What was a Viking Funeral really like? 

Love your videos bro

LOVE your videos max! Thanks For this one❤❤❤❤❤

Well I've been watching your show since the semi beginning so I'm tough

Thanks,

Vikings were not patriarchical, but both patriarchical and matriarchical. Females were just as important as gods/godesses as men. This also applies in viking daily lifes. Please correct this going forward.

had tack?

​@@advanceringnewholder No, crackerbread, while very dry, is much lighter and more eatable than hard tack

Pettuleipa in Finland is made the same way, but with a mixture of pine inner bark flour, oat flour, and rye flour.

​@@akrinornoname2769 at least for the kind you can buy in stores here (I believe it's a Swedish brand), I think it most closely resembles a triscuit. Awfully dry of course, but not unpalatable and it's quite nice with cheese and/or jam.

... *clack clack* ​@@advanceringnewholder

Completely agreed. This is a story I will likely think of a lot in the days to come. And I am very happy about that. It's a gruesome, yet strangely touching and very personal bit of history. The customs of a long-vanished people, doing as they thought was best. In short - thank you for including it, Max! :D

Please keep in mind as well to not engage in presentism though, a lot of people make this mistake and act like they're superior or enlightened than people in the past

@@ChristoffRevan True, while societies have changed countless times, we have remained the same species for longer than recorded history, and we do all still have things in common with people of eras gone. The advanced societies we have now are built on the shoulders of old ones.

@@ChristoffRevan We *are* superior in every measurable way. We can create a sun on top of our enemies we can put a man on the moon and then bring him back safely we can cross any ocean any desert and any sky. What can any nation alive or dead do to claim they are superior? do they have more gold? no. do they have more food? no. do they have any greater understanding of the world or wider universe? no. Stop trying to make it seem like "were all just people bro." were not and objective reality isn't something to be ashamed of or feel guilty about.

Yeah, I appreciate it too! I can only imagine the kinks that culture had, with such a... lively traditional end lol.. From the way our friend Fadlan describes it, I can't even imagine what the poor slave girl's thoughts were. Did she truly love her lord, and wished to honor him? Stockholm, maybe? Or was it just a sweet release from a miserable existence? Not to get.. weird, but.. I'd be curious what the thoughts of the slave girl was as well as the other women in the culture about the.. 'merriment' with all of those men. I mean... I think I have a pretty good idea, but on the other hand people are so complex that it makes me wonder sometimes. Regardless, this story was morbidly fascinating!

Max plunders the world for riches but uses charms, not arms.

Long before this channel I wondered over how one could taste a culture through it's food. *Far from an original revelation I'm sure. Beer is my favorite go-to for this method of travel and exploration but I suppose bread and garum works too.

I remember awhile ago, when this channel was a side gig for Max... He did talk about wanting to share a meal that would have been at a event in time, and also about the artwork he has for this.... Then he had to make the call to go back working for the mouse or leave the company all together.... I do think it is very cool as he makes history something we all can share in with a bit of a story and then sitting down with the food.... I know they can trace my dad's side of the family back to 1300's Sweden, so odds are this is helping me understand my forefathers.....

When he said that I thought of this; "“The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?” From Douglas Adams.

​@@mikespangler98 This is one of those cases like Max described in the previous video, where one has never heard of a thing (I am ashamed to admit I have never read Douglas Adams) and then comes across it twice in the same day. You were second.

Max's two episodes on sugar really bring home the horrible history of sugar cultivation, and his decision to not shy away from that was what really cemented his status as historian in my mind.

The whole history of food explorers is interesting. I just finished The Food Explorer: The True Adventure of the Globe Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats by Daniel Stone. It centers on the United States and the USDA but it is fascinating and I am sure reflects the way foods and cooking styles have migrated around the world.

Love me some Bourdain, he was a modern philosopher. Coffee, sugar, chocolate, yeah, it's dark. Still is unfortunately.

