Rick Steves Scandinavia

On your trip, you’ll see reminders everywhere of Scandinavia’s long history. Eerie graves, carved rune stones, and horned helmets bring to mind Lord of the Rings-style warriors of old who worshipped Thor and Odin. You’ll see the ships and weapons of their descendants—the Vikings—who terrorized Europe with their fierce, pagan culture. Evocative wooden-stave churches show how Christianity slowly seeped into the region.

You’ll visit the harbors of these seafaring peoples and tour the stark castles of nobles who fought for control of Baltic trade. As modern nations emerged, absolute monarchs built luxurious palaces intended to rival Versailles. Today’s streets and main squares are studded with statues and monuments honoring great kings and their battles, great patriots who lobbied for national independence, and great writers and musicians who enriched Scandinavian culture. Scandinavian museums are filled with paintings that capture the beauty of the landscape and celebrate its people. You’ll hear bittersweet stories of the millions of 19th-century Scandinavians who left their homes for better lives in America. You’ll learn about those who suffered under WWII Nazi occupation, and the heroes who organized resistance and sheltered Jewish people. And you’ll experience the richness of Scandinavia today—its wealth, its liberal policies, and its global outlook.

Want to hear more of the Scandinavian story? Read on.

PREHISTORY AND HUNTERS WITH SPEARS (C. 8000 B.C.-A.D. 1)

Scandinavia became habitable when the glaciers receded at the end of the last ice age. Stone Age hunters moved north, chasing valuable deer, moose, and fish. Among these were the forebears of the Sami—or Laplanders—of northern Scandinavia, some of whom continue to herd reindeer and live a nomadic lifestyle today. For more on the Sami, visit Oslo’s National Historical Museum (here) or Norwegian Folk Museum (here), or Stockholm’s Nordic Museum (here). The early Scandinavians began farming (c. 4000 B.C.) and eventually developed tools and weapons made of bronze (c. 1800 B.C.). We know these people mainly by their graves—either burial mounds (as on the island of Öland, Sweden, here) or the heavy stone tombs called dolmens (as on Denmark’s isle of Ærø, here).

IRON-AGE WARRIORS WITH HORNED HELMETS (A.D. 1-800)

Isolated from the Continent and unconquered by the Romans, Scandinavia kept close to its prehistoric past. The 2,000-year-old Grauballe Man—whose corpse was preserved in a peat bog (and is now displayed at the Moesgård Museum just outside Aarhus, here)—was a contemporary of Julius Caesar. But in his world, people spoke not Latin but a Germanic language, wore animal-horned helmets, and used ceremonial curvy-shaped lur horns. They forged iron implements decorated with the gods of their pagan religion (such as the Gundestrup Cauldron displayed in Copenhagen’s National Museum, here). They commemorated heroic deeds with large stones carved with the angular alphabet known as runes (see the rune stones at Copenhagen’s National Museum, here, and at Jelling, Denmark, here). One of their most sacred sites is at Gamla Uppsala near Stockholm (here), where mighty chieftains were buried along with their worldly possessions—weapons, jewels, dogs, horses, and even slaves. This distinct, pre-Christian Scandinavian culture thrived in the first centuries A.D. and continued even as the rest of Europe fell under the sway of Rome’s Latin culture and, later, Christianity.

Though isolated, the Scandinavians made fleeting contact with Roman Europe, trading furs and amber (a petrified tree sap, used in jewelry) for crucial tool-making metals from the Continent. Eventually, the Scandinavians learned to extract their own bronze and iron. With better tools, they became productive farmers and shipbuilders. The population boomed due to a warmer climate and better nutrition. The Scandinavians were soon eyeing Europe and the North Atlantic as a source for new resources, and for potential expansion of their clans.

VIKINGS WITH SHIPS (800-1000)

Scandinavia’s entrance onto the European stage was swift, dramatic, and unforgettable. On January 8, 793, a fleet of Scandinavian pirates came ashore on the northeast coast of England and sacked the Lindisfarne monastery, slaughtering monks, burning buildings, and plundering sacred objects. Word spread like wildfire of brutal pirates who seemed to come from nowhere, looted and pillaged with extreme prejudice, then moved on. Their victims called them Normanni, Dani, Rus, or worse, but the name they gave themselves came from the inlets and bays (vik) where they lived: the Vikings.

For the next 200 years, hardy Viking sailors plundered and explored the coasts of northern Europe. Vikings from Norway primarily went west to the British Isles and settled Iceland, Greenland, and beyond; Swedes ventured east to the Baltic states, navigated the Russian rivers, and reached Constantinople; and Danes headed south (to England, France, Spain, and Italy).

