THe 1612 massacre of 3-400 Scottish

[DocToxin8]

A massacre happened at this barn (see photo) at the 5. Sept. 1612.
116 Scottish prisoners was killed here.

In 1612 Denmark-Norway (union; Norway was ruled by the king of Denmark, but had some autonomy) and Sweden was at war, which wasn’t a very uncommon state these times.
Most of the wars were not fought between Norway and Sweden even though they share borders though, but the wars were more often fought other places in Europe, like what is now Germany.

At this time the king of Sweden was a military genius (Gustavus 2 Adolphus) and would lead Sweden to be a true Empire, but he would not ever invade Norway, although some attempts were made he would not afford a long guerrilla war in the Norwegian mountains.

However, in 1612 the Swedish king wanted some mercenaries, he had been promised 3000 Scottish mercenaries by king James of England (and Scotland) some time before. He sent a letter to remind the king of this fact but the ship was boarded by a Norwegian privateer, and the letter thrown overboard.
The officer on Andrew Ramsay was spared and let go in promise of forsaking his quest to collect mercenaries to the Swedish king, but once he was let go, he broke his promise and did this anyway.

When sending the Scottish mercenaries to Sweden, a group of 3-400 mercenaries came ashore in Norway and started the long marsh to Sweden.
Rumors of pillaging and rape done by the mercenaries spread through the land, and two local Sheriffs gathered Norwegian farmers to put up an ambush.
A force of around 500 Norwegian farmers set up and ambush when they knew which way the scots came, and set up roadblocks both ahead and behind them.

It must be stressed that Norwegians weren’t really that loyal to the Danish king, having just been ordered to fight the Swedes, which most of them didn’t even gather to do, and the ones who did, met up at a castle, drank all the beer and then left again without marching on the Swedes.

But now there was foreign troops within Norway’s own borders, and that rallied them.
As a side note here, Norway and Sweden can be argued to be the most militarized states in the whole of Europe, if not the West or perhaps even the world at the time.
Not to say their army was that big,
but unlike other states which hired professional armies, Norway and Sweden had to conscript peasants to be in the army.
That meant that during the 1700s such a high percent of the Norwegian population was in the army that it was thus the most militarized nation in the West.

And that also meant that the peasants that met ambushed these scottish mercenaries did have some training, and many of them had been to war before, and they were well armed with sabers, halberds, pikes and even some muskets and crossbows.

When the ambush happened we don’t really know that much of what happened, as the stories told by the Norwegians obviously are biased.
We do think that the scots had little chance, as the peasants could also throw rocks and spears at them from an elevated position next to the road. And on the other side was a river, so they were trapped and many were said do have drowned in the river when trying to flee, and those that made it ashore were quickly killed by Norwegians waiting for them there.

We know that 130 men were eventually taken prisoner.
And among these were the two officers Alexander Ramsay and George Sinclair.

We also know that the next day, the 5. Sept. 1612; at this barn now called the “scots barn”, 116 scots were killed in captivity.

That concludes this little story of tale i uncovered when researching the Danish-Norwegian Swedish war.
I hope it was enjoyable.

[hammerheart]

Here, enjoy a nice folk song about the Kringen battle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhOGaToOq6o

Original text and translation

http://lyricstranslate.com/en/herr-s...-sinclair.html

[DocToxin8]

Here, enjoy a nice folk song about the Kringen battle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhOGaToOq6o

Original text and translation

http://lyricstranslate.com/en/herr-s...-sinclair.html

Hahaha!
How did you know about this Biz?
This is Zinklars vise,
which is a Norwegian way of saying Sinclair ofcourse.
This song was sung a lot some places in Norway, but also on the Faroe Islands, which is were this tune is from, and why I can’t understand all they say.

You suprise me man!

[hammerheart]

I used to be passionate about everything Scandinavian language traditions lore etc I even studied old Norse at some point.

[DocToxin8]

Actually i do understand the lyrics, much more similar than what I thought.

The tale of the child that’s killed is what really pissed of the farmers.
I’m not sure it is totally true, but it probably is, mercenaries were brutal at the time, and they probably killed that kid.
But it’s also great propaganda.

