Razib khan! It’s a known fact vikings had women fighting side by side with men! Go to Birka and you will see actual viking graves with women warriors!!
You know absolutely nothing about viking history!!
Less a “known fact”, more a theory based upon some good archaeology. Remember, in England, about the same time, male children’s grave sometimes contained military equipment; so, it may have been a status thing rather than an indicator of a martial life.
Jeff Cunningham
1 year ago
The “21st-century Western penchant for “butt-kicking babes” in film” has been a peeve of mine for sometime, along with all these protracted surreal fight scenes that remind me so much of the superhero cartoons I watched as a juvenile. This whole business of exporting modern values and fantasies back into historical fiction feeds into this huge industry of judging the past by the morals of the present which is so destructive of our understanding anything about evolving selves. Excellent article.
More than that, I believe it is a crude attempt to erase history and replace it with a ‘liberal’ version more palatable to woke ideology. I noticed this a few years ago when teaching literature. The textbook I was using had updated its most recent edition by labelling the medieval period ‘the Antifeminist era’.
Evidence of some women certainly (e.g. Boudicca), but little evidence for any mass mobilisation of women (very basically,not a god survival strategy). Anyway, why the desire to see women as violent?
Actually I teach a lot of literature written by and about women. Sure, there were some women warriors, but these were rare enough that they warrant their own separate explanation. My issue with the term ‘antifeminist’ in describing the Middle Ages is that it transposes shallow 21st century values on to a people who never would have described themselves as such. Instead of simply being allowed to learn about and enjoy the literature of that time, students are taught to view it as ‘problematic’ and misogynistic. It’s such a black-and-white view of the world, and it is this that I fear is contributing to the binary thinking we see taking hold on many of the young. Schools and colleges are becoming incubators within which we burden the young with all our societal ills. It is no wonder that they are graduating with a huge chip on their shoulder and a grandiose sense of entitlement. In actual fact what’s happening now is reminiscent of what took place in China during the 1960s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards
Judging by the wording in your post, you may be falling a little into this way of thinking too (unless of course you’re being sarcastic – I can’t always detect it online).
‘Prey’ being the latest farce. A pudgy female doing all kinds acrobatic stunts way beyond her frame, and killing a huge alien that tore apart a bear. Hillarious rubbish.
David U
1 year ago
All “historical” dramas tell you more about the era in which they are made than the period they purport to depict. We live in a culture which celebrates tattoos, piercings and multiculturalism and therefore apply these to Vikings regardless of their lack of historical evidence.
There’s an extraordinary scene in an early ‘Vikings’ episode in which a shield maiden, having indulged in a spot of murder and pillage, comes over all woke at the sight of r*p*.
On a diplomatic mission to the Volga Bulgar Khaganate, a 10th century Arab dude came across a large party of Vikings gathered beside the river. On learning they were gathered for the funeral of a chieftain, and being a curious, open-minded fellow, he said he’d like to watch the ceremony. A decision he soon came to regret. He recorded for posterity the horrors he witnessed.
I wish film makers would understand this and cease the ritual unfavourable comparisons with the Christians. By our standards early medieval Christianity seems primitive; by the standards of the time it was positively enlightened.
Christian’s of that time went from place to place forcibly converting people through acts of murder destruction and rape. It was literally convert or die. They were monsters. And that’s a historical fact. They definitely weren’t enlightened. Sure Vikings weren’t the nicest people but at least they didn’t try to convert people. There’s also evidence to suggest they weren’t bigoted and actually respected their women as well even with gender roles, unlike Christian’s.
Not always true, certainly Charlemagne did this to the Old Saxons, but in many cases conversion was done via missionaries. Curiously many missionaries who went to Europe came from Engand, others from Ireland.
The Christian conversion of the Vikings seems to belie this. Or do you think they overcame them by force?
Sharon Overy
1 year ago
Excellent article. Thank you.
I was reminded of the feminist/SJW medievalists and their periodic panics about European men being interested in their own history. Apparently, it’s dangerous and must be discouraged/stopped. Probably a contributor to the determination to erase the past and substitute a sanitised (in the sense of modern sensibilities) version.
