FACTORALY - E23 VIKINGS

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

From days of the week to 'Things' in long houses, the Vikings wandered the world, and left their mark, their art and their language everywhere they went. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

hello hello how are you simon i'm very well thank you bruce how are you i'm excellent i'm in top hole condition thank you very much top. Top hole. Top hole. Glad to hear it. Not any other level of hole. No other hole. Just the top one. Brilliant. Glad to hear it.

And hello, listeners. I hope you're all well. Nice to hear you again. No, nice to hear us again. Yes. Nice to be heard. Nice to be heard. If this is your first time tuning in, hello.

Welcome. To Factorally. We've been practicing that. We have. If this is your first time tuning in, hello, welcome to Factorily. We've been practicing that. We have. My name's Simon Wells and I'm a voiceover artist. My name's Bruce Fielding and I'm a voiceover artist. So that's kind of established the plot of the whole thing. No, what we are has nothing to do with who we are.

Oh, that's deep, Bruce. I know. And who we are are two people who are actually talking about facts on the podcast. Indeed. We like facts. We like useless trivia. We like knowledge. We both attend pub quizzes on a regular basis.

And we are both that person who stands there in the pub and goes, oh, did you know that reminds me of an interesting thing, et cetera, et cetera. You see, you do that. I go, actually, I think you're fine. You're wrong. I try to be more diplomatic about it. So here we are.

We get together regularly and we find a particular subject. Apropos of nothing, it could be as mundane as cucumbers, our first episode was on cucumbers, it might be something a bit more meaty but we go away, we research, we come back we chat. We haven't done one on meat Sorry? We haven't done one on meat Oh no, would that alienate

the vegan listenership? Probably would Let's not do that then We have to weigh that up. So what day of the week are we doing this one on, Simon? What day of the week? Oh, I can see there's a thing. There's a bright smile on your face. Would this be coming out on

Thor's day, Bruce? It could, or Freyja's day, or Moan's day, or Woden's day. Any of those days. Any of those days. Any of those days. Because we're talking about Vikings today. We are.

And they're gods. Five out of seven days are named after Viking gods. Really? That's quite a few, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, the Romans get their Saturn in on Saturday. Sure. And everybody gets their sun in on Sunday.

Yes. But the rest are attributable to of the vikings yeah absolutely brilliant i feel the need to start off with identifying what is a viking because we all know what a viking is right we we picture a either a blonde or red-headed fella from Norway, big, menacing, threatening, angry, unkempt, wearing a helmet with horns sticking out of it, plundering and pillaging everywhere they went. And that is precisely what everyone will think of when they think of a Viking.

Yeah. Turns out that's not what it is. Oh. That's partly what it is. Okay. should we take those one at a time then yeah go on then which one to start well look let's start with the biggie horned helmets okay horned helmets uh-uh no horned helmets never happened never happened i mean it doesn't make if you think about it if you've got a horn on your helmet it gives in somebody's coming down with their sword on your head it actually stops the sword from sliding off the side of your head which is what

a helmet's there for is to stop the yes it's is to make this the sword slide off actually gives it more grip doesn't it yeah so it's not a not a practical no logic they did have the nose bits though the the nose the nose defending bits yes yes so So this, I found out there is actually one particular event that led rise to the idea of Vikings wearing horned helmets. And this was in the 19th century. Richard Wagner created a series of operas. Oh, yes. Based around the Norse sagas, which were written by various Norse folk to sort of tell their histories and their chronicles for future generations. And he wrote these operas based on that.

His costume designer, a fellow called Karl Doppler, simply said, hey, wouldn't it look cool if we put horns on these helmets for our Vikings in this opera? Was Doppler the guy who started to go, no? Yeah, that's the fellow. We need more horns. And I love the fact that so many of our listeners will understand that because they're that kind of person.

Yes, exactly. So, yes, it's totally attributable to these two fellas doing an opera, having horns on their helmets, and everyone just sort of latched onto it and went, yeah, that's what a Viking looks like. Yeah, there was a religious sect that had horns on the inside of their headgear, but I think that's something else entirely. That's very odd. These things always bring me back to a Blackadder quote of some kind or other, testing my memory. There hasn't been a war run this badly since Olaf the Hairy

ordered 80,000 helmets with the horns on the inside the the gods were a big deal as far as the vikings were concerned sure they um they basically ruled and the gods didn't care about you which i quite like the idea of you know it's like they were just much much more like self-obsessed yes very distant my knowledge pretty much extends as far as thor and loki in the marvel movies yeah uh but and then odin as well and odin their dad yeah odin obviously uh or woden as he's also known hence wednesday um so the the story goes that Odin or Woden found two pieces of wood and just formed them into people. And the first man and the first woman were created by Woden. Interestingly, the first name of those people were Ask and Embla. So A and E. Adam and Eve. yes interesting so i think adam and eve may have been

appropriated from the a and e so to speak from a and e what even rushes into any a and e with a couple of pieces of wood yes i need children why were they called Vikings? Were the Vikings a nation? Right, so this is kind of where this topic suddenly gets really big because, like I said right at the front, I've always associated Vikings as being people from Norway and that's what they are.

