nordic realm, the historical context of the Orkney Islands was also related to the geographical position of the islands relative to the Scottish mainland. Immediately off the coast of Caithness, the Orkney Islands are perhaps most prominently identified by the county town of Kirkwall. If the Shetland Islands can be considered Nordic, then the Orkney Island culture may be identified quite similarly, though the Viking heritage of the general region has largely been diluted after over a millennium, firmly establishing the Orkney Islands as identifying within modern Scotland even if geographically more akin to the Faroe Islands of Denmark.
The two northernmost counties on the Scottish mainland, north even of the Hebrides on the west coast of the country, are Caithness and Sutherland. While Caithness represents the absolute northernmost portion of the Island of Great Britain and uses Wick as the county town, Sutherland is located primarily to the south and west and is named using Norse terminology for “southern land” from the vantage points of either Caithness or the Orkney Islands.
Though the vast majority of the Scottish population lives nearer the English border, the northern regions of Scotland are actually more attuned to Nordic customs for over a millennium, as much of the northern region was previously connected—quite strongly—to Norwegian control and subject to instability more than the regions even slightly further to the south, such as by the Urquhart Castle near Inverness.
The Nordic regions of Scotland are largely determined by the Viking settlements of the region, most prominently associated with the Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands, Caithness, Sutherland, and the Inner and Outer Hebrides, from north to south. Each of the regions listed contains distinctive characteristics that set the respective counties apart from one another, and the Shetland Islands in particular are located in relative proximity to the Faroe Islands of Denmark to the northwest and the Orkney Islands to the south. The Shetland Islands are also within reach of the mainland of Norway.
There currently exist five (5) distinct Nordic nations, recognized by their distinctive Nordic cross flag shapes. These countries are Denmark 🇩🇰, Norway 🇳🇴, Sweden 🇸🇪, Iceland 🇮🇸, and Finland 🇫🇮, just to name sovereign states. Outlying territories which also contain the Nordic crosses also include the Faroe Islands 🇫🇴 of Denmark and the Åland Islands 🇦🇽 of Finland.
The Vikings and the associated settlements, though largely identified as having originated within the region now known as Northern Europe and Scandinavia, have since expanded from the modern nations of Norway and Sweden east into Finland and Russia, though only barely so, but more importantly, south and west into Denmark, Scotland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and, finally, Newfoundland.
Prior to 1492, the regions that the Vikings had settled had likely been referred to simply by more local names, such as “Vinland” or “Greenland” in North America. Since the concept of the “New World” had not been established prior to the expeditions of Christopher Columbus, the entirety of the Viking territory would have been considered “Old World” territory, yet the regions had later been redefined as included within the “New World” by way of being transatlantic, even though the regions settled by the Vikings have been surprisingly sequential and not necessarily across the lengthy reaches of the Atlantic.
Today, the definition of the “New World” defines the continents almost entirely by plate tectonics; however, all of Iceland, including the North American side of the island, remains identified as a European power nonetheless, for instance. Even though the closest distance from Norway to Newfoundland may require lengthy Atlantic travel, the Viking journey between the two had likely involved the aforementioned stepping stones of Denmark, Scotland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland prior to the final settlement of Vinland by the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland in present-day Canada. For Scotland, the specific regions to be settled by the Vikings had largely corresponded with the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands, Caithness, Sutherland, and the Inner and Outer Hebrides, including the Uist Islands and the Isles of Skye and Barra.
While Scotland 🏴 is not a strictly Nordic country, centuries of rule by the Norwegians and other historic Nordic groups north of the Teutonic peoples have resulted in special Nordic treatment for the Shetland Islands, the Orkney Islands, and the Counties of Caithness and Sutherland, all from north to south. To the west are the Inner and Outer Hebrides, including notable islands such as the Isles of Skye, Barra, and the Uists, just to name a few.
Today, the Nordic Cross is featured as the most prominent feature on the flags of Shetland and Orkney, while the Flag of Caithness adds a galley to symbolize the county atop the flag design. Sutherland also adds additional symbols, further deviating the flag design from the general Nordic cross.
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