Men doing anything is dangerous, the last thing they need is encouragement from their dead, savage forefathers crimes against humanity.
Kerry Godwin
1 year ago
Rumor has it “The Persians” has begun pre-production. I do hate to see these cultural depictions mashed through the revisionist Hollywood filter. We will see.
I don’t believe there’s any solid evidence that medieval Scandinavians had tattoos. They’re not mentioned in any of the sagas or contemporary accounts by Christians.
John Rintamaki
1 year ago
It amazes me how accurate you were in some things and so blatantly off you were in others. Blond hair as an ideal? Red was more common, up to the point even of Thor, protector of Midgard and god of the everyday man, being red haired. Covered in tattoos? We have zero evidence of tattoos among the norse. The closest is Ibn Fadlans vague reference to markings on the Rus Vikings. Who were not norse, but a norse slavic hybrid culture from a very select region. The norse did not have a physical ideal, beyond strength and capability. So the blond and fair comment has no basis in history. We have strong evidence of the norse intermingling genetically with all peoples they encountered. In fact the red hair so often associated with the Irish comes from norse genetics carried to the island and then shared among the semi isolated population there.
I believe I read somewhere that red hair moved up the Danube as well – from Macedonia which may be where the gene originated.
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago
Excellent. Thank you.
Richard Parker
1 year ago
Superb. I can also thoroughly recommend the Icelandic Sagas (Penguin’s translated edition, which I picked up on recommendation in Reykjavik some years ago, is excellent).
The Sagas were created significantly later, though.
Nicholas Rowe
1 year ago
Viking religious devotion consisted of sacrificing captives in sacred groves. Archaeological evidence from some sites indicates cannibalism.
As there was no ideological reason for pagans to kill non-believers, it has been argued that the Viking killing of monks was the result of the latter being involved in converting the pagans.
This conversion eventually took on a forced nature by kings to whom the monks were closely associated. There is evidence that the early Saxon peasantry of Britain hated the monks for detaching them from their familiar culture and form of worship.
Good post, though the vikings did have ideological reasons for fighting and killing everyone (non-believer or not) in a way completely at odds with modern (and Christian) sensibilites.
No. A defeated enemy is more valuable as a thrall than a body. Only combatants or criminals were executed. We also have far more evidence of animal sacrifice than human. Both in written sources and archeological finds.
I did better than you, I sat through two episodes. I hoped it really wasn’t as bad as the first episode promised – my hopes were dashed!
Anna Bramwell
1 year ago
Excellent article. Thank you. And btw I remember that years ago a Mycenaean trade bead was found in Silbury Hill when it was excavated.
jane baker
1 year ago
I’m still at The Vikings,the film starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. We are just not encouraged to think of the pre -Reformation world.as a very interconnected place with ample,known and often fast trade links. I picked that moment in time as maybe after that countries started to be seen as “near” or “far away”. The Vikings lived up in the ice and snow,wait a minute,they ruled Sicily they were all.over the Mediterranean,in the Balkans,the amazing World City of Mikkelgard drew them and enchanted them,and was the source of much of their wealth.
Jesse Major
1 year ago
This article was fantastic! Loved it, Razib Khan is a gifted writer.
Jonathan Allen
1 year ago
Signed up on here just to comment that you’ve done an excellent job at not only analyzing the modern world’s inability to fathom the pagan world, but also have provided great historical context without speaking intellectual-ese. Thanks mr. Khan
Prashant Kotak
1 year ago
Very nice, thank you.
Dustshoe Richinrut
1 year ago
“The Vikings did not have any truck with such hybridity.”
Neither must have Augustus Caesar when he learned that Arminius, who had integrated himself into Roman ways, was back into his old Hermann mode and leading his hordes against him.
Perhaps Augustus arranged a message that was delivered to Hermann prior to battle that said:
“Dear Hermann. Remember when you learned Latin, received our citizenship and served in our army? I would just like to make clear that our Roman world is not so much the antithesis of your … Northman world, for want of a better phrase, such that your ways, your reaches, cannot, should not, remain untempered by the sophistication of our world …. albeit Rome on the sunny shores of the warm-watered Mediterranean, I’ll admit, does give us Romans a great boost in the spirits.
