Historical facts

History is one thing I'm very interested in and I love it when I'm able to create a fantasy story based on history. Still because it's a fantasy story I simply can't make it completely accurate. Also, I have to admit, that my knowledge of the viking time in Finland has widened a lot after creating the story and if I would want to use everything I know I would have to change the story completely.

On this page I tell you what things are historically accurate or are based on real history in Taint of Exile. I will also point out such facts that I could not fit in the story.

CHRISTIANITY

I had first understood wrong by thinking that the crusades to Finland began earlier and that they would fit into the story. When I read more about the Viking time and the time that followed I understood that the first crusades to Finland would happen years after Taint of Exile. So I have decided to delete the crusades from the story completely and just have the Vikings in it.

Cristianity however will show up in the story in slight ways, because slowly trough Vikings Christianity first arrived to Finland. It was no instant process and Finns did not suddenly turn Christian, but for example Christian items did end up in Finland.

Taint of Exile is set to happen around year 1000 and quite soon after both the leaders of the countries in Russia and the kings of the Vikings turned Christian. Finland was left between Christian lands and it was bound to happen that both Catholic and Othrodox faith would arrive to Finland.

The crusades I mentioned was nothing like the crusades to Holy Land. However, for reason or other the campaings done to Finland during the early Christian time (in Finland) were named crusades. I have not studied the reasons of this further.

DARK MAGIC

I have read from couple of different sources that Vikings were afraid of the dark magic of Finnish shamans. I have used this in the story so that the people of Prohenta also fear the dark magic of Finland despite their many similarities with Prohenta's shamans.

TRIBES OF FINLAND

During the Viking time there lived at least four different tribes of people in the area that is Finland today. Three of them in Southern part of Finland and in the Northern part the Lappland people (Sami).

This was something I learned after I had already created Taint of Exile. To bring out this fact properly in the story it would mean changing the complete setting of the story so I have decided to leave this historical fact out. So in Taint of Exile the people of Prohenta regard all the tribes in Finland as only one group of people and they call them Finns.

However, the current setting makes it so that the humans in Prohenta and around it are Lappland people. This is because Prohenta is placed in Lappland and during the viking time at least in Finland the area where Sami people lived was wider and reached more South than the area we consider Lappland today.

SHAMANISM

I will provide information of this to add here.

USEFUL LINKS

Finland's map and satellite picture - link (geology.com)
Finnish mythology - link (wikipedia)
Finnish history - link (wikipedia)
Viking age - link (wikipedia)
Scandinavia - link (wikipedia)