Why Everything You Know About Vikings Is A Lie - Hilarious Helmet History 

I'm lost. All Canadians are hockey players.

"Weirdly brutal legion of boat-psychos" is now my favorite phrase. Shame the situations in which I can use it is beyond limited.

Scandinavian isn't a frozen wasteland. I thought you were supposed to be debunking myths, not spreading them

shhhhh..... SKYRIM BELONGS TO THE NOOOORDS.

Screw Columbus Day, we need Leif Erikson day.

To be fair 'Poopy Pants McGenocide' day doesn't have the same ring to it

Alex later died of embarrassment. RIP Alex Schmidt (2002-2017)

".. when christians butchered other christians for being christian wrong." Best phrasing ever.

You are wrong about the climate thing. Ever heard of the medieval warmth period? Back in the day scandinavia was quite a bit warmer than it is today, also its not nearly as cold as you imagine it to be now, and vikings were said to wash themselves DAILY - that much to not bathing

Actually the horned helmets of the vikings was depicted by the christians in an attempt to demonise the norse marauders. you can see on several christian historic artefacts vikings with the horned helmets :)

Cracked: We're going bust all of those Viking myths! Also Cracked: All of Scandinavia is cold all year round!

I've studied archaeology and history. This video is just a bunch of generalisations - like them being the cleanest people in all history. You know who else got combs in nearly every grave? Every early medieval guy in central europe. And tweezers and other tools for the "morning routine" (you should make a viking "my morning routine" video) were common in many praehistoric cultures. And they did wash themselves - what do you think? They did not only travel to turkey, there is evidence, that they had contact to central asia (buddha statue in grave of 7th century - eventhough technicaly pre-viking). To the women thing - yes and no. Women generally had more rights in viking age than in christian times. But the first vikings who did settle in england and other places were men ("viking" vikings) - and the settlements were non permanent - seasonal operation camps. Real civil settlements of course needed women to grow and succeed and it is true for almost every conquest that you could not maintain the conquered area without settlers - and of course female settlers (just look at the american west). And of course they did not settle in places without killing enough people (soldiers, nobles, priests and sometimes also women and children - because those times were rough times) so that they could claim the place for themselves. No medieval king/lord or whatever would just let them settle whereever they wanted. And the first travels to europe were raids (like the raid of lindisfarne moastry in 793 marks the beginning of the viking era). The "north sea empire" under Cnut the great and his son was impressive (espacially his influence in britain) but in no way is the map correct that you showed (you just marked the whole modern country - thats not how it really was). Also reigning over norway or sweden in this time is not as impressive as it may sound. Those places were very losely settled. In norway they only settled on the coastline and the most dense settled areas in sewden were the south and the area around Lake Malar, which was not part of this empire. The thing with "democracy" is just bs. Sure, the power was not as centralised as it was in the rest of europe (they went there in the 11th century) but they had a clear elite. And yes every free man was to participate at the "thing" but not everyone was a free man (btw women had the housekeys as symbol of there influence at home and in the family clan, but there is no evidence that women took part in the thing). vikings had slaves and unfree people who worked for them - so for every settlement (which in norway and island were mostly small farms with 2-3 houses where one family clan and there "servants" lived) only had one guy in charge who was part of the thing. And in denmark, sweden, germany (yes they settled in germany - e.g. Haithabu look it up) and england things were very different. For example in sweden they had a clear religious elite. The empire mentioned earlier was only possible because the vikings became more and more like their neighbors. They changed from chiefdom to kingdom and became christians to centralise the kings power. Empires always had a clear elite that lead them to become empires in the first place. "Democracy" is an invention of modern times. It is not a democracy in modern terms, if not everyone is able to participate. Also it is totally ok, to call the "scandinavians" of the viking age "vikings". Sure, you could be more specific, but everyone knows what is meant - because scientists decided in the 19. century that this should be the term for scandinavian people from this time. The word "viking" did not survive in swedish or danish language (only island and norway) - it reapeared in the 19. century as part of romantic nationalism. And stuck till today. We know that it has its problems but it still is a usable term.

1:11 all Canadians are hockey players

"Vikings were so much more than warriors". "'Viking' literally means 'raider'" Hrm

I find the Viking era fascinating. Especially, their bravery when it came to making long sea voyages into the unknown.

