Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 135 - Vikings!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Despite what watching too much mainstream news may lead you to believe, if you look around the globe, a lot of nations, although certainly not the majority, have managed to create thriving modern societies, where most of their citizens aren't doing too bad. They're at least doing quite a bit better than most of humankind was doing as recently as a hundred years ago, and doing way better than we all were a thousand plus years ago. Most of the world's people have longer lifespans than we did just a few decades prior. Most of us enjoy heightened individual liberties and a laundry list of modern amenities that would make any king just two centuries back

Starting point is 00:00:33 get pretty damn jealous. Maybe make him wanna throw his little king hat down and disgust. I bet any ancient Pharaoh would happily trade his pyramid or the relative he's probably having sex with as many of those incestuous pharaohs did, for a microwave pizza and some Netflix. And out of all the cultures currently crushing the past on the standard of living scale, there is one cold and wet part of the earth that seems to somehow always be among the leaders

Starting point is 00:00:58 of the pack, Scandinavia, land of the Vikings. When it comes to a quality of opportunity, education, basic human happiness, and even economic freedom, Scandinavian nations seem to lead the rest of the world. Today, the citizens of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway are considered among the kindest societies, the most fair, and the happiest people in the world. Why? These are the descendants of who we call the Vikings, history's most infamous rapers and pillagers. North societies that populated Northern Europe weren't exactly known for their gentle touch.

Starting point is 00:01:29 History often refers to Vikings as dirty, bloodthirsty man animals that left their weak babies for dead and rapes and pillagers to shed. If any land they found people alive on. And some of that reputation is earned, some. The Vikings were raiders and they did revel in battle. They did take slaves and there was a lot of violence, but there are also, you know, there are culture mired and myth.

Starting point is 00:01:51 How much of the popular understanding of Viking history is actually true and how much of their history has been written by their enemies and their victims. There are so many interesting aspects to the Vikings and their culture. We've touched on the spiritual beliefs of the Vikings with the Norse gods in the past, back in Suck 77, today we dig into their actual lives. The Vikings are much more complicated than the brutal sociopaths they've been often remembered as. A rich culture with its own languages, religion, mythology, and customs, the Vikings continue

Starting point is 00:02:22 to be a popular topic of discussion nearly a thousand years after their decline. Most of what we know about the ancient Nordic people come from sagas and semi-historical writings written about them centuries after the fact. Like the mythology of all cultures, cultures many of these sagas trade historical accuracy for mythos and hyperbole. But we're still able, based on the writings of a few ancient historians and archaeological evidence, to come to what we think is a pretty decent understanding of Viking life. On this episode of the Suck, we are going to find out how the descendants of Viking warriors

Starting point is 00:02:55 transitioned from international pirates and slavers and to some of the world's most uh, you know, danced and egalitarian nations. And we're going to have fun doing it. We will dispel many myths and I think we'll find a more nuanced appreciation for these wild, marauding meat sacks of the North. Work and wait. It's time for Time Suck. Happy Monday, Time suckers. Welcome to the Cult of the Curious. Get ready to learn and

Starting point is 00:03:31 have fun while doing it. On Dan Comans, he of O so many nicknames that suck and you are listening to time suck and have a big announcement today. On April 29th at noon, Pacific time, we're going to start selling tickets to the gathering, a time-suck social event that will take place right here in Cordillay, Idaho, where you can see the Sucked Engine, meet other time-suckers and space lizards, hang in the hardest sucked them, really hoping to make this an annual event and grow it every year. I want to build a social aspect of what we're doing here.

Starting point is 00:04:00 And Queen of the Suck Lindsey has been working with intern Derek Hall from Keene University to make this happen this year. We're selling tickets for $125 to piece and you cannot use your space lizard discount code for this. We're only selling 55 tickets total. We're just we're just not ready to organize an event bigger than that quite yet. And here are the specifics of what you get for that $125 you get to go to time suck the gathering Saturday August 17th 2019 that Saturday August 17th 2019 odds are the weather will be beautiful here in Coraline. You get a personal tour of the suck dungeon. I'll be taking you on that in small groups get a private dinner at the time sucker ran

Starting point is 00:04:42 10 over six where they will have a Time Sucker theme private menu. The whole restaurant will be ours for food, drinks, and community. We're selling the tickets first come first serve. Each person may only buy two tickets, so no one can monopolize the event. Everyone has access to the sale at the same time to keep it fair, and it's gonna be a full day event.

Starting point is 00:05:01 To buy tickets, you just go to the Time Suck Merch Shopify website page there, select the gathering tab on our Shopify store. Make sure you read all the directions and include your shirt size and mailing address and your preferred tour time for the suck dungeon tour. You'll receive your official ticket in the mail at least two weeks before the event. The cost of the ticket will get you a 30 minute tour, you know, in a little small group with me. Check out the suck dungeon, check out the new studio, uh, that we, we were just, um, gonna be building. We'll just have built by the time you come out. Um, I'll be, uh, yeah,

Starting point is 00:05:34 I can't be hosting that. Tours will start at 10.30 a.m., run until 4 p.m., and then the 7 p.m. Private time-subthemed dinner will start at 10.00 or 6. And six. And you're only granted access to that if you possess a ticket. In addition to the surprise menu of food and drink, there will be a photo booth, giveaways, chance to mingle with your time suck family and the time suck crew, and the dinner includes all you can eat food in two drinks,

Starting point is 00:05:57 and then there's a cash bar for the duration of the evening if you wanna just get fucking nuts. Oh yeah, here pays a yellow in the back there. Hey, fucking dimmer, I'm pumped for this. I'm very pumped, so it's gonna be a lot of fun. A lot of fun. Okay, time suckers brought to you today by the Life Gets Harry Podcast hosted by Ryan Lane,

Starting point is 00:06:18 Time Sucker, Space Lizard, man with a golden beard, the brain behind Dreambeard, the beard care product company that I love and tell all of my friends about. Ryan was a Christian pastor for 10 years and he left to expand his faith. I met him in Atlanta while back great dude, respects the beliefs or lack thereof of all kind

Starting point is 00:06:36 hearted meat sacks. He's now an entrepreneur selling products in 100 countries after founding dream beard with only $46. And he has a fun podcast. It kicks off with different intros. You make them self with his musical abilities. He loves diving into the perceptions of his guests to understand reality through their eyes.

Starting point is 00:06:55 Life gets hairy. He's all about different stories, told by all different kinds of people, normal people, famous people, artists, psychedelics, therapists, musicians, toy maker, CEOs, just to name a few, people who give us a wider gaze in this world. We'll have to go through shit and hopefully listening to others helps us realize that suffering is universal and we can get through it. A lot of laughs, steep shit, fascinating stories, so head to iTunes and listen and subscribe to Life Gets Harry. You can also go to www.lifegitshary.com or just go to lifegitshary.com. Yeah, old man me still wants to throw those W's there. Thanks again to our

Starting point is 00:07:33 Patreon supporting space lizards for allowing us to donate $2,000 to one of the national fallen firefighters foundation stair climbs, link in the episode description, click donate, then donate to an individual, then type of the name, Cameron Owens, make sure that this time sucker gets credit for doing something great. Hail them not. Couple quick tour dates, then off to Vikings. Texas theater and Dallas, where Lee Harvey Oswald was captured after his involvement in the

Starting point is 00:08:00 JFK assassination, I'm going to be there on April 26th, the secret group in Houston on the 27th late show has been added in Houston punchline in San Francisco may first through the fourth live Ant Hill kids suck on Saturday the fourth, looking like that show is going to sell out before the event. May 9th through the 11th, I'll be at Laf Boston and Boston Massachusetts, Spokane, Jacksonville, and more coming up quick. Tickets info for the entire 2019 Happy Murder Standup tour is at Dancomans.tv. And now let's rape and pillage some Viking history. Okay, let's start with the why.

Starting point is 00:08:44 Why did anyone settle in Scandinavian the first place? Had they never been to the warm beaches of Greece? Did someone trick people into heading that far north before the invention of portable electric heaters? Around 4000 BCE after a pneumatic band of early Indo-European humans had long since moved away from the lush savannas of Africa to more, shall we say, challenging northern climates. A small group of what I can only assume were masochists decided to head super, super north,

Starting point is 00:09:13 the ancestors of the Vikings. Far enough north to find that part of the earth that hurts your lungs and freezes your nose hairs every time you breathe. Far enough to essentially have to wear a series of blankets whenever you head outside or risk losing your fingers or toes or even your life to frostbite. Why did they do it? Why did they do it? And before I shit all over this decision, let it be known that I personally have some

Starting point is 00:09:32 Viking blood. Love Scandinavians. My great-grandfather on my mom's side, a man named John Burman. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with great-grandpa John as a child. Both my great-grandparents on my mom's side were alive and healthy until I was in high school. Uh, grandpa john was born and raised in Sweden, from Stockholm, uh, his wife, my great grandma still was first generation Norwegian American, both her parents born and raised and somewhere in Norway, which probably find out, uh, they both spoke their native languages, which were

Starting point is 00:10:00 very similar, not the same language, but they understood each other. Their daughter, my grandma Betty, didn't speak either Swedish or Norwegian, but did understand both languages. And I don't fucking understand why their ancestors and mine chose to settle where they did. Cold ass Scandinavia. I know Sweden, Norway, Denmark, other Scandinavian, you know, areas like Finland are great places to live now, but only because we have modern amenities to substantially ease the burden of a long punishing unforgiving brutal winner. But before hot tubs, flat screen TVs, high-speed Wi-Fi, coffee shops,

Starting point is 00:10:33 hmm, no thank you. I read an interesting article about humanities early northern migration, nothing specific to Scandinavia, just about why humans moved north in the first place, why they would ever moved to a place where you could literally freeze off your balls or your tits in the winter. And now paleoanthropologist, Martha Tappen said, at the higher latitudes,

Starting point is 00:10:52 you're confronting seasonality for the first time. Ancient humans were experiencing winter. I like for the first time, no other primate lives where there's no fruit in winter. Those there were the first people to live where there's no fruit in winter, right? Those, they were the first people to live where there's no fruit in winter. I love that line. No other primate lives where there's no fucking fruit

Starting point is 00:11:11 in the winter, exactly. That's a sign I'm supposed to be there. Every time I go to a tropical climate, I just think, why could my ancestors have settled here? This place is the fucking best. While some of my pre-viking ancestors were huddled around a fire wearing caribou hides and not on some dry nasty ass old salt to strip wolf meat or maybe scrubbing some mold off some shitty ass root vegetable to taste like the dirt it just got pulled out of.

Starting point is 00:11:32 There were other ancient people chilling out on a Caribbean beach pulling a delicious ass red snapper out of some warm crystal clear sea washing it down with sweet coconut water. Right, coconut, nature's cups, snacking on a ripe, delicious mango, God. Ah, so really, like, why did humans ever choose to live in northern climates? When the world is full of so many warm weather places, the truth is nobody knows for certain.

Starting point is 00:11:59 Probably because too many humans just weren't content living in someone else's kingdom, following someone else's rules. So they moved away, I'd create their own little kingdom, make others live by their rules, and then some of those people got tied up listening to them and following those rules and they moved,

Starting point is 00:12:13 and that happened again, and again, and again, and then still others decided that they did like their groups rules and felt like more of the world should live like they did, and they expanded to spread their culture, and then the further they would expand, the further they got from those Tasty Asmangoes, and they expanded to spread their culture. And then the further they would expand, you know, the further they got from those TCS mangoes, and they're fucking red snappers, tropical beaches. Also a lot of science community thinks that the climate changes that happened between

Starting point is 00:12:34 55,000 and 70,000 years ago also began pushing early humans out of the warm places. Africa went from being very wet to very dry, and with that change came the loss of a lot of food and drinking water Which pushed people north to try to you know not die Then as they slowly move north they slowly developed the ability to create the right tools and whether right clothes to survive the winter We're highly adaptable creatures the acclimated and eventually people pre-viking people developed the ability to live through the winter in a place like Uppsala, Sweden, roughly 70 kilometers, 43 miles north of Stockholm, not even close to the northern, northern, or not even close to the most northernness, northernmost god damnit, too many most there, and most, most northernmost, it's a long way from the fucking top of

Starting point is 00:13:22 Sweden, so I'm trying to say. But this place still has an average December, so I'm trying to say, but this place still has an average December daily high of 30 degrees Fahrenheit, negative one Celsius, an average low of 23 degrees Fahrenheit, negative five degrees Celsius, a city with a record low, not counting windshield of roughly negative 40 degrees Celsius in Fahrenheit, the way those kind of come together there and the negatives. A place where the sun sets at roughly 245 pm in December, right after lunch, sunsets. Meanwhile still peeps living on fish and fruit, laying on toasty breezy beaches where the sun sets at 6 pm in December, where the temperature hovers around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, 27 degrees

Starting point is 00:13:59 Celsius down there in, you know, like the someplace like Panama, the standard living may be higher in Scandinavia than Central America, but the weather just isn't better. But if the Vikings would have lived on a nice sandy beach, where it was a little easier to stay alive, you know, maybe they wouldn't have ever done their sweet horned helmets or hopped in boats or fucked up other people's axos and warhammers. And then we wouldn't have an interesting subject to talk about today. So thanks for freezing Vikings. There's so many interesting things to look at with Viking culture, and we will look at

Starting point is 00:14:28 so much. Just know that a lot of the timeline we're going to get into is hazy, and much of what we think we know was written about way after the fact, and a lot of it is still highly debated. The Viking era existed roughly from between about 750 CE to 1066 CE. It actually officially began with most historians in 793 CE when the Vikings attacked England, but you know, again, that's just like when the Vikings were introduced to England and kind of other parts of Europe, they could have been, you know, living as they were when they came to England for, you know, quite a while before that.

Starting point is 00:15:05 And they didn't just suddenly stop being bikings at 1066-8, but that defines the Viking era. Relatively short, approximately 300-year run, but it left quite a mark on cultures as far east as Russia, as far as South as Turkey, as far west as North America, based on archaeological evidence. And just like I alluded to, many of the myths around this mysterious group of people come from the victims of the Vikings' rape and pillage campaigns and from accounts written hundreds of years after those events. And a lot of the accounts we have of the Vikings come from members of, or at least followers of the Catholic Church and they didn't care for the Vikings.