The word Viking doesn't speak of a nation. It speaks of a type of person. It talks of a pirate. It talks of a type of person. It talks of a pirate. It talks of a pirate, a raider, an invader, someone who comes from a place via a boat to another place. So that's what Viking means. Viking basically means raider on a boat. Yeah. I mean, that's what it came to mean by the Middle Ages.

Originally, there are a couple of theories as to to where the word viking comes from um there was an old norse word uh vik v-i-k meaning a creek or a river or an inlet and you know they they had boats they often invaded places through watery inlets or there's another word wick uh meaning settlement which you get in english place names like hampton wick and places like that um and they had a tendency to invade places and then settle very very firmly so you know put those two origins together and you could possibly end up with a viking or a wiking or a wicking or whatever but by the middle ages everyone's perception of these people was that they were pirates, raiders, invaders. So that's what the word Viking sort of ended up becoming. But it

doesn't speak of a particular nation. They were from all over Scandinavia, Greenland, Norway, Iceland, wherever, you know, that whole sort of area. They could have come from anywhere. It doesn't mean that they are of a particular nationality. So that idea of a redheaded Norwegian, yes, you would have had Norwegian Vikings, but you would have had Danish Vikings. You would have had Scandinavian Vikings. a village or a small area yeah and they were tribal yeah there wasn't like one nation of vikings it was like occasionally they'd get together and have a little party somewhere we're going to get together for the annual viking party raiding i've just offended any scandinavians yeah sorry about that but you talked about redheads i think of them as blondes generally i think i think of vikings Yeah, sorry about that. But you talked about redheads.

I think of them as blondes, generally. I think of Vikings as like this long, flowing blonde hair. Right. A Thor-like character. Yeah. And they were blonde, although some of them were brunettes who dyed their hair. Really? Yeah.

Just for effect. Well, blonde hair was seen as as attractive so they used a a thing called lye like a soap okay that that actually bleaches your hair so they so they would bleach their hair and sometimes their beards as well and eyebrows and i don't know about any other parts of their body but generally they would uh bleach their hair blonde so they would be bleached blonde vikings and you talk about them being big as well. They had a much better diet than the rest of Europe. They were living on very healthy things like fish and vegetables. And in fact, not that many of them were raiders. Most of them were farmers. And they grew grains, wheat, rye, barley, that sort of thing. And they had actually a quite a good diet

which meant that they were significantly taller than the rest of the people in europe i mean their average height was about five six which is i mean that's that's a big viking but when everybody else is like five two five three it is quite big so So they may not have been blonde, but they looked blonde. They were big, but not that big. So they dyed their hair. They eat well. They like jewellery. Very much like jewellery.

They were very, very good and very creative at making the most beautiful jewellery, which you can see in some museums. Yeah, and they really looked after their appearance, didn't they? There are lots of archaeological finds of really sort of delicately made intricate combs and brushes and small scissors. And things are getting earwax out. I didn't know about that one. Viking cotton buds, Bruce.

Yes, Viking cotton buds. Although generally a little spoon to kind of help. They also bathed weekly, which at that time, it was like 750 AD to 1100 AD. People did not bath. No. Either at all or very, very seldom. Yes. So weekly, wow.

God, they would have been the cleanest people around. They were pretty much the cleanest, freshest, blondest people in Europe. So when these people sort of come and invade a lonely little settlement in another country, you can imagine that it would make quite an impressive first impact. Yeah. I can't smell them coming. Well, I can see their shiny blonde beards a mile away but we're alluding to the fact that you know when a viking raid happened on a on a village there'd always be this sort of like rape and pillage and things going on yeah a lot of the

women didn't need much encouragement to go off with these uh these like blonde muscled rowers to sort of go off to back back to a lifestyle where they actually had power yeah because one of the interesting things about vikings is that the women had as much power as the men yes i read that women could own property which in the rest of europe they couldn't at that time they could get divorced for lots of i mean so many reasons if their husbands were away too much if if they were unfaithful, if they showed too much chest hair. Really? There were a lot of reasons why women could get divorced.

