There are few more iconic images than that of a mighty Viking warrior, a hulking berserker
with a horned helmet cleaving foes in two with a mighty axe.
But history actually paints a different picture of Vikings than what modern media has romanticized
-- for starters, no Viking ever wore a horned helmet.
And instead of a big, muscle-bound warrior hardened by the frozen north, most Vikings
were actually malnourished.
What other misconceptions about Vikings exist?
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Infographics Show.
Today we're asking, “What was life like for a Viking warrior?”
Life in the Viking age was tough -- really, really tough.
For starters, Vikings inhabited Scandinavia and spread across northern Russia and Europe,
land that was difficult to farm and produced little food.
This meant that despite popular fiction, most of a Viking warrior's life was actually spent
on the farm instead of chopping people's heads off.
This is because if crops weren't planted and harvested, everybody would starve.
It turns out that across much of the ancient world raiding and pillaging was more of a
luxury.
Very few villages could afford for their menfolk to leave for weeks or months on end instead
of minding the farms.
With most Viking villages numbering at their largest from between 15 to 50 households,
Viking communities were tightly knit but maintained pretty low populations.
The difficult land of northern Europe was the Viking warrior's number one foe.
Its low yields meant that Vikings couldn't stock up enough food for the winter to feed
themselves and their livestock, so most livestock was slaughtered every fall right before winter.
There's many things you probably would never have wanted to be throughout history, and
given their incredibly short life expectancy, being a Viking cow should probably be high
on that list.
Labor was split up between men and women, but men had the lion's share of the exterior
or farm work.
Men were needed to tend to the fields, slaughter animals, and prepare the meat for winter storage.
To make things even more difficult, Vikings used wooden plows to tend their fields, which
needed to be replaced every two days.
Metal plows wouldn't be introduced until after the Viking age.
Slaves made up a big part of Viking life, with many slaves taken during raids and traded
or sold as far as North Africa.
Slaves, who were also called thralls, obviously had no rights, and they could be killed without
repercussion.
In fact, during particularly difficult years, slaves may have been slaughtered along with
the livestock if there wasn't enough food to go around for all.
Vikings were not cannibals, though, so at least slaves didn't have to worry about being
eaten.
Above the slaves was the main body of Viking society, the Karls or farmers and craftsmen.
These were the common people of Viking life and lived under the rule of Jarls, who made
up the upper crust of Viking society.
Women did enjoy a greater degree of freedom than in most societies of the time, and in
2017 the discovery of a Viking grave with what was assumed to be a high-ranking female
warrior seemed to indicate that women could even be high-ranking members of the military.
However, doubts about the veracity of the claims that the grave was indeed of a woman
almost immediately arose, and today it seems unlikely that the skeleton discovered inside
and DNA tested was actually that of a warrior.
So perhaps the tales of Viking Shieldmaidens are just that -- tall tales.
Although warfare for men may have been far more infrequent than what we've come to believe,
it was still a part of life for some Vikings.
Living in resource poor lands, raids against much better off and more southern neighbors
necessitated the development of advanced seagoing ships and men to navigate them.
One of the few myths about ancient Vikings that historians do agree on is that they were
accomplished sailors, and they would have needed to be able to navigate the dangerous
waters of the North Atlantic and North Sea.
Despite these stormy and challenging waters, Vikings managed to reach as far west as North
America and as far south as North Africa.
For exploration and warfare, Vikings developed the longship, an iconic vessel consisting
of a large sail and a handcrafted head post on the front of the ship.
Oars helped the ship navigate when there was little or no wind, and they gave the vessel
extra speed when used in conjunction with the ship’s sail.
They also included a Viking innovation called a beitass, which was a spar mounted on the
sail that let their ships sail against the wind.
High-ranking Vikings would often be buried along with their ships and with dogs, livestock,
or slaves.
Though far more infrequent than popular culture indicates, raiding and fighting were a part
of Viking life.
Viking custom stated that all free men were required to own weapons and were permitted
to carry them at all times -- a sensible custom given the violent nature of post-Roman Empire
Europe.
Exactly what weapons a Viking owned and carried, though, were indicative of their status within
their society.
Wealthy Vikings often had a complete ensemble of helmet, shield, mail shirt, and a sword,
but poorer Vikings had to make do with shields, spears, and axes.
Swords were actually rarely used in battle, which is likely due to a lack of skilled craftsmen
in Viking society.
Viking swords were mostly ornamental.
They were not sturdy enough for warfare, and they were worn as symbolic or decorative items.
Instead of swords, a Viking would wield a spear and shield, with a seax or large knife
as a sidearm.
Spears were simple to craft and thus plentiful, and they required very little skill to use.
Bows and throwing spears were also weapons of Viking warriors, often used in the opening
moments of combat both on land and at sea.
The Vikings did not have many skilled archers, however.
Bows were seen as less honorable than melee weapons because the average Viking preferred
to get up close to an enemy rather than seem cowardly by striking from afar.
About the one thing that popular culture has gotten right about Viking warriors was their
use of the axe.
Vikings were one of the few ancient societies that featured axes as main battle weapons.
This is again not surprising as axes were also far easier to make than swords and doubled
as farm tools.
However, the Huscarls, an elite guard of king Cnut, preferred to wield large two-handed
axes that would split shields and metal helmets with one blow.
Another Viking myth that has some basis in truth is that of the berserker.
Known as “heathen wolves” or “wolfskins” sometimes due to their affinity for wearing
animal skins, these were warriors who had a deep religious connection to their god Odin,
and they took bears or wolves as their totem animals.
These warriors believed themselves to be endowed with the spirit of their totem animal, fueling
their ferocity in combat.
For centuries, researchers assumed that berserkers achieved their legendary battle rage state
with the aid of toxic mushrooms or other herbs.
However, aspects of berserker life have been well documented in writings and carvings,
and there is no mention of the use of mushrooms or other intoxicants amongst any of them.
Instead, researchers nowadays believe that this battle rage was a psychological state
that berserkers achieved through ritual processes carried out prior to a battle.
Stories of berserkers biting their shields and attacking trees, boulders, and even killing
each other before a battle can be explained by the entering of a self-induced hypnotic
state.
In a dissociative state, berserkers lost control of their actions, which became directed subconsciously,
and people in this state can seem remote, have little awareness of their surroundings,
have reduced awareness of pain, and increased muscle strength.
Critical thinking and normal social inhibitions weaken, leading to the blood-crazed battle
rage of legend.
This condition of psychomotor automatism is also followed by a major emotional catharsis
in the form of exhaustion, often followed by deep sleep.
In effect, a lifetime of brutality let berserkers enter a self-induced hypnotic trance that
made them stronger, resistant to pain, and remorseless in their violence -- a pretty
neat trick to have in the brutal life of ancient Europe.
It turns out that many myths about Viking warriors are exactly that -- myths.
Instead of lumbering men hardened by the Arctic cold, most Vikings suffered from varying degrees
of malnourishment.
Rather than living a life of looting and pillaging, most Vikings lived as traders, craftsmen,
sailors, and farmers whose lives were infrequently punctuated by brief violent skirmishes.
However, at least one myth about Vikings -- the berserker -- was a reality, so hopefully we
haven't ruined Vikings for you completely.
What do you think happened to the ancient Viking berserkers?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called Why Living On A Submarine Sucks!
And as always don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more great content!
See you next time!