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Well ackchyually he most likely is a descendant of both farmers and viking raiders. Basically everyone in Norway brags about being descendents of the first king Harald Hårfagre. It's likely true, the dude had lots of kids, and if you go 1000 years back in such a small country everybody share common ancestors.
Typically these norse identity guys are americans, and their Norse roots are tenuous at best. usually it’s just an excuse to drink home made mead and be racist. As an American, identifying with a nationality that doesn’t belong to you is basically a national pastime.
Wait, do some Americans identify with nationalities that they don't belong to? That just sounds strange to my Norwegian ears. Drinking mead is not really common here anymore anyways
Yeah man. It’s why I made the meme. Norse dude bros believe that they’re the descendants of viking warriors, usually because they have a scandinavian last name or they have blue eyes and blonde hair. typically they have no connection at all, or a very distant connection. They’ve never left the united states, which is understandable because it’s hard to leave the united states (our culture doesn’t really accommodate time for travel or anything other than working). They often have no idea about northern european cultures that didn’t come from movies and television. They home brew their own mead “to connect with their viking heritage” and often practice a revival religion inspired by norse mythology, called Asatru, or Norse heathenry. An embarrassingly high number of them are also white nationalists.
It would be like if you were to identify as a Texan, because you heard a rumor that one of your ancestors might have been a texan. So you model your lifestyle after a “Texan” lifestyle that you saw in historically inaccurate cowboy movies that were mostly filmed in Italy.
Here in the US we get very hung up on “National Identity”. Most American’s don’t see “American” as a national Identity. People will, for example, claim to be “Irish” even though they’ve never been to Ireland, don’t know anything about Ireland, don’t know any Irish people etc. They might have had an ancestor who stumbled off the boat from Ireland, and that person was Irish, but the “Irish-american” you’re speaking to today is certainly not Irish. But they know they love to drink, and that’s an Irish thing right? So obviously they love drinking because it honors their Irish heritage.