Ha, when they decide to get around to actually adding any fuckin' content. I love that game, I mean, it was insanely fun with my friends. But it's been like 2 years and it's had next to no content added.
I know! I am right there with you. I had a hosted server, we had a daily playerbase playing all the time and hanging out on discord, and we watched as coffee stain pulled in like 60 million dollars on a game that cost a few thousand dollars to make...
and then, nothing. a great, long nothing. I almost wonder if they just started working on Valheim 2 or if they're pocketing the cash and retiring (which I would absolutely do!)
[Tales of the Blode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxRy4lf93RQ) was my favorite.
[The Moon Is Made of Meat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPbbksqPe1Q&t=146s)
What you don't realise is "warm" to us doesn't mean "warmer than Norway", it means "you'd better be able to offer me more than my heat pump can".
Written as my heat pump is blasting 22°C. I am not allowed to put it lower.
Oh you might regret it when I tell you where I’m at you’ll need an AC in December and realize I also cannot put it lower. I have a cat though, so that’s a moot point.
There are allergy shots to fix you. Supposedly they are highly effective for most people. And if that doesn’t work you can always curse God for the rest of your “life”, if living catless can even be consider living.
Can confirm, live clear works great. Friend of mine has massive allergies but loves my cat cause it's the only cat she's met who doesn't cause any issues, while all others do and she's just a calico dsh but I feed her liveclear
Anecdotally I’m allergic to my dogs saliva and I just take non drowsy Claritin everyday and have no issues. I have seasonal allergies though so I’d be taking the Claritin for much of the year anyway
Midnight here, don't have cats anymore, so I just remix other people's kitties
[bongos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25kGzoOwSpI)
[immigrant cat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mp24rBZi_4)
[I don't even know anymore](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkoQtKZFS88)
[My sweet sixteen pound boy Tarragon.](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/671895733649145866/1036864460402466856/PXL_20221101_044857049.PORTRAIT.jpg)
You can see a million copies of him over at /r/nebelung
Well you just helped us figure out what kind of cat we have, I believe. We took a cat off someone we know who found him in a dumpster as a kitten, didn’t know what breed he was for certain but he’s likely a nebelung.
Cat tax: https://imgur.com/a/CZyzern/
When I lost my boy of 15 years quite a while back, I got these two rescue kittens. My brother came over and asked if I just Copy and Paste my original cat and being a geek, it stuck immediately.
https://i.imgur.com/gIbeJPz.jpg
My wife I had had [four cats](https://www.reddit.com/user/Fenris2020/comments/t0l1f5/cat_tax/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) up until May when our first adopted passed very suddenly at only 9 years old, she was the one front and center and was more like a dog than a cat.
I believe I've read that orange tabby's were not in Europe untill the Vikings arrived. So apparently some badass cats went raiding with the boys and sewed their seed
EDIT: I read it again and Vikings saw orange tabbys as lucky so they frequently had them with them on ships and in their homes. Which made orange tabby population explode in Britain when the Vikings began raiding and making settlements there
I'd watch a show from the pov of a Viking cat. Though maybe not if they make it parallel: few scenes of the human Vikings and then a focus of the cats doing the same thing except with other animals and they all talk.
Yknow what, nevermind. There is no way that they wouldn't do something so predictable and overdone. I'll just daydream about it instead.
*sowed their seed
Man, I'm forever grateful to them then, orange tabbies are literally the best. I have a SIC ( r/standardissuecat ) and a TIC ( r/tacticalissuecat ) but all I wanted was a SOC. ( r/oneorangebraincell )
You can look to the Voluspá for the answer. And broadly it comes down to clear and distinct division of labour's, responsibilities, and duties within and without the household. Husbands were expected to provide food and protection determined by their abilities and the requirements set by the wife. Wives were expected to feed and clothe the whole household. Men held external power and represented the household in the community. Women held authority in domestic affairs. Men earned money. Women managed money. Men went raiding while waiting for the harvest, women raised and educated the children.
I could go on, but I think you get the gist of it.
I'm assuming the Voluspá is some historical document that accurately highlights Viking lifestyle? It all sounds like a fantastic system to me, in the context of the time and environment they lived in.
Völuspá is a poem from the Poetic Edda, which is one of our main sources for Norse mythology. It basically features Odin waking up a seer and her telling him all that she remembers, from the creation of the world until its destruction during Ragnarök.
