26 Vikings Created Portable Fire Kits
Vikings boiled fungus in urine to create a smoldering material called touchwood, which allowed them to carry fire with them.
27. During the Viking period, a brand of sword known as the Ulfberht swords was made from crucible steel imported from India. The steel’s exceptional quality made the swords so valuable that forgers imitated the Ulfberht name on lower-quality swords, much like fake designer logos today.
28. In a remote Swedish valley, people still speak Elfdalian, an ancient dialect of Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. They used runes—characters of the ancient alphabet used by Germanic peoples for writing—up until the 1900s.
29. The Norse Sagas describe the Viking discovery of North America before Columbus and mention encounters with Native Americans who spoke a language resembling Irish and claimed to have met white men before.
30. The Viking navigation system relied entirely on the sun. Long before the magnetic compass was available in Europe, they used crystal “sun stones” to depolarize light and locate the hidden sun, even on cloudy days and up to 40 minutes after sunset, aiding in their navigation.
31 Vikings Carved Runes in Hagia Sophia
In the 9th century A.D., two Vikings carved their names in runes on the walls of Hagia Sophia. Modern-day Istanbul still displays these Byzantine-era carvings.
32. The Louvre was originally built as a fortress in 1190 to protect Paris from Viking raids.
33. Harald Hardrada was an 11th-century Viking who fled Norway to Russia, became an elite guardsman in the Eastern Roman Empire, and fought in Iraq. He later returned to Russia, married a princess, became king of Norway, and eventually invaded England with his army.
34. Vikings hunted narwhals for their “horns” (which are actually teeth) and sold them as “unicorn horns” to unsuspecting European traders, who believed they had magical properties.
35. Vikings loved giving their peers amusing nicknames like “Skagi the Ruler of Sh*t,” “Kolbeinn Butter Pen*s,” “Herjólfr Shriveled Testic*e,” and “Eysteinn Foul-Fart.”
36 Vikings Started Tooth Money Tradition
The tradition of giving money to children for their lost baby teeth likely started with the Vikings. They believed children’s teeth brought good luck in battle, so Vikings would create necklaces from them.
37. Vikings used to give kittens to new brides as an essential part of a new household, as cats were associated with Freyja, the goddess of love.
38. Between the 9th and 12th centuries, Dublin was a major center for Viking slave trading. Vikings took slaves from Ireland, Scotland, England, and Spain and sold them as far away as Iceland and Anatolia.
39. Sweyn Forkbeard was a late 10th-century Viking king who ruled as King of England, but only for about five weeks.
40. In the 9th century, during a Viking raid on a Northern English town, nuns from a nearby church cut off their noses and upper lips to repel rape and protect their chastity when they learned of the incoming raiders. Disgusted, the Vikings burned the church down with the nuns inside.
41 Rus Vikings Founded Russia
The Scandinavian Vikings, also known as the Rus, founded Russia, establishing trading towns between their homeland and the Byzantine Empire. The name “Russia” comes from “Rus,” or “men who row,” as they traveled and traded using the rivers of Eastern Europe. They eventually formed Russia’s tsardom.
42. The first ruler of Normandy, the Viking Rollo, was nicknamed “Gaange Rolf” or “Walking Rolf” because he was too heavy for any horse to carry and had to walk everywhere.
43. Vikings transported their ships overland to bypass difficult water stretches. The Vikings used poles to carry smaller ships and pulled larger ones across tree branches. To trade with the Turks, they would carry their boats 10 km overland to reach the Black Sea.
44. Because Greenland was so remote geographically, no one realized the original Viking settlements had died out until 1721, when missionaries visited the island expecting to find Norsemen who may have relapsed into paganism but instead found ruins.
45. Ahmad ibn Fadlan, a 10th-century Arab explorer in Russia, documented a Viking funeral near the Volga River where a slave girl had sex with each of their tribe’s warriors before being ritually sacrificed to serve the deceased chieftain in the afterlife.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Viking Women Wore Bras First
Viking women were the first in Western civilization to wear bras, designed to lift and shape the breast. However, with the arrival of Christianity, these brassieres were banned, as they were considered part of pagan practices.
