By now, Rurik felt that he had memorized all the records on the wooden board, and he had a general outline of the migration of the Ross tribe.
But there were still many questions that troubled him, such as the precise latitude of Fort Ross.
If he knew this data, Rurik, who had an engineering background, felt that he could accurately measure the location of Fort Ross in the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea through physical knowledge, and even use wooden boards to describe the migration distance of the Ross tribe in the past, and infer their former homeland. s position.
At present, Rurik can accurately know every day of the Julian calendar from Vilia, for example, today is November 27th, and he also knows that one day in the future, the sun will not rise.
In Roseburg, there are always one or two days without night and one or two days without light every year.
Rurik almost instinctively determined that Fort Ross was very close to the Arctic Circle. If the precise dimensions were measured, it would be very helpful to the tribe. Because the latitudes of many areas had been measured, Rurik felt that he could draw a map of this area.
For any ethnic group that aspires to develop, accurate regional maps can often promote the development of the ethnic group.
Rurik is indeed not an ordinary person. He remembers the basic outline of the modern world map in his mind. When it comes to drawing a map of Europe, I dare not say whether the details can be reproduced well. He can at least draw the outline relatively accurately and make it as complex as possible. Certain details, namely specific proportions, can only be determined through astronomical and geographical re-mapping.
At this time, no one had yet conducted a detailed map of the Baltic Sea.
Any geographical mapping must be guided by astronomical observations. After all, the stars in the sky are changing at an extremely slow speed that humans can perceive. According to the feeling of the ancients, the stars are eternity.
The immovable stars are a good reference, and the Romans, who inherited Greek scientific knowledge, had long recognized that the world in which humans live is a huge ball.
The wise men of the Eastern Roman Empire inherited the scientific heritage of ancient Greece. They knew how to use tools to measure the angle between stars and instruments to determine their approximate position. Unfortunately, this knowledge did not spread.
In the ninth century, Western Europe was a vast and sparsely populated region in a realistic sense. Poor productivity levels resulted in a population of less than 15 million.
In the various barbarian countries established on the ruins of Rome, the majority of civilians had no access to advanced knowledge from the outside world. In order to survive, they could only be bound to their respective villages and harvested little food using extremely rough farming methods. After paying tribute to the nobles, they lived a life of hunger and satiety.
Compared with the poor farmers in Western Europe, the life of the Ross tribe is indeed much easier, because there is no problem in feeding thousands of people with the gifts of the huge Gulf of Bothnia. What's more, there are hundreds of thousands of wild reindeer on land, and of course their activity areas extend further and further north due to human interference.
A new leader is about to take his throne.
Rurik boldly asked for a treasure from Vilia: "Grandma, I have a bold idea. I need your ruler for a special measurement."
"Measurement? What are you going to do?"
"Well..." Originally Rurik wanted to explain the truth, but now, maybe it's right not to say it. He said deliberately vaguely: "I just want to know whether the World Tree is real."
"So, do you believe he is real?" Vilia asked casually, without showing any more emotion.
"Maybe that's just an old story. Our world is not a flat land lifted up by big trees. My father told me that our world, Midgard, is like a bird's nest held up by big trees. We are the bird's nest. Birds in it. If this is true, why do those in the south, especially those Romans, interpret it differently than we do?"
After hearing this, Villa couldn't help but become interested.
At this age, many things that she had once been sure of were now confused, especially when she came into contact with the men in black from Rome when she was young. Young Vilia listened to the elders' words. She believed in the World Tree, the twelve main gods of Asgard, and that humans lived in cold places.
Those Romans claimed that they lived in a warm land and claimed that an infinitely great being created all of this, but that being was not Odin.
Maybe the great god Odin has different names among different people?
Until the man in black clearly pointed out that the world is not something held up by a big tree. The world is a huge ball, and the stars in the sky are rotating around this ball.
Although the young Vilia did not agree with what the man in black said, she did not selectively forget it.
Today, the young Rurik actually raised such a question, which naturally awakened her dusty memory.
Villa ordered his subordinates to cut some more bacon, and then sat directly on the animal hide, crossing his legs, hoping to hear any special insights from the child in front of him.
"My child, sit down now too. I have a question. Do you already know the Romans' explanation of the world?"
"I……"
Rurik was shocked. He really shouldn't understand the "Roman explanation".
He had an idea and deliberately said: "That Roman book! Thanks to Odin for giving me the ability, I understand part of the content. Those Romans claimed that our world is a huge ball."
"Wait!" Vilia's squinted eyes suddenly opened wide, and her aging wrinkles seemed to burst due to her excitement.
Rurik never expected the priest to be so excited.
"I...I just saw something like this. I am very curious. Because the book also said that our world is not only a ball, but also a ball that tilts and rotates..."
Heliocentric theory, this theory can be said to have existed since ancient times, but this theory was too alternative in the classical Greek era.
Geocentric theory still occupies the mainstream because it conforms to the simplest beliefs of the vast majority of people.
Perhaps after entering agricultural civilization, people everywhere need to believe in a great existence, because primitive agriculture relies on the sky for food. If the "great god" becomes angry, it will cause a food shortage and the entire family will starve to death.
People always face the despair of hunger and natural disasters, but at the same time they always weave hope for a better future.
People always believe that God loves them and creates a world specifically for human beings to reproduce, and God also needs human respect.