Starting point is 00:15:38 They didn't care for these non-Christian pagans and they painted the Vikings as wild, dirty, smelly subhumans. They weren't that bad. It's not like they were Polish people and love Polish people, by the way. If you're a new listener, I just love to tease them. Part of the Catholic hatred of Vikings is actually entirely understandable. Wasn't just because they were, they were, you know, pagan quote unquote, Viking raiders would often attack Christian churches first in raids knowing that they would both be

Starting point is 00:16:05 undefended and also full of the talons riches The church did not appreciate that. They didn't find that to be very amicable and the Vikings didn't care what the catholic thought because they didn't believe in their god, which pissed them off that much more Kind of a dick move on the Vikings part to attack churches But also kind of a dumb move by the catholic's to only keep their wealth and undefended places with, when they knew that big dudes with axes were heading their way. Basically, the Vikings got worse press than most other warring and conquering peoples of their era because, again, A, they weren't Christian, at least not initially. B, they attacked Christian churches and then those churches own the

Starting point is 00:16:42 printed presses and then those people go on to write shitty things about them. Hard to get good press when you're attacking the publishing houses. Not going to get a good review for something when you've just beat up the journalist right in the article and burned down his office and most likely his house as well. Right? You're going to get a lot of press like, fuck those avatidents! My god punished their wicked church burning ways. Why do they wear their horn helmets? Why do please their master Satan? Of course, Vikings are the worst. So let's start by erasing a bit of propaganda about the Vikings and dispel at least one myth about them right away. While it was fair for the church to call the Vikings brutal and wild, especially the berserkers who will talk about more here soon, not fair to call them a dirty

Starting point is 00:17:23 and smelly, which was some some stories spread around medieval Europe about them. They may have been heathens, but they weren't dirty heathens. The Vikings were reportedly known to bays around once a week, oftentimes in hot springs, and they were very aware of their outward appearance and odors and and to pride in their appearance and tried not to be stinky. And you might think like a like a bath once a week in a hot spring, that doesn't sound very clean actually. You know, if I took a bath once a week in a hot spring,

Starting point is 00:17:50 my co-workers wouldn't think, have you met clean Jerry? Man, no one's cleaner than clean Jerry. He must be hitting the hot spring at least once a week. He smells springy great. No, for some context, Queen Elizabeth I said to have only bathed once a month now was in the 16th century centuries after the Viking era. I'm guessing common

Starting point is 00:18:11 peasants weren't knocking out baths more often than that on average from the eight through 11th centuries. So bathing back then was just hard to do. You know how many baths you took depending on if you lived in a town with a bunch of bath houses or not or if you lived near a hot spring or if you could afford to have a private. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard.

Starting point is 00:18:29 You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard.

Starting point is 00:18:37 You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to be a bastard. You're going to. And it's actually possible that the Vikings help clean up the rest of Northern Europe a bit.

Starting point is 00:18:48 To burn down churches and cities across the coastlines, several continents, they may have left some of their grooming influence behind. Viking men would often die their hair, even their beard's blonde, to conform to their own Nordic standards of beauty. Some reports say that they would brush their hair at least once a day, which I'm going to be honest, that's more often than I comb my hair. Thank you, hats. And other cultures they have encountered may have just emulated them a bit. Combs, razors, ear spoons, perfumes, electric hairdryers, crimping irons, all of that's been excavated from biking burials.

Starting point is 00:19:19 Big crimpers. No, those last two are not true, but ear spoons is true. They had ear spoons. What is a ear spoon, you ask? Well, it's a ceremonial spoon that Vikings use to eat a soup they made out of boiled human ears to prepare for battle. There's still a recipe you can find online. It's two onions, handful of sea salt, one cabbage, four carrots, and six pairs of Catholic baby ears. No, it's a little metal spoon.

Starting point is 00:19:46 If I can use it to clean the wax out of the ears before the invention of Q-tips, no thank you, not gonna put one of those in my ears. I would rather have dirty ear holes than to be trying to scoop out some wax with a little metal spoon. An ear spoon, to me, sounds like a good way to punch a hole in your ear drum

Starting point is 00:20:03 while you're rooting around in there with that, you know. Also, am I the only person who immediately thinks murder weapon? When I hear ears, the first thing that pops in my head, maybe I've just said in too many true crime sucks, the first thing that popped in my head when I heard about murder weapon was I just started picturing someone clean in their ear, right, trying to scoop out that wax and someone else snakes up behind them and then just fuck up. Pa-pa-pa, just slams their hand. Just pooh, I guess the back of the spoon, uh, pushes it all the way into the poor person trying to have clear ears,

Starting point is 00:20:31 just pushes it all the way into their head, right? Just the whole spoon, whew, right in the ear. UGH! Why do I immediately think she'll like that all the time? Anyway, the Vikings buy medieval standards pretty damn clean. But how do they dress? Were they flies fuck? Was it horn hats and fur vests and ripped abs and high heeled leather boots like it is

Starting point is 00:20:49 when you do a Google search for Viking costumes? I love how by the way, if you do a Google search, like a Google image search for basically any type of costume at all. With the, I'd say, the first five to 10 picks, you're usually just into the majority of images being women sexually dressed, women scantily clad, right? Women in high heels. Hey, I'll lose to fainter, but seriously, how much porn and porn-ish images can the internet hold?

Starting point is 00:21:18 Out of curiosity, I actually typed a Viking costume porn, just added porn to the end so much so much uh... including women of ethnicities i'm pretty sure didn't exist in Scandinavia uh... during the viking age or or maybe there were just a lot of sexy ass japanese viking women uh... women i just didn't know about uh... i joke but also i also had to shut down those web results because i

Starting point is 00:21:44 immediately started getting a boner as I was working here in the suck dungeon with a couple other people also here in the office. Apparently I am super into Asian Viking porn. Anyway, we think the clothing of the Vikings and Nordic peoples of the age was pretty simple although our knowledge of their clothes is not complete nor agreed upon. A few written records mentioned clothing, arche archaeological records are a little bit limited, but that being said, most experts seem to agree that the men wore tunics, a thick loose fitting shirt basically worn over loose trousers.

Starting point is 00:22:16 Women wore one long dress, floor or ankle length with an apron style dress over at the apron dress, hung from straps over the shoulders, fastened by two broaches in the front, underneath these garments, which were made from wool, both men and women wore linen undershirts or shifts, which they might have slept in, and then children wore the same styles as the adults. I've seen pictures, and I'm gonna say that none of the shit is even remotely sexy. Damn it, you know, women did not wear heels or fishnets or even crotchess panties. uh... dammit you know women did not wear heels or fish nets or even crotchess panties uh... you know it's it's almost like uh... porn producers don't care about historical accuracy uh... viking sheep provided the wolf or clothes and viking farms grew the flax from which linden is made viking women spent a lot of their time spending in and carding wool weaving fabric

Starting point is 00:23:00 uh... making their families close how terrible is that by the the way, especially for women, yet to make clothes instead of buying them. If mom isn't real good with the needle, the whole family dresses like assholes. That's terrible. Mom, sick of me, get in my fun of. Artutics don't look right.

Starting point is 00:23:20 They're not even. It's supposed to be shaped like a rectangle. Not this weird trapezoid parallelogram bullshit. Also, you know that sewing scales probably tip the scales in favor of some women when it came to marriage. Because it was super important. You know, just look, son. I know she's not much of a looker. She's got what we call a strange shape and a breath smells like moldy salmon.

Starting point is 00:23:45 But she makes a fine tunic. Think of the tunics, boy. As far as physical attraction, that shouldn't factor much in a marriage decision. Not for us Vikings, not for us Nordic folk. Look at my own wife. She looks like a wolf, made love with a reindeer instead of eating it. We live where it's cold and dark, son, wife's face, a face of nightmares in my daughter's case to be certain.

Starting point is 00:24:11 Doesn't end up being seen much anyway. Tunic were important. Viking warriors, farmers and artisans required tunics to have them fit well. You know, so they could live their lives and be productive. A Vikings curtail, a curtail, or over tunic was cut from a complex pattern. And then the many pieces were stitched together to create a fitted garment with arms and shoulders could move easily and freely. The tunic came down into a broad skirt that reached to the thighs or knees.

Starting point is 00:24:38 A keyhole neckline made it easy to fit the curtail over the head. Most Viking men wore a simple braid trim on the neckline and around the cuffs of the sleeves. Women wove the braid for the trim from brightly colored yarns. A Viking's wool trousers were held up by a belt or by a string pass through a loop. They were also warm.

Starting point is 00:24:57 It could be tucked into boots or left loose. Shoes for both sexes were simple and usually crafted from durable goat skin. Goat skin shoes. Don't see a lot of those anymore, at least I don't. Looking for something after learning those detail though, did actually lead me to some badass looking goats boots. Found some handsome ass goat boots over at a place called Joseph Cheney, Cheney Joseph

Starting point is 00:25:17 Cheney and sons in the UK. I don't know, some store I'd never heard of. Lancaster military style ankle boots in copper goat skin with a leather sole, 329 pounds. I don't know if that's a good price for a goat skin boot, but I think it looks pretty dope. Might have to up my boot game one of these days. I also found picks of some old replica Viking goat skin or Viking goat skin shoes. Do not think I'll be picking those up.

Starting point is 00:25:41 The new boots looking quite a bit cooler than the old shoes. Not quite hipster enough to pull off, put on some replicas. Woman's overdress also had a keyhole neckline with long sleeves fell to the ankle or floor. Over this, a Viking woman wore an apron dress with panels of fabric in front and back, held on the shoulders by straps, which were fastened by two broaches, known as turtle broaches because of their shape. These broaches could be made of bone ivory bronze silver or even gold for wealthier Viking women, a string of colorful glass amber and jet beads decorated the front of the apron

Starting point is 00:26:13 dress hanging between the two broaches. No mini skirts apparently. Porn wrong again. Damien, you're so fena. Vikings were long, warm wool cloaks over their clothes for warm, uh, warmth outside. Hats were made a wool leather fur woolen socks kept the feet warm under the shoes or boots. Leather belts pulled the outfits together. Nothing like a nice belt.

Starting point is 00:26:34 Nothing even in the Viking in pre-Viconies. Nothing like a nice belt to pull it out fit together. Pouches knives, other tools hung off the belt so they could be easily accessed. Other clothes were dyed bright colors used in vegetable based eyes, creating a variety of colors from light browns to russets to red, yellow, golden, blue. Wealthier Vikings could afford silk, but this important fabric was very rare in Viking culture. And it's probably also how those sexy ass Japanese Vikings women got there. Right? It's brought up some silk and stayed around for the fish nets.

Starting point is 00:27:03 None of their clothes was supposed to be worn tightly. Tight clothing was seen as showy and pompous. All right, that's how you get mocked. And all Viking village is, oh, look at life over there, it's super tights tunic. Hi, my name is life and I'm so sexy and my tights were trousers and my sweat didn't go shoes. I don't know why that guy talked that way.

Starting point is 00:27:26 There are no... I went in with no plan for Swedish accent. It's like the fucking winged. There's no surviving Viking underpants, but they're believed to have existed. Since that have been found, I'm going to pretend sexy Scandinavian women did wear some kind of wool G-string. Viking armor, simple as well.

Starting point is 00:27:44 Sometimes completely non- not existing as you'll see with the berserkers soon or berserkers. Now let's talk about where these tunic wearing bastards dwelled. Vikings lived almost exclusively in RV parks, airstreams, especially where immensely popular. No, they lived in various sized homes. They didn't even have Ikea furniture back there. Vikings were a status hungry people, just like people today. The poorest Vikings living in stables with cattle, right? That's how you know.

Starting point is 00:28:11 That's how you know you gotta get a fuck shitty Viking life. When you got some old ass goat shoes, and you know, you gotta fucked up tunic, and you're just laying next to a cow out in a barn. I wish I would've married a better wife, making a better tunic, sleeping in a finer house. Vikings didn't live in towns, but in small villages consisting of usually six or seven farms,

Starting point is 00:28:36 farms are usually fenced and near enough, each other to construct a common main road in the center of most farms with the main houses, known as longhouses. Some of them are pretty nice, and made primarily of wood, the long homes look similar to Viking ships. Other buildings like workshops, tables, barns, and outbuildings were also built on the farms.

Starting point is 00:28:53 The longhouse featured no windows or chimney instead just a hole in the ceiling above the fireplace let out of smoke. Viking architecture, especially in larger buildings, didn't get much more advanced until later when ritual buildings morphed into churches when Christianity arrived in Scandinavia during the Viking Age or Viking era. Now let's look at the government. I think a good way to look at any cultures to examine their government, structure and legal system.

Starting point is 00:29:17 We're going to look into their war for war for warfare soon to a promise. But let's take a peek at societal structure first. Viking society was divided into four main levels. The highest level was the king or conundrum, who ruled the lands absolutely next with the urls or yarrals. Or yarrals, or already yarrals. Yarrals ruled smaller petty kingdoms that would often combine with other small kingdoms to build regional kingdoms. The third level is where the free Vikings were, and the farmers and blacksmiths were found

Starting point is 00:29:48 on a third level called the Carls. The final fourth round of the Viking society was the slave class, also known as the Throlls. They had no power or freedom over their own lives and were occasionally sacrificed in horrific ways. The military was divided between two tiers, the highest one consisting of professional soldiers known as the hearth, and the amateur militia ranks called the Levy. The Vikings and the Nordic peoples, before them were primarily in oral culture,

Starting point is 00:30:14 and they shared their history by memorizing stories. Good old telephone game. That's what we're left with a lot of times when we're trying to understand various early cultures. A good old story has been passed down to a thousand people. The Vikings, they didn't just pass all of their info on Orlea, though. They did have their runes. Runes were usually carved into stone, bone or wood, and often saved for burial stones.

Starting point is 00:30:33 The word rune translates into many languages as secret, whisper, mystery, intention, affectionate love. There were 24 original letters that evolved to 33 after the Vikings invaded and mixed with the English. Despite the lack of a widely used written language, the Nordic legal system and a basic understanding of Nordic law and government still existed, free Viking men would gather into a group called a thing. Yep, not kidding, a thing.

Starting point is 00:30:58 Each community had their own thing, capital T. Larger areas would have higher things. And for complex and big decisions, some countries like Iceland had a national thing. Their national thing was called the all thing and islands national apartment is still called an all thing. To help put an end to blood feuds and fatal duels, things were developed to issue fines, decide law and even write new laws. Each thing had its own law speaker, some poor bastard, who had to memorize all the laws.

Starting point is 00:31:30 Man, I would not do well at that job. It would be a lot of like, yeah, sounds right. And just a lot of like, let's end. Are you the fucking law speaker or am I? All right, you take a biscuit, you get punched in the eye is what I remember the law to being written and spoken at. So fucking bring your eye over here.