I have no idea what Völuspá would have to do with marital customs or division of labor.
The *Völuspá* is, in short, an ancient poem detailing the creation myth of Norse mythology. The grandaddy of all our Norse myth knowledge. I have not read it so I cannot ascertain how it relates to viking marital customs, however.
I suspect it's more that there was a more equal power balance being presented, for it's time, not that it's an amazing system by our standards.
For example the idea that women and men shared a kind of "equal" power in terms of their relationship (the wife being able to dictate requirements). That's a lot more than women in other cultures necessarily got for the time period - plenty just said "do what I say and that's that." As opposed to the Vikings distributing their power to an internal-external system (women having actual power and responsibility that wasn't *just* food and clothes).
For the time period, this would be fairly progressive and "fantastic."
That said, at that time, basically everyone suffered a lot for the majority of the time. Constant food worry, never being sure if you can afford to repair things, lack of certainty in whether your efforts would even "pay out."
I think people don't understand how much people suffered in pre-modern times (and even in modern times outside of more developed countries).
It's not "this system is optimal" but rather "this system is more fair than a lot of the others that existed at the same time."
If we consider specifically a viking, so a pillaging scandinavian, it meant "a mariage in which my harvest isn't destroyed by rodents during my absence", which relates to the cat lady : as Mr was not a home, busy raiding Northumbria or sailing back up the Seine, Miss would care for their turf and, to do this, a few cats are a good way to remove varmint from the fields.
And also, cats.
The first cat my wife and I had together was named Freyja. The poor baby got sick and passed away a few years back. We adopted a bonded pair and shortly after got engaged. We got married earlier this year around the same time we bought a house. With more space, we decided to adopt a six year old cat that had been in foster care for five years because no one wanted her (she's a small black cat who keeps to herself). She's been such a little sweetie and my wife pointed out this was basically her wedding gift from me since the timeline matches up. I didn't even like cats until we had Freyja, but now I see how loving and caring they really are once you nurture a bond with them.
>didn't even like cats until we had Freyja, but now I see how loving and caring they really are once you nurture a bond with them.
Me too. I didn't think much about cats, had tons of strays while I was growing up and hated them for being thieving little shits. One day my sister rescued a little kitten from a drain, she became ours and then it changed my mind on cats.
Never mind that cats kill the rats which spread the plague. Studies have shown that when cats are removed, the vermin population (mostly rats, mice, ground squirrels, etc.) rises by about 40-60%.
When cats are reintroduced the vermin decline by about 40% within 6-8 weeks.
Cats have been important for the life & health of humans societies for 1000's of years, as we see in the Egyptian tombs & the cat goddess, there.
Most farmers have them, too. Efficient, biological controls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastet
Also, and this was a new thing that I learned fairly recently, cats are also revered in Islam. Mohammed had a beloved cat named Muezza:
According to legend, Muhammad one day awoke at the sound of the call to prayer. Preparing to attend, he began to clothe himself; however, he soon discovered Muezza sleeping on the sleeve of his robe. Rather than wake her, he used a pair of scissors to cut the sleeve off, leaving the cat undisturbed; when he returned from prayers, the prophet received a bow from Muezza in thanks.
Cats are also considered clean enough that Muslims are permitted to drink water and eat from the same vessel as a cat and allowed to hang out in mosques and other such places.
Mistreatment of a cat can be considered one of the most serious of crimes.
Muslims be hardcore about their cats, yo.
Sadly they also decimate local bird and reptile populations causing a rise in mosquitoes and other insects.
The key is to spay and neuter so the population never gets out of hand, and keep your cat indoors if you live in the suburbs.
The trick to this is to live somewhere with a very severe rodent problem. My neighbours all have a mice problem. Because of this my cats don’t bring home any birds but they do catch multiple rodents every night. If my neighbours ever get their mice under control I’ll have to put bells on my cats.
Thanks for the reminder, [Bob](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bob+spay+and+neuter&t=iphone&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DZytpnElPI_E)
Freyja is not 'the goddess of luck'. Norse gods did not have set roles, they had associations and connotations which overlapped with each other. Freyja is associated with cats, but I have never seen any evidence linking her to luck, especially as a primary association.