I didn’t realize how bloody the history of bananas was until recently.

im not sure how that sentiment applies to this video.

What did you think of the series "Vikings" and "Vikings Valhalla"?

HOAs are so stupid

I can’t stand HOAs usually. What right does someone have to tell you what you can and can’t do on your property that you own and pay for just because someone else doesn’t like it? Obviously as long as the behavior is legal and not harming anyone else.

Damn, those are some good friends!

Good for your friend! I bet he was laughing from Valhalla!

@@terminallumbago6465 They can be scummy for sure, but ideally you choose to live in an HOA because you like the rules. You don't want your neighbors playing loud music at 2AM or cluttering up the street with 20+ cars. You don't want to look at a rusting boat and other junk in their front yard. Maybe you like the idea of only being able to paint your house one of 15 approved colors and want the grass cut weekly or biweekly, especially if it means your neighbors have to do the same (if you've seen some really ugly yellow or pink houses you might agree, or the people who abandon their yard so it's all overgrown and full of weeds with the house falling apart). Odds are if you don't like it there is a cheaper option elsewhere. HOA cost more money to live in than normal neighborhoods. I live in a condo which is in a lot of ways even more strict since you don't own the exterior, I think the most you can do here is plant some flowers and put decorations on your patio. You never have to do yard work though or worry about the snow.

As a fellow "history buff" with this era as special intrest I can only agree. Very well done!

Same!😅

Key word: almost. Given the topic of the video, I think Max made a good call with leaving out the hardtack reference. It's usually a positive and funny interjection, which really would clash with the theme of this episode.

the hardtack gag is only effective with explicit references to hardtack. a good creative choice here, as it's almost overplayed at this point. less is more!

*KLACK-KLACK

He has high standards for the hardtack clip. A cracker is not hardtack. You can break a cracker.

This makes me kind of emotional to think about

What a beautiful and hopeful sentiment ❤

Really history is just people. Even though we may be separated by time, culture, language, social status, etc. we are not that different. We have the same needs, triumphs, struggles, etc. We are all human. While none of us lived in the Viking Age, and our funeral practices are quite different from theirs, we can all relate because we’ve all lost people and have ways of sending them off and saying goodbye in the established practices of our own cultures.

Greetings professor, I was accepted into American University Beirut back in 1987. Needless to say I did not matriculate but I always wonder how things would have gone if I had.

That sounds awesome. Say what would syou say based on your research are unique characteristics of Phoenicean cuisine.

Yes! Max! You must do one!

Awesome!

+1, would love to see an episode on the foods of the people who invented the alphabet!

I can see a selection of dried bread, hung up to avoid it getting spoilt or eaten by rodents being something a Viking might take on a long journey, to the afterlife or otherwise. A bit like hard tack.

@@mattheweagles5123 It's also just a method to store bread for later. People did this until the 20th century. Look up knäckebröd as @DoctorEth mentions.

@@mattheweagles5123 It was absolutely done to avoid rodents. The Knäckebröd is very similar to the viking bread recipe, and like hard tack it was something they did here to get through the winters when they could not get access to grain. It would hang from a rafter in the cooking area, often on a wooden pole, and they would just snap one of the wheels off when needed. The hole now is mainly to hark back to the olden days but if you buy a full wheel of the bread the majority of it will come with a hole in the middle. Also going back to max, they usually make it with water, but you can also find it made with cream, again the recipe is very similar and I'd say it is almost certainly very similar to the flat breads they would have eaten way back then.

Yeah there are a lot of folk etymologies trying to connect certain groups of Vikings to certain places based on names, like the supposed Roslagen/Rus connection or the claim the word "viking" comes from the fact the first vikings were from Viken, but they're usually much later and lack any actual evidence. There's no evidence for where the Scandinavian elites among the Rus originated, probably in no small part because they came from many places all over rather than a single unit with a single origin. There is a sense that people from modern-day Sweden tended to dominate the Baltic and Volga regions while people from modern-day Norway and Denmark were more dominant on the Western Seaboard of Europe, however even that is pretty vague and nebulous and it certainly would be going too far to try and connect the Rus to any specific region within Sweden. "Scandinavia, probably mostly Sweden" is about the most we can realistically say, anything beyond that is just speculation at best.

