My Viking Blood
The first time someone wondered if I was Norwegian, I was on a beach in Israel. A Dutch man I’d briefly met at a conference nearby came over to me and pointed back to a guy further up the beach. He said “Bjorn wants to know where you’re from in Norway.”
I shrugged it off as a fluke since I’d always assumed my family heritage was Eastern European Jewish, (Russian, Polish, Lithuanian). But when I began traveling to Europe a lot, it started happening more often, especially in the Netherlands and Germany. I was once having dinner in Braunschweig while on a book tour for my memoir/travelogue My Germany when a man surprised me by sitting next to me at the trestle table. He said in German, “I do a lot of business in Norway.”
That seemed like a bizarre conversation starter. I must have looked puzzled, because he said (still in German), “You’re not Norwegian?” I shook my head: “Nein, ich bin Amerikaner.” We chatted anyway through our excellent dinners in a mixture of German and English, but he looked dubious, maybe because my German was too good in his opinion to be spoken by an American?
Similar situations have happened to me many other times in different ways, and back when my hair was shoulder-length, more than one German told me, “You look like a Viking.” While flying home from Berlin at the end of another book tour, my Swedish seatmate said half-way through the flight that he was surprised that I spoke to him in English because he’d been sure I was Norwegian when he boarded and took the seat next to me.
I finally thought I had the opportunity to get to the heart of this mystery when I overheard some people at a hotel lobby in New Jersey who were clearly Swedish–and something else. I recognized the sound of Swedish from having watched many un-dubbed Swedish movies and took a guess that the one guy in the group who sounded different was Norwegian. I hoped so, anyway. When he headed off for the men’s room and then returned, I intercepted him before he got back to his buddies.
“Are you Norwegian by any chance?” I asked.
He nodded. I quickly filled him in on my experiences being taken for one of his countrymen and asked, “So, do I look Norwegian to you?”
He scanned me up and down and shrugged. “What does a Norwegian look like?” Great, I thought, I found a philosopher.
As it turns out, a recent DNA analysis says I’m near 6% Scandinavian, so all those people saw something that was always there and my family had no clue about. It might explain my deep affinity for Scandinavian crime fiction and on-screen adventure on screen like Vikings, The Last Kingdom and Wallander. And could it explain that I felt so comfortable learning Swedish when I thought I’d be teaching there one summer that friends with Swedish relatives said my accent was excellent?
Whatever the case, I have learned how to say “I have Scandinavian DNA” in Swedish and Norwegian if I ever actually get to either country. Is that likely?
Kansje/kanskje. Perhaps.
Lev Raphael is the author of 27 books from memoir to mystery and he coaches writers at writewithoutborders.com.
Fjord photo by Ferdinand Stöhr on Unsplash
Norwegian... Of all things. I agree with the Norwegian: What does a Norwegian look like? 😏 That Viking thing is fun, though.
My husband, who was 80% English, with some Scottish and a tiny bit of French thrown in, was always mistaken for a native American here in the upper reaches of Michigan. For years, until those DNA tests came along, we did believe there was some NA in his background. He and his grandmother Kate, from Minnesota, had Indian features: black hair, darker skin, long earlobes, high cheekbones, and, for him, no hair on his chest. But, nope. None.
When I transferred to a junior high in Detroit with a high Jewish population it was assumed I was Jewish, too, until it came out that I looked that way because I was (half) Italian. I didn't exactly pretend I was Jewish but it was kind of nice to be part of that clan, at least for a while. Not that they shunned me, exactly, after that, but the air did grow a little cooler. 🙂
I also had 23 and me done revealing much Swedish ancestry- a few surprises too, like a high percentage of neanderthal which has resulted in no end of teasing from my husband! And I have no evidence of an overhanging brow, jutting chin or large bones…enjoyed your post, and from one ancient viking to another- you fit the bill!