Starting point is 00:31:48 It was a law speaker in the chief, and who would mostly decide on matters despite the other free men having to say powerful, large families and clans, and United families often dominated Viking politics in this primitive form of democracy. When people were found guilty by the thing, keep picture of a swamp thing. I right, keep saying it, like this, thing, keep picture of the swamp thing. I'd like you to say it, you found guilty and then the swamp thing's like, ah, time for your punishment. The second level was being declared a semi-outlaw,

Starting point is 00:32:13 so you could get a fine, or you could be declared a semi-outlaw. And if you're a semi-outlaw, get out of here for three years, get exiled for three years. The third legal option was dreaded by most Vikings. That was full banishment permanent exile get the fuck out Exile meant no help from anyone no protection under Viking law and isolation and and being exiled interestingly brings up

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Starting point is 00:33:53 Today's time so because brought you by hymns. Let's talk about hymns. Let's talk about, you know, clammy hands, not being fun, you know, to shake in an interview. Thankfully with four hymns.com, the wellness brand for men, we trust here at TimeSuck, you can learn about options to treat the physical symptoms of performance anxiety, like a shaky voice, racing heartbeat, sweats. Now I'm lucky. I get nervous, I get nervous every week, I'm going to butcher a lot of words, and then

Starting point is 00:34:20 I just go ahead and I do it. I get nervous and anxious, but not enough to not be able to get on stage for stand-up comedy or show up to record the podcast. However, if I did get that anxious, you can bet your sweet ass, I'm going to get help. And if my doctor prescribes Propranolol, I'm going to use it. Propranolol is a beta blocker that can help control the physical symptoms of anxiety. Taken before a stressful event, Propranolol can help control the physical symptoms of anxiety taken before a stressful event. Proprenelol can help ease the performance anxiety during that big event, like a presentation

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Starting point is 00:36:27 Okay, now back up to wrap up Viking law. That is, sorry, I know it's probably not that funny to you guys, but that is cracking me up. That I struggle with other people's names, you know what I didn't know, I struggle with spelling my own name. Okay, Vikings had arbitration options talking about Viking law. Third parties were brought in to mitigate disputes.

Starting point is 00:36:49 Sometimes fines and settlements could be made. Other times there could be duels called holum gongs. Holum gongs could be a fight to first blood or a fight to the death. Kind of like how early Americans had pistol duels. These dudes had axe duels, which somehow sounds worse to me. I think I'm going gun to gun if it's that or axe to axe. Axe to axe. Fight, fight, fight, fight, axe to axe. Creepy Requiem for a dream scene reference here.

Starting point is 00:37:22 Regardless of the ruling's outcome, the thing meetings were held in a festive party kind of atmosphere, ale and mead, flowed, vendors set up shop around the thing, the meetings lasted for days. Sounds kind of fun, it's like a fun way to have court. Like a trial, which our trials are like that, right? Food trucks and t-shirts stands outside the courtroom. I grabbed some tacos and a canya dig it tea outside of a, you know, Joaquin El Chapo Guzmontrown.

Starting point is 00:37:46 He's a dude by the way who escaped out of a Mexican prison. Via having a tunnel dug almost a mile long, the lead to his cell a few years ago. Gotta suck that dude. So where does the word Viking come from? Most historians give the origin of the word Viking to the old Norse. Oh boy, a kingen. Ikeen.

Starting point is 00:38:05 Ikeen, which is Viking for pirate raid. It's not a word the Norse used themselves. Nor did they even identify as a unified people by the way. They were seen as a variety of different clans and tribes. They were even like Slavic and Irish Vikings. Viking really more of a job title than a people when you get right down to it, more of a verb that are now. We've just turned it into a catch-all phrase, calling the ancient people of, you know,

Starting point is 00:38:33 or Scandinavia Vikings is similar to calling all of the people of like modern-day Nebraska corn farmers or calling all the people of San Bernardino, California, a corn farmers. Man, one Google image search. I see those costumes, and now I just can't get porn out of my head. Dam you internet. Begone loose feet. Almost to today's little timeline now.

Starting point is 00:38:53 Gonna meet some legendary heroes, learn about some mythical tales from Scandinavian history soon, crazy battles, fantastic sagas, ingenious inventions. These snow kings even figured out how to set their piss on fire. I'm going to talk about that. Also, the Vikings were way ahead of even modern day nations in many ways of life, including, yeah, as we've discussed, government, private property, women's rights. They told great stories, made intricate arts. Perhaps they're best known besides the pillaging as being explorers, the Viking culture, their boats, whereas

Starting point is 00:39:23 much a part of their lives is their farms and their axis. Stem brutality coming up to from a crazy society of man animals called berserkers to tons of blood rituals, including a fun little work of art called the blood eagle. And of course, the capturing trading and blood sacrificing of slaves. Today's timeline is a bit tricky. Most again, of Norse history is hard to date and confirm.

Starting point is 00:39:45 But we're going to do our best. Viking researchers and scholars continue to unearth new knowledge and reshape our understanding of these bearded acts wielding snow apes. As you hear this, now let's get into some of the most important dates of the Viking era and today's time suck timeline before going into more specific details regarding interesting aspects of their culture after today's time-sub timeline. Shrap on those boot soldiers, we're marching down a time-sub timeline. Sometime between 9,000 and 6,000 BCE's BCE, the lands of Scandinavia began to be populated by

Starting point is 00:40:27 mobile or semi-settentary groups of whom little is known. By the 7th millennium BCE, some of these early groups of humans began following the reindeer in northern Scandinavia, basing their existence off these creatures, following them much like early American Indians lived off the buffalo. The early people living in the upper halves of present-day Sweden, Norway, even Finland, followed salmon runs as well, moving south, they're in the winners, moving north again, during the summers. Early people on the coast also began to live off seals and other coastal life as well.

Starting point is 00:40:58 Long before the revikings, the ancient Nordic peoples incorporated the thousands of miles of coastline into their daily lives. The ocean was their tool and their source of life. The many rivers and fjords were their highways and the plentiful fishing of the Atlantic helped create and maintain a number of coastal settlements. During the fifth millennium BCE, early pre-Vikings began to learn how to use pottery. They also began to cultivate the land and keep animals. By the third millennium BCE, the beginnings of modern Scandinavian language took hold. They had a few meetings and

Starting point is 00:41:30 they decided to speak in a lill-ting, sing-songy language that's hard to take seriously, something that would be easy for the Muppets to later mock with their sweetest chef character, a bumbling, unintelligible idiot whose depiction would surely be considered to be an offensive racial stereotype today If the chef was a member of of almost any other race of people on earth Well, they get away with it with him being Swedish. It's doing a bang if ring it turn Meet the boards of April ski versus Lincoln better. It didn't get on good. He he he couldn't sound dumber You're in the tangle tangle tangle over the next few thousand years early Scandinavian cultures. We just don't know a lot about developed several petroglyphs

Starting point is 00:42:11 Depec ships indicating that shipping played an important role in the culture There are also numerous artifacts of bronze and gold and items suggesting early cultures traded uh another item suggesting Excuse me that early cultures traded with other European cultures. Farming soon became central to Nordic life, grown up food to make it through the winter. You got to figure that out if you live in the way of North. Barley, Rye, Oats, Cabbage, Onion, Garlic, Leaks, turnips, beans, peas, and more were grown by Vikings. They even had apple trees, raised cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, other livestock.

Starting point is 00:42:47 Most people alive during the Viking and pre-viking times were farmers, not warriors or raiders. Also a lot of fish and being done, a lot of fish. Over the next couple of thousand years, these ancient people became skilled traders, craftsmen, and entrepreneurs. Dalthos entrepreneurs opened up a lot of ice cream stands or shaved ice shops, but they did run businesses. And of course, it was the centuries old tradition of boat

Starting point is 00:43:10 building that made all of these seafaring people's activities possible. So now let's jump all the way, uh, head to the very end of the eight century CE. On June 8th, 7.E., the Viking era officially begins with the Viking raid on a monastery on the Holy Island of Lindisfern, off the northeast coast of England and it sent shockwaves through the Anglo-Saxon England and the Christian West. Part of the kingdom of Northumbria at the time, this little area, a Northumbian scholar serving in Charlemagne's court, wrote of this event, saying, the heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like Dung in the street.

Starting point is 00:43:55 The monks were killed or taken off as slaves while the treasures of the monastery were carried home and triumphed. Never before has such an atrocity been seen. This scholar wrote, this actually is not the first Viking invasion in England. It's just the most noteworthy early one. It's the one that really inspired terror, killing monks, piss off Catholics for sure. Three Viking ships had actually raided the Isle of Portland on the Dorset coast and killed a local rief or magistrate or, in 789 CE, Viking raids would continue to terrorize England for more than 200 years.

Starting point is 00:44:29 Precisely why the Vikings erupted out of their homelands and Scandinavia at this time is still a matter of debate. Rising population, poor harvest, improvements in shipbuilding, allowing long-distance navigation, all possible causes. More likely, however, though, that, you know, once a few curious warriors raided their peaceful neighbors and then came home, you know, laid him with a bunch of booty. Look at all this fucking treasure. Ah, we found a bunch of weird dudes with books and robes. Didn't even have swords. So easy just to fuck them up and take this stuff. This

Starting point is 00:44:58 is great. You know, probably encourage, you know, other others to want to get riches themselves and, you know, encourages more raids. Viking raids were simple, quick and deadly campaigns navigating their fast longships across the North Sea and perhaps the littlest two days. The Vikings made use of their shallow, draft, sail directly onto beaches or up inland rivers. Once ashore, the warriors were just quickly terrorized and pillage local community, grab all her shit, possibly take quite a few of their people, slaves, and then just zip on back. Okay. Scandinavia. Now present day includes the nations of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Starting point is 00:45:34 I can also include Finland, Iceland and several islands in the Atlantic like Shetland, Orkney, Faroe Islands, the hybridis. Finland is probably the least Scandinavian of these places. It's languages not related to Swedish norwegian or Danish. Uh, Finns are actually more Russian than Scandinavian culturally. They're, their language is part of the, uh, uh, uh, early family of languages that includes Estonian and Hungarian. Uh, actually remember asking my, my Swedish grandfather if he could understand Finnish people

Starting point is 00:46:02 like he could Norwegian and he, Norwegian and he legitimately seemed insulted. He told me he'd rather be called a child rapist than a Finnish person. Then he grabbed me, he pushed my face on doing an electric burner on the stove and he turned it on. And he said, you know, if he was a Finnish person, he would just fucking leave my face there until the neighbors could smell my burning flesh. And then he let me go and we didn't talk about anything for a while. Not insane, that's fucking insane. But my grandma's telling grandpa John

Starting point is 00:46:28 truly did not seem to care much for finished people. In a way, similar to what I've noticed with some British people not seeming to care much for the French. Guessing times have changed a bit since my great grandparents days, but Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, a lot more in common with each other than they do with Fins. So anyway, Scandinavia is a bit of a loose term.

Starting point is 00:46:45 More accurate to call these nations Nordic countries. Finland is a Nordic country. And by the early ninth century, many of these Nordic people began to leave their northern farming communities. That's on the driving out here in the timeline. We began to leave their communities for high sea exploration as word gets around further and further. There's money.

Starting point is 00:47:02 There's money to be had. There's some pelagaging to be done. The age of settlement begins for the Vikings in the century. Vikings travel as far as Russia to the east and some even claim that Vikings made it to present day of Rhode Island across the Atlantic. They for sure moved into Scotland, Ireland, the Faroe Islands. In 840 CE, Vikings who have now invaded

Starting point is 00:47:24 present day Ireland found the city of Dublin. I didn't realize the Dublin's origin or if I did, I forgot. We're actually Scandinavian. In 860 CE, Swedish Vikings attacked Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. While Norwegian Danish were focused heading west and southeast, Swedish Vikings focused east and southeast. They already been crossing the Baltic Sea and descending across eastern Europe for years. They were branded Roots, possibly derived from Rootsie, finished where I'm probably fucking up, finished where for Swedes means a crew of Orzmann. And that's the term from which Russia receives its name. These Rus Vikings established settlements along trade routes to the black and caspian seas,

Starting point is 00:48:09 even conquered native Slavic populations in present day Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and June of 860 the Vikings launched a surprise attack on Constantinople. At a time when the city was left largely undefended as Byzantine emperor Michael III was off with his army fighting the Abbasid caliphate and Asia Minor while the Byzantine emperor, Michael III was off with his army fighting the Abbasid caliphate and Asia Minor while the Byzantine navy was engaged with Arab pirates on the Mediterranean sea. And the Vikings plundered the suburbs of Constantinople, launched some coastal raids around the sea of Marmara, in which they burned houses, churches, and monasteries slaughtered various people who weren't able to make it and inside the city's walls. They never attempted to breach the city walls themselves.

Starting point is 00:48:48 They just suddenly departed, likely heading back to ensure they can make it back home before winter sent in. And that was kind of their style. You know, a lot of these places, they didn't like a attack and then want to take over. Very different than Napoleon last week. He kept wanting to stay in places. They're like, nope, let's just get a bunch of shit, let's bounce, rape, pillage, bounce, repeat. 861 CE, the now Scandinavian nation of Iceland is discovered. A Nordic explorer named Naduer was blown off course on his way to the Faroe Islands

Starting point is 00:49:17 from Norway. It was then that he discovered the previously unknown island, which he named Snowland. When he returned to Norway, he told everyone what he found. Six years later, an explorer named Floke, Vildrederson. Floke Vildrederson, hang the tongue, the tongue. Was the first person, it's really fun to do actually. Was the first person to, now I want to do this, just in my head, I just want to do like some kind of weird Scandinavian banjo, that for some reason the strings would sound much more bouncy. P-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t- Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink. He tells everyone this guy, Fluke, Vildredderson, as the first person to seek out and find Iceland on purpose, the man who gave Iceland its name.

Starting point is 00:50:31 He heads back home to Norway with more info on this new land. The myth goes that the name was meant to keep people away from the lush land, but that is historically unclear. That's true. In 872 CE, the kingdom of Norway is formed when various smaller petty kingdoms band together. Sweden may have also been a kingdom of this time. We don't know. The written history of the kingdom of Sweden usually begins at 970 with King Eric the victorious.

Starting point is 00:50:55 Tough to say because again not a lot of written history and a lot of myths that are probably mostly made up. He's the first guy who's listed as the King of Sweden in numerous medieval writings written independently of each other. He's the first guy who's listed as a king of Sweden in numerous medieval writings written independently of each other. However, the tribe of the Swedes are mentioned by Roman historians as far back as the first century CE. Senator Tacitus mentions encountering the Swedes in 44 and 45 CE describes him as a powerful tribe, distinguished not merely for their arms and men, but for their powerful fleets. So they were, you know, they were doing some cool shit with boats for a long time.