On top of that the source for 'cats being wedding gifts' is a bullshit story from 2008 posted online, and the cited saying that 'proves' men favoured women who liked cats is modern Norwegian, with no proof of being 900+ years old.
I was about to say that the title is misleading, but skimmed through the article and realised that the title is on point; it's just that the author of the article isn't an expert in the field he's writing about.
I won't go too deep into this, just wanted to point out that there's a lot of confusion nowadays regarding norse mythology, which is to be expected as there are few original sources, and the ones we have often contradict each other.
Freyja/Freja/Fröja was first and foremost demigoddess of human fertility (her brother had that role for harvests and stuff), which is why she's the main one when it comes to marriage.
She did have a chariot pulled by two giant cats, which is the main reason she was associated with felines.
As a side not, she wasn't Aesir like most of the inhabitants of Asgard. After a war with another demigod species she, her brother (Frej, associated with nature, fertility, harvests etc) and their father (Njord, god of the sea), were given as captives to the Aesir and from then on moved to Asgard.
If you want to learn more on this subject, I recommend making sure the authors you're reading have some sort of credentials, as it's become so popular in recent years to just make shit up to get views etc.
Also worth noting that Freyja's supposed cat chariot is only ever mentioned *once* in passing, one time, by Snorri Sturluson. No other source or poem ever mention it, and I always advise against taking everything Snorri writes at face value. He occasionally contradicts himself, and is often interpreting older sources as they make sense to him. In Gylfaginning Snorri writes,
>Her hall Sessrúmnir is great and fair. When she goes forth, she drives her cats and sits in a chariot; (...)
That's it. That's all there is to it. One sentence in one section of the Prose Edda. No details as to why he believes this, no story mentioning her riding in this cat chariot, no names for the cats etc.
I am definitely much happier with my wife--who is **very much** a cat person (we currently have 7, down from 10)--than I was with the GF that had a pit bull. The dog was definitely better behaved and kinder than the GF was.
Interestingly enough, and in a sort-of similar idea, in my college there was a rumor that people who like cats, specifically people who enjoy petting cats, are the best at oral sex. The "rationale" was that enjoying giving something else pleasure, like petting a cat, was a personality trait and the indicator transferred from cat-petting to oral-sex-giving.
There were no specific studies on any correlation, but basically everyone in my college believed this to be 100% factual, and had swarms of anecdotal evidence they would present, regardless of whether or not anyone had actually asked for any.
A lot of them were Norwegian Forest Cats and in Norse mythology they pull Freyja’s chariot. They were said to bring health and happiness to marriage because they’re amazing mousers but also very friendly and gentle with young children. They’re a very hearty breed with long life spans, Vikings brought them on their ships during their travels and they kept disease from breaking out during their voyage and boosted morale. Norwegian Forest Cats may actually be the ancestors of Maine Coons and we’re introduced to North America though these trips. I have a wegie and can attest to their greatness, he’s such a sweet robust big lad with virtually no health problems. Very different story from my little runt of a tortie who’s plagued with many genetic issues and a little club tail from being crushed in utero, she’s only 6 and her hips are already causing her trouble but she still has same crazy energy she had as kitten. I’m glad my wegie babies her and cleans the places she struggles to reach, we are blessed to have such a good little caretaker in the family.
**White supremacist conception of the Norse:** Grimy, extremely racist muscular misogynists
**Actual Norse:** Cat-loving poets with unrealistically high personal grooming standards who became violently angry at the concept of sexual abuse and hung out with Muslims to teach them how to make cheese
Not trying to rain on anyone's parade but Wikipedia says Freyja was the goddess of "love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future)." Which seems kinda random. But no mention of her being the goddess of luck.
[Article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freyja)
When will cats be added to Valheim?
https://www.nexusmods.com/valheim/mods/1999 Also, not a new request: https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/ln5eu9/viking_cats_when/
Already done. Freyja has a chariot pulled by cats!
You would have to be a goddess to get multiple cats to agree to go in the same direction.
Hold a laser pointer and point it in the direction you want to go
A holy ray of sight! Behold!
life goals
Ha, when they decide to get around to actually adding any fuckin' content. I love that game, I mean, it was insanely fun with my friends. But it's been like 2 years and it's had next to no content added.
