Vikings: Terrifying And Just Like Family
生活與傳奇 認識維京人
By Katrin Bennhold

LONDON – A Viking feasting bucket, almost four liters in volume and a millennium old, attracted a noisy debate among visitors in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery of the British Museum one recent afternoon over just how drunk it could make them and how quickly.
最近一個午後，大英博物館聖伯利展館一個維京人宴會用、容量近四公升的千年酒桶引發遊客熱烈討論：它會讓維京人多快喝醉、醉得多厲害。

“How many Vikings do you think it took to down that?” a teenage girl asked, her eyes scanning the vessel’s wooden circumference. Her mother stared, speechless.
「你覺得這一桶能讓幾個維京人喝？」一個少女邊問母親，邊端詳木造桶身。母親瞠目結舌。

This mixture of wonder and intimidation was on ample display throughout a new exhibition, “Vikings: Life and Legend,” which runs through June 22.
新登場的「維京海盜的生活與傳奇展」展到6月22日，十足令人既驚且懼，大受歡迎。

Vikings have long had a special place in British lore. The exhibition is tapping into an age-old preoccupation here. With their binge-drinking warriors, laconic humor and scary teeth, were the Vikings more British than the British?
維京人在英國傳說中素有特殊地位。展覽著眼於英國人對維京人一向懷有的想法。維京人戰士豪飲成性，說話簡潔幽默，牙齒令人生畏，是否比英國人還像英國人？

“There are a striking amount of similarities, and that’s one reason the Vikings are so romanticized in Britain,” said Gareth Williams, the chief curator of the exhibition. “We think they were much more glamorous than us, and we might have a bit of a complex about that.”
主策展人威廉斯說：「維京人和英國人相似處多得驚人，這也是英國人把維京人想得很浪漫的原因之一。我們覺得維京人魅力遠大過我們，可能也對這點有些情結。」

The exhibition’s timing coincides with the so-called Scandimania currently sweeping the British Isles, a fascination with all things Nordic highlighted by a television series in which a celebrity chef set out to crack the “Norse code.”
展覽推出正值所謂「斯堪地那維亞熱」狂掃不列顛群島之際，這股迷戀北歐事物的風潮源自電視系列節目中一個名廚打算破解「古斯堪地那維亞文」。

Scandinavia’s successful social and economic model is endlessly dissected in the British news media and has even inspired some Scots to root for independence. A new crop of Nordic sandwich shops is popping up in London, and Nordic noir is all the rage with a series of addictive Danish television dramas.
斯堪地那維亞半島成功的社會和經濟模式不僅英國新聞媒體不停加以分析，更鼓舞部分蘇格蘭人支持獨立。北歐三明治店在倫敦一家家開，北歐犯罪小說因一部令人看到上癮的丹麥電視劇而紅透半邊天。

Viking means pirate or raider in the Norse language. Even by medieval standards, the Norsemen who arrived in their wooden warships to raid monasteries and massacre monks were so brutal that, beginning in the 990s, the English King Ethelred the Unready paid them huge sums simply to stay away. That strategy brought only temporary relief. In 1013 all of England was conquered by the Danes. More Anglo-Saxon coins from that period have been found in Scandinavia than in England, and some are now among the objects on display in the exhibition.
「維京」在斯堪地那維亞語中指海盜或劫匪。斯堪地那維亞男子乘木戰船前來搶劫修道院、屠殺僧侶，即便以中世紀標準來看行徑都十分凶殘，以致英格蘭國王艾塞爾雷德二世從西元990年起，付給他們重金以求苟安。此計只帶來一時安寧。1013年，整個英格蘭都被丹麥人占領。當時的盎格魯薩克遜幣在斯堪地那維亞半島發現的比在英格蘭發現的還多，部分在這場展覽中展出。

Those coming for their fill of Viking horror will find plenty to feed the imagination: the iron heads of fighting axes, once wielded with one hand to maim and behead; richly decorated double-edged swords; the remains of body-length spears, the Viking warrior’s weapon of choice.
對維京人滿懷恐懼的參觀者會發現許多符合想像的事物，例如戰斧的鐵製斧頭，這戰斧曾被維京人隻手揮舞把人砍成重傷或砍下人頭；裝飾繁複的雙刃劍；跟身體等長的長矛殘片，這是維京戰士的最佳武器。

Most notable for its absence in the show is the familiar Viking helmet with horns or wings, which, it turns out, was invented in the 19th century amid another flurry of Viking obsession in the popular culture. Instead, visitors will see a rather more ordinary conical variety here.
至於展覽中看不到的東西，最引人注意的是大家熟知的、上有角或翼的維京頭盔。其實，這種頭盔是19世紀大眾文化狂吹維京風時期發明的。會場只會看到普通得多的圓錐形頭盔。

Like their headgear, the Vikings’ fearsome reputation has at times been embellished. They lost about as many battles as they won. One of the show’s most striking elements, on view for the first time, is a selection of skeletons and decapitated skulls from a mass grave discovered in Dorset in 2009. Carbon dating suggests some 50 Vikings were executed there around the year 1000.
維京人令人生畏的形象一如他們的頭盔，有時是渲染出來的。他們打輸的仗不比打贏的少。最驚人的展品之一，是2009年在英格蘭多塞特郡發現的集體墓穴中起出的骨架和斬首留下的頭骨，這些骨頭是首次展出。碳定年法顯示，約有50名維京人在西元1000年左右在當地被處決。

The sparse remains of a 37-meter Viking warship, the longest ever discovered, are the proud centerpiece of the show.
重點展品是罕見的37公尺長維京戰船所剩無多的殘骸，這是目前發現的最長維京戰船殘骸。

Descendants of the original Vikings still roam various corners of northern Britain, particularly in Yorkshire and in Scotland, where 20 percent of the local DNA is Norwegian. “In some places, the Vikings were our enemies,” Mr. Williams said. “In others, they actually became ‘us.’ That’s part of the intrigue.”
維京人的後裔仍在英國北部各角落晃蕩，尤其是約克郡和蘇格蘭，當地人20%的去氧核糖核酸（DNA）跟挪威人一樣。策展人威廉斯說：「在某些地方，維京人是我們的敵人，但在其他地方他們實際上變成了『我們』，妙就妙在這兒。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/29/arts/design/vikings-in-london-glamorous-but-just-like-family.html

2014-04-15聯合報/G5版/UNITEDDAILYNEWS 李京倫譯 原文參見紐時週報十二版上