More videos like that please! History corrected yyaaaahhh

All Americans MARINES that made my day

I think you should have touched on how they hardly wrote anything down. Most of the written accounts of what happened during this time period come from the people they invaded, who, of course, did not write portray them in the most favorable light

Oh jeez, intersectional propaganda has even got into vids debunking viking myths?

1: Right, in 1300ad when the sagas were written, the term viking meant something akin to pirate. In modern lingo, viking is a synonym for Norse meaning Scandinavian person between 790-1066. This is true even in Scandinavia. 2: All those traders, settlers and other non combatants were not really non combatants. Any male free man was expected to fight, the norse were a warrior culture first and foremost where your honor was directly linked to your ability to fend for yourself. All those traders you read about were always heavily armed and every man had to own a spear, a shield and an axe by law. When a muslim diplomat named ibin fadlan met some Scandinavian traders on the Russian rivers the first thing he mentioned was their weapons and how they never left the "traders" side. 3: The Scandinavians were not democrats nor feminists (wtf?). The term you search for is more egalitarian than most other societies at the time. 4: Norway is not a fucking tundra. You can take a dip for like 8 months a year. 5: Scandinavians were not nice settlers. Most of the new cities in irelend started as strongholds for raiding and beaching ships over the winter. They then evolved into trading hubs as the viking main export, slaves, were sold there. 6: The Norse did not call russia "Rus". The natives called the Vikings "Rus". The vikings called Russia "Garðaríki" 7: I belive the primary ingredient in Canutes empire was killing everyone who opposed him. His conquest of England featured 10 000 troops. But he was good at Machiavellian politics after he had conquered the places. Also he was not norse he was christian. 8: Iceland did not come up with the "allthing" it was a continuation of the Scandinavian system of laws that was brought with the settlers. Both Sweden, Denmark and Norway had the same thing and Norway still do.

Seeing an American provide correct information about my ancestors is so wonderful to see. *Single tear*

Im Icelandic and even i thought vikings had horned helmets and wore wolfs fur until i was like 12 now i am studying the viking sagas which is kinda amazing because icelandic has barely changed in a 1000 years so i can still read old norse

i tend to google random ish, so i debunked most of my childhood beliefs a while back

I come from the McGenocides on my mother's side and we can trace our lineage all the way back to Ireland in the 1500's! We're proud of our family heritage! A McGenocide has been instrumental in almost every situation where ridiculously large numbers of people died since the 1100's, which is why the word "genocide" was coined to describe such events. As far as I know, Poopy Pants is not a family name, but we've lost touch with our relatives still in Ireland so I don't know.

That scene in Vikings, when he talks about going west to England, took place in 793. The first time they attempted to across an ocean and the first recorded Viking raid. 300 hundred years later they went to Newfoundland, which didn't last long because it was too far away and they were constantly harassed by the Beothuk and the Inuit. Fun fact they Vikings feared the inuit specifically because they had the composite-bow. Which was superior to any bow the Vikings had.

the part about women is highly biased/exaggerated. There definitely was an anti rape "law" (quotation mark because it was like the most primitive form of one) but it wasn't because the society was PROGRESSIVE, it was more of men and honor thing. If their women were raped, the men and the family of that woman would feel insulted and they felt their honor was violated, which is much more LOGICAL than the people living a thousand years ago being PROGRESSIVE. To them, it was definitely more of an honor between men and family thing than "women are precious, equal human beings, just as men are".

The one time when Cracked teaches me more than my own history teacher....

You repeatedly say they were called the “Norse” but then you yourself repeatedly call them the “Vikings”

Your assessment of the Vikings series is wrong, the director stated that they needed to have England undiscovered so that Ragnar could prove himself to his people and the viewers by discovering it. So the series producers likely knew that vikings knew of England by the time Ragnar Lothbrok was born but they needed it for dramatic effect.