Yes the soul of scandinavia the knekkebrød As GW In a book said the bits that Are essential for Nordic is butter , cheese , knackbrod , herring and dill . Over here bread like that also been hang up to dry for long time .

Would a fermented date wine taste a bit like a mead? Dates are very sweet after all

@@mattheweagles5123 Usually different things produce their own unique flavor when fermented. Most of the time the drinks ends up tasting different than the item itself. So, who knows

proof?

⁠@@user-oy4lk7fd9w ​​⁠​⁠look it up yourself it’s not that hard to find. Google “what is nabidh”

@@user-oy4lk7fd9w ​​⁠​⁠look it up yourself it’s not that hard to find. Google “what is nabeeth”

A certified hood classic.

I’ve read the book several times since my youth, but have still not seen the movie!

@@fepatton Its insanely underrated

@@fepatton You should. It's a fun movie to watch.

“Lo, there do I see my father. Lo, there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers. Lo, there do I see the line of my people, Back to the beginning! Lo, they do call to me. They bid me take my place among them, In the halls of Valhalla! Where the brave may live forever!"

The hand gesture really sells it!

I laughed in that graveyard humor way

Classic Max. That's why we love this channel and i like how he doesn't make it overly dramatic. Yea this is a very freakish story but he tells without it feeling like exploiting it for titilation

Memories of Half-Life 2.

A Norwegian friend of mine eats it with pickled and dilled herring.

Bread porridge - part of my grandfather's generation, to be sure, but I don't know anyone who has made it in my time. I know some people still do, thanks to the internet, but by and large it's a thing of the past. Just like blood pancakes.

I do it with leftover hard stale bread. Sometimes with milk eggs and bacons, sometimes with tomato ​@@itskarl7575

@@itskarl7575people still put croutons or crackers in soup, knuckebrod, too! Blood pancakes, on the other hand, yeah, not so popular.

So just like how people used hard tack... this is interesting.

he didn't

I agree with Dawn. Dawn what area of the world do you work in as a Archaeologist if you do not mind me asking??? Max you did a good job as always tie a event in time to the food that would have been eaten/drank at the event... I think this is the most in-depth video I have seen of what a real Viking Funeral was like.... They can trace my dads side of the family to a town that was destroyed in 1300, and then the last name was a common one for the area..... Thank you Max for shining a light to a most likely part of my dad's side of the family tree..........

Agreed. It's very interesting.

Great points! It was heartbreaking to hear about the slave girl and of course they had to get her drunk and take her from yurt to yurt to be raped. But that’s the history. It astounds me that women have even persisted this long with every horrible atrocity that has been done to us in every culture all over the planet. That young woman was in a way my foremother and I am glad to know of her life.

@@KaylaNoelle1 and who knows if it even happened, when all we have is an account from a person we may or may not be able to trust. Remember that the story was not based on archeological findings so take it with a grain of salt

thank the Catholic Church for the end of those practices

Ibn Fadlan is a trash source so it is safe to say it is likely fictious

​@@Gunitz89And for the crusades?

@@ActionCow69 The crusades were great!