Hermann, remember the good old days? The old instincts are strong, are they not? Hence why you feel you cannot bear (anymore) the, as it may well have turned out for you, the utter strangeness of our own sophisticated world. I know the Northmen have accused you of having been unmanly seated on the fence for too long a time. But they are unfair! Sitting on the fence means thinking almost too deeply. They, those Northmen, go everywhere and taste the good life when it suits them! So don’t let them browbeat you into following their rude and rapacious lifestyles. We, too, do not have any truck with such hybridity as theirs! Tell them that! The parasitical fiends!
“We knew your intention was to eventually go back to the land of ilk and Hun in order to better it. Our relationship was always to have been mutual. Perhaps you saw, when in Rome, those pesky few Christians berating us Romans. And somehow in a flash they were able to conjure up in your mind an intolerance and brutality running through Rome. For our empire to rule, we do indeed have our moments. But they are only streaks of intolerance and streaks of brutality. As I already alluded, our worlds are not the antithesis of each other, eh! And nobody is more intolerant or frankly brutal than those few bands of Christians who sully our squares and fountains with their presence! Even the lions at the colosseum I have noticed are reluctant to launch into them. There’s not much meat in their flowery arguments, besides!
“Well, Herms, me old mate. Come back to our ways. Even the Celts, more specifically the Oirish, I hear are amenable to Rome. I hear they have fighting spirit and scholars in their ranks. The Norse can brag about their uniqueness all day if they want. More fool them! I know you may have distilled too many of the sensibilities of those Christian religious people. And that you are pulled this way and that by both the Norsemen and the Christians. Let us drown those sensibilities that you ingested by downing helpful dollops of beer! And follow it quickly with wallops of choreographed backslapping among you and me and all of our friends in Rome again!
“As for those silly Vikings, they swarm out of their dim peninsulas covered in tattoos and eggs on their faces. On top of their heads, actually. Those boiled eggs on top of their heads, with what look like two spoons being driven into them either side. How very silly! Their silly hats will become nice little curiosities for laughs soon enough on our much brighter peninsula.
“Now look Hermann. If it’s anything to do with that Christian sect, let me tell you that today in the sophisticated, civilised world of ours, the Christians remain an enigma: you and me see them only in shadows and glimmers. And just as well! Their God is all dread! I for one cannot bear to confront that. As you know, Rome has always attracted all sorts. We are sophisticated. But we don’t want to put away our die-tactic instruments forever. Oh that’s a joke. We don’t say sword in the Christians’ presence in case it alarms them too much. We do gore and sophistication, Hermann. Sophistication and gore, rather; in that order. The fierce Viking might blab out “It’s all gore, gore, gore, this life.” We need to temper our superior sophistication with a little gore every now and then, don’t we? That’s civilisation! C’mon Hermann, now you’re so lovely! C’mon, c’mon. Come and join us once more. You must be tamed me old mate!
At the time of the Teutoburg Forest battle, Jesus was not an adult and He and his mother Mary (and His adoptive father Joseph, if Joseph was still alive) were the only Christians in the world.
Andrea Bertuzzi
1 year ago
“a lack of evidence isn’t evidence of the contraire” If lack of evidence is enough to acquit a murderer in court, it’s often also enough to make an educated assumption about history, especially when it tallies with the evidence we do have. That is, unless we are earnestly proposing that women leaders existed “in spite of patriarchy”, but none of their contemporaries could be bothered to make even a passing mention of their lives and deeds “because patriarchy”.
Jon Pruitt
1 year ago
Paganism is on the rise, and atheism is declining. The definition of paganism is basically any religion outside of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, associated with old world folklore or traditions of the past. Wicca falls into this category for example.
The definition is more – a religion that allows me to do what I already want to do and requires nothing of me; certainly not any changes in behaviour or attitude.
One of the best damn articles on this site in a while. Hat tip to you, sir!
Agree, but a minor flaw: The name is Leif Erikson (one or two s) not Lief Erickson (ck was not used).
Razib khan! It’s a known fact vikings had women fighting side by side with men! Go to Birka and you will see actual viking graves with women warriors!!