I love this show I really do, but as a soon-to-be historian (from Denmark, mind you) who specializes in the viking era. There are somethings this video gets wrong, or at least sort of wrong. First things people should know is that vikings and people living in Scandinavia were almost all illiterates, meaning we have so incredibly few written sources from the vikings by the vikings. "Vikings were some of the cleanest people in world history" While vikings did have a habit of cleaning themselves this process wasn't in itself very clean. Arabic Diplomat Ibn Fadlan notes after meeting vikings for the first time in 922: "They are God's most filthy. They do not clean themselves in any way after having 'been to the bathroom' (Lacked a better phrase. The text I am quoting is in Danish as it is the source I have in my hands from a project 6 months back). They do not wash themselves after ejaculation." Further in the text there is a passage about how they clean themselves every morning: "A girl comes along every morning with a keg(?) of water. This is handed to her master who washes his face, hands and hair in it. He both washes and combs his hair in the keg. He then snorts and spits in the water, which is at this point, utterly filthy. The keg is then passed to the next guy who does the same, who then passes it to the next guy, who does the same and so on and so forth." So while they had good habits when it came to cleaning, they were still very filthy most of them and were also perceived as such by outsiders.

Now to counter your point about the show's mistake about the vikings knowing about England, in that instance they are specifically talking about the raid of Lindisfarne which most historians agree was the beginning of the Viking age, and predates most of those great trading routes

That law about Rapists being open to being murdered should be a thing now and everywhere. (rapists/pedophiles..)

Viking wasn't a job title. Depending on the time of year, generally, they were farmers. That's their job title. A "viking", is a raiding. They went on a Viking (i.e. raiding). Historically, they were always referred to as "Norsemen" or "Northmen".

So it's not a lie.... cause i knew these things.

how did he forget Iceland" XD

I feel like I've seen this video a million times with the exact same title.

I want a Sitcome about Halvdan and Are's zany misadventures in Constantinople! Perfect Strangers, except they're both Balkie and it's the 10th Century!

"Being a viking was less an awesome, bloody lifestyle, and more like 'this is a 9-to-5 that might actually kill me" first off, there was no such things a being a "viking" that word described an activity. Raiding. you might go viking. whlie you are out viking, you could be called a vikingr.

wtffff did i just watch man. youtube stop this!

This is so cringeworthy. I literally felt bad for this poor guy.

Scandinavians were vital for the Slave trade in Early Medieval history. If you're a Christian you can't trade Slaves, but Scandinavians could. They raided Eastern Europe and sold slaves to Muslims in Spain and East Asia, bought Swords from the Byzantines and it seems they eventually decided it's better to Conquer than trade. They became part of the makeup of most European Nations today Russia, Britain, Normandy in France, Spain, South Italy, Britain and Ireland.

Can't wait for Shadiversity, Skallagrim, and/or Metatron to debunk the inaccuracies in this.

Vikings did have masked armor helmet.

The Byzantine Emperor’s personal guard was a cadre of Scandinavian warriors aka Vikings

If you look at my nordic bronze age videos you can see the horned bronze age helmets found in Denmark. Then if you look at my Vendel area videos you can see horned warriors depicted at the Vendel helmets. And if you look up the Oseberg ship tapestry you will also se horned warrior with a Sword depicted from the early viking age. So there seems to have been a horned warrior cult alteast from the nordic bronze age to the early viking age. Then it disappeared. Then later Teutonic knights seems to have revived that old warrior cult and tradition. Greetings from Sweden

In every youtube video I see about the vikings I leave a comment or two correcting some minor to major misunderstanding. But not today. Good job :) Another misconception you could have mentioned about the norse is that Odin and Thor were their main gods, and the only way to get into "viking heaven" was to die in battle. Modern scholars believe it was more split; when looking at place names suggesting local worship of deities we can see that in western Norway, Denmark and Iceland Odin and Thor was the most prevalent. Iceland and Denmark was were most of the literature concenrning the gods were written. While in Eastern Norway and in Sweden it seems Freya and her brother Frey was the most important gods. There would also have been a social divide in religion, were Freya would have been the most important one to farmers and Odin the most important one to warriors. And Valhalla wasn't the only celestial place to go after death. People who dies on the sea would be welcomed by the sea goddes Ran. Virgins would go to the goddess Gefjon. For the vanir worshippers and perhaps then particularily in Eastern Scandinavia it would have been Freya annd her Folkvang which would seem the most attractive place to go. And most people were believed to go to Hel, which should not be confused with the Christian Hell, but rather seemed like a neutral place to go. The vikings would bury people with belongings they would need in their journey to Hel. We can also assume the emphasis of these places would have been exaggerated by the Christian munks writing down this information long after the norse religion had dissapeared, as they would have contrasted it to their heaven. Most likely these places were more or less poetic visualisations of death while the common norsemen would have had a shamanic view of the afterlife. They worshipped ancestors at burial sites, put plates on the table for the dead at feasts so important dead figures could feast with them, all in all the dead were still connected with the living. Another misconception about the vikings is that they had persecutive attitudes towards homosexuals. Because there have been found plenty of obscene runestick accusing other of taking it up the arse and similar mockery, and because the norse had a special word "ergi" to descibe unmanly, shamful, and gay doings - it seems the vikings hated gays. But scandinavian historians now believes that homosexuals had a certain place within the viking society, they were the only men allowed to do seidr(magic) which was seen as a feminine task, and there were people who lived as openly gay. It wasn't before Christianity came that we can talk about persecution, where some longhaired homosexual shamans were killed by a Christian king accusted of performing ergi. And all of the mocking of gays are found on runesticks underneath churches, aka after they had turned Christian. Compared to the rest of Europe, we can assume that homosexuals might have been mocked by some but they would not reach the same level of tolerance and acceptance again in Europe until the 1960s.

