THE NORSELAND (Military and Conflict)

Though war is a way of life for the Norsemen, they have no formalized military, and there is no
formal training in Norse society. Instead, young men simply imitate their fathers and the other older
men of the tribe, often pitting themselves against their peers in tests of courage and strength.
Children are taught to carry wooden swords and wooden spears with a leather strap covering the
spears tips to prevent accidental injury. This informal training causes children in Norse society grow
up quicklysome join raiding parties as young as 15 years of age.
Norse warriors wear cone-shaped helms with nose guards and wear long mail tunics and
goatskin shoes. They wield swords, axes, or spears and wooden shields with iron boss. Archers use
powerful bows made from yew and carry small hand axes and daggers as backup weapons. For
protection, they wear padded leather tunics. Wealthier warriors also own mounts, but thanks to the
rugged terrain of their homeland, the Norsemen never developed large-scale cavalry tactics and
charges. Instead, mounts are primarily used to deliver warriors to the fight, or from one end of the
battlefield to the other. Once they arrive where they intend to do their killing, Norse warriors typically
dismount and fight on foot.
Traditional military campaigns of the Norse are nothing more than grand, organized raids. War
to the Norsemen is a business venture, and thoughts of conquering with the intent of occupying a
new territory is a foreign idea to them. Instead, the goal of every Norse military campaign is simply to
secure as much loot as possible before the end of the campaign season and then make it safely back
to their homeland where they may enjoy their spoils and newfound wealth.
Bands of warriors are known as liths. Kings and chieftains have the power to raise large forces
of liths known as leithangs, which also includes supplies, weapons, and ships. Some Norse kings
have territories so large that they must not only divide their territory into districts, but each district into
several small units. Each unit must provide at least one warrior should he summon a war party, and
groups of units join together to fund and build a longship, which carries them out on raids.
Some Norse kings have been known to build military bases around their territories in case of an
attack. These camps have circular ramparts with four gateways, each facing a point on the compass.
They are situated at the ends of two streets, which cross each other and divide the camp into four
sections. A road, paved with wooden strips, runs around the inside of the camps rampart. Buildings
house not only the warriors, but also their families, in addition to workshops where smiths forge
weapons, armor, and jewelry (the latter from melted down gold, silver, and iron the Norsemen acquire
while out on raids).



1. Tickets numbered 1 to 20 are mixed up and then a ticket is drawn at random. What is the
probability that the ticket drawn has a number which is a multiple of 3 or 5?

Ans. 9/20
Explanation: Here, S = {1, 2, 3, 4, ...., 19, 20}.
Let E = event of getting a multiple of 3 or 5 = {3, 6 , 9, 12, 15, 18, 5, 10, 20}.
P(E) = n(E)/n(S) = 9/20.


2. A bag contains 4 white, 5 red and 6 blue balls. Three balls are drawn at random from the bag. The
probability that all of them are red, is:

Explanation:
Let S be the sample space.
Then, n(S) = number of ways of drawing 3 balls out of 15

=
15
C3

=
(15 x 14 x 13)
(3 x 2 x 1)

= 455.
Let E = event of getting all the 3 red balls.
n(E) =
5
C3 =
5
C2 =
(5 x 4)
= 10.
(2 x 1)
P(E) =
n(E)
=
10
=
2
.
n(S) 455 91


3. Three unbiased coins are tossed. What is the probability of getting at most two heads?


Explanation:













4. A die is rolled and a coin is tossed, find the probability that the die shows an odd number and the coin
shows a head.
Solution:
The sample space S of the experiment described in question 5 is as follows

S = { (1,H),(2,H),(3,H),(4,H),(5,H),(6,H)
(1,T),(2,T),(3,T),(4,T),(5,T),(6,T)}

Let E be the event "the die shows an odd number and the coin shows a head". Event E may be described as
follows

E={(1,H),(3,H),(5,H)}
The probability P(E) is given by

P(E) = n(E) / n(S) = 3 / 12 = 1 / 4

5. What is the probability of getting a sum 9 from two throws of a dice?
Explanation:
in two throws of a die n(S)=(6x6)=36

Let E = event of getting a sum ={ ( 3,6), (4,5),(5,4),(6,3)}

Therefore P/E =n(E)/n(S) = 4/36 = 1/9