To the layman, this isn’t a serious point, but to the informed Viking historian—or to the blogging wannabe—issues surrounding writing tales of those Norse raiders are several. Why? They are an obscure and less popular page in history, they were barbarians and pagans in the era of Byzantine grandeur; there are, in fact, more websites dedicated to a certain Minnesota football club than those pirating Norsemen. They were raiders, thieves and rapists, but they were also brilliant ship-makers, cunning sailors, they honoured their women—just no one else’s—and they were so obsessed with cleanliness that the Anglo-Saxons referred to them as dandies.
In studying them much of my life, and synthesizing that knowledge into tale-making, I have encountered two historical speed bumps. One of these is easy to discuss, but hard to dispel—the second is madly enticing but probably mythical.
The first: those silly horns on their helmets. Never happened.
No, not ever.
Okay, maybe some Swedish king had a couple of bullhorns affixed to his noggin to impress a visiting dignitary or—more likely—maybe some Wagnerian-obsessed recreationist society thought it up in Bismarck’s Germany—but the lads who piled into long ships and travelled and pillaged from North America to Sicily to Russia to Iraq did NOT wear helmets with horns on them.
Yes, I understand it’s the first thing you think of when you think of Vikings. But it’s wrong.
Think about the practicality: a helmet was worn to deflect sword blows away from your head. They were cone-shaped with eye and nose protection so that blows landed upon the thinker would slide off, hopefully missing the shoulder on the way down. Now, let’s say Raurik the Ale Sodden has himself a pair of fancy bullhorns riveted somehow and somewhy to his helmet. Forget the issue of turning your head and knocking your pals over mid-shield wall, or having trouble fitting through doorways, but if some Christian Frank who’s trying to defend his home, goats and daughters against your pillaging ways swings a sword at your fancy headdress, gets it caught in one of those stupid horns, and doesn’t give you whiplash, well, then he’s gonna turn your face to confetti trying to free his sword, right?
No, no, no!
Quite likely. No horns.
Ah, now for the enticing myth: the blood eagle.
Back this up a bit: there are two schools of thought when it comes to the Vikings, each with equal obstinacy. The larger group calls them barbarians—thugs who are best left as a footnote in the Middle Ages. The smaller group sees them as explorers, engineers, and pagans whose religion called for the slaughter because, as with the Greeks, glory was all. I’m in this second group, but with a slight hesitation to recognize that, yeah, they built ships that could ride the water rather than plough through it, thus making the first sea-faring vessels that could also travel up rivers and through swamps, much to the chagrin of the hapless English; they were the first Europeans in North America, and they were brilliant merchants—BUT, they also liked to hack people up on occasion. No denying it.
The blood eagle was, supposedly, an especially nasty Viking execution in which the breastbone was first pierced with an axe, then the ribcage broken open, then the lungs pulled out to flap in the breeze calling to mind an eagle’s wings. I’m no butcher, so I don’t really know if this would even work. However, the Viking tale-teller (and former ten year old boy) in me stands up and declares: “COOL!”
Ow. (Okay, so sue me, it was a cool movie)
Problem is, most purists amongst the Viking historians say, excuse the pun, “Not bloody likely.” But it just sounds so darn fun to write about. I recently finished Edward Rutherfurd’s Sarum in which I read the depiction of a blood eagling and I must say, good show, old man.
It’s a funny thing, writing history, because as a closet historian you want to be true to the source material, but as an artist, you also want to spin a good yarn. I mean, Braveheart was as historically accurate as The Flintstones but it was a butt-load of fun whereas Alexander . . . wait, did anybody even go to that?
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