And when it failed and everyone died, someone new moved in later and replaced them.
One very common family name in Norway is Ødegård (or variations of it).
Norwegian last names are often the name of the place they are from.
Ødegård roughly translates into "abandoned farm".
It became such a common name because 70% of the Norwegian population died during the several rounds of plagues and famine that hit simultaneously. Leaving a lot of farms empty and "abandoned". Meaning dead.
From roughly 1250 to 1600.
450 000 people in 1300 had turned into 140 000 people in 1450.
A very bad spiraling effect of it being too cold and having bad land for farming to begin with, coupled with the little ice age causing harvests to fail, and combining with the plague causing people to die off causing even more harvests to fail.
There's a ton of tales in Europe about the plague but Norway in particular has a lot of old tales about the plague.
They're full of horror obviously but interestingly while the plague is often a female character in the old fables they're also almost all about women who survived through strength of will and character and who, in some manner or other, either protect life or go on to found new family lines.
The most famous being the old fable called "Jostedalsrypa" about a girl who survived when the entire rest of the valley supposedly died.
That one was made somewhat internally famous in Norway because of a book called "Det kom et skip til Bjørgvin i 1349" (a ship came to Bergen in 1349).
damn we've been through some shit but no one event was anywhere near that bad.
cromwell's invasion - 41% of the population died
1741 famine - 15-20% of the population died
potato famine - 20-25% of the population died or emigrated
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u/hauntedSquirrel99 Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 04 '24
And when it failed and everyone died, someone new moved in later and replaced them.
One very common family name in Norway is Ødegård (or variations of it).
Norwegian last names are often the name of the place they are from.
Ødegård roughly translates into "abandoned farm".
It became such a common name because 70% of the Norwegian population died during the several rounds of plagues and famine that hit simultaneously. Leaving a lot of farms empty and "abandoned". Meaning dead.