Antoine Etcheverry has written an essay on the Vikings, to get to know them better and break down some preconceived ideas
Antoine Etcheverry, 59, teaches karate in Anglet. He did not wait for the success of television series devoted to the Vikings to worship them. “The virus has taken me since the movie ‘The Vikings’, with Kirk Douglas. That’s why he wrote “A Brief History of the Vikings”, published by Coollibri and available via [email protected].
He went to Scandinavia, he unearthed authentic weapons, he documented himself… Then he went hunting for received ideas.
Like the others
Initially, he was to give a conference on the Vikings, but the Covid decided otherwise. “So I wrote in confinement to show that the Vikings are not invincible bloodthirsty warriors, but warriors like the others, he says. Their image comes from the fact that they first attacked places of worship, run by religious people who knew how to write and could testify. Before, the Vikings were mainly merchants in trade with the Carolingian Empire, thanks to navigation. »
But the empire was torn apart and the Scandinavians united their clans. “They mainly targeted England and Ireland, even if other places were attacked, like Bordeaux and Bayonne, continues the author… But here, there was no establishment. »
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