Asterix and the vikings vimeo
They were the only inhabitants of medieval Scandinavia.
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But even here, we are on shaky ground, because the ethnic identity of the ‘Rus’ is disputed: originally they came from East Scandinavia, but in a few generations had been assimilated into the local Slavic population.ĥ.
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Ibn Fadlan includes details such as the sacrifice of a slave girl to join her master in the afterlife, and a naked man setting fire to the ship whilst covering his anus (for reasons that probably made sense at the time). Our main evidence for the Norse burning their dead on ships is an account by the 10th century Arab diplomat Ibn Fadlan, who witnessed the funeral of a ‘Rus’ chieftain out in Russia. If you were extremely wealthy and important you might be buried in a ship, such as the famous 9th century ship burial from Oseberg in Norway, which contained the remains of two high-status women and countless grave goods. If they were burned it was on a pyre, after which a mound might be built over the top. In the pre-Christian period, the dead could be cremated or buried, often with grave goods such as weapons, jewelry, and tools. In any case, the details get nastier, bloodier, and more fantastical with every passing century, like a gory game of Chinese Whispers. There are a few obscure references in Norse poetry to eagles being carved on people’s backs, but since such verses are notoriously cryptic and convoluted, the original meaning may well have been less literal than how it was interpreted in later texts. That horrible thing the vikings were said to do to their victims, when they cut their ribs away from their spine and pulled out their lungs backwards like a bloody pair of eagle’s wings? Probably never happened. In the Icelandic sagas, older men still going on summer raids are often presented as disruptive, antisocial elements within the community, who have never quite settled down or made much of their lives (like that single 40-something friend who still wants to stay up all night drinking and playing loud music when everyone else is ready to turn in for the night and the kids are asleep upstairs).Ī viking burial, as depicted via the imagination of 19th century artist, Johann Gehrts. In any case, most vikings were young men off on their equivalent of a gap year, trying to get rich quick and have a few adventures before they settled down. The Anglo-Saxons had a very similar word ( wicing), which originally just mean ‘pirate’ but in time came to refer to Norse marauders. To the Norse, ‘viking’ was both a verb and a noun: a raid ( víking) and a raider ( víkingr). Everyone in the medieval Nordic world was a viking.Īgain, we can dispatch this one swiftly. Mysteriously, Viking-Age helmets are almost as rare as hen’s teeth: one was found in Ringerike in Norway, looking rather like a Batman mask but without the pointy ears. And no, they didn’t wear winged helmets either. But in terms of enduring popularity we can probably blame Wagner, or at least his costume designer Carl Emil Doepler, who was responsible for the outfits of the first performance of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festival in 1876 and decided to stick a few jaunty horns onto the helmets.
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The first illustration of a viking wearing a horned helmet was a popular edition of Frithiof’s saga, produced in 1825. But what is actually true? Eleanor Barraclough sheds light on and dispels ten common viking myths.
#ASTERIX AND THE VIKINGS VIMEO SERIES#
Vikings and their influence appear in various forms, from Wagner’s Ring Cycle to the comic Hägar the Horrible, from History channel’s popular series Vikings to the Danish comic-book series Valhalla, and from J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings to Marvel’s Thor. Stereotypes and cliches run rampant in popular culture. Romanticized in the 18th and 19th centuries, they are now alternatively portrayed as savage and violent heathens or adventurous explorers. The viking image has changed dramatically over the centuries.