Viking Hairstyles: A Response to "Reenactorisms: Viking Fashion That Isn't Viking" 

I, personally, am sorely lacking at least 127 parasites on my body.

@@johannageisel5390 new t-shirt slogan: "If this reenactment was accurate, I would be dead"

@@lucie4185I Haha. Yeah, I probably would be too.

@@lucie4185 Now I want that shirt and it's completely your fault 😂😂😂

Where you in the SCA ? With their temporal time rip that gave them magical rubber soul shoes.. lol Just poking you . If you know the SCA , you will get a giggle. Always a bit of teasing between live metal wepo s clubs and the guys with rubber souls hitting eachother with sticks.. he he he .

Yesssss you brought me way back

Hell yeah.

😂😂😂

Hahah love it

I just watched that episode earlier

A couple nails in a matte black/purple would be perfectly plausible, an safer than acquiring them naturally.

Ulf is my name 😀

@@einaredlund253 😋

It is plausible. We do know that middle eastern and Indian cultures were using henna as nail stain, so reasonably it could've been acquired through trade.

I keep seeing SCA - where I come from it stands for Society for California Archaeology. Would you mind telling me what it stands for in this context?

@@jennifermccrary1570 Society for Creative Anachronism, "an inclusive community pursuing research and re-creation of pre-seventeenth century skills, arts, combat and culture".

Probably, except it's pre-viking age.

Here I thought he was actually a 17th century Irish rebel...

A Welsh tory must exist but I hope to never meet one.

I want both a pibgorn and a crwth! In fact I plan to make my own pib!

@@TheWelshViking Making a pibgorn reed is an absolute pain in the neck. Not impossible, but it takes a lot of fine tuning. And for reed instruments, I've discovered that the internal bore is a LOT narrower than I thought it was to work properly. As for the crwth, I've never played a bowed instrument before, so learning to play notes while keeping a bow rhythm is that whole "rub your belly while patting your head" exercise. But I'll figure it out! Incidentally, do you prefer dark or light rosin?

I kinda want to hear him play. That would make me smile.

Cello

Pint for you amd your fabulous hair!

Have you seen Morgan Donner’s video on hair taping? It’s what got me to give it a try!

Well they're getting their own video, you see!

Ooh, Jean-Lewk Picard

It was am 11th century monk talking about bare necks and blind eyes. No mention of undercuts alas

@@TheWelshViking thanks for the info, great video btw

It's found in ancient Chinese food waste and fossils of ancient Chinese faeces. I don't think it's found in early medieval Europe. It was not a time of particular hunger and they might not necessarily have seen the need to eat it - the rich ate meat (to the point of having health issues) and the poor bread and vegetable stew. Seeds were for animals (in fact, some types of cereal too) or replanting.

Assuming that's you in the profile pic, this style really suits you.

@@ardian_g thanks dude!

YES. You are my people.

I don't know of a single reference to tattoos and tattooing in Norse culture!

@@TheWelshViking Thank you. I've never heard of a reference to them either, but they are sure popular now.

It's called Sosban Fach :)

Ah yes. The best way of doing research about what medieval did. Looking into what priests complained about.

I wonder if ten centuries from now, archaeologists will know how we wore our hair from Gen Z sassing us about side parts . . .

My mother took courses in historical english when they wanted to know how the common person talked the did all the things the textbooks told them not to. No one would bother putting it in if people weren’t doing it.

Robin The Parttime Sewer lol yeah most likely though if we look at warnings and instruction now they tell people off from doing plenty of things most people wouldn't.

@@khaxjc1 lol according to all the warnings I shouldn’t have survived childhood!! No seatbelts, lead paint, law darts had points!! To name a few!!

They were galpals 😂

They were such good friends

OMG they were roommatessssss.

Omg they were tombmates

Lady and slave.

I'm not sure whether Vikings made that haircut look good or Alexander Ludwig made that haircut look good.

I feel like the main thing making it look silly on the tapestry is that the man wearing it has no forehead and a giant chin...

I noticed 2 teens wearing similar haircuts on the way into school earlier. Maybe it's coming back or maybe just bad lockdown haircuts.

Back at the 2000 AD re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings in the UK, as a fundraiser people could get their hair cut Norman style. It looked pretty awesome with all these guys looking like that. Nobody offered to cut in the Anglo-Saxon style, so I did it myself. Looks a lot like a mullet.

@@davidcheater4239 bit of both i think. they did a good job of it, and he happens to be able to pull it off

They were doing it in Ancient Greece, as well.

Boomers gotta boom, regardless of Millenia!