The Vikings attacked in fleets of sleek, narrow, open-topped ships a hundred feet long, called drakkars. (See them for yourself at the Viking Ship Museums in Oslo, here, or Roskilde, here.) Rigged with square sails and powered by dozens of men at the oars, they could attack at 15 miles an hour and land right on the beach, where they would pour out, brandishing their weapons.

Each Viking was decked out with a coat of mail, a small shield, and a helmet (though not one with horns, which by Viking times were merely ceremonial). Each warrior specialized in a particular kind of warfare: sword, spear, battle-axe, or bow-and-arrow. At the battle’s crucial moment, the Vikings might send in their secret weapon—the so-called berserkers. These warriors attacked with a seemingly superhuman (and possibly drug-induced) frenzy, scaring the leotards off their enemies and giving us our English word “berserk.”

Despite their reputation as ruthless pirates, most Vikings were settlers who established towns, married the locals, farmed the land, hunted in the forests, and traded with their neighbors. They spread Scandinavian culture and rune stones far and wide. In Northern France, the region of “Normandy” was settled by the “North-men.” Eric the Red, a Norwegian Viking, was an early settler in Iceland, and his son Leif Eriksson sailed as far as the coast of North America around A.D. 1000.

To the dismay of Roman Catholic bishops, while the rest of Europe became Christian, the Vikings held onto their pagan gods, many of whom were, like themselves, warriors: Odin, the king of the gods (who gave us our word for Wednesday), and Thor with his hammer, the god of war (and of Thursday). Believing in an afterlife, the Vikings buried their dead ceremonially along with their possessions. Some were interred beneath large mounds of dirt (such as the Gamla Uppsala burial mounds described on here). Others were laid to rest in ships that were buried underground, or in graves marked with stones placed upright in the shape of a full-size ship.

By the year 1000, Scandinavian society was gradually changing—unifying, Christianizing, and assimilating into European culture. Scattered Nordic peoples coalesced into kingdoms, united under the banner of Christianity. In Norway, there was King (later “Saint”) Olav II (c. 1020). Among the Svea people (Sweden), King Olof Skotkonung (c. 968-1020) unified and Christianized the land. The Danes were united by King Harald Bluetooth (c. 980), who commemorated Denmark’s Christian conversion on a now-famous rune stone (located in Jelling, here)—although in reality, Bluetooth’s “conversion” was a ploy to keep the German-Catholic bishops and missionaries at bay. Under Harald’s grandson, King Canute, Denmark ruled a large empire that included parts of southern England (c. 1020). One of Canute’s battles there inspired the nursery song “London Bridge Is Falling Down.”

By 1100, the last pagans were gathering at Gamla Uppsala to put on their ceremonial horned helmets, worship the sun, bury fallen heroes, and retell the sagas of their ancestors. Viking culture blended into the European mainstream, but we still see traces of it today—in rune stones and burial sites; in surviving tools, weapons, and jewelry; and in the dragon-prowed designs found on Christian stave churches and even on contemporary Scandinavian coins.

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANS, BICKERING NOBLES, AND GERMAN BUSINESSMEN (1000-1400)

In the Middle Ages, three separate (if loosely united) kingdoms emerged: Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. They were Christian and feudal, with land worked by peasants who owed allegiance to a petty noble sworn to the king. Towns sprang up, including what would become the main cities: Oslo (1048), Copenhagen (1165), and Stockholm (1255). Rulers began flying flags featuring a cross, which eventually became the main motif in each country’s national flag.

Christianity dominated. Some of the region’s oldest churches (especially in Norway) are wooden stave, made with vertical planks and ornamented with dragons and other semi-pagan figures to ward off evil and ease the transition to Christianity (see here). Devout Christians laid the cornerstones for huge cathedrals, such as the skyscraping Uppsala Cathedral in 1287, Aarhus Cathedral in 1201, and Stockholm Cathedral in 1306.

Typical Castle Architecture

Castles were fortified residences for medieval nobles. Castles come in all shapes and sizes, but knowing a few general terms will help you understand them.

Barbican: A fortified gatehouse, sometimes a stand-alone building located outside the main walls.

Crenellation: A gap-toothed pattern of stones atop the parapet.

Drawbridge: A bridge that could be raised or lowered, using counterweights or a chain-and-winch.

Great Hall: The largest room in the castle, serving as throne room, conference center, and dining hall.

Hoardings (or Gallery): Wooden huts built onto the upper parts of the stone walls. They served as watch towers, living quarters, and fighting platforms.

The Keep (or Donjon): A high, strong stone tower in the center of the complex; the lord’s home and refuge of last resort.