47. Kissing under the mistletoe is primarily a Viking custom rooted in Norse mythology. The tradition dates back to the eighth century, when Vikings believed Mistletoe had the power to resurrect humans, a belief tied to the story of Balder, the Norse god of the summer sun.
48. According to legend, Cnut, the 11th-century Viking King of England, Denmark, and Norway, once commanded the tide to halt to prove to his council that no man is all powerful and that we must all bend to forces beyond our control, like the tides.
49. The Maeshowe cairn, a Neolithic chamber, was used by Vikings as a shelter during a storm in the 12th century, leaving behind one of the largest collections of runic graffiti, with examples ranging from “Haermund Hardaxe carved these runes” to references to Ragnar Lothbrok, a legendary 9th-century Viking warrior.
50. The Germanic peoples, particularly the Vikings, often buried their dead in ships or boats. The largest discovered Viking ship grave, over 1,000 years old, is 65 feet long.
RE: Fact #26 (Vikings Created Portable Fire Kits) – Sven, you know what would make that fungus burn? Just boil it in my pee.
RE: Fact #23 (Berserkers Used Hallucinogenic Mushrooms) – There’s nothing like feeling like you’re battling dragons and warlocks to make you fight even harder.
RE: Fact #22 (Valhalla: Viking Warrior’s Afterlife) – It definitely seems better. You get the same perks as Valhalla, but this time it’s ruled by the lovely goddess of love, not some old blind guy.
RE: Fact #37 (Vikings Gifted Cats to Brides) – She’s not actually the goddess of love, more like the goddess of having babies. Her chariot is pulled by these two cats, Högni and Þófnir.
RE: Fact #24 (Paris Paid Off Viking Raiders) – Yeah, that didn’t exactly make him a fan favorite with the Parisians, who had to deal with his army laying siege for almost a whole year. You can find out more about him on his Wikipedia page.
That explains why they call him that.
RE: Fact #28 (Elfdalian: Ancient Norse Dialect) – Nope, they’re not still speaking Old Norse. They’re speaking a North Germanic language that evolved from Old Norse, like all the other North Germanic languages.
The language keeps some things from Old Norse that other North Germanic languages don’t, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t changed.
RE: Fact #16 (Vikings Known for Cleanliness) – Think about those fancy English dudes trying to figure out why the Vikings have all the ladies. Turns out, it’s because they don’t smell like a barnyard.
You know that joke about why Vikings got lucky with the ladies? It’s something like this: “Why are Scandinavian women so attractive? Because they didn’t kidnap the ugly ones.”
RE: Fact #30 (Vikings Navigated Using Sun Stones) – Just finished watching Vikings.
RE: Fact #48 (King Cnut Commanded the Tide) – So, this old historian, Henry of Huntingdon, tells this story about Cnut. He says Cnut sat on his throne by the beach and told the tide to stop, not to get his clothes wet. But the tide just kept coming, right? It splashed all over his feet and legs, like he was nobody special. Cnut jumped back and said, “Look, everyone! It’s clear that kings don’t have much power. The only real power belongs to God, who rules heaven, earth, and sea.” He hung his fancy gold crown on a cross and never wore it again, to show how powerful God is. It’s funny because a lot of people get this story wrong, they think it shows Cnut was arrogant, but it’s really the opposite.
RE: Fact #9 (Vikings Brought Native Wives Home) – Women who are married.
That book about the Mongols really threw me for a loop. Apparently, there was this whole fight in the palace, and Genghis Khan just took all these women and made them his wives right then and there. It was super confusing!
RE: Fact #31 (Vikings Carved Runes in Hagia Sophia) – So, you might be thinking, why are Vikings hanging out in a church on the Mediterranean? Well, back then, they were basically hired muscle. In the ninth century, all those powerful religious leaders giving sermons at the Hagia Sophia needed protection, and who better than the Vikings? Imagine one of them standing there watching a sermon he couldn’t understand, getting bored, and just carving his initials into the marble railing on the second floor. That’s actually what happened! I was just in Istanbul last month and saw it myself.