I catch myself doing just that. "Boy...when I was young/during my time, we would never...bla bla bla"

Am I theo only one who says: Come on! Those letters are mostly by absolute elite guys. Compare yourselves to Socrates and the players in his league. It's completely understandable that they must have shaken their heads over the spoilt brats they often dealt with: spoon-fed truths that genius minds developed. Look at todays old people: Those who performed very well are those with the least understanding for the lazy or untalented majority. Those with the highest moral standards are those who find the majority spineless and foul. Everyone today shames the critique of superior people as being just grumpy instead of listening to it. Is it not suitable for an old man who had deal with devastation of war and extreme poverty to critizise the level of entitlement of someone who protests about not owning the latest Iphone and shiny car that? Surely many people are grumpy. But you have to discriminate between grudge of losers and criticism of most commendable people. Different times make different men. Different men endure different hardships.

@@Yawnpawn1 Hey look, another boomer!

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Well some people probably do..

I LOVE IT

Drat it Permie Bird now I can't get Rab C Nesbit out of my head

@@margaretbarclay-laughton2086 Sorry...

The pre Donald 🤣

An iron age Donald Trump?

Never heard it called that before but it's a fun one!

YES! Excellent way to describe it! 😂

It was popular in the 90s

@@loganriling4888 Yep, it comes from the punk hairdos, I believe.

We called it the "dead muskrat" when I was in high school (90s)

Like the reverse of Sappho and her friend

Fellow Texan. I can second that it is indeed hot most of the year. There may even be a bill in the TX Legislature to officially change the month of August to Hot As Balls...it would be presently and historically accurate lol.

@@JamesRDavenport haha! True Story indeed!

I keep my hair in a sort of shaggier version of military cut, where I leave the top somewhat shaggy but cut the sides close, for a pretty similar reason. I live in North Carolina where it's humid and hot as fuck and I blacksmith, I get very warm especially because my hair is thick and dark brown. And also because I'm self-conscious about my head shape. Keeps my head from looking too large (because my head is big) while also hiding my forehead.

@dogwithavlog lol!

Also a Texan, but I've got chest-length dreads. I'm glad I'm TIG welder indoors, because otherwise, I'd be in a pool of sweat everyday of the summer!

Some modern people walks around in the winter with no jacket, shaved heads and shorts so no its not impractical in the sense people who lived in scandinavia a 1000 years ago would been used to the climate and had their own tradition of hairstyles and shaven or bald heads would have been around back then as it is around today.

​@@gustaf3811You are ignoring that the world got more Hot with climate change, you are also ignoring the material we use on our clothes, plus its more easy to get fat on our age and we have Quick acess to warm places so we can afford to go out with less clothes withou the risk of dying. Winter in our age is not the same winter of medieval age. Even today you can stil die in the cold with all of the variables above.

Yes! I live in central Ontario, quite cold in the winter, and I wear a mohawk, even in the winter, but you won't catch me outside without my toque!!

Yes, very very good points! And I thought the very same thing. I thought, “Wouldn’t their heads get really cold with the hair shaved all around like that? Then later towards the end of season 3, after the death of Athelstan, Ragnar shaves off all his hair, to be completely bald. Which I know is a total modern day fashion/ look, not a Viking one.

PINT FOR YOU!

Right? I actually kinda like the look how it was done in the tv show, but I just spend several years growing my hair long :')

Ya except the Aztecs did it first

@@word1ist …except the Viking period pre-dates the Aztec empire by, ya know, 600 years…

@@bond_3239 Moot point either way since they lived on the other side of the globe in a completely different hemisphere.

@@CollinMcLean just correcting the other fellow’s inaccurate comment 🙂

You. You must stay.

I was looking for the Viking dreads….

Simple reason is. You literally can't do it. As rasta myself. Getting plaits and later dreads takes time, work and dna. Why you want to claim you can, I have no idea

@@jacobharris954 the idea that European hair textures can't become dreads naturally is false. That doesn't mean vikings had them though.

@@jacobharris954 Leave your racist woke shit at home. All long hair can mat "dread". Even dogs and alpacas.

Sensation! "Holy Mother of God, where did you get this _magnificient_ shade from? Is that woad?"

Witch!

The pandemic has rendered the use of the word "sick" to mean "good" utterly passe. It was a weird affectation to begin with, and only gained passing currency among the callow who had never experienced real illness.

@@johannageisel5390 yes, it is woad.

@@Tipi_Dan Okay Mr intellectual, I'm sure common language can change to fit your views if you try hard enough

Oh, what I wouldn't give for a well preserved Viking age corpse!

Tollund man?

@@TheWelshViking it would be useful for history too.

@@Archeh And many more than just him, from the Iron Age. Most of them were women or children, however.

@@Archeh 4th century.

Head, meet brick wall (sometimes)

@@TheWelshViking Head also meet axe. (Thanks Egil)

From the description I immediately thought of the Chelsea haircut.