Loopholes (or Embrasures): Narrow wall slits through which soldiers could shoot arrows.

Machicolation: A stone ledge jutting out from the wall, with holes through which soldiers could drop rocks or boiling oil onto wall-scaling enemies below.

Moat: A ditch encircling the wall, sometimes filled with water

Parapet: Outer railing of the wall walk.

Portcullis: An iron grille that could be lowered across the entrance.

Postern Gate: A small, unfortified side or rear entrance. In wartime, it became a “sally-port” used to launch surprise attacks, or as an escape route.

Towers: Square or round structures with crenellated tops or conical roofs serving as lookouts, chapels, living quarters, or the dungeon.

Turret: A small lookout tower rising from the top of the wall.

Wall Walk (or Allure): A pathway atop the wall where guards could patrol and where soldiers stood to fire at the enemy.

The Yard (or Bailey): An open courtyard inside the castle walls.

Finland entered the Scandinavian sphere when zealous Swedes launched a series of crusades to forcibly convert their pagan neighbors to the east, farm their lands, and fish in their lakes. They conquered and assimilated the region (c. 1200), making it a part of their own country for the next 600 years. Even today, Swedish is spoken on Finland’s southern coast. Danish and German “warrior monks” fought a similar crusade against the loosely organized Estonian people, divvying up that region between themselves.

The many castles that dot Scandinavia attest to the civil warfare between nobles. A strong central government headed by a dominant king was still centuries away.

Sea trade between the Scandinavian neighbors boomed. The lucrative trade was controlled by enterprising German businessmen who organized Scandinavia’s ports into a free-trade zone known as the Hanseatic League (c. 1200-1400). Under German direction, Scandinavia became a powerful player in overseas commerce with the Continent. Cities such as Bergen, Norway, reaped big rewards under the Hanse (see Håkon’s Hall on here). German settlers emigrated to Scandinavia, influencing the culture and language. By 1370, these German businessmen were so rich that they wielded more actual power than any Scandinavian king. It took a queen to break them.

DOMINANT DANES: WARS AND REFORMATION (1400-1600)

When Margrethe I of Denmark married the Norwegian king in 1363, Norway came under Danish control (where it would remain for the next 450 years). Denmark emerged as the region’s main power. In 1397, Margrethe took on the Hanseatic League by uniting Norway, Denmark, and Sweden against the league with the Treaty of Kalmar. The German monopoly was broken, and Scandinavia gained control of its own wealth. But after Margrethe, the union faltered. For a century, Swedish nobles chafed and occasionally rebelled against Danish domination.

In 1520, Denmark invaded Sweden and—in the notorious Stockholm Bloodbath—massacred 80 rebellious Swedish nobles in the city’s main square, Stortorget (see here). Gustav Vasa rallied the enraged Swedes and drove out Denmark’s King Christian (known as Christian II in Denmark and as Christian the Tyrant in Sweden). Vasa was crowned king of Sweden on June 6, 1523 (now Sweden’s flag day). He centralized the Swedish government and Protestantized the country, seizing church property to form a strong nation-state. In many ways, this was the birth of modern Sweden (and the origin of the name for Wasa flatbread).

By the 1500s, all of Scandinavia had converted to Lutheran-style Protestantism. They’d been primed by the influence of German Hanseatic traders and preachers. And their kings jumped at the chance to confiscate former church property and authority.

For the next century, Denmark and Sweden—the region’s two powerhouses—battled for control of the Baltic’s lucrative trade routes, particularly for the Øresund, the crucial strait between Denmark and Sweden that connects the Baltic with the North Sea (and is now spanned by a modern bridge—see sidebar on here). It was during this period that much of Estonia fell under control of the Swedish empire.

SWEDISH SUPERIORITY: ABSOLUTE MONARCHS (1600-1800)

By 1600, Denmark-Norway was still the region’s superpower, but Sweden-Finland-Estonia was rising fast. Denmark’s one-eyed, high-living King Christian IV was spending centuries’ worth of acquired wealth building lavish castles—including Rosenborg and Frederiksborg—and putting a Renaissance face on Copenhagen and Oslo (see here and the sidebar on here). Meanwhile, his wars with Sweden and others were slowly sapping the country, emptying its coffers, and undermining Danish superiority. Christian IV even sold the Orkney and Shetland Islands to England to raise funds.

Sweden emerged under the inspired military leadership of King Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632). The “Lion of the North” roared southward, conquering large chunks of Russia, Poland, Germany, and Denmark during the Thirty Years’ War. The vast Vasa ship in Stockholm, which the king commissioned in 1628, trumpeted the optimism of the era—but sank ignominiously in the middle of Stockholm harbor on its maiden voyage (see here).