And when they got divorced, they could claim back the dowry from the husband. That was incredibly forward-thinking at the time. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And they could claim maintenance off their ex-husbands. Really? So women were very much empowered. Also, they could claim maintenance of their ex-husbands. Really? So there was, you know, women were very much empowered. Also, they could be warriors. You know, they weren't just left at home.

If they wanted to fight, they could go and fight if they felt like it. Brilliant. Very much an equal community. Yeah. And obviously, you know, when it comes to the gods as well, you know, the female gods were just as powerful as the male gods. There's a wonderful, the goddess of love is called there's there's a wonderful the goddess of love is called freya and she was the goddess of the sky as well and she used to ride across the sky in a chariot pulled by cats cats cats just cats just cats that's cute isn't it it is what a

menacing sound just hearing hearing hundreds of little... Or purring in the distance. Coming into battle. Yeah. I suppose it could lull the enemy into a full sense of security, couldn't it? But also, I mean, getting killed in battle was something that was actually quite honorable to do. And when you were killed in battle, you were carried off to Valhalla, which is this wonderful hall of the gods, by the Valkyrie, who are, again, women, who are there to look after you and make sure that you got to the afterlife safely. The Vikings had quite a reach.

I mean, they do have this reputation for plundering, pillaging, you know, completely conquering places everywhere they went. It was just that kind of era, wasn't it? You know, lots of people were doing this, you know completely conquering places everywhere they went it was it was just that kind of era wasn't it you know lots of people were doing this you know yes even within britain you had different areas and different regions battling with each other the whole time you know conquering and taking stuff so they weren't unique in that but um what they were good at was going to a place putting up a jolly good fight, and then settling there, and sticking their ground, and making their own settlements. So yes, you had this very intense

period of fighting, and ransacking, and so on and so on. Ransacking, incidentally, Viking word. But then they settled, and they got into agriculture agriculture and they blended themselves into the local community and they really, really settled down. So by the 800s, there were lots and lots of settlements of Viking folk just in this country alone. But they were really prolific. They got a lot further than I realized. I sort of think of Vikings just about getting to England and then kind of stopping. But they went everywhere. They got to North Africa.

They got to the Middle East. And, of course, they got to North America. Yes. And there's a chap, obviously there are endless debates as to who discovered America, not including the Native Americans who were clearly there first. But a chap called Leif Erikson from Greenland got to North America a good 500 years before Christopher Columbus or Amerigo Vespucci or any of those people. And made a little settlement in what he called Vinland, which is now Newfoundland. Yes. So they got everywhere. They went all over the shop.

And that was 500 years before columbus yeah 500 years before in a in a wooden longboat it's quite a distance as well isn't it really yeah i mean they really must have known how to sail those things i mean they knew how to build them as well i mean they built long ships really really well um yeah coming back to where they got to um one of the places we don't really think about it being somewhere where the northern men would settle if you think about and you know a lot of the places they ended in dy as well uh that meant a town or a place okay so if you think of a place where the north men would settle in a D, Normandy, which is where a lot of them settled in France. Brilliant.

I mean, I knew they'd been there, but I didn't realize that's where we got Normandy. That's fantastic. So then by the time, it's interesting, isn't it, sort of how these colonies work over the long term. So Britain was quite largely invaded and settled by Vikings. Normandy was almost entirely settled and created by Vikings. So by the time the Normans invaded Britain, they were pretty much just their own cousins several times removed. Yes. their own cousins several times removed yes they used to have a reputation as well for like sacking churches and stuff as well didn't i mean lindisfarne was one of the big ones that they

they went for and sort of that there was this big thing about how they were anti-christian and how they would you know they were these sort of louts from abroad who would come over and had no religion of their own or sort of worshipped trees and stuff. The real reason why they raided the monasteries is it's the Willie Sutton theory. I don't know if you know who Willie Sutton was. No. So Willie Sutton was a bank robber in the 1930s in America. And when they said to him, why do you rob banks he said

that's where the money is i mean yeah same reason vikings plundered uh monasteries because that's where all the gold and silver was right so no no particular sort of religious hatred behind it absolutely no didn't care about religion at at all. That's just a good hoard and let's go there. Yes. Although having said that, I mean a lot of them did convert to Christianity including one that you know quite well. In fact one that you probably

whose name you say and we all say quite a lot and you know who that is. It's King Harold Bluetooth. Oh you went there. Do you know what? I was sitting here. This is one of my favorite all-time facts.