Starting point is 00:51:25 The Vikings in Denmark had existed in some form of petty kingdoms who would ban together for military conflicts. At least as early as the six century C.E. tribes from Denmark began plundering churches and monasteries in the early ninth century. I wish I had nice precise dates for each country's inception, but we just don't. People lived in tribes, tribes organized into coalitions of some sort. Coalitions evolved in little petty kingdoms, which evolved into what we call nations. Now, just wasn't the same as other European nations where thanks to more written records and different cultural priorities, we have firm timelines. 874 CE, many people of Norway did not care for their king, horrid fair hair, and many fled.

Starting point is 00:52:05 One fleeing group led by Norway chieftain, Ingolthirth Ernerson and his family landed on Iceland, Southwest peninsula and created a settlement he named Reichaweik, which means Kovav Smok. He and his people were the first to actually live on Iceland. The settlement would attract others from Norway, Scotland, and Ireland. Reichajavík would become the nation's largest city in its capital.

Starting point is 00:52:27 Today, over 100,000 people live there. I very much want to visit and hope that I run into Björk. Where are you, Björk? Björk, can you hear me calling for you? Björk, I want to just play a song for you. Hing, hing, hing. We've lost all of our Scandinavian listeners by the way, we were building in the markets of Sweden and Iceland and it just went down to fucking zero.

Starting point is 00:52:49 I just got a, I just got a message. It haven't even released this episode. And somehow it's already gotten to the present of Iceland. He's like, fucking, we're done, dude. You're banned. By 878C, Danish based Vikings have taken over northern, eastern England. A 911 CE, a Viking leader named Rollo, who had been based in France for about a decade,

Starting point is 00:53:08 launched an unsuccessful raid on Paris. Later in that year, he went on to besiege another French city, where again, he was unsuccessful. However, his raids were making the king of France at that time. King Charles the simple, a swear to god, that's what he was called, is making King Charles nervous. Charles the simple, that does not translate well called, uh, is making King Charles nervous. Uh, Charles is simple.

Starting point is 00:53:25 That does not translate well. I'm sure it sounds better in French. In English, ah, he does sound like a good king, man. Hello, people of France. I am ready to announce my title from this day forward. You will know me as Charles the magnificent. Boo, it's not right. Doesn't work. Boo. Alright, alright, what about Charles the incredible?

Starting point is 00:53:49 Boo's too much. It's not right for you. Boo. Alright, Charles the great. Boo, Charles, Charles the good. Boo, Charles the above average for fuck's sake. Boo! How about Charles the simple? Is that pathetic enough for you? Does that lower me and humble me enough? Hip hip hooray! Long live Charles the simple. I don't know, I don't know how it happened. Simple Charles agreed to offer roll

Starting point is 00:54:16 of the northwestern corner of France and return for Rollo's allegiance. As part of the agreement, Rollo has court an army converted to Christianity and he took the name of Robert. Robert's alliance to the king did not require him to announce raiding territory outside Charles Jurisdiction. And from the point of view of land acquisition, he continued to act as a Viking chief, still carrying out expeditions, raids, expanding territory when he could. And this is a story of how the French Riemann, the French region of Normandy got

Starting point is 00:54:44 his name. Medieval Latin documents referred to Rolo and his men as Norte-Mani, the French region of Normandy. Got his name. Medieval Latin documents referred to Rollo and his men as Norte money, which means men of the North. This name provides the etymological basis for the words Norman and Normandy. All right, little extra trivia. Yeah, Viking, starting off Normandy. Now, let's talk about Greenland, a nation giving Siberia a run for its money when it comes to the least desirable vacation destination place in the entire fucking world.

Starting point is 00:55:09 In 982 CE, Eric the Red discovered and began the settlement of Greenland. His father, according to the song, has had been exiled from Norway in 960 CE as a result of quote, a number of killings. Eric's entire family decides to follow. They relocate in England, or I'm sorry, in Iceland, they relocate in Iceland. And then Erick called the red, not just due to his red hair and beard, but also because of his fiery temper. This ginger savage gets exiled in 982 for three years from Iceland for three murders committed there. This family exiled twice in just over two decades.

Starting point is 00:55:45 Due to his exile, he sales West discovers a country with an inviting fjord landscape in fertile green valleys. He's so impressed with this new country's resources that it returns to Iceland to spread the word of the green land. You know, just, hey guys, I know I'm not supposed to be here. I know, yeah, it's exiled and stuff. Hey, but I found a really cool place to live and I promise I'll head back there and stay if you just let me get my shit together.

Starting point is 00:56:07 And then in 985, Eric returns to Greenland leading a fleet of 25 ships on board around 500 men and women, domestic animals, other elements required to create a new existence and a new land of the 25 ships, only 14 make it to their destination. And I'm guessing all on board were pretty pissed. It wasn't as nice as he had made out. Eric the Red established a sheathens seat of power in southern Greenland, while others continued further north. The two societies located in words don't even look real. There's so many consents were known as the East and West settlements basically. The North people by the way would completely abandon Greenland.

Starting point is 00:56:44 Not that much later really during the 15th century because it is a frozen shithole of a country. Some local indigenous people have stayed because I don't know why. Why do I ask him to live in a terrible frozen wasteland? Greenland appears to be one of the worst places in earth. I'm not kidding. It's literally never gotten to even 80 degrees Fahrenheit, 27 degrees Celsius, ever in one fucking day. Not for one day in any place on the whole island.

Starting point is 00:57:12 Records are broken when the weather hits 75 degrees Fahrenheit in June. That's fucking heatwave. Its biggest city has less than 20,000 people in its metro area, which means that Greenland doesn't have any cities. And again, why? It's a frozen shithole. The country is over 800,000 square miles in size, over three times the size of a state of Texas, over 15 times the size of England, over eight times the size of New Zealand, and less than 60,000 people live there in total.

Starting point is 00:57:42 Has the lowest population density of any nation on earth by far and you know why you you can guess now yep uh-huh frozen shithole over 75% of the island the world's largest island due to Australia and Antarctica being defined as continents uh... or Antarctica um over 75% of Greenland is covered in ice year-round. I bet no one is hoping for global warming to continue more than the approximately 50,000 sad mother fuckers living in a nightmare of a country. I'm going to go to visit Greenland right after I swing through Siberia and Syria on my thank Nimrod. I don't have to live in these places, world tour.

Starting point is 00:58:22 Sorry, I know that was a bit much, but I got looking into Greenland and I was like, why? Why would anyone live here? Eric Dorett, he did make the most of his time in Greenland able to produce a number of goods for trade during that time, including fur wool sheep whale blebber, walrus ivory, until by 1408 demand for whale blebber had waned a bit, herding trade and temperatures had lowered due to a little mini ice age. And the average temperature there went from fuck, this is cold to we're all going to die here. You know that right?

Starting point is 00:58:52 We are all dead here. And they take off towards the end of the Viking era, possibly as early as nine 86 CE, but probably a little closer to 999 C The Vikings became in all likelihood the first Europeans to spot North America. Since indigenous people walked from Alaska, or excuse me, walked into Alaska from Siberia via a frozen land bridge thousands of years earlier, a trader with a super fun name of BRN,

Starting point is 00:59:20 Hurl, uh, Hurl-Josin, I am BRN, Hurl-Josin, Uh, I don't know. Name so much. They're my favorite names. I am be Arnie. Her Joseon. I like to have some fun. Hingong ting ting ting. Um, I just can't picture these people being sad with these names. Yeah, which is so insulting. I know it is. And again, Scandinavian listeners, I apologize. It just I come from a place of love.

Starting point is 00:59:46 I love your sing-songy names. This guy's blown off, of course. I was way to Greenland. He didn't screw, cite some lands to the West. When he makes anchor in Greenland, he describes what he sees to, to leaf Ericsson's son of Erick Deread. I actually think that part of the reason

Starting point is 01:00:01 that Erick and Leaf are so well known in English speaking cultures because they don't have sweetest chef names, like B.R. Neco Jufson. Leaf puts together a crew in a thousand C.E. sales 1800 miles across the really cold part of the Atlantic and makes it to Newfoundland around a thousand C.E. around. Viking Saga's claim of settlement was built and named a Vineland. In abundance of trees, game and grapes are found, later inspired the name Vineland. Apparently, though, the colony would fail due to hostile natives, some 10, 15 years later.

Starting point is 01:00:34 Again, experts are skeptical of the old Nordic history, kind of in general, but there is archaeologists verifying certain things. And they have verified that, you know, leaf, uh, uh, leaf eric or somebody, some Vikings, some Nordic people did make it to Newfoundland in 1960. Archaeologists team and signed in the stud or in stud and her husband, uh, Halega, an earth in North settlement in Newfoundland at, uh, Lensomedos that dates to roughly 1000 C. So it kind of validates, you know, the timeline of life's journey. They found eight Nordic homes, a forge and four workshops.

Starting point is 01:01:11 Also some say this little community, some say, life's sister, uh, Freigia, Eric Dosti, or Eric, God damn it. Eric Dosti, uh, Freigia, Eric Dosti was the first European to give birth on American soil. It's also thought she fought off an entire clan of warriors while she was pregnant. Hey, Elizabeth. Uh, again, no, this settlement will be abandoned by around, uh, 2015 CE in 1013. Some other Vikings conquer all of England, the King of Denmark, Sven fork beard. Great name.

Starting point is 01:01:43 Oh, King forkkbeard. Lord of both Norway and Sweden invades England with a large fleet after a brief campaign. He's a he's a curious submission of all the English people apart from the inhabitants of London, who essentially holds hostage. When a near contemporary English Chronicle reports, all the nation regards him as full king. The citizens of London finally capitulate and submit giving the Danes, you know, actually, actually giving them some, or they just agree that they're going to be part of, yeah, this new Nordic land. The Vikings have been raiding the British

Starting point is 01:02:16 Isles for over two centuries now and they wanted to settle it. Use this land for farming and have a more hospitable climate and great location from where they could launch even more raids and take even more people's shit. This invasion may have also happened in response to the St. Bryce's Day Massacre of 2002. England had been ravaged by Danish Viking raids, you know, constantly, especially in the years 997 to 2001. And in 2002, the king Ethel Redd, the unready, another great name, was told that the Danish men in England would faithlessly take his life and then all his counselors and possess his kingdom afterwards in response he orders the death of all Danes living in

Starting point is 01:02:56 England. On November 13th, 2002, various killings are carried out. The bones of roughly 40 Viking warriors were found during an excavation in two thousand eight and oxford england unknown how many vikings in total were massacred in the country on ten thousand and one thousand fourteen old four-peer dies and his son can newt is left to rule a scandal navy and viking empire come come comprised of england denmark norway after canoots death his two sons succeed him. Both though are dead by 1042 and then Edward the Confessor, son of the previous non Danish king, Old Captain on Ready, right? Return from exile and regain the English throne from the from the Danes. Upon his death without heirs in 1066, Harold Godwinson, the son of Edwards, most powerful noble, lays

Starting point is 01:03:46 claim to the throne. And then Harold's army is able to defeat an invasion led by the last great Viking king, Harald, a hardrada of Norway, at Stanford Bridge near York, present day, York, after the Vikings had beaten the English initially near present day, also near present New York in the battle of a full firt. Harald Hardrada dies at Stanford Bridge in an intense way. This 50-year-old warrior king was struck in the throat by an arrow and killed early in the battle in a state of berserker mode, is what the legend says, having worn no body armor and fought aggressively with both hands around his sword. More ongoing berserker, just a little bit later, it is intense.

Starting point is 01:04:28 Harold Godwinston wins, but then falls himself just weeks later to the forces of William Duke of Normandy, himself a descendant of Scandinavian settlers in northern France, but no longer part of Viking culture. This William goes on to become William the conqueror, you know, crown king of England on Christmas day in 1066, 1066, William manages to then retain the crown against further Danish challenges, and that ends when he's able to successfully defend consistently against the Danish challengers. That ends the Viking era and also ends today's time suck timeline. Good job, soldier. You made it back. Barely.

Starting point is 01:05:17 Okay, after that barrage of dates and names, let's all pep up. Let's pep up. Let's talk about something more exciting than numbers. Let's talk about Viking weapons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did the Vikings kick ass in England, France, all the way down in Constantinople and elsewhere as well? That's some decent weapons, helped. The most popular Viking weapons were axes and spears. Now spears are obviously pieces of metal on sticks. Probably iron, nothing too exciting

Starting point is 01:05:42 unless you're somebody like serial killer Ed camper. Oh man, he would have loved to have been able to use a spear. He would have made a great spear-wielding Viking, right? Mother, I'm a Viking now. I got my own stick weapon, mother. My new boss, Y'all's friend, Bloodhoof, said that I can put his many heads on the sticks as I want. He even said I can be something called a berserker mother. I can make my samples work in battle, mother.

Starting point is 01:06:12 Oh, God, he goes shopping my war stick. Now, time to send your head back into the manor, mother. I pray to Odin, I return safely from war and can celebrate by drinking your cats blood out of my horn Tonkert and Fucking your stupid next mother Now if you're thinking new list or what the hell just happened. I get it Here's what happened we just covered it camper a while back and I found out he blamed his killings on Zapples And they love putting heads on sticks and hated mother and

Starting point is 01:06:41 And did literally fuck her neck and I thought that voice to be fun to accompany all that information with any who Back to war weapons the Viking battle axe synonymous that's the exciting one for most people synonymous with the current image of the Viking Most of the axes were simple others were a badass death utensils beautifully decorated with engraved artwork I like a like a thorax You know the Thors war hammer. I guess you didn You know, the Thor's war hammer, I guess he didn't have an ax, he had a war hammer,

Starting point is 01:07:06 but I'm picturing it being ornate like that. The ax doubled as a craftsman's tool during travel between battles, cause lethal damage to a number of ways. Viking axes varied, mostly made of iron. Nearly always had either pagan or Christian symbols etched into them out of reverence, a reference, God dammit, reverence. Yeah, and superstition. Christian missionaries, by the way, had been converting various Vikings to

Starting point is 01:07:28 Christianity all throughout the Viking era. Soreds were less popular in the Viking era, mostly due to them being expensive. Sored was, you know, it's like having a private jet in the 10th or 11th century. You don't only the wealthiest Vikings and merchants could afford this superior weapon. Avergy 90 centimeters in length, about 35 inches. These big, bad killing machines were often decorated with gold and silver plates, intricate edgings, precious stones. Then he goes out saying that the Vikings that did have swords loved the shit out of them.