@@Gunitz89 As a Catholic myself, no they were not. They were a war, and a bloody one at that. People were told that if they died in the Crusades, all their sins would be forgiven, yet the Bible itself says that stealing and killing another are both sins (see ten commandments), and both of these happened on a regular basis in the Crusades. So it's fine to sin when a man tells you to, even after God said not to? Are we following the word of a man, or the word of God? Which is superior? Now, I know a lot of people try to justify it because muslims were "expanding and stealing Christian territories and persecuting Christians". Actually, both Christians and Jews were allowed to freely and safely practice their respective religion under muslim rule. It only changed under the rule of Al Hakim, who forbade Christian and Jewish practices and killed those opposed to him, which, by the way, included Muslims too, so it wasn't necessarily about Christians but people opposed to him. Even the muslims of the time were so shocked by his ideas and behavior and found him so controversial that they wrote about it a lot. One of the things he did was force Christians and Jews to wear symbols and clothes that would point them as non-muslims, not unlike Hitler did with Jews (except Hitler claimed himself as a Christian). But that Al Hakim guy died in 1021, and his son had the Church of the Holy Sepulchre rebuilt in a joint effort with the Romans, and the peace between religions came back. Christians were not persecuted anymore by the time the Pope started the Crusades in 1095, which was a whole 74 years after Al Hakim's death and the return to peace. In comparison, it would be the same as waging war on Germany now in a response to Hitler's rule. Kind of weird, right? Let's also remember that the Pope did so because Alexios, the head of the Roman Empire at the time, asked for help regaining HIS roman territory. For him, it was never about Christianity. He was using the Pope to get a bigger army, and the Pope used Alexios and Alexios' army to get control over most of those reconquered territories under the pretext of a religion war, against the promise he made to Alexios to return said territories under Roman rule. Let's also not forget that in some parts of the Crusades, the Crusaders made no distinction between Muslims and Christians and killed both without a second thought (I think this happened in Egypt, but do not quote me on the location). Lots of men who participated in the crusades also did so not for religious reasons, but in order to gain territories, wealth and power overseas. Serfs also went to fight in the Crusades not for God, but because the Pope promised them freedom if they did. So while a lot of men at the time were doing it for religious reasons, and THOUGHT they were justified and following God's orders, it wasn't the case for a lot of them, and it doesn't make the Crusades "great". It was just a regular conflict on which they slapped the "religion war" label in order to try and justify it, because Christians at the time had been opposed to wars in general, since the Bible advocated against it (again, the killing, stealing etc). It was bloody and caused a lot of suffering. Let's not even mention Constantinople, which was the biggest Christian city in 1204 and was attacked and ransacked by the Crusaders (Christians attacking Christians in a "religion" war? What the heck???). Those Crusaders pillaged and destroyed not only lots of artwork, but also CHURCHES, MONASTERIES and CONVENTS, and killed around 2,000 civilians in the span of 3 days (again, Christian civilians). How is that great?

Butter and lingonberry jam improve almost anything baked!

I've never heard of lingonberry..What type of berry are they?

@@Lazydaisy646 lingonberry, they're a bit like cranberries.

@@Lazydaisy646 It's a traditional Norse berry. You can usually get them in US supermarkets in the baking aisle. it's a favorite or modern Norwegians, Swedes, Fins and Danes.

Precisely! "Lo, do I see my father, and my mother, my sisters and my brothers! Tante Signe and Onkel Oscar, and here comes..."

And the rest is a bet made by Michael Crichton that he could made Beowulf exciting.

my husband's favorite movie

@@phillygirldiane8315mine as well!!! I am pretty sure in know it by heart.

At the end of it he is told that "These are the old ways you shall not see it again". Thats because they didnt have RU-vid.

As a Swede who went through grade school in the late noughties, I'd say our education in regards to the vikings was pretty evenhanded (though nowhere near as graphic as this, of course).

Vikings were the ISIS of ye olden days.

Considering that they were sailors, it’s unlikely that they would be so careless as to send out the ship on an unfavorable tide.

Their certainty that the dead would be carried to the afterlife by the wind within an hour (which wouldbe hard to believe in a windless day), as well as the amount of time they'd have to spend planning all this, makes me think they chose the time of the burial as precisely as they could.

@@anna9072 What if they drank too much mead though.

Hello. This is a fantastic camping idea! Thanks

You could add dry milk into your mixture and just add water at the camping site, save you a lot of weight with out loosing taste.

