The Yngling

2.

Neovikings. The neovikings were members of a primitive, post-plague Terran culture that evolved in Sweden and Norway after the Great Death that left less than 10-4 of the pre-plague population alive. They consisted of three tribes: the Norskar in southern Norway, the Jotar in southern Sweden, and the Svear in central Sweden…

The term "neovikings" was applied to them by the post-plague psionic culture known as the "kinfolk." In some respects neoviking was not an apt term, for they were not sea rovers. They were primarily herdsmen, although hunting and fishing rivalled livestock in their economy and they practiced some agriculture. Perhaps their outstanding cultural feature was their unusually martial orientation, and in this they did somewhat resemble the medieval vikings. Tribe warred against tribe, and clans carried on bloody feuds.

They increased despite their love of bloodshed, however. Taboos, tribal laws and intertribal agreements restricted the causes of fighting, its circumstances and practices…

History… The rapid climatic deterioration finally became critical. They found it necessary to store increasing quantities of forage as the season of pasturage became shorter. Crops became poorer, and some lands that had been farmed became too waterlogged and cold to grow crops. Had this happened three or four centuries earlier, they might have lapsed into a purely hunting and fishing culture, but they had become too numerous and sophisticated for that. A coastal clan, familiar with fishing boats, began to build vessels large enough to carry effective raiding parties to other parts of Europe. A rather close analog of the medieval viking culture might have developed, had not…

(From the New School Encyclopedia, copyrighted A.C. 920, Deep Harbor, New Home.)