The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

by Neil Price

As the glaciers melted, they released water into the surrounding ocean at the same time as the relief from their immense weight caused the land itself to rebound and rise. The rate of change fluctuated and also differed by region, but the net result was a steady drop in relative sea level: since the time of the Vikings, parts of central Sweden have risen some five metres above the then waterline. This means that the people of the time experienced rivers that could take more boat traffic farther inland than these same waterways can today, deeper harbours offering better access to larger vessels, and lakes that have since become dry land. The process continues even now, as central Sweden rises at a rate of a few millimetres per year. In the Viking Age and the preceding centuries, the landscape was in places substantially different to its appearance today and had a great many more open bodies of water.