OK - this is an interesting thread; as I'm not as
experienced at Old Norse as others I won't comment on
the colour variation theme but I had a thought: surely
the folk we are talking about are North African not
Sub Saharan African? I mean, obviously a few would be
people with Sub Saharan ancestors (like we have Black
English people here now) but not all. And North
Africans would be a mixture of Berber, Moor, Roman,
Jewish, etc. Not too much Arab ancestry I would guess
because the Arabs hadn't entered North Africa yet (Am
I right about this?) But then Berbers, for example, I
think resemble Arabs to a large degree anyway? Then
again, even if the folk we're discussing weren't as
dark as you'd think an 'African' would be maybe the
Norse folk would describe them as such because
compared to themselves they were extremely dark
skinned. What do others think about this?
Hrimalf
PS Anyone got Saga references for these Africans at
all? Its a subject I'm most interested in.
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