Starting point is 01:07:58 It was customary to sleep with their sword, and obviously you would want to name it. Welty Vikings and other Welty sword lovers would sometimes even opt to be buried with their swords instead of passing those swords down to their families, which probably, you know, pissed off some kids. You can't believe, I took a sword to the grave, selfish dick, King Fork beat my act, more king, fuck face. The most common of all Viking items of war was the shield, while it was common for defense they could also be used as a weapon itself.

Starting point is 01:08:25 And as we shall soon discuss, sometimes dudes would even not on it to get hyped for battle. Uh, not kidding. The round 80 to 100 centimeter in diameter shield was often held in one hand in whatever crazy sharp iron thing was held in the other. The only piece of metal on the Viking shield was the iron handle and almost all Viking archaeological sites where shields are found only the iron handle remains. Boas were a part of the Viking artillery and were especially useful in ship to ship or ship

Starting point is 01:08:53 to land warfare. With a 200 meter firing distance, Viking boats were big and tough, crafted from ash or elm trees. They shot arrows, tipped with iron. They could pummel enemies, onshore before unloading their boats and attacking with their axes or sending in their berserkers. Berserkers. The Vikings had numerous weapons of war, sophisticated tactics to use them. They also used javelins and slings to help make people die. Viking helmets, although not fit with horns, were also expensive, invaluable weapons. There was a modern misconception that all Vikings were helmets, that they all had horns.

Starting point is 01:09:27 Not actually. Actually, only the richest Vikings could afford nice helmets, really helmets in general. If you had a helmet and a sword, other Vikings knew that you weren't dicking around or that you had a rich dad. The most valuable tool of war, the Vikings had, wasn't something they could hold. It was their incredible boats that gave them a significant advantage against many of their opponents, especially early in the Viking era. Perhaps all of Nordic life hinged on their boat building.

Starting point is 01:09:53 It was obviously essential for exploration, but the boats were also used for daily transportation, fishing, recreation. Boats were just a big source of Viking pride. Men who own boats would often be buried or burned at sea in them. Boat building was a big source of Viking pride. Men who own boats would often be buried or burned at sea in them. Boat building was a tradition that went back hundreds of years before the Vikings, as we learned earlier, these boats were more technologically advanced in any naval equipment their enemies possessed when they kicked off their era of raping and pillaging.

Starting point is 01:10:20 Speaking of that, did the Vikings really do all this crazy amount of raping, by the way? I mean, the short answer is yes, but they didn't necessarily do any more raping impilaging than other cultures did back then. Maybe a little more pillaging in the average, but not a lot more raping. There's no evidence that they were particularly raping. Rapping their own women would have been a serious crime, a serious murder, and if they did rape their own women, a man could legally, you know, another man could legally kill them for doing

Starting point is 01:10:49 that, but they did rape the women of their opponents as did many other warriors of the time. The spoils of war just weren't limited to an enemy's physical treasure. They could, and would often do what they wanted to the enemy's women as well. Part of that was just to inflict more psychological damage on, you know, their enemies. Part of it was, I guess, just because they were, you know, terrible people in ways back then, just in general, and they just get away with it. But again, they did the stuff as did many other people. Life was just terrible back then for a lot of people, as we're so often reminded. So back to boats.

Starting point is 01:11:27 The Vikings had two main types of big boats. The long ships were built for war, and a type of ship called the NAR was built for trade. Perhaps the most well-known, the Viking long ships dominated the world's oceans for around 300 years. These ships were superior to other European ships at the time for a number of reasons.

Starting point is 01:11:44 They were lighter, stronger, more maneuverable. They were built with the advantage of reversing direction at will. They had shallower holes than many other ships. And above all, they were a lot more flexible than anything else out on the seas. And the flexibility of these ships gave Vikings the confidence to travel hundreds and even thousands of miles from home. While storms would be tearing apart, you know, other fleets, Viking fleets could handle a lot of that rough water. I mean, some boats, sure, were still lost to storms, but not as many as their counterparts.

Starting point is 01:12:13 And it was also the depth of the Viking hulls. That was huge. This was what made their ships so dangerous in battle. Unlike larger ships at the time that needed deep harbors, these Viking long ships could travel in waters as shallow as three to four feet in depth. The Vikings ships were built to make beach landings, right? And also to travel up rivers hundreds of miles into mainland. This gave the North Managed, a huge advantage in surprising their enemies.

Starting point is 01:12:39 It allowed them to build impenetrable forts of their own further inland than any other fleet could get to. The Vikings made many improvements to saline technology from better mass and keels to better ship designs and navigational equipment. Viking explorers often receive a credit for inventing the magnetic compass and the sun compass. Let's talk about these trading ships. Again, known as the NAR, they were much wider and deeper than the warships. They were built sturdy enough to cross the Atlantic filled with people livestock and goods. One ship that was excavated dating back to the 11th century was 45 feet long, 11 feet wide, and could carry up to 4.6 tons of cargo.

Starting point is 01:13:19 They also built a variety of smaller ships intended for quick transportation, fishing and trade. These ships were meant to be light enough to carry over land, but strong enough to carry heavy cargo. Ship building techniques were trade secrets, guarded trade secrets, but also much of the work in building the ships was done by slaves. And that kind of leads us to perhaps the main purpose of these ships. Viking seamen were given great military advantages via their superior boats, and many experts say that they built a slave

Starting point is 01:13:47 economy around these advantages. Slaves are vital to the Viking way of life, although like everything Viking is debated, many historians consider slave capturing to be the primary motivation for Viking raids. Some historians think that in addition looking for treasure, they were looking for women to

Starting point is 01:14:05 be either sex slaves or wives. The hypothesis goes that because Viking leaders would take multiple wives, non-elite Vikings would be forced to go steal a wife or two from their neighbors. Some evidence of this would be that the majority of Icelandic women have Scottish and Irish ancestors while 80% of the Icelandic men are mainly Nordic Germanic. The Nordic version of slavery actually predates the Vikings by hundreds of years. There is some evidence of slavery in the region as early as the first century CE. The Nordic and Viking forms of slavery, at least had nothing to do with race.

Starting point is 01:14:36 It was more along the line that it's whoever happened to be there when they showed up, right? It's whoever was close when they decided to grab some slaves. Um, does, does not care about the race making better. I'm not sure actually. I doubt the slaves themselves took any comfort whatsoever and knowing that their slavery wasn't based in racism. I doubt they were, you know, having conversation like this, this, this sucks, Shamus. Last year on this time, we were hanging out back in Ireland eating sausage with Mon

Starting point is 01:15:02 Pawn drinking dark beer. Now we're slaves here in Stockholm. It's not that bad, Quinn, at least the people beating us and raping our lives are racist. There's no doubt to be in a Viking slave would have been terrible. Archaeologists have found evidence that slaves live with livestock and that some were sometimes burned alive or even worse, richly sacrificed, which included beheadings.

Starting point is 01:15:25 Again, history has murk and everything, a Viking related, but the evidence seems to be mounting that they did have a lot of slaves. The annals of Ulster and Irish document, Chronicles are raid in Dublin, Ireland around 821 CE that says, a great booty of women were taken. Then Chronicles 100 years later,

Starting point is 01:15:43 that Vikings took 3000,000 slaves. They're also Arab and Middle Eastern accounts that chronicle the Viking slave trade. Viking slaves traveled all the way from Scandinavia to Russia, to the Byzantine Empire, even as far as Baghdad. Some historians today even debate whether or not some ancient Viking homes and structures were actually more of kind of early plantations.

Starting point is 01:16:03 There's evidence that a ship building became more popular. Wool sales became more in demand. So too did slave labor. Besides sex work female slaves were made to do domestic chores and cook. Male slaves that a lot of the logging, building of the boats, rowing on the master's ships. Some evidence exists that slaves were also put into warrior classes and forced to fight in battles. Vikings according to some records named their slaves, things like bastard, sluggard,

Starting point is 01:16:29 stumpy, stinker, dipshit, fuckfaced McGee, hunky-dungy, boingy-dungy-tong, slinky-sanky. And I just think that kind of shed some light on how the Vikings thought about their slaves. Those name records, by the way, if you look into it, they do come entirely from the back of my mind. You won't find them written anywhere. The really shitty part for both male and female slaves probably had to be the ritual sacrifices. Or even just live in a life knowing that you could be

Starting point is 01:16:58 sacrificed at any point, just having that anxiety. It's kind of terrible. According to the Nordic sagas and some aerocronicles, when their masters died, slaves would usually be killed and buried with them. anxiety. It's got an terrible. According to the Nordic sagas and some aerocronicles, when their masters died, slaves would usually be killed and buried with them. Sometimes it would be a single concubine. Sometimes it would be every slave. Okay. Now let's talk about the ultimate Viking warriors, the berserkers. This shit is intense. The berserkers were the most feared type of Norse warrior. Bzeerkers were a wild, brutally violent sect

Starting point is 01:17:25 of Norse warriors who ended up being written as villains in many of the Nordic sagas. We get the English word, Brzeerk, an adjective that means out of control with anger or excitement, wild or frenzied from these crazy bastards. The Brzeerkers, and their nearly identical counterparts, the Wolfskins or Heathen Wolves,

Starting point is 01:17:41 were secret societies of elite, batshit, crazy warriors that took violence to an almost unfathomable level and did a lot to earn Vikings their brutal reputations. They were closely connected to another group, the cult of Odin, that were also pretty brutal. Presurker comes from the ancient Norse word, circa, which means coat or shirt and the word burr, which means bear. You know, it's like bear coat, bear shirt. These bear shirts and these fuckers marched either completely naked into battle or had like a bear or like a wolf pelt just to cover themselves.

Starting point is 01:18:13 They were used many times as shock troops to terrorize the minds of the enemy and scatter their formations. Some berserkers devoted their lives completely to these sect. The title of berserker was often passed down from father to son like a Zoro or maybe Batman, you know, who knows. Whole families were berserker cult members. The alleged goal of the berserker or the Wolfskin was to actually transform into their totem animal, right? If they were a wolf, they would mimic the mannerisms and the habits of the wolf. They would get out there in the woods, they would with their bare hands, they would get good enough to actually catch wild wolves, like no weapons. They could tame these wolves, true kind of wolf skin berserkers, they would they would tame and eventually just fuck these wolves and they would make like these weird wolf

Starting point is 01:19:00 human baby things. They would become like the elite guard of the berserkers with a half wolfs. You know, like they had like fucking crazy ass long paw things and then like human heads. And they were the bet. No, I'm getting way off track. No, but they would want to become these animals. They would mimic the habits. Hard core berserkers would even spend time living in the woods though. That part's true.

Starting point is 01:19:23 But they would just wear the skin and fur of the wolf. They would drink wolf blood and rituals to complete this transformation in their minds. The Nordic Saga and even other retellings of the time call these people shape shifters. Before battle, it said that berserkers would rile themselves up and rituals meant to bring the beast that lived inside of them out. There can be only one highlander. There can be only one highland. There can be only one Berserker. Except they probably wouldn't say, you know, that like intensely. There can be only one Berserker

Starting point is 01:19:51 hang downed. They were known to bite and on their wooden shields mindlessly attacking stones and trees. It sometimes kill each other as they waited for battle. That's part of the record. They would call this ritualized insanity Berserk gang or a Berserk gang. A 13th century poet wrote of one Berserker, a demoniacal frenzy suddenly took him. He furiously bit and devoured the edges of his shield. He snatched live embers in his mouth and let them pass down into his entrails. He rushed through the perils of crackling fires and at last, when he had raved through every sort of madness.

Starting point is 01:20:25 He turned his sword with raging hand against the heart of six of his champions. It is doubtful whether his madness came from thirst for battle or natural ferocity. Shit sounds intense. Even a less exaggerated version of that sounds super intense. Although there is no evidence that this, some scholars seem to think the berserkers would get high out of their minds on mushrooms and or booze. Perhaps a little hemlock to get themselves into a wild fit of rage. They're said to have lost all reason self-awareness and could not distinguish between friend or foe. Berserkers were perceived

Starting point is 01:20:57 by their enemies as immune to fire, swords and iron weapons. They are said to have had no fear of weapons., felt no pain. There were some rituals involved to go and berserk out. They believed that they got their power from altered states brought on by these rituals. They would go, they would see visions through extreme isolation, fasting, exposure to extreme temperatures, both hot and cold. They would even do like weird naked group weapons dances before battle. I mean, can you imagine seeing that kind of shit for the first time if you're a scout

Starting point is 01:21:25 for some enemy army? That would be very hard to process and report. Did you locate any hostile forces, William? Yes, I, indeed, I did. How many men, roughly, roughly 50, I, excellent, William, we should have no problem then. We easily outnumber them two to one. And with all due respect, I think we should head back. Why and God's name should we do that? Well, yeah, they're they're

Starting point is 01:21:50 naked. So excuse me, well, did you say naked? Yes, I'm the dancing. And and hitting each other and spilling each other's blood and drinking blood and chewing on shields and each other side. They're walking on fire and pounding aile's side. And if my nose is correct, the chancing, horrible things like eat their babies, fuck their dead, eat their babies, fuck their dead, I'm quite terrified, sigh. You can smell the fear, sigh. Yeah, these people are fucking crazy.

Starting point is 01:22:18 One berserker has said you have eaten a shield before killing six guys. And berserkers did a lot of things that people think of when they think of Vikings, they pillaging raped and murdered their way from settlement to settlement. before killing six guys. And researchers did a lot of things that people think of when they think of Vikings, a pillage and raped and murdered their way from settlement to settlement. Saga's tell the berserkers ripping men apart with their bare hands, biting their, the throats out of their enemies, all of their dicks out there, flying in the wind.

Starting point is 01:22:36 Within their own skin and avian societies, berserkers were brawlers and killers. They disrupted their cultures so much. Their secret societies eventually actually were outlawed. And by the 12th century, they were extinct. And apparently, yeah, berserkers, not always good for Viking battles tragedy. Sometimes they would charge when they're supposed to hold. Sometimes they would just start fighting everybody around them.

Starting point is 01:22:56 They're fellow troops instead of the enemy. After the battles were over, they were apparently also weak as babies, right? When they came out of their transes, like they had like a little berserker type hangover. Okay, so that's the berserkers. But as I've stated earlier, the Vikings weren't just warriors.