Knead it when you need it. That's a great travel bread slogan. You should market that!!!

@@janhugo Sounds like a great idea.

The Gauchos in Uruguay make this and would carry it around for hunting

And even if it sounds trivial, we still worry about many of the same things they were worried about

What they’re wearing, eating, their language, their art, all these things tell us parts of their lives. It helps to understand the humanity and the why people were the way they were. As just one example: Considering that we’re crossing the 80 year mark, WW2 is becoming “old” history. Rationing of food and the clothing created because of rationing tells us much about how the people at home lived and survived the war. I am lucky enough to have many photos of my great grandmother and young grandmother from that era, but they won’t last forever. Even with digital backups, things can be lost. It’s more likely that fragments of textiles or whole garments might make it longer than my family photos do. That’s important to me!

I'm saying!

real

Not just yes but heck yes!

It's so crazy to think that, for the vast majority of humankind, they did not deplore the idea of human sacrifice and humans as property as we do today.

Indeed. Not sure why people think things were wonderful in the past. Always the question, what’s wrong with people today? The answer is nothing; study history.

He warned you...

Yeah, I know.

Absolutely terrible

@@alperry02 it was, and more drawn out than I expected. I hope the person retelling it embellished a little.

If it makes you feel better, there's pretty much 0 evidence that ever actually happened. It sounds to me like something old Ibn made up, both for a more gruesome story and to reinforce biases against the "heathen" Norse.

That must be danish! We in Norway don`t eat rye bread, and absolutely not that very dark rye bread! And I always use real butter on my bread.

That's because butter is the best

Butter was also a way to store dairy for the winter. Look up bog butter. Every once in a while they'll find a 10 or 20 pound ball of butter submerged in a bog. Some of it is as much as 5000 years old and still edible. A bit strong and gamey but still wholesome.

BUTTERLANCE!!!

@@richdiddens4059 I'll try it! You first ;)

Very interesting point!

I like your interpretation of Ibn Fadlan's account here. It could very well have been a one off event much like the "Tide Pod Challenge"... It could've been an Extremist tradition... Ibn Fadlan definitely saw these people as Heathens as he was sent from the Abbasid Caliphate... Much like how the Spanish chroniclers and conquistadors wrote about the Mesoamericans

When truth vs legend, most people go with legend tales because it sounds easier to repeat. Only historians want the truth. Both are needed in a way for culture.

Danish, Scanian and Swedish viking history is being rewritten as we speak with a newly found document Gesta Wulensis written by Harald Bluetooth's priest Avico.

@@tpaktop2_1na Both are needed, but for us, neither is readily available. After 1000 years of Christian rule, what came before is pretty much entirely washed away or integrated in ways that make it hard to distinguish what came from the Norse and what's more recent.

Welcome to the club. Romans left basically nothing of the previous cultures in places like Spain or France. That's how things have always been: time passes, things are forgotten or deliberately erased by the invaders.

Go get him some slaves to follow him then. Be a good son.

consider the prize of slave girls willing to die with her master in this economy🤔

Might wanna show your mom, too... 😅

Hahahaha true! As a strong proud Ndebele woman 🇿🇼​ I doubt she is worried. Dad will rescind the request pretty quickly. I will fire a fire arrow for him just for the sake. @coffeeguyd

@@coffeeguyd well, it's a slave girl, not his wife, so since he doesn't have slaves that part would e skipped, like it most certainly was for more everyday folks ack then

My only hope is she was too drunk to really take anything in.

Yeah and what about the innocent animals ? They are not even raised animals for eating. (That’s for survival obviously, fine.). No it’s just useless killing. Sacrifices are so f’ing idiotic. All for moronic beliefs.

@@HPKazanyeah I agree, but killing a human like this is on a completely different level. Disgusting!

Do not watch the Aztec Tamale episode.

