7. Blonde Hair
Yes most Vikings have blonde hair but this was because their culture deem that blonde
hair was beautiful and attractive. So those with different hair colour would usually bleach
their hair with soap that contains a high concentration of lye.
Historians also believed that other than it being a beauty ideal, it was also to keep
the head lice-free.
6. Helmets
When you think of the stereotyped vikings, you'd think of horned helmets. Apparently
this was never the case. The only authentic Viking helmet ever found had no horns on it
and the depictions of Vikings during the Viking age which is around the late 8th century to
mid 11th century, shows that they did not wear helmets with horns.
Rather, the helmets they wore were the kind with simple leather and metal-frames which
sometimes includes a face guard as well. But never horns.
Though, a long, long time ago before the Viking age, the Norse and the Germanic priests wore
horned helmets for ceremonial purposes and Thor was depicted with feathers on his helmet
which looks a bit like horns. So people must have took a bit of that and fabricated most
of everything during the 19th century.
5. Weapons
From stereotypes, vikings are often shown with unsophisticated weapons such as clubs
or axes, especially the double headed axes. But no such weapon has ever been found from
early medieval Europe.
Rather, the Vikings were quite skilled with their weapon smithing. They were apparently
very fond of using the pattern welding method where the swords were sharp, flexible and
shock absorbant. Not to mention how cool the blade looks like under the light.
So the Vikings would use swords and spears rather than oversized, double-headed axes.
When they do use axes, the axes were normally the usual one headed, single handed axes.
4. Hygiene
From all sorts of media, the Vikings are always depicted as dirty, stinky, unkempt men and
women but the truth is exactly the opposite. They were very into their grooming and vanity
that the common artifacts found from excavations were grooming utensils such as combs, razors,
tweezers and ear cleaners. The excavations even found out that they also used and made
soap rather than just using water to clean.
They were so clean in fact, at least for that age's standard, they actually have a reputation
for their "excessive" cleanliness because they bathe once a week. Now, for bathing once
a week and called excessively clean was because most Europeans at that time had less frequent
baths than that. It was a very unhygienic age.
But of course the ones being out at sea for long periods of time would be filthy, the
ones that weren't out and about were the ones that could keep themselves clean.
3. "Vikings"
Vikings are actually not just one group of people from one country. Rather, the word
viking is similar to the word pirates or sailors or even voyagers or something along the lines
of "I'm going Viking today", that kind of viking, its something they do. So technically
its when Scandinavians took part in sea expeditions.
Anyways, each group of vikings have their own chieftain which ruled over a small area
of land and different vikings have different things that they do. There are a few theories
as to why the vikings have many different settlements, some say its because of the expansion
of Christianity and made the people divided while others say its because of overpopulation
and not enough farmland for everyone. There's also the theory that because of the decline
in profit when the Roman Empire fell, they had to go explore and find new trading routes.
So mostly, they did what they needed to survive. Thus their settlements have reached as far
as North Africa, Russia, Greenland and even North America. It was said that the Vikings
were the first Europeans to set foot on North America which happened 500 years before Christopher
Columbus. Though what they found Canada rather than America.
2. Way of Life
Other than pillaging, raiding and being ruthless which of course some of them did, they were
also farmers, traders and explorers. When they don't go viking, most of them would go
home to their family and farm.
The things they usually traded were amber, fur, weapons, wine, whale bone, seal fat and jewellery
in the markets across Europe and Middle East. Apparently they were also active in Slave
trading. Of course the slaves were usually the captured women and young men of the settlements
they raided.
1. Stereotype
At the time when violence was a common thing and it wasn't just the Vikings that pillaged
and raided, why did the Vikings get the extra attention and given these misleading stereotypes?
Well, it was believed that due to them mostly pillaging and raiding monasteries and churches,
the monks and other religious people see them as barbarians, outrageous and Pagans. So those
horns on their helmets were just a propaganda to make them look like Satan and their depiction
of what the vikings wear and the weapons they used were to make them look uncivilised.
In historical documents, their invasion to other countries were mostly for retaliation
because of the intrusion of Christian missionaries. So we can see the link as to why they always
pillage monasteries.