And I was sitting there thinking, do you think that'll fit in? Do you think that'll be appropriate? I might put it in. I might not. And then, boom, you said Bluetooth. Go for it, Bruce. Well, Bluetooth was a Viking king. Viking king.

Viking king. Viking king. Viking king. Anyway, so he was doubtful about Christianity and was happily going on raids and stuff. And then he met a priest called Poppo. And Poppo convinced Bluetooth to convert to Christianity when Bluetooth challenged him and said, OK, if you're so bloody religious, put your hand in this iron glove and then put your hand into the fire. And Papa the priest said, I believe in God. He won't let me come to any harm. Put his hand in the iron glove in the fire until it got hot. Took his hand out.

His hand was completely unharmed. Bluetooth went, okay, you've got a God there. That's a pretty good God. I'll go with that one. And so he converted. How interesting. I'd never actually heard that part of Bluetooth's story, but the bit I know is that this king, this Danish king,

Harald Bluetooth Gormson, apparently he had a really bad rotten tooth, which was slightly blue. Okay, it makes sense. He was responsible for bringing together a lot of very disjointed, disparate Scandinavian nations who were always in fighting and battling. And he brought them together under one unified umbrella. And the people at Samsung and Ericsson and Nokia and people like that who were first talking about how do we get all these devices to talk to each other?

They were reminded of Haroldold gormson and so they decided to make that technology named after him bluetooth that makes complete sense now and the best bit if you look at the bluetooth symbol which i am trying to do with my fingers but that's useless because it's a podcast um that symbol is made up of two dan Danish runes for the words blue and tooth. So that symbol, that Bluetooth symbol, literally says Bluetooth. In runic? In runic, yeah. Brilliant.

The stuff you learn on this show. The most expensive thing that they owned, the most valuable thing that they owned, was their sword. Viking swords were so so expensive really i mean it's basically the same price as a house can you imagine paying as much as you pay for a house for something that you could lose in battle yeah crikey that's um that's immense isn't it yeah and at a time when they weren't government issued either you had to provide your own exactly exactly they were about 80 centimeters long, initially made of iron. But then when they were raiding places, especially in the Mediterranean, they found these other steels.

Like there was some that came all the way from Sri Lanka. Wow. And they made a thing called crucible steel. Okay. And then from crucible steel, you could a a sword that wouldn't bend in battle because the iron sword you know you hit someone over the head and it just bends oh i see yeah not it's not a very good thing but steel is actually much better right and there was one specific type of sword called an oofbert right and an oofbert was a most expensive, amazing sword made out of steel that kept an edge, regardless of how many heads you knocked off with it or whatever.

It was a really special sword. From very early on in British history, we have swords that have an edge. But you only have one edge because it's quite dangerous to have a sword with two edges because a double-edged sword is, as the expression says, you can hurt yourself with a double-edged sword. But the Viking swords were double-edged. Really? All of them were double-edged. So they learned to fight with a double-edged sword because it's much more effective, much more efficient to hack off things with. Because you can go backhand, forehand with your wrist in any direction.

Yeah. Yeah, so the Viking swords were double edged didn't know that they weighed about just over a kilo 1.25 kilos ish

they weren't that heavy either yeah they would decorate the hilts with filigree gold and silver you know with

nice runic patterns on them they would name the sword with whatever it could be the name of a god or it could be

somebody that they know or just their own name yes being from where they are from in order to go on a raid anywhere uh you have to cross quite a lot of water um so they were very very proficient uh sailors and builders. We can all sort of picture a Viking longboat. It's long, it's quite thin. It's usually got a beautifully carved dragon's head or snake's head or something on the front. It's got lots of oarsmen and it's got a big sail right in the middle. In fact, I'm picturing a cartoon from Asterix right now. It's a square sail as well. Square sail as well, yeah. And so these boats obviously that that's just one type of boat they had small dinghies they had big cargo vessels but the the

long boat is is the thing that we all sort of picture um so it had a big big square sail generally made out of wool um with leather strapping across it to help it keep its shape when it got wet. And you also had a load of oarsmen sitting in nice uniform lines, so you could be going full tilt with the wind behind you and pulling at the oars as well. So they were very quick, very efficient, quite fierce. When you saw a fleet of these things coming at you. You knew you were in trouble. They didn't have much of a keel, which meant that they could be used in shallow water. So when the Vikings, well, they did it several times, but on one of the occasions, the Vikings decided to have a go at Britain and specifically London, you had this vast fleet of viking longboats going up the river thames

as far as um the river lee which is directly opposite greenwich or where the millennium dome is now they got all the way past the river lee at one point they tied ropes around the old wooden london bridge yep um and ripped london bridge apart and London Bridge is falling down. Yes, I think that predates that. So yeah, these sort of very shallow-bottomed boats, very quick, very efficient, get in, rip stuff to shreds, get out again. And looking very, very beautiful at the same time. Yes, they could carry about 60 people in these boats. They were just amazing.