Sweden’s supreme moment came under Gustavus’ great-grandson, Karl X Gustav (1622-1660). In 1657, Karl invaded Denmark through the back door—from the south. The winter was extremely cold, and the seas froze between several of Denmark’s islands. In one of the most daring maneuvers in military history, Karl X Gustav led his armies across the ice between the islands—from Funen to Langeland to Lolland to Zealand—then sped toward Copenhagen. The astonished Danes surrendered, signing the humiliating Treaty of Roskilde (1658). The treaty gave Sweden a third of Danish territory, plus shared control of the Øresund Strait. Denmark would never again dominate, while Sweden became a major European power, with an imposing fleet and a Baltic empire that included Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and parts of Poland, Russia, and Germany.

In the 1660s, the kings of Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland-Estonia—following the trend set by Louis XIV in France—declared themselves to be absolute, divinely ordained monarchs. For the next 50 years, these kings scuffled with each other (and neighboring countries) for superiority in the Baltic. By 1720, the wars had drained both countries, at the very time that France and England were on the rise. Sweden ceded Estonia to the Russians, and Scandinavia sank back into relative obscurity.

For the rest of the 1700s, Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland mostly avoided war while trying to modernize and expand their economies. But the French Revolution (1789) and the Europe-wide wars that followed stirred up this relative peace, awakening a desire for democracy, ethnic recognition, and national independence.

PATRIOTS, ARTISTS, INDUSTRIALISTS, AND EMIGRANTS (1800S)

As Europe’s monarchs ganged up on Revolutionary France under Napoleon, Scandinavia was forced to take sides. Through a series of complicated alliances, Denmark ended up backing the loser (France), while Sweden backed the winners (Britain and others). At war’s end, Denmark was forced to cede Norway to Sweden in the 1814 Treaty of Kiel. Meanwhile, Sweden had just lost Finland to Russia in 1809. Thus began the nation-building process that, a century later, would result in the five independent countries we have today.

The wars also gave Sweden a new king—a French soldier who spoke not a word of Swedish, was not Scandinavian, and had not a drop of noble blood. But Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, a career military man in Napoleon’s army, was loved by Sweden’s childless king, admired by Sweden’s soldiers for his fighting prowess, and popular with the people for treating Swedish prisoners well during the wars. The bizarre choice of a French commoner was a surprise, but everyone said oui-oui, and Jean-Baptiste was crowned Sweden’s King Karl Johan XIV (and Karl Johan III in Norway). During his reign (1818-1844), Bernadotte brought peace, prosperity, and fresh DNA, founding the royal dynasty that would produce the current monarchs of Sweden—and, by intermarriage, of Norway and Denmark.

The French Revolution (and Napoleon) spread the idea throughout Europe that people should embrace their ethnic roots and demand self-rule. Norwegians—having been ruled for centuries by Danes, and now Swedes—met at Eidsvoll Manor (outside Oslo—see here), drafted a constitution with a parliament, elected a king, and demanded independence. Though the country was still too weak to make this a political reality, the date of May 17, 1814, has become the country’s Fourth of July, celebrated today with plenty of flag-waving and folk costumes by Norwegians both in and out of Norway.

Culturally (if not politically), nationalism flourished, producing artists like J. C. Dahl, who captured the beauty of the Norwegian countryside and the simple dignity of its people. (You can see his works at Oslo’s National Gallery, here.) Playwright Henrik Ibsen realistically portrayed the complexities of a changing Norwegian society. And composer Edvard Grieg used music to convey the majesty of the landscape near his home in Bergen (Troldhaugen, here).

In Denmark, nationalism inspired the German-speaking majority in the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein to call for autonomy (1848-1851). The region was finally taken by force from Denmark by Prussia (1864) and incorporated into the new state of Germany. The resulting nationwide sense of humiliation and self-critique actually spurred a cultural golden age. Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard captured the angst of an age when traditional certainties were crumbling. Storyteller Hans Christian Andersen (The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Little Mermaid, and others) gained a Europe-wide reputation. And sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, who studied and worked in Rome, decorated Copenhagen with his realistic, Neoclassical statues (at Copenhagen’s Cathedral of Our Lady, here; and the Thorvaldsen’s Museum, here).

Throughout the 1800s, Scandinavia was modernizing. The Industrial Revolution brought trains, factories, and larger cities. While some got rich, millions of poor farmers were forced to emigrate from Sweden, Norway, and Finland to America between 1850 and 1920, due to the changing economy, overpopulation, and famine. (The House of Emigrants museum in Växjö, Sweden, tells their story—see here.) As in other European countries, Scandinavia saw the steady advance of democracy, parliaments, labor unions, and constitutional monarchies. The 20th century would quicken that pace.