Starting point is 01:23:12 They were also farmers, traders, artisans, and more. Let's talk now a bit about Viking ladies. Women had more rights than many of their European counterparts in Viking society. They could run a clan on property, on a business, even initiate divorce. The idea of a Viking warrior woman has been romanticized in more recent times, but seems to go up against the Viking code.

Starting point is 01:23:36 The debate over whether or not women warriors existed heated up as recently as 2017 when new DNA evidence of a Viking warrior seemed to prove that the warrior was female. And then that evidence was later disproven. However, female warriors do exist in the Viking sagas. However, those sagas are definitely mostly fiction. Warriors are not Viking women played important in honored roles in Nordic society. Among them was tending to the wounded on the battlefield. They even concocted a special suit made of onions, leeks and herbs, herbs that would allegedly seep through the deep wounds, the smell of which would indicate irreparable damage. In this

Starting point is 01:24:15 way, the women could supposedly tell which warriors were going to die and put their energy towards the ones that had a better chance of living. Let's talk a little more about those sagas. Viking stories written mainly in Iceland between the 12th and 4th centuries. Snorri Strelson, we talked a lot about him in the Norse God's Suck. He wrote a lot of these sagas. Many other authors, many of them unknown.

Starting point is 01:24:35 Wrote the others. The sagas featured three important female categories besides the goddesses. And these are the shield maidens, the Valkyries and the heroines. Shield maidens, female warriors are the most famous despite the lack of any archaeological evidence for them. It's claimed in 750 CE that 300 shield maidens fought for the Danes in the Battle of Bravala. In one epic tale, a shield maiden named Blenda of Smaland, a saith her country from invasion of the Danish

Starting point is 01:25:07 by inviting Danish warriors to a large feast, getting them drunk, and then with an army of ladies murdering them all in their sleep. Hail to Fena! Valkyries are the shield maidens of the afterlife in the Saga's. They are said to lead the fallen souls of the battlefield to their main god Odin's hall of Valhalla. The Alkiri's play many different roles in the saga, and one story of the Alkiri named Brinheild becomes mortal again and avenges her own death.

Starting point is 01:25:34 Pretty badass story. Women are also elevated to hero status in many of the myths, legends, and semi-history. A few of the most famous women are two of their goddesses, Skadi, goddess of hunting and skin, and Freya goddess of hunting and skiing and Freya goddess of fertility love and luck. There were many female leaders in various Nordic sagas as well. Segred, the proud, ruled her kingdom, are secret. Seagred the proud, ruled her kingdom and was said to murder the men who wanted to marry

Starting point is 01:25:59 her. A heroic woman named Herver was the wielder of a magic sword called Tierfing and a woman named Lagertha Lagertha was featured in famous in the Saga's for being a victorious shield mate women explorers also featured in the Saga's Oud the deep-minded commanded her own fleet and settled Iceland a Viking explorer Gertryd Thorden Dutert, uh, was an explorer of North America's Vineland, uh, perhaps the most famous Viking, uh, warrior woman is Luciferina, the greatest

Starting point is 01:26:32 warrior the North has ever seen, able to slay 100 berserkers with one swing of her mighty death ex, able to pillage entire British cities with a battle cry that would transform into a hurricane, able to sink ships with the help of the Kraken. She herself rides up out of the depths upon its back. Her hell hound both jangles out her side. Both jangles shooting lightning at enemy mass with his one remaining eye. Shaking fear into the hearts of enemy sailors with roars that shake chests like thunder, shake souls, hail luciferina

Starting point is 01:27:06 That's who I think the most famous Viking warrior woman is you're not gonna find luciferina in any Norse history books Historians on the other hand will tell you the perhaps the most famous Viking woman is Eric the Reds daughter Thradis irx daughter her last name is literally Eric's daughter She explored the Atlantic with her famous brother laf Eriksson her last name is literally Eric Stutter. She explored the Atlantic with her famous brother, Laf Erikson, son of Eric, and her husband, and has many legends surrounding her top ten in her own brutality.

Starting point is 01:27:31 Now let's look at some famous dudes. Several famous Viking men whose legends best tell the Viking tales. Perhaps not all those legends are historically accurate, but they capture the spirit of the Nordic people at the time. Here are just a few of the most famous or interesting folks that I have found. Few of them we've already met. Probably the two most famous Vikings are Eric the Red founder of Greenland and his son,

Starting point is 01:27:52 Leif, a laf Eriksen, the dude who discovered North America for the Vikings. We've already talked about them. So let's move on to a dude with a super Viking name. Olaf, Tric Wilson, or Tric Wilson, Olaf Tric Wilson,v was a warrior king. The grandson of the first ruler of the United Kingdom of Norway, Harald Fairhaer, Olav was born around 968 CE. We go on to lead invasions in the England, starting in 991.

Starting point is 01:28:17 Yeah, 991, the English were attacked so often by the Vikings, they came up with the term den guild, which was simply just payments. That was a term for payments to the Vikings, not to kill them. You know, Vikings probably didn't invent extortion, but they did perfect. It seems Olaf was paid a dengild in 1991, not to attack England anymore. So in 994, he and the king of Denmark, swain fork beard uh... or spin fork beard launch another attack on england to get the stop the english paid a higher uh... dengev

Starting point is 01:28:51 uh... the following year with the english treasure he learned all of set his sites on invading norway after battling and killing uh... huckin uh... seagord soon uh... huckin the great he was made king of norway he wanted to make all this, all of his then pagan subjects convert to Christianity. Olaf didn't make a lot of friends with his ideas. One of his more powerful enemies was his old ally, Sven Forkbeard. And another was Eric Huckinson. The son of the Norwegian king, he just killed. Olaf would later be ambushed, according to legend, by a thousand men. But instead of surrendering, he jumped into the ocean never to be seen again.

Starting point is 01:29:24 thousand men, but instead of surrendering, he jumped into the ocean never to be seen again. The famous Viking son of Harald Fairhaire was given the colorful name of Eric Bloodaxe, born Eric Haraldson. King Fairhaire had his boy murdering people in Raiden Europe when he was just 12. Eric got his name by playing nice with the other children, but then slaughtering all the one of his brothers with an axe. Like most prolific psychos of the time, he briefly ruled Norway before he was driven out, eventually settling in Northumbia, where he would become king. Mr. Blood Axe battled constantly and was eventually killed.

Starting point is 01:29:56 And it seems these Viking chieftains, a lot of times, were either killed in battle or would live happily ever after. Ragnar Lothbrocken's sons, let's talk about them, another family of interesting characters from the sagas. Both sons, Ivar the boneless and Bjorn ironside, like their father would become kings.

Starting point is 01:30:13 They would all lead many raids. Ragnar Lothbrock, who was a berserker, is famous today for his role on the history channel show Vikings, very prominent in the Viking sagas and is famous for being paid by the French king Charles, 7,000 pounds of silver not to sack Paris. Ragnar's son, Iver the Boneless, had a bone disease that made his legs break easily, but he still fought in battle.

Starting point is 01:30:35 He was supposedly carried by his men and then he would attack with a bone arrow. Pretty impressive, that's true. It was Iver the Boneless who also conducted supposedly the brutal ritual torture called the blood eagle that we'll talk about in just a few minutes. When he sat York during one of his raids in North Columbia, he took the king, IEL, the man who had his father, Harold Fairhaer executed and fucked him up. Blood eagle, six shit, one of the most god-offaways to die. Brutal, stay tuned.

Starting point is 01:31:02 Bjorn Ironside, the other Fairhaer kid, was also a violent son of a bitch. He raided as far as France, Spain, Sicily, North Africa, and Italy. One great story from the saga describes Bjorn's attempts to breach the gates of an Italian city. As his army awaited outside, he pretended to be dead. His men called to the priest in the city, the Italian holy men brought him inside to be buried. When they carried the coffin to the church, Mr.. ironside supposedly leapt out of the casket killed a whole bunch of dudes fought his way back to

Starting point is 01:31:29 the gates and then led in his army to take over the town and then this fucker, a fucker also supposedly retarded in wealth and comfort. Egil, Scala Grimson, Egil, Scachyim soon. Come in for Lutavisk. He's the quintessential warrior poet. He said to have written his first poem at age three, have killed his first human with an axe at the age of seven. I hope that's just legend. That's fucking terrifying. This was a man who the saga say took on 11 men at once, also wrote some of the finest poems of his age. He was a lover and a fighter. He was described as a complex man. Yet a very sensitive side, but he could also gouge a few eyes out, able to rip men apart, and tear out people's throat with his teeth, and cry over sunset. This Viking hero, like so many others, lived a long 80-year life of luxury after a lifetime

Starting point is 01:32:18 of brutality. Another really interesting character was Guneer,und or Sone, perhaps the most famous swordsman of the Nordic Saga's in legends. He had comic book level skills. The legend described his being able to jump higher than he was tall while wearing a full suit of armor. Okay, yeah, sure, cool story, bro. Gunnir was equally excellent or a Gunnir. Gun Gunner was equally excellent or a good near. A good near was equally ex-linked with both hands. He's just horks. Man, he had an eagle eye with a bow. The saga say he had absolutely terrorized Denmark and Norway. He's cruelty would come back to hand. While in the midst of a blood feud that he started, he broke his bow string and then he asked his wife to hey, give me some of your hair to repair it. She said no because he had hit her previously.

Starting point is 01:33:04 And then he got fucked up. Whoops. The last great Viking king is the last famous Viking we'll delve into. Harald Hardrada, the berserker, you know, King we talked about earlier, born in Norway in 1015 as Harald Segerdson. He was fighting as a teen in the famous battle of Stikold Estid in 1030. The conflict was started by his half brother Olaf Haraldson Who is the freshly exiled king of Norway in an effort to regain power the brothers Fathonore We didn't where to feed it and this is where herald story gets very interesting after the defeat he's exiled Right, he hooks up with Thor's ex-out travel agency He finds himself in Kiev becomes a mercenary for a Jero Slav the wise the

Starting point is 01:33:45 grand prince of Kiev he then travels to Constantinople to join and eventually captain the Byzantine Emperor's prestigious Varangian guard. Her all his military success makes him wealthy. His name, her, her daughter meant hard ruler and 1040 he returns to Scandinavia forms an alliance with the claimant for the Danish throne Schwen Eradsson in a plot overthrow then King of Norway and Denmark, King Magnus the good and 1046 the partnership between Sven and Harald dissolves when King Magnus knows what's good for him makes Harald co-ruler of Norway after Magnus dies and47, Sven becomes the king of Denmark and herald

Starting point is 01:34:25 and Sven began their multi-year war. Herald won most of the battles, but by 1064 he was ready to settle her Sven remaining king of Denmark. Herald, a man with war on the brain, shifted his focus to England in 1066. He led a large force, including 300 ships to York in Northumbria and took the city at the battle of full for gate. Like we talked about in just days after the victory, as we know, Harold Godwin sent wiped out his army at the battle of Stanford Bridge. And I know there are tons of other famous Vikings that I've missed and we just kind of skimmed

Starting point is 01:34:59 over these, but you know, this is a broad stroke kind of suck. And I think it's time we get to some fucked up rituals. Come tired of all these names. Let's get to something crazy. So the berserkers were pretty bad or bad ass or both, but berserkers weren't the only overly brutal Vikings. Violence was just a part of Viking and Nordic traditions, as were several blood sacrifices. On one hand, the Vikings had a soft sign, believing in good luck charms, omens and superstitions. Their beliefs led to a great respect for the land, which some

Starting point is 01:35:28 might argue led to their ample farming skills. I mean, these guys grew shit and green, greenland for God's sake. Most amazing Viking feet of my opinion. They had more respect for women than the average European male. And they also had, yeah, these crazy rituals. There was like these cremations after the death of a chieftain, a slave girl, this is so fucked up. A slave girl would quote unquote, volunteer doubt it, doubt it, as the chiefs afterlife concubine. And then this ritual would include the slave girl having sex with every dude in the village before then being strangled and stabbed by the village matriarch. And then her body would then be cremated with the chief in a wooden ship.

Starting point is 01:36:08 Wow, not fun, not a fun way to spend your final minutes on earth. Jesus, Norse folklore also includes spirits of the dead and undead creatures, such as remnants, visible ghosts or animated corpse that is believed to have revived from death to haunt the living right of Viking zombie I mean a weird zombie. Wow, how would it talk instead of like Brains need brains Yeah brains Please look at me up range. I won't eat him

Starting point is 01:36:44 And I ask Gary. Let's make it a little more fun. That was biking zombie. Suppose a society of a Revenant was using turbid as a sign that additional failing members would die, the sagas of a drastic precautions being taken after a Revenant had appeared, the dead person had to die anew, and a stake would be put through the corpse so its head might be cut off in order to stop the disease from finding its way back to the living. Now these people had some intense, death, ritual, weird shit. Now let's talk about that blood eagle. I, you know, I've mentioned it here in there. Let's really get right into it. After a word, after a word from today's final sponsor.

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Starting point is 01:38:39 I like all those colors. I've seen demons of all those colors sneaking to people. They probably hold while they're sleeping that. Hey, you should, you should make me bobby drinks them down and talk about her maybe get some of my paranormal rape report. No, Woody, we're already raising money for you. You greedy son of a bitch, I get your shit together.

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Starting point is 01:39:41 from the suck first. There's nothing to do with Vikings. If you're like, what the fuck is Woody have to do with Vikings? Nothing. A blood eagle has everything to do with the suck first. There's nothing to do with Vikings. If you're like, what the fuck is what do you have to do with Vikings? Nothing. A blood eagle has everything to do with the Vikings though. This shit is brutal. I mentioned earlier with the whole Iver the Boneless. Of course, the experts argue whether or not

Starting point is 01:39:53 this even happened. I hope it did not. If it did happen, first a man would be tied up then the out, to hold him down real tight. Then the outline of a bird with open wings would be carved into his back with a knife, little pain warm up for what's to come. The tortured guy's back is then opened up

Starting point is 01:40:13 like his skin peeled open. Each rib broken one by one in a fashion that makes the ribs stick out of the poor bastard's back. Making his back look kind of wing like, if you will. The person possibly still alive, if this is true, possibly conscious somehow for all this. I don't see how, but that's what the legend said. Next, actual salt is poured into the wounds as if it's not fucking brutal enough.

Starting point is 01:40:40 And then last, last act, the lungs are fucking pulled out through the gaping hole in the son of a bitches back. And then the victims last breath is said to make these this shaped rib ornament fucking thing coming out of the two's back. Flutter. That's right. Little little lung flutter for a little payoff at the end. And it said in the saw guys, there was always an audience for this. Just just writing that is pretty fucking brutal. And if it's true, what are you supposed to do at the end? Are you supposed to cheer for the flutter?