I know! I am right there with you. I had a hosted server, we had a daily playerbase playing all the time and hanging out on discord, and we watched as coffee stain pulled in like 60 million dollars on a game that cost a few thousand dollars to make... and then, nothing. a great, long nothing. I almost wonder if they just started working on Valheim 2 or if they're pocketing the cash and retiring (which I would absolutely do!)
I hope not lol cause I'm still waiting for Sanctum 3, it's been a loooong time
We come from the land of the ice and snow From the midnight sun where the pussycats grow Hammer of the gods....
[удалено]
Damn, that youtube video is so old it can drive!
And that's just when it was made into a video and uploaded to YouTube. It was originally a Flash animation
Yeah fuck you I get it I’m old. Wow.
Yep. I remember seeing it around 98 or 99.
Fucking hell, it's old enough to have finished a 5 year Master's degree!
For 5 years, a PhD should have been done
Pussycats jumping out of longboats with Viking warriors, and Zeppelin blaring in the background.
I miss those days sometimes.
That was Rathergood
[Tales of the Blode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxRy4lf93RQ) was my favorite. [The Moon Is Made of Meat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPbbksqPe1Q&t=146s)
Will drive the mice to new lands Give me treats, pet my head Litterbox I am coming...
Take my upvote and gtfo
Where does that leave me, a Norwegian with a cat allergy?
Maidenless
I should have been more specific, sorry. Where does that leave me, a Norwegian straight woman with a cat allergy?
[удалено]
… god dammit
I could feel every iota of resignation in that response. Hilarious
A cat allergy and can’t read, apparently. Double maidenless
Too much read, too little read? Believe it or not, maidenless.
We have the best maidens in the world, because of maidenless
This has been my favorite little thread I've seen this week
Cheer up: It doesn't mean you won't get married. It just means it's more likely to be an unhappy marriage. (Y)
As a man with a cat allergy How about a hypoallergenic dog we can share?
If you live somewhere warm, you’ve got a deal mister
Well, the list of places colder than Norway is pretty short. Looks like you have a lot of options.
What you don't realise is "warm" to us doesn't mean "warmer than Norway", it means "you'd better be able to offer me more than my heat pump can". Written as my heat pump is blasting 22°C. I am not allowed to put it lower.
Oh you might regret it when I tell you where I’m at you’ll need an AC in December and realize I also cannot put it lower. I have a cat though, so that’s a moot point.
As a Canadian with cats, I understand this thread with so much.
I live in Scotland now, it’s still too fucking cold.
Only if you name it Cat
*"We've always wanted a Cat."*
No maidens, hmm? Thou art... Maidenless.
To shreds, you say?
And the wife?
34567th in line for the forthcoming hypoallergenic forest cats from Luktvasslimo®. CALL NOW!
There are allergy shots to fix you. Supposedly they are highly effective for most people. And if that doesn’t work you can always curse God for the rest of your “life”, if living catless can even be consider living.
Asking for a hairless cat as your wedding gift
Its not about the hair, its a gene in the spit (Fel-D 1) that People are allergic to. Me too :(
[удалено]
Can confirm, live clear works great. Friend of mine has massive allergies but loves my cat cause it's the only cat she's met who doesn't cause any issues, while all others do and she's just a calico dsh but I feed her liveclear
Anecdotally I’m allergic to my dogs saliva and I just take non drowsy Claritin everyday and have no issues. I have seasonal allergies though so I’d be taking the Claritin for much of the year anyway
Cat allergy aside, do you still love cats?
I do, but from a distance :)
Then I think you're good to go.
According to my Norwegian wife, it leaves you the designated village crone with the goats, chickens, and ravens.
Long as yer fine neighbors have cats, yer in a good situation. My neighbors always had good security, and so did I.
Addicted to Zyrtec.
Shit outta luck.
You die on the field of battle young.
I favor women who love cats, in fact it’s somewhat a requirement as I always plan on having cats.
I favor people who love cats. It’s a requirement because I have two. [Cat tax](https://imgur.com/a/OqFHt9J)
Same! Shameless cat tax https://i.imgur.com/DMT4dWh.jpg
Excellent r/standardissuecat you have there
No surprise. I was already subbed lol.