You know absolutely nothing about viking history!!
Less a “known fact”, more a theory based upon some good archaeology. Remember, in England, about the same time, male children’s grave sometimes contained military equipment; so, it may have been a status thing rather than an indicator of a martial life.
The “21st-century Western penchant for “butt-kicking babes” in film” has been a peeve of mine for sometime, along with all these protracted surreal fight scenes that remind me so much of the superhero cartoons I watched as a juvenile. This whole business of exporting modern values and fantasies back into historical fiction feeds into this huge industry of judging the past by the morals of the present which is so destructive of our understanding anything about evolving selves. Excellent article.
More than that, I believe it is a crude attempt to erase history and replace it with a ‘liberal’ version more palatable to woke ideology. I noticed this a few years ago when teaching literature. The textbook I was using had updated its most recent edition by labelling the medieval period ‘the Antifeminist era’.
Hey look, misogynists!
Women have, historically, been warriors too. The only revision happening here is erasing women from history.
Evidence of some women certainly (e.g. Boudicca), but little evidence for any mass mobilisation of women (very basically,not a god survival strategy). Anyway, why the desire to see women as violent?
Actually I teach a lot of literature written by and about women. Sure, there were some women warriors, but these were rare enough that they warrant their own separate explanation. My issue with the term ‘antifeminist’ in describing the Middle Ages is that it transposes shallow 21st century values on to a people who never would have described themselves as such. Instead of simply being allowed to learn about and enjoy the literature of that time, students are taught to view it as ‘problematic’ and misogynistic. It’s such a black-and-white view of the world, and it is this that I fear is contributing to the binary thinking we see taking hold on many of the young. Schools and colleges are becoming incubators within which we burden the young with all our societal ills. It is no wonder that they are graduating with a huge chip on their shoulder and a grandiose sense of entitlement. In actual fact what’s happening now is reminiscent of what took place in China during the 1960s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards
Judging by the wording in your post, you may be falling a little into this way of thinking too (unless of course you’re being sarcastic – I can’t always detect it online).
Precisely. It is called moral presentism. There should be a trigger warning before such entertainment, something like ‘Beware! Anachronisms”.
‘Prey’ being the latest farce. A pudgy female doing all kinds acrobatic stunts way beyond her frame, and killing a huge alien that tore apart a bear. Hillarious rubbish.
All “historical” dramas tell you more about the era in which they are made than the period they purport to depict. We live in a culture which celebrates tattoos, piercings and multiculturalism and therefore apply these to Vikings regardless of their lack of historical evidence.
There’s an extraordinary scene in an early ‘Vikings’ episode in which a shield maiden, having indulged in a spot of murder and pillage, comes over all woke at the sight of r*p*.
Rape is worse than murder so that makes sense. Really, it shouldn’t be depicted at all.
Surely your remark was meant as as ironic.
You actually think rape is worse than murder??
On a diplomatic mission to the Volga Bulgar Khaganate, a 10th century Arab dude came across a large party of Vikings gathered beside the river. On learning they were gathered for the funeral of a chieftain, and being a curious, open-minded fellow, he said he’d like to watch the ceremony. A decision he soon came to regret. He recorded for posterity the horrors he witnessed.
I wish film makers would understand this and cease the ritual unfavourable comparisons with the Christians. By our standards early medieval Christianity seems primitive; by the standards of the time it was positively enlightened.
Yeah it’s weird how people celebrate the thuggish Viking culture which contributed virtually nothing to civilisation when raiders and plunderers.
Totally agree.
Yes, another weird thing I find is that there are very few films set in the Byzantine Empire.
Christian’s of that time went from place to place forcibly converting people through acts of murder destruction and rape. It was literally convert or die. They were monsters. And that’s a historical fact. They definitely weren’t enlightened. Sure Vikings weren’t the nicest people but at least they didn’t try to convert people. There’s also evidence to suggest they weren’t bigoted and actually respected their women as well even with gender roles, unlike Christian’s.
Not always true, certainly Charlemagne did this to the Old Saxons, but in many cases conversion was done via missionaries. Curiously many missionaries who went to Europe came from Engand, others from Ireland.
