Vikings: Facts vs. Fiction

The Vikings have been a fascinating subject to people from all over the world, fired up by the media interest like the History Channel's recently broadcasted TV-show 'The Vikings'. Quite often you hear people from Europe brag about how their ancestors were the mystic and ruthless Scandinavians, who terrorized Europe, Asia, Africa and North America around AD 1000. My personal interest lies in that I am Scandinavian and therefore the Vikings were part of my own history, but I do not go around and proudly announce that I am of Viking ancestry and I definitely do not wear one of those plastic horned helmets whenever I show myself in public.

Much of our image of the Vikings was created by the Victorians in 19th century Britain - yeah thanks a lot! Scholars learnt the old Icelandic language in order to be able to read the old Viking sagas (which were not written by any Vikings, by the way) and make their own interpretation of these fascinating peoples from the north. They even went so far to claim that Queen Victoria herself was a descendant of the powerful Vikings jarls or kings.

Almost a year ago from today, Science Nordic published an article about some of the myths the modern societies have about the Vikings. Although there are many different myths surrounding the Old Scandinavians, the author decided to only investigate five myths, which are the following:

• Vikings were dirty and unkempt
• Vikings wore horned helmets
• Vikings looked like we do today
• Vikings' clothing style was admired throughout the world
• Vikings' appearance was marked by battle wounds

Myth 1:

Figure 1: Early example of a comb with inscribed runes. By the way, the Swedish word for comb is kam, which is not far off from the Germanic word kama that had been inscribed in runes on the comb. Source: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120413-41929.html

Although the general cleanliness during the Middle Ages was exactly great, there were still different levels of dirty (no, this is not a metaphor), and the Vikings happened to belong to the more cleaner category. This is supported by numerous finds of combs (Figure 1) dating to the Viking Age, some even with runes inscribed into them. It suggest that the Vikings maintained their hygiene by combing their hair. Another source we have is a medieval document telling us that the Vikings liked to bathe every Saturday. This is further supported by the modern Swedish language as the Swedish word for Saturday originates from an old word meaning to bathe or to wash. 

Myth 2: 

We can thank the Victorians for the idea of the Vikings wearing horned helmets. The horned helmet myth is thought to originate from Wagner's opera where the 'bad guys' wore horned helmets during the performances, and as the lovely Victorians saw the Vikings as barbarians they made the connection that they could also have been wearing horned helmets. So far no archaeological evidence has been found to support the theory of the Vikings ever wearing horned helmets. Instead the evidence suggests that they wore very similar helmets to most other warriors in Europe at that time.

Myth 3:

Naturally the Old Scandinavians would have looked pretty much like what we look like today. Of course, other factors like poor nutrition would have affected what they looked like, but the basics are pretty much the same. One has to remember that the Scandinavians were not only raiding barbarians, but many of them also decided to settle and marry into other European families and therefore bringing new genes into the Scandinavian genepool. The generic blond hair and blue eyes Scandinavian was soon joined by other hair and eye colours as time progressed. 

Myth 4:

Now this is a tricky one as not many clothing fragments of the Viking Age have been preserved in the archaeological record. However, from their travels, the Vikings would have come across several different types of fabric and clothing styles - for example, there are records of how many slaves can be traded for a certain amount of silk on the markets in Istanbul, Turkey. Although, naturally the clothes they wore had to be adapted to the Scandinavian climate, and I must say that silk is not the type of material I would personally go for during the cold winter nights.

Myth 5:

It is easy to think that the fearsome Vikings would have had scars from their past battles. Truth is that we cannot really know for sure. Scientists have found possible battle wounds on Viking skeletons that have healed prior to their death. Some of these wounds are so bad that they would certainly have left a scar on the flesh. In terms of the majority of the Old Scandinavians they were farmers and only later chose to move abroad in the hopes of finding a more fruitful future in some faraway land. The Scandinavians we refer to as Vikings were a minority who chose to get into raiding and trading in order to make themselves a living - these are also the people who would have seen battle and acquired the scars.

Figure 2: In the future, crocs can be found in all the shops for 21st re-encactment! Source: http://www.naturalrezources.com/crocs.html

One can safely say that the Old Scandinavians were a fascinating group of people that left remarkable mark in our history. They are also not fully understood and as the archaeological work progresses more is revealed to help fill in the gaps. Next time you see one of those plastic horned helmets in the shop, think about how the modern societies view the people of the past and how we may be viewed by future societies - "Yes, they all wore plastic crocs daily in the 21st century" - it is scary to think about what they may come up with!

L