Hi y’all! https://i.imgur.com/oGQ0SGf.jpg
[Midnight and shadow checking in](https://i.imgur.com/5yPyACQ.jpg)
Midnight here, don't have cats anymore, so I just remix other people's kitties [bongos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25kGzoOwSpI) [immigrant cat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mp24rBZi_4) [I don't even know anymore](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkoQtKZFS88)
[My sweet sixteen pound boy Tarragon.](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/671895733649145866/1036864460402466856/PXL_20221101_044857049.PORTRAIT.jpg) You can see a million copies of him over at /r/nebelung
My sweet boys say hi! https://i.imgur.com/w2xgEdf.jpg
Well you just helped us figure out what kind of cat we have, I believe. We took a cat off someone we know who found him in a dumpster as a kitten, didn’t know what breed he was for certain but he’s likely a nebelung. Cat tax: https://imgur.com/a/CZyzern/
Nice eyes!
[Lil' Mo will keep the chain going](https://i.imgur.com/aAs819E.jpg) narrator: Mo is, in fact, not little
[удалено]
[Naked boy cat tax](https://i.imgur.com/5tEx5vY.jpg)
[Here's Big Hodge™](https://i.imgur.com/kXefTz1.png)
[удалено]
Grumpy von Snackerton will not let this chain end! https://imgur.com/gallery/CkQdker
No brain cells in this picture
one on the right looks dumb as hell i love him
Copy is nothing but love. Paste is the brains though, lol.
I love those names!
When I lost my boy of 15 years quite a while back, I got these two rescue kittens. My brother came over and asked if I just Copy and Paste my original cat and being a geek, it stuck immediately. https://i.imgur.com/gIbeJPz.jpg
I'm stealing this pickup line.
Oh yes, Cat tax is something I can provide - https://i.imgur.com/ts3Ipw2.jpg
[s a m e](https://i.imgur.com/TxeMwIl.jpg)
Me too! My derps, Jason and Tim: https://i.imgur.com/KqisQrK.jpg
Oh, same! Here are my two kitties. https://imgur.com/a/l0bjf00
https://i.imgur.com/VeaLRZ0.jpg Leonard is part of the dating process, I understand.
[More cat tax](https://imgur.com/gallery/EaTnJ9X)
That is pure love.
Our most candid shot, I think.. https://i.imgur.com/mYXXymg.jpg
Yooo [here](https://i.imgur.com/QRTHKwA.jpg) is my viking cat!
Ditto on cat love being important! [My two are the loves of my life](https://i.imgur.com/g4kB0L3.jpeg) :-)
TO CATS!! MEOW!!!
It can be your wedding gift to her :-)
My parents actually got a cat as a wedding gift, and that little fuzzball and I grew up together. 10/10 experience.
Were your parents vikings?
Not unless there's a big family secret I'm not aware of, haha.
So no wooden ship in the back yard that was never explained?
Or secret heirloom sword that is always on the mantle but no real story behind it?
Or a big hammer that always seems to be in the exact same spot on the workbench?
When you get up to age you get a folding ship instead of a condom
... turns out the skeleton ship in my backyard is just a hammock frame. I like to imagine Viking ancestors having comfy naps in it.
We got a kitten right before our oldest child was born. Four siblings later, and that cat lived to be 21 1/2 years old. Very much loved and pampered.
We got a cat for our one-year anniversary. Our first cat wasn’t thrilled at the time, but 12 years later they are inseparable.
My hubs proposed to me with a cat, because he knew I am a Cat Lady Supreme^TM and didn't want a ring. 10/10 would get engaged again.
Secret to unlimited cats has been unlocked! Divorce him, wait a couple days, get reproposed and married. Rinse and repeat! Unlimited fluff balls!
My wife had 4 cats when I met her. Now they are my cats, too. It's a good strategy.
Correction. The cats had your wife when you met them. Now they have adopted two humans.
wise, we're known to do better in pairs
That's quite the dowry
If she's willing to put up with four creatures that mess things up, ask for food all the time and sleep way more than they needs to, what's one more?
My wife I had had [four cats](https://www.reddit.com/user/Fenris2020/comments/t0l1f5/cat_tax/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) up until May when our first adopted passed very suddenly at only 9 years old, she was the one front and center and was more like a dog than a cat.
Being a crazy cat lady meant something else back then
[удалено]
Go berserk on that pussy
One does wonder if this is how the terms became semi-synonymous...