An American that described the incident in the 1800s said the Norwegian act was cowardly; that the scots had no chance.
That might be true, but why give em a chance when they are going through your land?

The killing of the prisoners was more, ehhh, however.

And worst of all, Andrew Ramsay and his interpreter were spared again!
So those killed were scots (some recruited form poor houses)

[DocToxin8]

I used to be passionate about everything Scandinavian language traditions lore etc I even studied old Norse at some point.

Why then shit, come to Norway some time then! If you use AirBnB it doesn’t have to be that expensive and I’ll show you around, as long as it’s during a time I’m not that busy all the time.

Scandinavian history is actually pretty interesting. Maybe not compared to what the Roman’s did, and Italy has always been a center of the world.
But we’ve had our adventures here too.

[DocToxin8]

and I might be wrong that Sinclair survived, he might have been killed as his grave is found here.

It was Ramsay and his interpretor James Moneypenny and a couple of others that survived (and survived the massacre afterwards as well)

[hammerheart]

Why then shit, come to Norway some time then! If you use AirBnB it doesn’t have to be that expensive and I’ll show you around, as long as it’s during a time I’m not that busy all the time.

Scandinavian history is actually pretty interesting. Maybe not compared to what the Roman’s did, and Italy has always been a center of the world.
But we’ve had our adventures here too.

I was even about to move to move to Sweden a few yrs ago not realizing how much of a bad move that would have been lol. Norway was my first idea, but living there just seems too expensive. Visit, that would be great. I'll hit you up if planning to do so, thanks.

It's not so much the recent history that got me but the remnants of the ancient Indo-European proto-culture that remained well conserved in Scandinavia, I guess also thanks to late Christianization comparing to rest of Europe. I am, you know, a "pagan".

[DocToxin8]

I was even about to move to move to Sweden a few yrs ago not realizing how much of a bad move that would have been lol. Norway was my first idea, but living there just seems too expensive. Visit, that would be great. I'll hit you up if planning to do so, thanks.

It's not so much the recent history that got me but the remnants of the ancient Indo-European proto-culture that remained well conserved in Scandinavia, I guess also thanks to late Christianization comparing to rest of Europe. I am, you know, a "pagan".

Do that!
And cool!
I’m a heretic as well u know, not an atheist really, more akin to a pagan yes. Not to say there’s not much nice to find in every religion.
It’s just that it’s also, in my view, very much bad. They’re just out of touch really, IMO.
But im not gonna piss on everyone who believes in Christianity or Islam.
I respect the people, I just don’t think their faith makes much sense in our time.

[hammerheart]

Do that!
And cool!
I’m a heretic as well u know, not an atheist really, more akin to a pagan yes. Not to say there’s not much nice to find in every religion.
It’s just that it’s also, in my view, very much bad. They’re just out of touch really, IMO.
But im not gonna piss on everyone who believes in Christianity or Islam.
I respect the people, I just don’t think their faith makes much sense in our time.

I think religion still do absolve some function nowadays though the doctrinal core of, particularly, abrahamic religions doens't make much sense either to me to say the least.

But agreed, it's a waste of precious time and energy to attack ppl basing on their beliefs, so duh, let's come to terms if possible and live happy together.

[guitarzan]

You live in Norway doc? A good friend of mine moved there, he's a singer/guitarist. He use to play for doctor hook, he's a killer guitar player. If you ever get a chance you should check him out.

https://m.facebook.com/southernmusic/

[Obs]

Historically speaking, I dont think Norway is the type of guerillas one would wish to fuck with. Scots walked into a cave of bears with no torch.

Great story doc!

[DocToxin8]

You live in Norway doc? A good friend of mine moved there, he's a singer/guitarist. He use to play for doctor hook, he's a killer guitar player. If you ever get a chance you should check him out.

https://m.facebook.com/southernmusic/

Cool, I’ll check this out. If he’s in Oslo then chances are good i can find him.

[DocToxin8]

Historically speaking, I dont think Norway is the type of guerillas one would wish to fuck with. Scots walked into a cave of bears with no torch.

Great story doc!

