History Channel premiered the latest season of Vikings on Feb 18. While closing the blinds, shutting off communication devices, hunting for the warmest blankets, and listening to the beautiful melody of buttered kernels popping in the microwave, it dawned on me that I’ve always been curious about Viking culture, but hadn’t read enough.
Shows like Vikings can offer great escapism for the past, but they also remind us that the members of this society experienced similar emotions and conflicts that we endure in our lifetimes, except…you know…some thousands of years ago, give or take a century.
The show follows Ragnar Lothbrok, (Travis Fimmel) the Viking king who was credited for the invasion of Paris and for fathering many famous Viking warriors before he was assassinated in a pit of snakes.
If you ever have a bad day, at least it’s not “Ragnar being thrown into a pit of snakes” bad
Although his sons are known to have existed, Ragnar’s existence is unclear. His myth resembles that of King Arthur, in that he seems to be an amalgamation of different people. The little bit that is known of him comes from Norse poetry and stories, which allows History channel’s Vikings to take a few creative liberties in terms of story. History channel’s Ragnar is credited for discovering the land to the west in the 9th century, though in reality, the Vikings had already established trade routes with England and Ireland by then. One of my favorite aspects of the show is the way it handles Viking politics. Their views of freedom were truly unique for their time period. All members of the community had a voice and a right to challenge authority if deemed appropriate. Though I won’t state any spoilers, I can say that Vikings does take the time to present these power struggles in great detail. If for nothing else, I would say that this alone is a great reason to watch. But wait! there’s more.
The squad
Vikings includes female characters within the warrior’s ranks, leading to some of the most badass female characters I’ve seen on screen. Archeological evidence implies that women and children were most likely present during the excursions, to help settle the conquered land (as opposed to arriving as part of a second or third wave). Whether or not the women actually participated in battle is less likely, though still unclear. In any case, women in Viking society had more freedom than in most medieval cultures, which baffled surrounding societies. Women had the option of easily divorcing their husbands if they were deemed unacceptable, and were in charge of the home and finances while the husband was away. They were also able to keep their inheritance in case they were divorced or widowed. They were known to instigate fights between men who would otherwise not have been motivated to fight, usually for the sake of revenge or honor, and this appears in the show too. Next up…eyeliner!
Nope…it wasn’t just for the ladies back then
Just like in the show, Vikings were known to wear eyeliner quite often, as reported by eyewitnesses who encountered them at trading outposts or visited their encampments. The eyeliner was known as kohl, and it’s believed that it was used not only to protect their eyes from the harsh sun, but also to increase sex appeal or to creep out their enemies, depending on how it was worn. When it came to sex appeal, the Vikings scored higher than they get credit for. A lot of what is recorded in regards to Vikings was written down hundreds of years later, and some of it was written by their enemies and therefore biased. On History Answers, Frances White interviewed the show’s creator/writer Michael Hirst:
“People said it wasn’t really possible to write a series about Vikings because they were so nasty, that they were brutish and just pillaged and raped everyone. But the more I read and understood the more I realised that this was a rich and wonderful culture that had been stigmatised by their enemies, the Christian monks who had an axe to grind against them. I just fell in love with their paganism and how democratic they were compared to other societies.”
In reality, many English women were known to seek out Danish men due to their habit of bathing, changing their clothes daily, and combing their hair, unlike the men they were accustomed to (because who needs dating apps when you can just bathe once a week?). The combat style is also fun to watch on the show:
Seriously though, imagine these guys marching into your neighborhood
Swords, in general, were not really a primary weapon. The primary weapon for the Viking was his shield, and beyond that, they were a little more likely to use spears, axes and a variety of other weapons over swords, though they were not entirely excluded. The show does a great job of recreating the way they are believed to have fought, which you can sample from the image above. And as an added bonus, I will add my appreciation for the lack of horned helmets on the show. As kids we’re often lead to believe that the Vikings were always the dudes with the horned helmets:
DUCKTALES! woohoo
The idea of the horned helmets came from dramatizations of Viking culture. There may have been other societies from that era who used horned helmets for specific rituals, but there is little to no evidence that the Vikings themselves were joining in on the horned helmet trend.
Via Hagar the Horrible
The only full Viking helmet that’s been found so far comes from Norway, and is dated back to the 10th century:
No horns to see here folks, move along
Now that I got the horned helmet fiasco out of my system, I will sign off with one final quote. Over at Suvudu an author interview was conducted by Matt Staggs with archeologist Justin Pollard, who works as a consultant on Vikings. When asked about the fact that much of what is presented on the show is based on theory vs fact, Pollard had this to say:
“Fundamentally I believe that, as L.P. Hartley said, the past is a foreign country – you cannot go there, you can only reconstruct what it might have been like and that reconstruction will always be flawed. I find it very sad when some reviewers review historical movies as though they ‘know’ what living in a particular century was like and ‘mark’ the film accordingly. They don’t and often what they claim to know to be true is simply another interpretation of a scant historical record.
Writers who write historical movies want to say something about the present as much as about the past. First and foremost they are storytellers and their story is what the show is – it is not an escape into the past.”
Vikings season 4 premiered on History on Feb 18 and will continue to air on Thursdays. If you’ve somehow managed to get left behind, you can always make up for it by finding the previous seasons either on HuluPlus or Amazon Prime.
**02/29/16 Update** I have recently been informed of a few fun facts about Vikings that I wish to add.
- The clothing used in Vikings is made up of darker colors, which is in keeping with modern trends in making clothing dark to seem cool (thanks to The Matrix?). In reality, Vikings were much more colorful in their wardrobes and used better quality stitching due to a scarcity of clothing (I guess WalMart hasn’t been around for as long as we thought).
- Vikings traditionally had very long hair, which was braided for a battle to ensure it would not interfere. The show’s Vikings have a variety of hairstyles, some of which appear to be bald.
- Real Vikings dealt heavily in the slave trade, more so than is portrayed in the show. It is believed that this is one of the reasons that they focused on raiding local towns.
- The earlier ancestors of the Vikings on the Swedish side were highly focused on decorating their helmets in great detail, and in some cases, these decorations included horns (or animals that resembled horns, like snakes). The tradition of decorating helmets continued on into the Viking age, though the horns themselves are believed to have fallen out of fashion by the Viking age due to impracticality in battle.
By: Michael Gonzalez