Starting point is 01:41:13 Little hip hip hooray, bravo! Well done. Do you clap at the flutter? Do you boo? If the guy dies too soon, or the guy performing the ritual doesn't get the flutter quite right, you know? Some old cranky Viking who's seen some better, you know, blood eagles done he's not happy

Starting point is 01:41:27 about boo! Do over! We came to watch a blood eagle! Not a blood slug or a blood potsome! Or whatever this horse it was! He died before you even touched his lungs, Finn! I told you guys, did I not tell you? Did I not say, Finn is going to fuck up the blood eagle.

Starting point is 01:41:47 I knew it, I knew it. He's never gotten one right. When I was young, when I was a young man, I got to flutter every time. I took the flutters seriously. Kids today, they just don't work like we did in my day. They're too busy raping and pelaging and berserking to put a little god damn energy into putting on a good Blood eagle show There are many other rituals and ritualized practices like carving out found out about past out there at the end

Starting point is 01:42:20 It's hard to breathe when you're trying to do a fucking weird old two-to-stude talking about blood Eagles The other weird stuff like carving and painting once teeth, what, why would you do that? Warriors and even slave warriors who have said to have done this with their teeth. Archaeologists have found, I've seen pictures of these carved teeth in Nordic mummies. Sadly, they're not carved into a little vampire pointy shape. I'd make the berserkers even that much more terrifying. There were many rituals for battle, many ornaments, worn for courage and luck and strength

Starting point is 01:42:48 with my favorite ritualized Viking tradition is the touchwood Viking fire pea. I told you in the intro Vikings figured I had to set their piss on fire. And now sadly, it wasn't on fire right from the hose, but they used to collect a cade wood called touchwood, boil it over for several days in urine. After the boiling process was over,

Starting point is 01:43:06 they would then pound this material into something similar to felt, the Vikings then, they realized that urine, the sodium nitrate found in urine caused the tender to smolder and not to burn. And then this would be a way they could somehow carry fire with them for later usage, even on their boats, right? Like a kind of like an ancient super gross zippo lighter, like a status symbol, I guess.

Starting point is 01:43:30 Like you weren't a young hip, cool Viking, unless you had some, some fire putty, some, some piss fire putty in your little wool trouser pocket. Um, after all the killing, the, the blood eagle and the piss bombs, I think it's time to lighten up the mood of touch. How about checking in on, uh, you know, some, some, uh, recreation, the blood eagle and the piss bombs, I think it's time to lighten up the mood of touch. How about checking in on some recreation that the Vikings participated in? Vikings had both indoor and outdoor sports. The outdoor sports included wrestling, ball games, games featuring animal skin tossing, horse fights, weightlifting, stone throwing.

Starting point is 01:44:00 That's some sort of a balls out tug of war and keepway game where people died. The Viking idea of swimming seemed to be seen how long they could drown a guy. The losers didn't get trophies. Their idea of baseball included a bat in a ball, but was a full contact sport as well called Cratholeek. Nobody knows the rules, but we're pretty sure people got killed. Vikings also love to ski. This is fucking brutal people. Skien was like one of the least brutal things they did. They're actually given credit by many for inventing modern Western, the modern Western form of skiing. But don't tell that to Russians or the Chinese who were probably using skis much further back into history than the Vikings were. Vikings love skiing so much to their most powerful gods, Ur and

Starting point is 01:44:43 Skadi were the god and goddess of skiing. They had a number of indoor games, board games were apparently popular. Even some form of chess may have made its way back from Constantinople. Some of the Viking indoor games were drinking games that would lead, of course, to fights and death a lot of times. The main drink of the Viking was a honey and water-based alcohol called Meade, although they also drank beer and occasionally wine. Meade was easy to make, flavored with raisins, fruits, and other botanicals.

Starting point is 01:45:10 I sound like a tasty-ass meade. The fermentation process was still misunderstood, though, and deemed mystical by the Vikings so much so that the story and spoon used in the process of making Meade, which was never replaced and would get caked with yeast, was considered a magical item. It was valuable enough to pass down through the family after you had to don't touch the magic spoon. That's how we make our mead. These family heirlooms help preserve yeast strains that are most likely still alive and available today for your brewing pleasure. Now for a few words on sagas, there are several surviving sagas and historical records written within a couple hundred years of the events

Starting point is 01:45:47 that when they actually happened. Again, the author's both known and unknown. And like we said before, most come from oral tradition or found on the runes. Of the sagas, I've chose just a few to help really illustrate the minds and beliefs of the Vikings. I've avoided the Nordic gods since we've already discussed them at length

Starting point is 01:46:02 in the Nordic gods suck, but this jump into the sagas, we'll have to kind of mention them. Get ready for an orgy of mispronunciations. One of the most famous and important ancient Nordic sagas is the Ragnarok saga. Ragnarok means fate of the gods. And the saga told of a series of events that would lead to major changes, including the death of the gods Odin Thor, Tier, Faire, Himdall, and Loki. It also contained the great flood legend

Starting point is 01:46:27 where natural disasters covered the globe and water similar to other flood myths and other religions. Also similar to the Bible in the sense that cataclysmic events and the world was being reborn. The earth was said to be repopulated by two humans. The Ragnarok saga made popular in the 19th century by the works of Richard Wagner, more recently in Hollywood with the Thor Avenger movies.

Starting point is 01:46:51 The inspiration for J.R.R. token, his famous Lord of the Ring stories is probably the curse of End Vari's ring. The curse of End Vari's ring appears in two Nordic legends that are bound by the magic ring called Called this Antvar-A-Nott. The story follows a dwarf named Antvar-E who lives under a waterfall and who can turn into a fish. That sounds fun. He owns the magical ring which has made him rich and powerful. The dwarf is later caught by the god Loki and the magic net.

Starting point is 01:47:19 Loki tries to get the shape, shift, and dwarf to give up his gold in his ring and Vari puts a curse on the gold but the ring is never found. Similar to how Lord of the Rings resonates today, the story of Envari's ring was a popular story in the Viking times as it was carved into many standing stones. Thor, as you probably know from at least the Marvel stories, we talked about him in the North God's Suck, him in his magic hammer. Yeah, he had that magic hammer named it Miel Near, and the perpetual war between the gods and the giant store was King of the giant slain

Starting point is 01:47:47 known as the defender of both the gods and the humans and it was a big deal when his hammer went missing Thor soon learns it was taken by one of the gods he kept smashing the giant and question a giant King wanted Frayer to marry him and the saga despite the taboo of cross dressing in the Viking world Thor dressed his frair and traveled to the creatively named giant land Thor dressed as Lady frair takes part in the wedding ceremony and when the time is right reclaims his hammer and kills a giant with one heavy smash And we talked about that tail and again in Norse God's sock, but you know Thor's so popular now nice to throw it in here as well The legend of Odin and the ruins is another important Scandinavian legend Odin was the most powerful of the gods, considered the god of war, wisdom, death, and fate. When things were going bad, especially in times of war, sacrifices of animals, and sometimes

Starting point is 01:48:33 even people would be made to honor Odin. Humans were extra frightened by Odin because legends claimed he would disguise himself as a human and interact with human affairs, including tipping the balance of battles. The story of Odin's runes is told in first person by Odin himself in the Hefmal poem called the Sains of the High One written down in the 9th century. Basically, the poem Odin talks of sacrificing himself to himself. From nine nights, Odin hangs by a tree upside down and during this time he receives a vision of the language of Roan Symbols and gives them to the Nordic people. He has a legend fucking so weird. There's only a few more of these myths and legends I want to touch on.

Starting point is 01:49:07 One of my favorites involves a Viking lawyer. All of the Viking sagas show the complex laws of governance of even the most ancient Nordic tribes. The legal procedures of these societies were important, if not ultimately, blooding horrific. Supposedly, somewhere in the late 10th century, the Nials saga takes place. The Icelandic lawyer Nial was petitioning for monetary settlements to end the problem with bloodfudes. The idea of paying fines or compensating financially for wrongdoing to others was relatively unheard

Starting point is 01:49:33 of, especially to the North. Nial's efforts couldn't even save his wife, sons, and his best friend from losing their lives to the madness of bloodfudes. And even he would be burned alive in his own home in an active revenge because of you guessed it, a blood feud. Really just a lot of fun bedtime stories for kids. Hey, kids, what do you want to hear tonight? Do you want to hear about this guy having his whole fucking family burned and killed and

Starting point is 01:49:55 then him dying? Do you want to hear about this guy dying? Do you want to hear about these people being the shit of each other and killing each other? That was very violent, all these. The second to last of my chosen Viking so Viking saga is the very story that inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hamlet, God dang, I fucking wrote all these languages in my head. Weird pronunciations.

Starting point is 01:50:12 Hamlet, even down to the letter old Billy Shakespeare used. It's called the Omlet saga. And just like Hamlet, it features Omlet's uncle, killing his father, and marrying his mother. The story doesn't have a love interest like Hamlet. Like Hamlet. I won't just see Hamlet because it may hinge to Dundee, but there's plenty of madness in conspiracy. Final saga I'm going to cover in this episode is about Volmond or Voland, the Smith.

Starting point is 01:50:36 This heroic myth feels like something straight out of a fairy tale written by Clive Barker. Voland, the hero of the story is a goldsmith specializing in golden rings. He meets a talking swan as one does who is really a shape-shifting of Valkyrie. With little spunk, falls in love with her, briefly marries her after a short period of marriage that Valkyrie goes back to her duties, bringing lost souls from the battlefield to the great hall on the other side, and Vowland's grief over the loss of his mystical wife, he's abducted by an enemy king. He is swiftly imprisoned on an island for not marrying the kidnapper king's daughter.

Starting point is 01:51:07 The lun gets his revenge by killing the king's sons, fashion their body parts into jewelry as one does. His revenge is complete when he shows the king what he has done. Do you like my neck, please? It's made out of the bones of your children. In the final act of a lun, forges some apparently magic golden wings

Starting point is 01:51:24 and flies away and search of his lost ghost wife, another Scandinavian tale, not in the Nordic saga is Bay of Wolf. The 3100 line poem written by an unknown author and old English features a Nordic hero who defeated several monsters and is believed to be representative of real people. If you remember back to the canoe, the great, it was probably under that time that this work was commissioned. The only known copy resides in the British Library in London. Now that we've come out of the other side of the Nordic saga, let us look at how the descendants of Vikings live today and look at how popular Viking culture still is revered today.

Starting point is 01:51:58 Viking culture and universally known in the United States Vikings are consistently amongst the top 15 or 20 sports mascot choices. Least on the list I saw, that ranked higher than pirates, bears and hawks. The history of Vikings, currently the subject of the popular TV show on the history channel called the Vikings, or called Vikings. I probably should have watched some of it. I haven't.

Starting point is 01:52:20 You know, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the history channel stuff, but I've heard this place is great, or this show, excuse me, is great. And I have downloaded episodes onto my phone. Movies like Snow White, the Avengers, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, even Harry Potter directly related to Nordic tales in some way or another. And Harry Potter, the Werewolf, Finn Rear, Greyback, and the Death Eater, Thorfinne Roll, Nordic Mystics, Thorus featured in Hitchhiker as a prominent character, Snow White, an adaptation

Starting point is 01:52:44 of the old Norse story of Fair and her experience with dwarves, even the Jim Carrey movie The Mask. And what equals, and whatever equals and cartoons it painfully produced afterwards was related to the folklore of the Saga's. The Mask Jim Carrey's character war in the movie said to be low keys. If you just look around, we're surrounded by Viking shipman, video games like World of Warcraft, Age of Empires, Dark Souls, countless other, even fucking Tomb Raider, and Halo influenced by the legends of the Vikings. And there's another game here, but I don't, I'm embarrassed myself, I don't know how

Starting point is 01:53:17 to pronounce it. Joe, if you're listing Skyrim or Skyrim, Skyrim. Okay, I was nervous, but I played all the time. I played it like 17 hours yesterday. But yeah, based on Viking stuff, Legos made in Viking land. Legos, you know, not invented in Viking times, but sweet loose of Fena, created in Scandinavia.

Starting point is 01:53:37 Rock bands, pop artists who dedicate their music to Viking lore, for Man Award to Jethro Toll, to Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song, you know, and Pop's Quiet or Fawn, the Viking traditions live in lyrics Um, from man award to Jester O' Toll to Led Zeppelin's immigrant song, you know, and, and pops quiet or fawn, the Viking traditions living lyrics and attitudes of many modern artists. Uh, modern artists like the previously mentioned Jay, uh, are token JK Rowling, uh, not alone in pulling from the Nordic song is to help tell incredible stories. Michael Criton's book, Eaters of the Dead about Viking legends turned into the Antonio

Starting point is 01:54:02 Benderas movie, the 13th warrior. So many Viking references I couldn't help myself, but compile as many as I could just to see the impact of society, this mugan for a thousand years has made few groups have made the same impact in the Western world, right? Even the Pokemon and UGO card games have links to the Vikings. Tons of others like Dungeons and Dragons. It's everywhere. Comic books, TV series, kid shells like he man and Big Budget animations, like how to train your dragon one and two. Vikings are even prominently viewed by fans of the United States. Most profitable professional sports organization, the NFL, the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League rack up huge

Starting point is 01:54:35 profits. Yeah, long ships featured at the stadium as well as other Viking swag and icons. Viking culture very much still known and celebrated. The Western world remembers the Vikings so well that we border on a kind of obsession with them, but how did the Scandinavian world turn out? How did they evolve from being the Vikings? In the past, well, Norway struck oil literally petroleum reserves and other natural resources that made it one of the wealthiest nations on Earth. Over 27 million people live in modern Scandinavia, the largest city of Stockholm and Sweden

Starting point is 01:55:07 with 1.5 million people, followed by Copenhagen, and Denmark with nearly 1.3 million people, Oslo, the capital, Norway, about 1 million Norwegians, Denmark home of the happiest people in the world according to several studies. There are people also eat the most pasta for capital

Starting point is 01:55:22 of any people in the world, which, some make sense, carbs equal, of any people in the world, which some make sense. Carbs equal happiness, at least in the short run. And one study I found Denmark ranked third in quality of life. Rankings based on recent US news statistics, Sweden number two, Norway number four, the big three all in the top five. When nations are ranked by average household income,

Starting point is 01:55:42 Norway comes in numbers two, Sweden and Denmark in the top five, still there as well. Interestingly, though, the Scandinavian nations are also ranked highest in tax rates and expenditure on government services. Is this a toning for the preserkers and the raids, the slavery and the colonization? Now I just advise you to do what they do best, right? Just survive the best they can. And they are crushing it. Iceland, for some reason, was not one of the 80 nations assessed by this particular study. Guess who's number one on this happiness scale, by the way, it's Greenland. Yeah. Fucking Greenland. No, no, it's not even on the list. The US is number

Starting point is 01:56:17 17. Canada's number one. Yeah, go Canada. And we got a lot of Canadian suckers. Good for you guys. Number one, those early Viking settlers probably have something to do with that. You know, maybe they plant, maybe they planted some seeds of happiness in Newfoundland. Pollin number four, for those of you curious. On another site, the WHO, the World Happiness Report that lists all the world nations, Norway number two, Denmark number three, Iceland number four, Sweden number nine, all in the top 10, Finland actually number one. You know, that nation that was conquered and ran by the Vikings for a time. US is number 18 on that list, Poland number 42, 156 nations on the list.