INDEPENDENCE AND WORLD WARS (1900-1945)

In 1905—after five and a half centuries of Danish and Swedish rule—Norway finally was granted independence when it voted overwhelmingly to break from Sweden. National pride ran high, as Oslo’s own Roald Amundsen became the first person to reach the South Pole (in 1911—for more, see the Fram Museum on here). In 1919, Finland and Estonia—after centuries of Swedish and Russian rule—won their independence while Russia was distracted by the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Scandinavian nations remained neutral through World War I. But when Hitler’s Nazi Germany began its European conquest in World War II, it was impossible for Scandinavians—try as they might—to remain uninvolved. While officially neutral, Sweden allowed Nazi troops “on leave” to march through. (Sweden’s neutrality later provided a safe haven for Danish Jews and a refuge for the Danish and Norwegian resistance movements.)

Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940, with Operation Weserübung. Scattered fighting at the Danish border was quickly put down, and Denmark capitulated and officially cooperated with the Nazis until 1943, when the Germans took over the government. Danish resistance groups harried the Nazis and provided intelligence to the Allies (see the Museum of Danish Resistance, here). In 1943, a German diplomat informed Copenhagen’s rabbi that the Jews were about to be deported. Danish citizens quickly hid and eventually evacuated all but 500 of Denmark’s Jews to neutral Sweden.

Norway’s army held out a few weeks longer, allowing time for King Håkon VII to flee and organize a vital resistance movement (memorialized at Oslo’s Norwegian Resistance Museum, here). Norway spent the war chafing under a Nazi puppet government headed by Vidkun Quisling, whose surname has become synonymous with “traitor.”

Denmark, Sweden, and Norway came out of the war without the horrendous damage and loss of life suffered elsewhere in Europe—in part, probably, because Hitler wanted to turn the Scandinavian countries into model states. After all, these were the people Germany was trying to emulate: tall, blond, blue-eyed symbols of the Aryan race.

Finland and Estonia’s fates were more complicated. During the war, the Finns valiantly battled Russian invaders, at one point allying with Hitler against the Russians. By war’s end, Finland had fought both the Soviets and the Nazis. Estonia, meanwhile, was occupied first by the Soviets and later by the Nazis.

As postwar Europe was divvied up between the communist East and the democratic West, Estonia wound up in the Soviet sphere of influence. Finland avoided this fate through a compromise policy called “Finlandization.” The Finns paid lip service to Soviet authority, censored their own media, acted as a buffer against military invasion from the West, rejected rebuilding money from the US (the Marshall Plan), and avoided treaties with the West. In return, Finland remained a self-ruling capitalist democracy and a firm part of the Nordic world. They imported raw materials from the Soviets, then shipped them back as manufactured products, in a mutually beneficial trade agreement.

Meanwhile, Norway and Denmark stood with the West, joining NATO and participating in the Marshall Plan. Sweden took a more neutral approach, and Swede Dag Hammarskjöld served as the UN’s Secretary General from 1953 to 1961. Estonia was submerged into the Soviet Union as one of the 15 “republics” of the USSR, only regaining its independence with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

THE SOCIAL WELFARE STATE (1946-PRESENT)

In the decades since World War II, the Scandinavian countries have made themselves quite wealthy following a mixed capitalist-socialist model. In the late 1960s, Norway discovered oil in the North Sea, almost instantly transforming itself into a rich nation. Citizens across Scandinavia have come to take for granted cradle-to-grave security—health care, education, unemployment benefits, welfare, and so on—all financed with high taxes. In social policies, Scandinavia has often led the way in liberal attitudes toward sexuality, drug use, and gay rights. For more on current-day Scandinavia, see here.

Immigration in the late 20th century brought many citizens from non-European nations. While adding diversity, it also threatened the homogenous fabric of a society whose roots have traditionally been white, Christian, European, democratic, and blond. Far-right parties gained support with anti-immigration platforms, but reaction to the July 2011 massacre in Norway (see here) weakened those movements, at least in the short term. In September of 2013, however, a new right-wing government came to power in Norway, with the victorious Conservative Party forming a coalition with the anti-immigration Progress Party.

Today, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Estonia are all members of the European Union. Norway has stayed outside (a decision still hotly debated by Norwegians, though an association agreement gives the country most of the benefits of membership). While Finland and Estonia have embraced the euro, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have preserved their own currencies (though Denmark’s is pegged to the euro).

As the Scandinavian people forge into the 21st century, they are adamant about preserving their culture, traditions, and high standard of living while competing in a global economy.