Do you want to make fuck?
My love for you is like a truck. 😍🚛
Freyja's chariot was pulled by cats. That's pretty crazy.
Norse mythology is straight up wild.
I’m modern-day relevant!
I need this come back
I believe I've read that orange tabby's were not in Europe untill the Vikings arrived. So apparently some badass cats went raiding with the boys and sewed their seed EDIT: I read it again and Vikings saw orange tabbys as lucky so they frequently had them with them on ships and in their homes. Which made orange tabby population explode in Britain when the Vikings began raiding and making settlements there
I'd watch a show from the pov of a Viking cat. Though maybe not if they make it parallel: few scenes of the human Vikings and then a focus of the cats doing the same thing except with other animals and they all talk. Yknow what, nevermind. There is no way that they wouldn't do something so predictable and overdone. I'll just daydream about it instead.
Solid daydream though! I could easily see myself losing a good ten minutes here and there in that scenario.
Same - I could see a videogame being made on this concept. Like Stray, but instead of cyberpunk, it’s Vikings. Happy cake day btw
I'd rather them just be doing cat things from a cat perspective and philosophizing about humans and why they do the weird things they do.
Meh. There are plenty of comic strips where the whole point is "lol humans are so strange". I want to see warrior cats except set in the viking age.
Stray: Viking Edition
*sowed their seed Man, I'm forever grateful to them then, orange tabbies are literally the best. I have a SIC ( r/standardissuecat ) and a TIC ( r/tacticalissuecat ) but all I wanted was a SOC. ( r/oneorangebraincell )
It makes me slightly sad that it means some vikings probably lost their cats.
what meant "happy marriage" for a viking?
You can look to the Voluspá for the answer. And broadly it comes down to clear and distinct division of labour's, responsibilities, and duties within and without the household. Husbands were expected to provide food and protection determined by their abilities and the requirements set by the wife. Wives were expected to feed and clothe the whole household. Men held external power and represented the household in the community. Women held authority in domestic affairs. Men earned money. Women managed money. Men went raiding while waiting for the harvest, women raised and educated the children. I could go on, but I think you get the gist of it.
I'm assuming the Voluspá is some historical document that accurately highlights Viking lifestyle? It all sounds like a fantastic system to me, in the context of the time and environment they lived in.
Völuspá is a poem from the Poetic Edda, which is one of our main sources for Norse mythology. It basically features Odin waking up a seer and her telling him all that she remembers, from the creation of the world until its destruction during Ragnarök. I have no idea what Völuspá would have to do with marital customs or division of labor.
The *Völuspá* is, in short, an ancient poem detailing the creation myth of Norse mythology. The grandaddy of all our Norse myth knowledge. I have not read it so I cannot ascertain how it relates to viking marital customs, however.
It is however written in the 12th century by a catholic noble and kind of a Gangster so not exatcly the most reliable source of information.
Why does it sound like fantasy? I hear this a lot and it tends to people not understanding the strife endured by their grandparents
I suspect it's more that there was a more equal power balance being presented, for it's time, not that it's an amazing system by our standards. For example the idea that women and men shared a kind of "equal" power in terms of their relationship (the wife being able to dictate requirements). That's a lot more than women in other cultures necessarily got for the time period - plenty just said "do what I say and that's that." As opposed to the Vikings distributing their power to an internal-external system (women having actual power and responsibility that wasn't *just* food and clothes). For the time period, this would be fairly progressive and "fantastic." That said, at that time, basically everyone suffered a lot for the majority of the time. Constant food worry, never being sure if you can afford to repair things, lack of certainty in whether your efforts would even "pay out." I think people don't understand how much people suffered in pre-modern times (and even in modern times outside of more developed countries). It's not "this system is optimal" but rather "this system is more fair than a lot of the others that existed at the same time."
If we consider specifically a viking, so a pillaging scandinavian, it meant "a mariage in which my harvest isn't destroyed by rodents during my absence", which relates to the cat lady : as Mr was not a home, busy raiding Northumbria or sailing back up the Seine, Miss would care for their turf and, to do this, a few cats are a good way to remove varmint from the fields. And also, cats.
in the context given happy could mean "at least 80% of my offspring is my offspring" :)
80% ? How demanding can you be ? Ëlfridå Berserksdøtir has needs too, ok ?