That’s wild! So, the Vikings were like the emperor’s personal protection detail. And, when the emperor kicked the bucket, the Varangian Guard got to raid his treasure room and take all the gold and jewels they could carry. That’s pretty sweet, right? No wonder so many Scandinavians joined up in Constantinople.
RE: Fact #31 (Vikings Carved Runes in Hagia Sophia) – Here’s a close-up of the graffiti for anyone who wants to see it.
Are those drawings or letters?
Runes.
RE: Fact #10 (Vikings Gathered at Annual Assembly) – It’s a bit like saying New York is a “sewage treatment” culture. It’s a job, a really important one, but not what defines the whole culture. Same thing with “Viking.” They were Norse people who went raiding, not everyone was a Viking. Most of them were farmers and traders.
RE: Fact #6 (Most Vikings Were Skilled Traders) – It wasn’t like you had to choose one or the other.
People weren’t banned from being both farmers and Vikings. You could be a fisherman, a craftsman, a trader, and still go on raids.
The whole farmer thing is what gets messed up in modern stories about Vikings. It’s always about being either a humble farmer or a super tough warrior who dies gloriously in battle. They forget that Vikings really loved their farms. You see it in all the old stories, how a lot of guys were Vikings when they were young and then settled down to farm and have kids.
RE: Fact #18 (Onion Soup Diagnosed Fatal Wounds) – That’s where the saying “I can smell onions from your stomach wounds” comes from.
I’ve been saying that forever and had no clue where it came from!
RE: Fact #9 (Vikings Brought Native Wives Home) – It’s crazy how much stuff people on the internet believe about Icelanders, even if it’s totally made up. This one thing though is probably true – our ancestors were big on traveling to get laid.
RE: Fact #49 (Runic Graffiti in Maeshowe Cairn) – Those Vikings were the ultimate pranksters! I vaguely remember reading about someone carving “this is very high” on a ceiling in Byzantium. So funny!
RE: Fact #17 (Vikings Guarded Byzantine Emperors) – They went with Vikings because they weren’t as likely to try to take over their boss, unlike some of the old emperor’s guards who had done that a bunch of times.
RE: Fact #23 (Berserkers Used Hallucinogenic Mushrooms) – Most historians think berserkers went crazy before they fought, but some guys think they might have eaten stuff that made them trip.
RE: Fact #13 (Viking Recipe Kills MRSA Bacteria) – Anyone else a RadioLab fan?
RE: Fact #27 (Ulfberht Swords Made from Crucible Steel) – I’m learning more and more about Viking culture, and it’s blowing my mind! Turns out, everything I thought I knew about them was off.
RE: Fact #25 (Native Americans Repelled Viking Raiders) – So, let’s get this straight. It wasn’t some kind of attack, it was people trying to settle down. There wasn’t a big fight, more like the Natives kept the Vikings on their toes for years. The Vikings were better equipped, but they just didn’t have enough people to really take on the Natives.
“Vinland” was what they called North America. It probably included Newfoundland and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
Erik the Red’s son-in-law, Thorfinn Karlsefni, led the Vikings to Vinland around 1010 AD. They built a strong base, but the Natives were too many, too tough, and too smart. They made life miserable for the Vikings for years until they finally said ‘enough’ and went home.
If you want to look up more information, you’ll easily find it. I’ve got my books at home, but I’m not back until Tuesday or Wednesday.
RE: Fact #10 (Vikings Gathered at Annual Assembly) – “Thing” is a weird translation, right? “Ting” can mean “thing” or “council”, so I’m thinking “council” makes more sense here.
RE: Fact #14 (Viking Rap Battles: Flyting) – More like a thing of the past, right?
In Iceland, we still have this cool tradition called “kveðast á” where poets go back and forth with these really structured rhymes. No swords involved, though.