This kind of thinking is almost inevitable, so with this kind of thinking, the land under your feet is the center of everything, so it is logical to think like this.
Greek philosophers tied geocentrism to mythology, and Rome further developed this idea. The destroyers of Western Rome and Eastern Rome directly tied the geocentric idea to the legitimacy of their own rule.
But as early as the Greek classical period, there were still scholars in Peloponnese who believed that the sun was the center of everything.
The two theories are actually summaries made by ancient scholars based on their own observations of astronomy and geography. They have different opinions due to different observation angles. They had attacked each other. The heliocentric advocates in the city-state era were completely defeated, and Aristotle and Ptolemy were victorious.
Of course, both theories are wrong, because the concept of "world" eventually becomes a huge scale that is difficult for humans to understand, measured in light years. There is no definite center in the universe, and even the earth itself is like sand on the beach. Small.
But this was unimaginable by people in the ninth century, and even by ordinary Viking farmers and fishermen.
After all, there are many overlaps between the two ancient doctrines. In areas that were and were still ruled by Rome, people who knew those ancient texts at least believed that the world was a big ball.
Villa felt strongly touched in her heart. In thirty years, she found the second person who claimed that "the world is a ball". Moreover, isn't the appearance of this person a miracle?
Villa tried to suppress his inner excitement and said: "A long time ago, the Romans I met also said the same thing. They gave me some examples to try to prove their words, but unfortunately I couldn't understand them. It’s been so long, what the world looks like, maybe when I die and become a Valkyrie, I can really see it in the sky, haha.”
When Villa said this, there was more ridicule in her words, and there was also regret that she could not understand the true meaning of the world while living.
Rurik took the opportunity to relay: "Haha, then you will see that the world is a ball when you are high in the sky. Maybe the stories I heard are only part of the truth. Maybe one of our ancestors long ago knew everything, But I’m worried that ordinary people like us can’t understand it, so I’ll use a set of words that we can understand to explain it. Through countless generations of oral transmission, the story has gradually become divorced from reality.”
Although the child is young and speaks very logically, maybe I will never be able to treat him as a child.
Vilia also got some inspiration from these words, and she had to doubt a lot.
Priests will deliberately make up some stories to stabilize people's hearts, and at the same time to maintain their own interests and let the tribesmen continue to worship their group of priests. So how many private goods have been added to the fabricated myth by priests of all generations? No priest would declare in public that he was making up a lie.
Willia won't have her world view collapse just because of one or two words. She is a little doubtful at most.
"Well, maybe our world is a big ball held up by the World Tree. Because none of us have seen the whole picture of the World Tree."
"It may be that it is being held up by something we can't see." Rurik had an idea and said with a smile, "For example, air? After all, without the nourishment of air, all living things will die. People must Breathe. Maybe the ancestors just wanted to explain that our world is nourished by something, like a big tree, by describing a world tree."
"Exquisite explanation!"
Face to face, Rurik could clearly feel Villa's excitement, as if his nonsense words were outlining a new worldview system.
In this case, Rurik let go of his courage: "Asgard should be in the sky, and they must be one of the stars. They have been watching us, and they send Valkyrie to check us every winter. They may still He would go and watch the Romans, and he would send messengers named Angels to mingle among the crowds and guide the outstanding ones among them in their achievements.”
No child would say such complicated words. Vilia, who is sitting cross-legged now, looks like she is in her late seventies, but she is actually a child today.
Rurik's words are an attempt to describe that the Viking-style Nordic beliefs of the Rus tribe and the Romans are not much different in principle.
After all, if the integration of the Rus tribe into the Slavic world is a historical necessity, then having a cross and obtaining a double-headed eagle is also a necessity.
In order to meet this necessity, reinterpreting the World Tree may be the most correct choice.
However, everything needs to be proved that the earth is a ball.
For this purpose, Rurik needed at least a rope ruler. The next step was to use the most primitive level to select the test site, and then it was as simple as pole measurement.
Through a large number of measurements, the length of the sun's shadow at noon on the winter solstice was calculated. Of course, Roseburg had already fallen into polar night on the winter solstice.
After many days of measurements, the possible studios on the winter solstice were finally calculated. This operation finally calculated a basically correct angle between the sun and the precise latitude of Roseburg.
In fact, as long as the latitude can be calculated, the explanation of "the world tree supports the land of mankind" may be shaken. The final result is that almost all people except hunting, fishing, smelting, fighting and boating will be able to understand. The ignorant residents of the Ross tribe know that the world is a ball.
Because it can never be a "great leader" who can truly bring so-called prosperity to the Ross tribe. Prosperity requires the joint efforts of all units that make up society.
Rurik, or Liu Li, thinks that this is what prosperity should be. In layman's terms, when ignorant people become smart and knowledgeable, and begin to actively think about the meaning of their own existence, that is to say, they no longer follow what others say, and no one or thing will restrain their philosophy, and the creativity of the human group will also welcome. Have a total explosion.
In ancient society, even a few technological breakthroughs would bring huge leaps to this ethnic group.
And what can bring about the longest leap is often the most basic things. For example, the Vikings in the ninth century generally believed that the world was first of all a ball.
If they believe this, they may dare to think about the feasibility of circumnavigating the world.
Ah, after all, the great geographical discovery was only six hundred years later.