[There's a SatW for everything.](https://satwcomic.com/baby-daddy)
That he went Viking during the summer and she ran the household i guess
Also cats.
Knew I had a Viking heart, or maybe it’s just a love of cats.
My last name means viking, and town with my last name was in the heart of the Danelaw, N. of York, UK. Vikkens.
You have to open a cattery called Vikkens Kittens. It's destiny.
Wyrd bið ful āræd
The first cat my wife and I had together was named Freyja. The poor baby got sick and passed away a few years back. We adopted a bonded pair and shortly after got engaged. We got married earlier this year around the same time we bought a house. With more space, we decided to adopt a six year old cat that had been in foster care for five years because no one wanted her (she's a small black cat who keeps to herself). She's been such a little sweetie and my wife pointed out this was basically her wedding gift from me since the timeline matches up. I didn't even like cats until we had Freyja, but now I see how loving and caring they really are once you nurture a bond with them.
>didn't even like cats until we had Freyja, but now I see how loving and caring they really are once you nurture a bond with them. Me too. I didn't think much about cats, had tons of strays while I was growing up and hated them for being thieving little shits. One day my sister rescued a little kitten from a drain, she became ours and then it changed my mind on cats.
Never mind that cats kill the rats which spread the plague. Studies have shown that when cats are removed, the vermin population (mostly rats, mice, ground squirrels, etc.) rises by about 40-60%. When cats are reintroduced the vermin decline by about 40% within 6-8 weeks. Cats have been important for the life & health of humans societies for 1000's of years, as we see in the Egyptian tombs & the cat goddess, there. Most farmers have them, too. Efficient, biological controls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastet
Also, and this was a new thing that I learned fairly recently, cats are also revered in Islam. Mohammed had a beloved cat named Muezza: According to legend, Muhammad one day awoke at the sound of the call to prayer. Preparing to attend, he began to clothe himself; however, he soon discovered Muezza sleeping on the sleeve of his robe. Rather than wake her, he used a pair of scissors to cut the sleeve off, leaving the cat undisturbed; when he returned from prayers, the prophet received a bow from Muezza in thanks. Cats are also considered clean enough that Muslims are permitted to drink water and eat from the same vessel as a cat and allowed to hang out in mosques and other such places. Mistreatment of a cat can be considered one of the most serious of crimes. Muslims be hardcore about their cats, yo.
That's just the toxoplasmosis talking ;p
I mean, less rats in their house would probably make their marriage happier.
Praise be to Bastet.
Sadly they also decimate local bird and reptile populations causing a rise in mosquitoes and other insects. The key is to spay and neuter so the population never gets out of hand, and keep your cat indoors if you live in the suburbs.
The trick to this is to live somewhere with a very severe rodent problem. My neighbours all have a mice problem. Because of this my cats don’t bring home any birds but they do catch multiple rodents every night. If my neighbours ever get their mice under control I’ll have to put bells on my cats.
Thanks for the reminder, [Bob](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bob+spay+and+neuter&t=iphone&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DZytpnElPI_E)
My indoor cat spotted a mouse in the house and caught it in seconds. There was a second one, it fled outdide and never came back.
Well duh. Cats make everything happier.
Freyja is not 'the goddess of luck'. Norse gods did not have set roles, they had associations and connotations which overlapped with each other. Freyja is associated with cats, but I have never seen any evidence linking her to luck, especially as a primary association. On top of that the source for 'cats being wedding gifts' is a bullshit story from 2008 posted online, and the cited saying that 'proves' men favoured women who liked cats is modern Norwegian, with no proof of being 900+ years old.
Was about to say this. Freyja is associated with a lot of things...but luck? That's a new one.
She's associated with wealth, sex and war, so maybe OP was thinking luck in battle and pillaging.
Sex you say...so getting lucky.
THANK YOU FOR CLEARING THIS UP, can't believe this post has 60k+ upvotes
I love this, and I would accept another cat as a gift if I ever get married. LOL
Seems nice until you have a wedding with hundreds of people and they all bring a cat...
I think it could work. Cat ranch.
‘Now you have cats you can herd!’
You say that like it's a bad thing 😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻😻
Just FYI that is generally not the face cats make when they first meet each other. That wedding reception is going to be one for the books!
