When someone says the word “Viking,” you probably picture muscular, weapon-wielding folk wearing horned helmets while sacking villages and filling their ships with loot. Some of these hardy peoples also practiced old Germanic or Norse paganism, which is now embraced and being revived by a contemporary spiritual movement known as Heathenry. While the typical Viking image is replete throughout modern culture, the truth about these legendary bands of raiders can be stranger than fiction.
Not Every Scandinavian Was a Viking…
BBC’s History Extra magazine debunked several common myths about Vikings in a 2016 piece. The term “Viking” came from the Old Icelandic word “Viking-r,” denoting someone who lived near a creek. Colloquially, the phrase “to go a-Viking” was adopted to refer to bands of people who left their homes during the summer to both trade and raid. In time, these groups who adopted a blend of mercantilism and piracy were referred to as Vikings. The History Channel also divulged that many of these individuals normally farmed their lands during the remainder of the year. Moreover, not every Scandinavian opted to go abroad and earn coins through commerce and pillaging.
And Not All Vikings Were Scandinavian
Many cultural and religious experts have observed a troubling trend within Norse Neopaganism: the conflation of “Viking culture” with white racial identity. Writer Clare Downham commented on this in a September 2017 piece in The Conversation, illuminating that the first instance of this association occurred in late 19th-century Europe and was further emphasized by Nazi thinkers during their rule of Germany. However, historical evidence paints a different picture of these seafarers. Downham clarified that Viking bands encountered and embraced practices from a wide range of cultures during their heyday, which was from the late 700s until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 C.E. In their travels, they met Muslims from the Middle East, Irish Christians and pagans from all over the region.
Surviving documents from the period also disclose that many wanted to join these itinerate pirates. In fact, their popularity was so great that rulers and governments often published propaganda to dissuade their citizens from becoming Vikings, or directly outlawed people from enlisting. Thanks to their travels, Viking bands frequently displayed a diverse membership from many areas:
- Ireland
- Persia
- Turkey
- Britain
- Continental Europe
- Africa
Downham details that further evidence comes from gravesites and other archeological digs in the British Isles. The artifacts discovered were diverse in origin, with only a small percentage coming from Scandinavian regions.
So Where Did the Viking Stereotypes Originate?
We may have Greco-Roman depictions and Richard Wagner’s operas to thank for our image of unwashed, ethnically homogenous horned helmet wearers. The History Channel delineated in its article that Greek and Roman historians included this headgear in their written descriptions. Nevertheless, only Norse and Germanic pagan clergy wore them. Furthermore, BBC’s History Extra article mentioned a collection of Wagner’s works known as “The Ring Cycle,” which were based loosely on Norse mythology. You might recognize the popular composition “Ride of the Valkyries” from this cycle, but that’s not what helped birth the stereotype. Wagner’s costume designer, Carl Emil Doepler, crafted horned helmets for the performers to wear. Once the public saw them, they permanently entered our modern collective consciousness and are kept alive by pop culture even today.
The common depiction of Vikings as smelly, hairy, pale-skinned men wearing horned helmets isn’t accurate. Moreover, these older peoples would not have recognized the nationalist ideologies that some white supremacists and a few Heathens embrace today. Instead, these bands were multiethnic groups engaging in both commerce and pillaging. Roaming from the lands near the North Sea to easternmost edges of the Mediterranean, true Vikings have left their mark on human history.