The Christian conversion of the Vikings seems to belie this. Or do you think they overcame them by force?
Excellent article. Thank you.
I was reminded of the feminist/SJW medievalists and their periodic panics about European men being interested in their own history. Apparently, it’s dangerous and must be discouraged/stopped. Probably a contributor to the determination to erase the past and substitute a sanitised (in the sense of modern sensibilities) version.
Men doing anything is dangerous, the last thing they need is encouragement from their dead, savage forefathers crimes against humanity.
Rumor has it “The Persians” has begun pre-production. I do hate to see these cultural depictions mashed through the revisionist Hollywood filter. We will see.
Here, here. But I think we’re on a losing wicket.
I don’t believe there’s any solid evidence that medieval Scandinavians had tattoos. They’re not mentioned in any of the sagas or contemporary accounts by Christians.
It amazes me how accurate you were in some things and so blatantly off you were in others. Blond hair as an ideal? Red was more common, up to the point even of Thor, protector of Midgard and god of the everyday man, being red haired. Covered in tattoos? We have zero evidence of tattoos among the norse. The closest is Ibn Fadlans vague reference to markings on the Rus Vikings. Who were not norse, but a norse slavic hybrid culture from a very select region. The norse did not have a physical ideal, beyond strength and capability. So the blond and fair comment has no basis in history. We have strong evidence of the norse intermingling genetically with all peoples they encountered. In fact the red hair so often associated with the Irish comes from norse genetics carried to the island and then shared among the semi isolated population there.
I believe I read somewhere that red hair moved up the Danube as well – from Macedonia which may be where the gene originated.
Excellent. Thank you.
Superb. I can also thoroughly recommend the Icelandic Sagas (Penguin’s translated edition, which I picked up on recommendation in Reykjavik some years ago, is excellent).
The Sagas were created significantly later, though.
Viking religious devotion consisted of sacrificing captives in sacred groves. Archaeological evidence from some sites indicates cannibalism.
As there was no ideological reason for pagans to kill non-believers, it has been argued that the Viking killing of monks was the result of the latter being involved in converting the pagans.
This conversion eventually took on a forced nature by kings to whom the monks were closely associated. There is evidence that the early Saxon peasantry of Britain hated the monks for detaching them from their familiar culture and form of worship.
Good post, though the vikings did have ideological reasons for fighting and killing everyone (non-believer or not) in a way completely at odds with modern (and Christian) sensibilites.
No. A defeated enemy is more valuable as a thrall than a body. Only combatants or criminals were executed. We also have far more evidence of animal sacrifice than human. Both in written sources and archeological finds.
There is evidence that the early Saxon peasantry of Britain hated the
monks for detaching them from their familiar culture and form of
worship.
I’d be honestly interested in this evidence as this is an area that I’m researching at the moment.
I loved The Northman. Personally couldn’t sit thru an episode of Vikings. Most historical dramas are pure garbage.
I did better than you, I sat through two episodes. I hoped it really wasn’t as bad as the first episode promised – my hopes were dashed!
Excellent article. Thank you. And btw I remember that years ago a Mycenaean trade bead was found in Silbury Hill when it was excavated.
I’m still at The Vikings,the film starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. We are just not encouraged to think of the pre -Reformation world.as a very interconnected place with ample,known and often fast trade links. I picked that moment in time as maybe after that countries started to be seen as “near” or “far away”. The Vikings lived up in the ice and snow,wait a minute,they ruled Sicily they were all.over the Mediterranean,in the Balkans,the amazing World City of Mikkelgard drew them and enchanted them,and was the source of much of their wealth.
This article was fantastic! Loved it, Razib Khan is a gifted writer.
Signed up on here just to comment that you’ve done an excellent job at not only analyzing the modern world’s inability to fathom the pagan world, but also have provided great historical context without speaking intellectual-ese. Thanks mr. Khan
Very nice, thank you.
“The Vikings did not have any truck with such hybridity.”
Neither must have Augustus Caesar when he learned that Arminius, who had integrated himself into Roman ways, was back into his old Hermann mode and leading his hordes against him.