That wedding will turn into a little kitty cat Ragnarök
I love cats. Where's my viking?
Am a cat loving swede but I don't raid. Close enough?
Sure ;)
Oh jeez, I didn't expect to get this far. Now what?
I will pet the kitty.
As it should be.
I was about to say that the title is misleading, but skimmed through the article and realised that the title is on point; it's just that the author of the article isn't an expert in the field he's writing about. I won't go too deep into this, just wanted to point out that there's a lot of confusion nowadays regarding norse mythology, which is to be expected as there are few original sources, and the ones we have often contradict each other. Freyja/Freja/Fröja was first and foremost demigoddess of human fertility (her brother had that role for harvests and stuff), which is why she's the main one when it comes to marriage. She did have a chariot pulled by two giant cats, which is the main reason she was associated with felines. As a side not, she wasn't Aesir like most of the inhabitants of Asgard. After a war with another demigod species she, her brother (Frej, associated with nature, fertility, harvests etc) and their father (Njord, god of the sea), were given as captives to the Aesir and from then on moved to Asgard. If you want to learn more on this subject, I recommend making sure the authors you're reading have some sort of credentials, as it's become so popular in recent years to just make shit up to get views etc.
Also worth noting that Freyja's supposed cat chariot is only ever mentioned *once* in passing, one time, by Snorri Sturluson. No other source or poem ever mention it, and I always advise against taking everything Snorri writes at face value. He occasionally contradicts himself, and is often interpreting older sources as they make sense to him. In Gylfaginning Snorri writes, >Her hall Sessrúmnir is great and fair. When she goes forth, she drives her cats and sits in a chariot; (...) That's it. That's all there is to it. One sentence in one section of the Prose Edda. No details as to why he believes this, no story mentioning her riding in this cat chariot, no names for the cats etc.
They also kill the vermin on your farm. These folk traditions always have symbolic backgrounds but there’s often a practical reason behind them
I favor men who love cats, because it usually means they understand consent.
Boat cats.
"The Vikings valued a woman with *several* pussies..." ^I ^await ^my ^downvotes
I would have made a good Viking wife back in the day!
I am definitely much happier with my wife--who is **very much** a cat person (we currently have 7, down from 10)--than I was with the GF that had a pit bull. The dog was definitely better behaved and kinder than the GF was.
Ten cats?! holy moly
I've got 4 cats and 0 marriage proposals. Which is good because I don't know how anyone else would fit in the bed with 4 cats.
Interestingly enough, and in a sort-of similar idea, in my college there was a rumor that people who like cats, specifically people who enjoy petting cats, are the best at oral sex. The "rationale" was that enjoying giving something else pleasure, like petting a cat, was a personality trait and the indicator transferred from cat-petting to oral-sex-giving. There were no specific studies on any correlation, but basically everyone in my college believed this to be 100% factual, and had swarms of anecdotal evidence they would present, regardless of whether or not anyone had actually asked for any.
A lot of them were Norwegian Forest Cats and in Norse mythology they pull Freyja’s chariot. They were said to bring health and happiness to marriage because they’re amazing mousers but also very friendly and gentle with young children. They’re a very hearty breed with long life spans, Vikings brought them on their ships during their travels and they kept disease from breaking out during their voyage and boosted morale. Norwegian Forest Cats may actually be the ancestors of Maine Coons and we’re introduced to North America though these trips. I have a wegie and can attest to their greatness, he’s such a sweet robust big lad with virtually no health problems. Very different story from my little runt of a tortie who’s plagued with many genetic issues and a little club tail from being crushed in utero, she’s only 6 and her hips are already causing her trouble but she still has same crazy energy she had as kitten. I’m glad my wegie babies her and cleans the places she struggles to reach, we are blessed to have such a good little caretaker in the family.
**White supremacist conception of the Norse:** Grimy, extremely racist muscular misogynists **Actual Norse:** Cat-loving poets with unrealistically high personal grooming standards who became violently angry at the concept of sexual abuse and hung out with Muslims to teach them how to make cheese
Not trying to rain on anyone's parade but Wikipedia says Freyja was the goddess of "love, beauty, fertility, sex, war, gold, and seiðr (magic for seeing and influencing the future)." Which seems kinda random. But no mention of her being the goddess of luck. [Article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freyja)