Norwegian dictionary

Think you have the Vikings called? With the caricatures and stereotypes available, there’s most likely a great deal you’ve never learned about the seafaring Scandinavians who raided and settled seaside sites within the Uk and beyond between your ninth and eleventh centuries. Explore 10 surprising details concerning the Vikings below.

Vikings didn’t put on horned headgear.

Forget nearly every Viking warrior costume you’ve seen. Sure, the pugnacious Norsemen most likely carried headgear, however that whole horn-festooned helmet look? Depictions dating in the Viking age don’t show it, and also the only authentic Viking helmet ever discovered is decidedly horn-free. Artists appear to possess fabricated the popularity throughout the 1800s, possibly inspired by explanations of northern Men and women by ancient greek language and Roman chroniclers. Lengthy prior to the Vikings’ time, Norse and Germanic priests did indeed put on horned headgear for ceremonial reasons.

Vikings were recognized for their excellent hygiene.

Between rowing motorboats and decapitating opponents, Viking males should have stunk to high Valhalla, right? Just the opposite. Excavations of Viking sites have switched up forceps, shavers, hair combs and ear cleansers produced from animal bones and antlers. Vikings also bathed at least one time a week—much more other Men and women of the day—and loved dips in natural hot springs.

Vikings used a distinctive liquid to begin fires.

Clean freaks though these were, the Vikings didn't have qualms about utilizing the energy of 1 human waste product. They'd collect a fungus known as touchwood from tree bark and boil it for a few days in urine before pounding it into something similar to felt. The sodium nitrate present in urine allows the fabric to smolder instead of burn, so Vikings might take fire together on the run.

Vikings hidden their dead in motorboats.

There isn’t any denying Vikings loved their boats—so much it had become an excellent recognition to become interred in a single. Within the Norse religion, valiant players joined festive and glorious area after dying, also it was believed that the ships that offered them well in existence is needed them achieve their final locations. Distinguished raiders and prominent women were frequently laid to relaxation in ships, encircled by weapons, valuable goods or even sacrificed slaves.

Vikings were mixed up in slave trade.

Many Vikings got wealthy off human trafficking. They'd capture and enslave ladies and teenagers while pillaging Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Slavic pay outs. These “thralls, ” because they maintained, were then offered in giant slave marketplaces across Europe and also the Middle East.

Viking women loved some fundamental privileges.

Viking women got betrothed as youthful as 12 and needed to mind your family while their husbands sailed off on adventures. Still, they'd more freedom than other women of the era. As lengthy because they weren’t thralls, Viking women could inherit property, request the divorce and reclaim their dowries if their partnerships ended.