Perhaps Augustus arranged a message that was delivered to Hermann prior to battle that said:
“Dear Hermann. Remember when you learned Latin, received our citizenship and served in our army? I would just like to make clear that our Roman world is not so much the antithesis of your … Northman world, for want of a better phrase, such that your ways, your reaches, cannot, should not, remain untempered by the sophistication of our world …. albeit Rome on the sunny shores of the warm-watered Mediterranean, I’ll admit, does give us Romans a great boost in the spirits.
Hermann, remember the good old days? The old instincts are strong, are they not? Hence why you feel you cannot bear (anymore) the, as it may well have turned out for you, the utter strangeness of our own sophisticated world. I know the Northmen have accused you of having been unmanly seated on the fence for too long a time. But they are unfair! Sitting on the fence means thinking almost too deeply. They, those Northmen, go everywhere and taste the good life when it suits them! So don’t let them browbeat you into following their rude and rapacious lifestyles. We, too, do not have any truck with such hybridity as theirs! Tell them that! The parasitical fiends!
“We knew your intention was to eventually go back to the land of ilk and Hun in order to better it. Our relationship was always to have been mutual. Perhaps you saw, when in Rome, those pesky few Christians berating us Romans. And somehow in a flash they were able to conjure up in your mind an intolerance and brutality running through Rome. For our empire to rule, we do indeed have our moments. But they are only streaks of intolerance and streaks of brutality. As I already alluded, our worlds are not the antithesis of each other, eh! And nobody is more intolerant or frankly brutal than those few bands of Christians who sully our squares and fountains with their presence! Even the lions at the colosseum I have noticed are reluctant to launch into them. There’s not much meat in their flowery arguments, besides!
“Well, Herms, me old mate. Come back to our ways. Even the Celts, more specifically the Oirish, I hear are amenable to Rome. I hear they have fighting spirit and scholars in their ranks. The Norse can brag about their uniqueness all day if they want. More fool them! I know you may have distilled too many of the sensibilities of those Christian religious people. And that you are pulled this way and that by both the Norsemen and the Christians. Let us drown those sensibilities that you ingested by downing helpful dollops of beer! And follow it quickly with wallops of choreographed backslapping among you and me and all of our friends in Rome again!
“As for those silly Vikings, they swarm out of their dim peninsulas covered in tattoos and eggs on their faces. On top of their heads, actually. Those boiled eggs on top of their heads, with what look like two spoons being driven into them either side. How very silly! Their silly hats will become nice little curiosities for laughs soon enough on our much brighter peninsula.
“Now look Hermann. If it’s anything to do with that Christian sect, let me tell you that today in the sophisticated, civilised world of ours, the Christians remain an enigma: you and me see them only in shadows and glimmers. And just as well! Their God is all dread! I for one cannot bear to confront that. As you know, Rome has always attracted all sorts. We are sophisticated. But we don’t want to put away our die-tactic instruments forever. Oh that’s a joke. We don’t say sword in the Christians’ presence in case it alarms them too much. We do gore and sophistication, Hermann. Sophistication and gore, rather; in that order. The fierce Viking might blab out “It’s all gore, gore, gore, this life.” We need to temper our superior sophistication with a little gore every now and then, don’t we? That’s civilisation! C’mon Hermann, now you’re so lovely! C’mon, c’mon. Come and join us once more. You must be tamed me old mate!
Augustus (smiley face).
At the time of the Teutoburg Forest battle, Jesus was not an adult and He and his mother Mary (and His adoptive father Joseph, if Joseph was still alive) were the only Christians in the world.
“a lack of evidence isn’t evidence of the contraire”
If lack of evidence is enough to acquit a murderer in court, it’s often also enough to make an educated assumption about history, especially when it tallies with the evidence we do have.
That is, unless we are earnestly proposing that women leaders existed “in spite of patriarchy”, but none of their contemporaries could be bothered to make even a passing mention of their lives and deeds “because patriarchy”.
Paganism is on the rise, and atheism is declining. The definition of paganism is basically any religion outside of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, associated with old world folklore or traditions of the past. Wicca falls into this category for example.
The definition is more – a religion that allows me to do what I already want to do and requires nothing of me; certainly not any changes in behaviour or attitude.