People that they would then become thralls. Thralls? Thralls. Thralls is a Viking word for slave. Is it? Yes. They were quite prolific slave traders. Right.

Although they treated the slaves pretty well. They nevertheless, you know, part of the valuables that you would take when you when you raided somewhere were people and you could trade people when you got back to um whatever village you came from in scandinavia with your with your neighbors and make money that way thralls now does that i'm purely speculating here, but it seems reasonable. Is that where we get the word enthralled? Yeah. Because you're enslaved, you're rapt, you're captivated by something. Another one of those Viking words that we sort of pick up, you know, like things like berserk. Yes. So berserk, I think it comes from berserker.

And a berserker was a particularly rough and ready sub-branch of warrior in the Viking community. With a bit of sort of anger management attitude. Oh, definitely. So the berserkers came in, they went berserk. They did. And that's that. They did. And obviously they had names for places like, you know, a Thorpe was a settlement.

So all the places called Thorpe and Wick, we've said. did and obviously they had names for places like you know a thorp was a settlement you know so all the places called thorp and wick we've said and by being a village yes but there is one thing that is viking that i know you simon will love okay they used to carry their swords in like a shoulder strap yes and then there was like a scabbard at the bottom. And the shoulder strap that you carry your sword in is called a Baldrick. Hey! Is that right? Is that what a Baldrick is? Yeah.

Ah! I never knew that. So without the Vikings, Blackadder would not have had a Baldrick. Exactly. He'd have had a Steve or something. Not nearly asrick. Exactly. He'd have had a Steve or something. Not nearly as funny. But we talked about long ships. They weren't the only things that were long.

A Viking longhouse was where everybody lived, including all the animals generally. Right, okay. So there'd be enough space for you, your family, your cows, your sheep, your goats. And they were actually quite green they they they had um uh turf often a turf roof oh um so it's like because you know you get all these modern office blocks that have like green roofs well the vikings were into green roofs long before that wow and they kept it warmer as well obviously yes good insulation very good insulation

there would be like town halls. One of the long houses would be like the meeting place. Yes. Where you would go for a thing. You know, there would be a thing happening there or whatever. We're so in tune. I knew you were going to talk about things. Why was I going to talk about things, Simon?

Because thing is an oldiking word that actually used to mean something quite important now it's just a a knickknack but a thing used to be quite a thing didn't it it was you you gathered together for a meeting it's like a parliament almost yeah yeah yeah very much like where things were decided you know you went to the thing to decide stuff yes that's right yeah yeah and now it just means i'm i'm looking around my my sound booth and there are a hundred little things or you or you're going to an event and you're going to a thing yeah yeah that's now become a thing yeah the thing used to be an important thing yes apart from um raiding and farming um and and making clothes and sales they they like their bit of fun did did vikings oh i bet um they used to play all sorts of games and one of the games

they played was piggy in the middle they they sort of invented piggy in the middle. Really? They used to use bear skins wrapped up in a ball and sort of try and, in two teams and try and sort of like keep the ball keep throwing the bear skin between people as a thing. They also liked skiing. Did they?

They invented sort of rudimentary skiing sort of Langlauf, cross country skiing, not downhill. downhill sure but um yeah they they were they were big into skiing games they played all you know because if you think about it if you live somewhere that's that where the nights are very uh long in the winter yes and it's very cold outside you spend a lot of time indoors and if you don't want to get into massive fights with your family and the sheep and the goats that are in there with you as well, you need to play games. So they invented board games. They had some fantastic runic board games with beautifully carved pieces.

They played sort of hide and seek. They would play all sorts of things just to amuse themselves in the winter before going off and going shopping, so to speak. Going shopping. Well, that's all I've got on Vikings. How about you? I think that's all I've got on Vikings as well. I think we have plundered and pillaged the subject sufficiently. We've made ourselves berserk. So.

So there we go. That is another episode of Fact Orally. Please like us, subscribe to us, comment on us, go and have a look at the show notes on our website. And tell your friends. Thank you ever so much for listening. We've thoroughly enjoyed this one. And we hope you have too. If you have, please come again. If you haven't, please come again. It might be better

next week. Exactly. Until then, cheerio. Goodbye.