If feel like there are a lot of haircuts and styles that if drawn look bonkers but actually can be decent in real life if done well and suited to the person. When they aren't done well and aren't suited is generally what we imagine though.

On Vikings they used the very ancient technique of a fade to connect the disparate lengths. (And it is a Look).

Tonsures can often be very effective at protecting your chastity more often than not, but I do like the thin halo tonsures that rest at a 30* angle from the temples. Punkest haircut in the church Norman haircuts can be just as iffy, but to a lesser extent. It all depends on the angle of the sides vs the shape of one’s cranium. They both seem to go great with GREAT BIG BUSHY BEARDS!

I haven't had access to cable in about a decade and it was pretty much just as bad back then if Im remembering right. My stepfather watched like 3 channels and History was one. The only real history it showed beyond the junk was almost entirely war focused... which is why he liked it.

Ugh... Knight Fight... History is basically just bro-sciences. Like stores that specialize in antiques or vintage items I can kind of get because a lot of neat historical items can make their way into those things but they focus on a single pawnshop located in Vegas...

@@khaxjc1 My dad used to watch the History Channel a lot when I was really young in the early 2000s. It was mostly war stuff. Then I guess the channel suffered "network decay" and turned into dude-bro reality TV shows. He liked Ancient Aliens though.

@@starspeculation Ancient Aliens. A show where a bunch of white stoners look at ancient architecture and go "No way they could've made that. Totally must've been aliens."

I thought it looked like a cap over wavy hair.

I'm from Oneida. WWII Aviators wore Mohawks when bombing the enemy. My son wore a Mohawk which they renamed a Warhawk while fighting in Afghanistan. It's a proud heritage that lives on

Exactly! 👍

I saw a vid on Onfim, his drawings are so awesome!! I totally agree about "outsider art"- I worked with people with intellectual disabilities & it was so cool & interesting to see people's take on art when they don't have much or any concept of how or what they "should" be drawing (or whatever), or that what they're drawing has to be "good". Like young kids before society pushes those ideas on them, & it's kinda sad how it affects people, holding them back... "Big bad man hair" is totally a thing! It reminded me of my 3yo niece's drawing of an "angry man"- & a "ladder man", & that's exactly the kind of cool stuff you draw if you don't think there are rules about it :D

Excellent

Considering there are people swearing upon their dead mothers' that cornrows and locs are viking hairstyles, you really can see a pattern.

Thank you for saying it! So much this! Taking what ever non Christian things they can find and slapping it to what they want to be viking. Uuuggghhh. I could rant forever about this.

TV dresses all non xtians or “barbarians” as punk rockers. Linen tunics are dull, Vivienne Westwood makes interesting fashion. So they just do that. Maybe mix in some more fashion along the way.

@@thegreenmage6956 it’s not racist to say that viking reenactors shouldn’t claim cultural heritage that they have zero evidence for when black people have been discriminated for it for centuries

@@idasvenning3892 And problematic situations aside, its just lazy! Its like giving one of these "vikings" a bowie knife instead of a saex. If you've put the time and care into reenacting and something can be proven and documented that its the wrong time and place then fix it. I thought we were all here because we loved history, not to LARP!

That's why I'm always so angry with female superheros with long flowing locks... Try to fight with that! It's not practical! Long haired people will tie the hair somehow when they are doing something that requires a lot of movement!

@@giualonso female superheroes drawn by men. The worst I've seen is Wonderwoman fighting in the swimsuit with stilleto heels... in three foot deep snow.

This was my thought also. That for work or fighting it would have to be contained in some way?!?! Just out sensibility/safety.

@@giualonso I've read that Galadriel used to put her hair up on her head like a crown when she engaged in athletics. The elven lady is sensible.

Giu Alonso same with stories where there is some kind of disaster or action happening. No way are any of the long haired woman I know ignoring finding something to hold their hair out of the way the first chance they get if their is stuff going on let alone serious fighting, survival work, or what have you. If they cant find something they would try using then hair itself to tie up the bulk of it. or hacking it off. I would like to see a stories where while looking for supplies or evidence or a secret key or what have you, instead of just brushing her hair behind her ear when it falls in her face the woman grabs a pencil off the desk and makes do with stabling a twist or bun to hold it back or grabbing a bit of string to make due or something where they actually fix the problem. In comparison Ive noticed the long haired guys portrayed in these situations usually either start off with their hair up, come prepared to put it up, or it gets cut at some point. But the girls have to keep theirs. Like they would be too precious about it or something? My friends hair was growing out with the pandemic and it tickled her neck one time to many one day so she went to the bathroom and hacked it off. Ky grand,other regularly cuts her hair when it annoys her. Why in the world wouldn't this be an option for someone frustrated and fighting for their life and not needing to deal with one more thing?