Thanks, I found it interesting when I was digging about something else.
Norway lends itself quite well to guerilla fighting, and people using the combo of ski and hit and run goes back to the Middle Ages.
Norway has, since 1200 been the smaller (in population) brother of both Sweden and Denmark, and usually been in Union with one or the other.
Since 1500 the Union with Denmark became more like Norway was a kind of colony almost, but it did get something out of it too, so plenty of people were quite loyal to the Danish king.
But when he wanted war with the Swedes the Norwegians often didn’t care, didn’t see it as their war.
This changed each time we were invaded though, which Sweden has done a couple of times.
The most recent being two invasions during the start of 1700 led by the Swedish king Carolus (Carl) the 12th.
Both invasions failed and the last ended in the Swedish king getting killed by a bullet to the head.
No one knows who shot that bullet, more recent evidence of the skull seem to suggest it was a Swedish bullet. But if he was shot by his own men due to being tired of war (the Swedes had lost 8 million men during the last 100 years in continued warfare that lasted since Gustavus 2 Adolphus made Sweden into a great empire in 1600),
or if it was just an accident we don’t know.

But that was the last great invasion.
There was an invasion in 1813-1814 as well, but both sides didn’t want to lose men at that point, and the engagement was pretty minor before both sides decided it was best to just talk it out.

After Napoleon was deafeated Norway was again in Union with the Swedes. (The Danish king had sided with Napoleon, and the Swedish king was actually one Of Napoleons generals, which was made king by the childless Swedish regent)
But the Swedish king, even if he was originally Napoleons general (jean Baptiste Bernadotte, took the name Carl/Carolus when king)
he seems to have realized Napoleon would lose and changed Sweden’s stance from neutral to ally with Russia and England.
(Which seemed strange to most Swedes, Russia being an old enemy being fought multiple times, Carl 12. actually even invaded Russia, which lead to disaster when the Russians (as usual) scorched their own land so that food became scarce.)

But anyway, Norway was given to Sweden after this.
And it resulted in a very brief (2 weeks) long war, that resulted in Norway basically being autonomous, but having the Swedish (or actually French) king.
In 1905 Norway decided to not only leave the union with Sweden, it did so in such a way to mock Sweden as much as possible and war seemed very possible.
(But considering a Norwegian Bishop had said in a previous war that Norway shouldn’t stop fighting before losing 40.000 men; how he came up with that number is beyond me. And that this war would be about so called freedom and had much larger support, it would have been a mess)

Another reason why Norway is useful for Guerilla fighting is that the peasants have for a long time been a trusted part of society. More trusted than any mercenaries would be. So instead of mercenary armies, a very high number of peasants was conscripted to military service. (In 1700 Norway has the highest number of military personnel Per captita)
And due to the many wars many of these had some real experience as well.
So while pitched battles would be a bad idea (would always be outnumbered), sieges (until the forts were lost, which is how Carl 12th lost his life, while trying to take Fredriksten Castle) and then guerilla would be quite costly for any invading force.
Which means they would need numerical superiority.
And that’s were another problem arrives; there wasn’t enough food to sustain large armies.
Just the Norwegian army was a heavy tax on whatever unlucky farmers lived local to where the army would gather near the borders.
So one of the Swedish invasions basically had to stop because of food shortage.

But i digress heavily.

Poor scots though.
But it was this story that they killed a boy that also fueled why they were killed even after surrendering.

[guitarzan]

Cool, I’ll check this out. If he’s in Oslo then chances are good i can find him.

If you want to go to a show, I can hook you up!

[DocToxin8]

If you want to go to a show, I can hook you up!

That would be really cool actually!
I haven’t found him on my own FB page yet, will do that later today when I’m finished.

I have a family member that’s moved to Austin, Texas and if there’s two things I know about southern country I like it’s texas chili (Which I think, without comparison however, that he can make as well as a Texan; used 6 different types of chili, and I miss that!), and music.

So that could be really fun to see some real American music!

[guitarzan]

Hell yea, he would be a good to go see if you wanna hear American, he does rock, country and southern rock. Check out this video I took years back, he plays my gear when he comes to the states. That's my cousin playing bass. He use to play with doctor hook also, and now plays with confederate railroad

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-nrt8c9SR9A