I wish I hadn’t watched that part :( when Max said it would be graphic, I thought he meant gore or something. I didn’t know a young girl would be taken advantage of multiple times :(

I think there are some Shinto practices I've heard about that honor the service of inanimate objects with far less bloodshed involved. Perhaps something inspired by those would be more appealing?

They stack alright on store shelves that way. Not as well as squares, but you get that nice circle of stacked packets of bread, it's a neat presentation.

Another thing is that belief in Valhalla might be more associated with the warrior type of norsemen. The hunting god Ullr is thought to have had one. But we don't know crap about him because he was probably more popular on the scandinavian mainland. Alot of places in Sweden are named after him.

Hail Wothan, pox to people who say "Norse" instead of Germanic.

Bad host? This is coming from a culture that refuses to feed guests.

One of my favorite descriptions of vikings was the tales of the city that flowed with gold where they would sell-sword. Byzantium, where the varangian guard was famously high skilled norseman and other vikings from up north

Hello. This information was enlightening to me Thank you! Well I’m of Swedish Descent and was raised with many stories of olde and traditions. I was taught the Vikings were the one that went to sea and were raiders, traders, and plunderers. Some even abducting women to bring home. Well that’s what I got!

A lot of people say that, but they don’t know what it is lol

My father jokingly said he would want one. I don't think he knows what one really is...

I do, I want my death to be as much work as possible, been joking about when the day comes, when one gets the final words from the doctor, to blow myself up in a public place (when no one’s out ofc), just to be hanging in smal smal fragments smelling foul for days.. what a way to be remembered.

@@4EyedFox. We know very little about them. The rus in the story weren’t exactly Vikings They were influenced almost certainly by the Slavs

A big feast with food, drink, fornication and a bonfire, what's not to love? I mean we can leave out the sacrifices, but the rest of it sounds like how I would like to go out.

Not to mention how food plays such a massive part in our history. Every good story entails what they ate. Never how they went to the bathroom or bathed, but always what and often how they ate. Food is one of the most essential and integral parts of who we are. We truly are what we eat? But as he says, "I have nothing in common with a viking from the 10th century. Except I do: I eat. He eats. I eat." Eating the same things our ancestors ate, with regard to the means of the time, gives such a deep and massive understanding of who they were, why, and how. Food is really the binding agent of time!

One of the biggest benefits of being a teacher is being able to watch these videos? SMH... you got a bucket of crap on your nose there. People need to stop it with the nonsense and parasocial relationships. Get a life and a grip.

That’d definitely be interesting !

Censorship

@@seankane8628 Or maybe some shred of human decency.

Max Milletróni would tell in future how we ate hot pockets 😂

Just max and Keanu existing through all of human history and sometimes meeting up to eat tapas together

Not me watching whilst playing AC valhalla

Ah, ancient treasures!

they recreated the funeral (a bit of it) in the movie

It's roots might be in both alcoholic and non alcoholic varieties.

It's when you see Kvass and Kilju mixed up...

@@adrianaslund8605 You create it via just a little bit of fermentation, so it's technically alcoholic, even if just in the faintest sense possible.

There were viking raids after the death of Harold Hadrada

he wrote them around 1220 which is still 220ish years after christianity came to iceland, these stories were not looked upon in a favoriable way by clergy and the allthing so it is in most historians eyes not seen as a 100% historical documentation of how viking mythology was thought of at the time of the vikings.

thing were changing RAPIDLY. Most importantly Norway (of which Iceland was part) had been christian for a dozen generations already. Actually Sweden, not Iceland, was often considered the most backwards one - even in the sagas it is attested that the Norwegians made fun of them for being pagan.

@@oivinf Wow, we were considered backwards then too, just like today!

the 13th warrior is based on the historic Ibn-Fadlan... just with more cannibals

@@Subjekt3 so I'm not crazy

@@Subjekt3 They also combined it with the Beowulf myth. The book was written by Michael Crichton (the Jurassic Park guy), and the movie was directed by John McTiernan (the Die Hard and Predator guy).