Starting point is 01:56:53 Greenland does not show the fuck up. Syria is 150, Brandy is 156. Maybe Greenland doesn't show up because technically it's not an independent nation. It's a constituent country of the kingdom of Denmark. Or maybe, this is what I think, I think maybe it's not on this because maybe literally not one person living there is happy. Even people living in Syria are thinking, I mean, yeah, shit's terrible here,

Starting point is 01:57:14 but at least it's not fucking Greenland. Maybe that's what they say every morning when they wake up. At least it's not fucking Greenland. The Scandinavian nations are small compared to many others in the world around them, but Nordic nations have several of the world's most profitable corporations and or most recognizable names, Equinor, Norwegian multinational energy company Volvo H&M, popular retail company that queen of the suck, Lindsay and Momo love. The iconic IKEA that has profits of nearly $5 billion a year and some of the best cheap

Starting point is 01:57:44 meatballs in America love IKEA Sucked-ungin covered with IKEA for sending an IKEA seat right now The my equipment on an IKEA table right now. Oh my god love it. Love their gravy and their sweet lingo barrageous Love in their lingo barrageous Sweden has the 21st largest economy in the world has less people than Los Angeles Norway and Denmark have the 27th and 34th largest economies Sweden has the 21st largest economy in the world, has less people than Los Angeles, Norway and Denmark have the 27th and 34th largest economies respectively in both nations have populations about a size Chicago.

Starting point is 01:58:12 Not bad descendants of Vikings, not bad things are going very well in the land of the Vikings. So there you go, the Vikings, a topic harder to explore than say the Romans because there isn't the same amount of written history. A lot of of written history. A lot of the written history has been written by their enemies and they also just didn't have the same type of uniform empire. They were much less unified. You know, more of a collection of smaller plans, kind of groups who banded together here and there to go loot and settle. Occasionally, were they barbaric? Yeah. More barbaric than their historical counterparts. No, I don't think so, actually.

Starting point is 01:58:46 The berserker thing is fucking weird for sure, but is it any weirder than the Spanish inquisition or the crusades or than what Vlad the Impaler was doing in Velocchio or weirder than what the Ottomans were doing to their enemies or what the Mongols were doing to theirs? I don't think so. Stranger in some ways, I guess, but really,

Starting point is 01:59:03 I mean, God, a lot of those other people did some horrific shit as well that we've talked about. I hope you enjoyed learning a little about the people we, uh, we still like to talk about at least parody, uh, today. You wonderfully curious meat sacks. Uh, I love the Vikings culturally. Okay, now let's review a couple of key points about them and bring up a new one, a fun, new Nordic fact in today's top five takeaways.

Starting point is 01:59:26 No idiots of the internet today again. I know, but it will be back next week for the moon landing conspiracy. Oh, it's going to be back big time for that now time for today's top five takeaways. Time suck. Top five takeaways. Number one, the Viking era defined as lasting from 793 CE to 1066 CE, beginning on June 8, 793 with a Viking raid on a monastery on the Holy Land of Lindisfarne off the northeast coast of England. And then ending in 1066 with William the Conqueror,

Starting point is 02:00:01 William Duke of Normandy is able to fight off Viking forces consistently in England after his rival for the throne. Harold Godwinson killed the last great Viking king in England, Harold Hardrada of Norway at the Battle of Stanford Bridge. Number two, berserkers are real or were and they were real intense. A lot of today's association with Vikings, being barbarians come from some Vikings, being berserkers, naked or semi naked dudes, possibly drunk or high, taking an originalized bloodlust, attacking their enemies and sometimes each other in a manic state of savagery. Number three, perhaps the main reason we see Vikings as being so historically savage is that a lot of their records were written by the people they were attacking. And maybe also because they

Starting point is 02:00:44 attacked a lot of people's churches and also because of the whole blood eagle, horrible nightmare. Number four, the two most famous Vikings are a father son combo, Eric the Red and Laf Ericsson and nine 82 CE Eric the Red discovered Greenland, founded a settlement in a place Siberian's probably make fun of roughly three years later. And then around 1000 CE his son La life and all likelihood made it to the new world roughly five full centuries before Columbus arriving in present day Newfoundland and calling it Vinland or Vinland. Number five new info. Okay, no discussion of Viking culture would be

Starting point is 02:01:19 complete without mentioning the Nordic belief in strange dungeons and dragons type creatures. An article published by National Geographic just over a year ago, not like a thousand years ago, reveals that 54% of Icelanders, either believe in elves and other magical creatures such as trolls or say it's at least possible that they exist. Actual roads built by the Icelandic government have been diverted around boulders where the elves supposedly reside a former member of parliament swears that uh... his life was saved in a car accident uh... by a family of elves

Starting point is 02:01:54 no shit out of the holidays are especially fortuitous time uh... of year to see elves on christmas and he received they're known to be on the move search for new homes uh... in 2014 i sent people actually protested the construction of a new road because it would disturb the homes of some fairies. Residents of Denmark, Sweden, Norway hold similar views about mystical creatures. So thankfully, no more berserkers,

Starting point is 02:02:15 but the descendants of the Vikings still believe in some interesting things. Still a colorful bunch, still loving to talk about them. And that's all for today's top five takeaways. Time to suck, tough, five takeaways. Vaking tape, it's a, yep, yep, yep, yeah, uh, blood eagle. Not gonna forget that term or description anytime soon.

Starting point is 02:02:39 Um, uh, big thanks to the time suck team. Thanks to Queen of the Suck Lindsey Commons, high priest of the Suck Harmony Velocamp, Jesse Guardian of Grammar Dopener, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, time suck high priest Alex Duggan, the guys of Bitelixer Danger Brain, Axis Apparel, thanks to Heather Knowledge Ninja,

Starting point is 02:02:56 Rylander for kicking off the research this week. Huge thanks to new full time Suck Dungeon employees Zach Flannery for his immense help on this one again. Love having him here. Let's take a sneak peek at next week now on the next episode of the suck. We are treading where well several credulous nut nicks have gone before the moon landing. Going to look into how we land on the moon and look into those who think it's all a big

Starting point is 02:03:19 hoax. Did we land on the moon way back in 1969? Of course we did. There are so many crazy theories and totally debunked reasons for being skeptical of the moon landing that the whole time such research staff has had a huge sci-fi boner over this topic.

Starting point is 02:03:33 It's gonna be an epic one. We're looking forward to doing here. What are the smoking guns of this hoax? There aren't any, but we will be devising to all the most popular and credit, did I almost say credible? We're gonna be looking at all the claims, and they are numerous. And so this is a need, this topic of a good heart suck

Starting point is 02:03:50 from skepticism over the waving flag, the lack of computing power, technology at the time, the strange movements of the astronauts and moon video footage, even claims that some of the lunar pictures have astronauts with staples in their feet. Yeah, what? Yep, mm-hmm.

Starting point is 02:04:03 Yes, one of the theories is that the Disney company used models for the astronauts and forgot to edit out the staples in their feet. Yeah, what? Yep, mm-hmm. Yes, one of the theories is that the Disney company used models for the astronauts and forgot to edit out the staples. So many juicy conspiracies in this one amazing topic. So join us next Monday as we look at how we really did get to the moon so we can determine one sun for all. You know, if that big fucking rock or bring our bigger soggy rock,

Starting point is 02:04:24 you know, was hollow or not, and was it made of cheese? Let's find out. I'm hoping it was made of cheddar. Hail them run. Okay, time now for today's time sucker updates. First message comes in from time sucker Nathaniel, who lets us know that getting sponsors helps spread the suck in ways I'd never thought of. He writes, dear surmaster Suckington of Suckitude, I am writing you today, simply to express the joy that the marvelous suckin' has brought to me in my day to day. I drive a box truck around Metro Atlanta, filling vendor machines, so needless to say I spend most of my days in and out of break rooms.

Starting point is 02:05:03 And since becoming a sucker, I've spent the majority of that time making a fool of myself. In every way possible from uncontrollable and seemingly out of nowhere laughing my ass off to mimicking chick-a-tea-loo impressions or singing some triple-am along with you when you McDonald's and occasionally letting out a super fucking sick air-band just solo. Just wanted to say during one of my sucking fits in a break room, this break room happened to be at an Amerigast facility. Some of the employees started laughing at me. So I paused the episode and said, what is big deal?

Starting point is 02:05:29 And one of them looked back at me, looked me in the eyes and said, go jerk a soft shamed cock in woods. I instantly knew I was in good company. He then revealed to me that during the weeks they sponsored the suck, their supervisor allowed them to enjoy a long lunch and enjoy the suck every Monday. That's awesome. Just want to let you know how the suck was spread through a sponsor down to their workers on the ground level. Just love how much the suck has impacted so many people, even those forced to listen

Starting point is 02:05:52 to the suck at work. Hail them not and make the suck forever be strong. Oh, yes, long live the suck Nathaniel love this. Thanks to any American employees still listening. What does big deal hope you like it with the America's? I hope you enjoy it. Time sucker, Kaden, if it's Patrick, let's be know that some of my merch is spreading the suck also in unexpected ways. Writing, Dan, you bearded beauty. I was at work and I'm wearing your flat earth tour shirt.

Starting point is 02:06:18 And a guy asked me what it was said and I told him, and then another jumped in and was like, oh, Dan Cummins, yeah, isn't he the guy who came up with the flat earth society? I let him know that it's a comedy tour where you make fun of flat earthers. He seemed amused, so I told him about time suck and how you have the eighties of the internet and he liked that very much. Needless to say, he should be checking it out soon.

Starting point is 02:06:38 You know what, I'll take it. I'll take it, Kaden. I love that your coworker thought I was the founder of the flat earth society. I hope more people think that. Listen to the flattery suck and then hopefully change your mind. A bit of encouragement coming in from sucker Gwen Lake after my rant last week about listeners who wish I stopped trying to be funny here on the suck. When writes dude, I had to pause in a polling episode to tell you, please keep being funny.

Starting point is 02:07:01 I think you're hilarious. Please do not take the comedy out of the episodes. Your unique characters, tricks and jokes are why I listen. Keep on keeping on Hail Nimrod. Well, Hail Nimrod to you Gwen. Thank you very much. And then we'll end on uh, actually we got two more two more ones. Uh, this is the second and last stop provoking email from time sucker Tori Lu Hempill who writes, can we encourage people to stop using the term minorities to refer to people? Can we use the term non-white instead? The population of non-white in the United States is growing and is almost equal to the

Starting point is 02:07:33 population of white folks. The population of white people in all the world is eclipsed by non-white residents, continuing to use the term as archaic. I also feel encourages to believe that non-white people are less than and we don't need that association. Hail Nimrod. Well, hail Nimrod to you, I like what you bring up, but I'm not sure non-white is the answer because that term still divides us along racial lines.

Starting point is 02:07:55 I don't like the division within us meat sex. All white races on one side, all non-white races on the other, and it's just getting harder and harder thanks to breeding around the world with different races of people to determine what exactly is white, what exactly is on the other. And you know, and it's just getting harder and harder thanks to, you know, breeding around the world with different races of people to determine what exactly is white, what exactly is non-white, easy, maybe to identify in some cases, definitely not in others. I think identifying someone by the race when you know it can be super helpful to let someone else, for example, know who you're talking about can be helpful. You know, like, like, if I'm pointing across a crowded room, there's only one Caucasian looking dude in a whole bunch of African-American, Hispanic, and Asian people,

Starting point is 02:08:26 easiest way to let somebody know who I'm talking about is to be like, hey, you see that white guy right there? Bam, done, over, moving on. But when possible, I'm trying to not identify by race. That's what I like to say, meat sack. I like to try to reinforce that we're all on the same team, the human team, but I also see what you're saying. Term minority doesn't make mathematical sense. It can sound like inferior. That's insulting. Don't know what to change

Starting point is 02:08:49 it to. I don't like non-white and white, but I like that you gave us some semantic food for thought. And finally, gonna end on a nice positive note here. Time sucker, Bethany Prater sends in a little message of one community, standing up successfully to the hate former suck subject the west borough baps is church brings writing uh hate and this is a flyer from the wbc and i'm going to pull up this flyer uh to uh show here so this flyer is just as much a horrible hateful shit god hates america is killing our troops in his wrath military funerals have become pagan orgies of idolatrous blasphemy where they pray to the dunghill Hill gods of Sodom and play taps to a fallen fool. Thank God for IEDs and a whole bunch of other inflammatory anti-trups, super hateful shit. Well, then

Starting point is 02:09:37 Bethany writes, Shasta County found out about this in advance. This protest is going to happen and enjoy. And enough people showed up to line the street on both sides for over a mile starting at the church. A minimum of three people deep stepped in front of the WBC WBC protesters before the Hearst passed by so that they were not even seen. I've never been more proud of my community for coming together like this. That's awesome, Bethany. Hail Nimrod, I love it. Completely shut those hate mongers down, and the community was brought together in the process. You know, the WBC brought hate, and they left that community with, you know, more love

Starting point is 02:10:16 than when they showed up. And unintentionally brought some love. I love how those people twisted around, and I like, and in today's time, sucker updates, on a positive note hail Nimrod Thanks time suckers. I need a net. We all did Have a great week everybody don't rape or pillage or bloody to anyone don't move to Greenland If you do move to Greenland, please write and tell me because it's terrible. I think it is. Hail them, Rod, and keep on sucking. Mouse fighting so hard the whole episode not to do more Swedish air ban show.

Starting point is 02:10:57 Just uh, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, hing, h, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank, tank,

Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 135 - Vikings!

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