Yeah, that’s pretty wild – eleven centuries is a long time!
RE: Fact #18 (Onion Soup Diagnosed Fatal Wounds) – Vikings used onions to figure out how deep someone’s stomach wound was. They’d give their injured soldiers onions and then sniff their bellies. If the onion smell came through the cut, it meant the stomach was damaged and the guy was going to die. So they wouldn’t waste their herbs on someone who was already doomed.
RE: Fact #3 (Vikings in Americas) – Yeah, and there’s also an actual Viking settlement in North America, called L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site.
Wow!
RE: Fact #44 (Greenland Viking Settlements Forgotten) – It’s pretty wild, though, right? They just assumed these people were still there, living in the same way for hundreds of years, and then found nothing but abandoned towns. The last word from them was around 1410, so they probably vanished sometime between then and the 1500s. The whole thing lasted for around 400 or 500 years. And the funniest thing is, that missionary thought they were Catholic and wanted to turn them Protestant. Like, how would they even know what the Pope was up to, stuck out there on Greenland?
RE: Fact #27 (Ulfberht Swords Made from Crucible Steel) – Wait, hold up, what do you mean by “pure steel”? Isn’t steel a mix of stuff, like an alloy?
RE: Fact #17 (Vikings Guarded Byzantine Emperors) – The Mongolian Khans also had foreign bodyguards. It was actually a good thing that they didn’t speak the language because it made it harder for anyone to try and get them involved in schemes against the Khans. They were loyal because they were foreigners in a different country, and their lives depended on keeping the Khans happy. They also didn’t get involved in the power struggles between Mongolian families because they weren’t related to any of them.
RE: Fact #22 (Valhalla: Viking Warrior’s Afterlife) – I wonder what goes on in Folkvangr these days.
RE: Fact #30 (Vikings Navigated Using Sun Stones) – Praise Odin! We got the Tesseract back! Asgard is safe.
RE: Fact #3 (Vikings in Americas) – Columbus wasn’t the first European in America, but he was huge because he went back and forth a bunch, got everyone else excited to explore, and started this whole thing called the Columbian exchange.
RE: Fact #33 (Harald Hardrada’s Incredible Journey) – Crusader Kings 2 has a really cool story about the fight for England between William the Conqueror, Harold Godwinson, and, you know, the other guy.
RE: Fact #27 (Ulfberht Swords Made from Crucible Steel) – We usually picture Vikings as wild raiders from the north, but they were actually pretty smart when it came to trade, with routes all over the place. They even had some amazing stories written down, like the Sagas of Icelanders, and they were the ones who found Iceland and even set up shop in North America before Columbus!
RE: Fact #4 (Vikings Targeted Religious Sites) – These guys were sitting ducks, right? All that loot just waiting for us. It’s like Odin wants us to take it!
Yeah, Arvid, if raiding was bad, Odin wouldn’t keep giving us so much loot.
Norsemen on Netflix is a great show. It’s hilarious!
RE: Fact #11 (Viking Warrior’s Last Stand) – On September 25, 1066, near the River Derwent in Yorkshire, a bunch of Anglo-Saxon soldiers led by King Harold Godwinson surprised a group of Norsemen led by their king, Harald Hardrada. The Vikings were caught off guard and scrambled to get organized on the east side of the river. Their king needed more time to set up defenses. One brave guy, no one knows his name, stood on the narrow wooden bridge with his axe, holding off 15,000 English soldiers. He bought his king and people some precious time.
RE: Fact #2 (Viking Facial Features Ambiguous) – Back in the day, everyone was tough.
RE: Fact #15 (Vikings Bleached Their Hair) – I spent a good chunk of time in Denmark and I think a lot of people there dye their hair blonde.
RE: Fact #26 (Vikings Created Portable Fire Kits) – The whole bad hygiene thing? It’s based on one source that talked about how gross one Viking group was. But that source was from a culture that bathed five times a day! Most other info says Vikings were pretty clean, like everyone else in medieval times.