Why are people suprised when they hear gender equality in ancient civilizations? It was common

Please do a video on West Africa and the myths about Africa. Like how Mansa Musha sent ships to America and was one of the richest men to ever live

Except the show Vikings takes place at the very start of the viking age, which is before they would have known how to travel around the world. They were figuring it out still. Also, just about everybody that interacted with vikings noted them as particularly savage. Not that the rest of the world wasn't, but the vikings were largely cosidered moreso. And again, vikings did frequently raid and "run off with the silverware" as you put it, they just eventually got wealthy enough/ hit tbe same places enough that it became more practical to conquer and settle. Similar to how steppe nomads eventually conquered china after generations of raiding it.

A cool, proud people. A proud Maskékowuk man says this. Keep making your cultures beautiful, creatively

This video should be calles: Vikings remastered to fit liberal agenda

Viking doesn't LITERALLY mean raider.

Most of what you have stated here has been known for sometime now, i´ve got books about vikings published 20 years ago describing most of what your saying.

Under the Vikings women were *allowed* to become judges, leaders, craftsman, explorers, fighters. Whether they wanted to or not was entirely up to them. When was the last time you heard of a female president? Oh wait... Another thing to note. Yes the Vikings did take ‘slaves’ as all cultures did in Europe at that time. But unlike, say, the Romans, there was options for slaves. They could eventually earn the right to live freely. Unlike many cultures of the time where if you were a taken or sold into slavery you were a slave until death and often if you had children they would be born into slavery with no chance of escape. There were also laws that protected slaves. Rape was punishable. Even if you were married to your rapist. In a time where woman in Europe had less laws protecting them then some livestock. Even in today’s time a lawyer would have a difficult time with a case of rape against a spouse. The Vikings were some of the best craftsmen that the world has known, even by modern standards. There is a church built towards the end of the Viking age that has stood for hundreds of years... and yet it doesn’t use a single nail. The classic Viking ship we all picture in our minds when the words ‘viking’ and ‘ship’ are used in the same sentence was a great example of how advanced they were. In truth they had many different kinds of ships depending on the task. Their maps were some of the most accurate ever produced. There’s actually a map that was made that was more accurate then maps of the same area even 100yrs ago. Many forms of govt structure have bases in the Vikings. In fact the Vikings were some of the first to implement being judged by their peers similar to our modern jury system and were selected from all status levels (taken from actual written records of various people from various cultures who witnessed such events). Also, FYI, building a Viking ship with no power tools even with someone to coach you through and correct the screwups (when possible) and 200ish of your fellow classmates to help build... is much much harder then one would guess. (Also oak fucking sucks without power tools)

I wish the Vikings and stuff were still around XD

All Canadians are hockey players. Sheesh, do some research for these things, would you?

I'm a Scandinavian geneticist and I study our history and this episode is surprisingly accurate. Thanks you for explaining that we gave women rights hundreds of years before many other nations did.

Great video, fun content, but you should make sure you got your facts straight. A few wrong or inaccurate statements: - The origin of the word 'Viking' is still widely discussed. It is not necessarily a profession, but could also refer to the people who settled the fjord regions. For this see the etymology of the 'Viking'. - Vikings the series was not wrong about Vikings not knowing of England. Yes, they ruled it for 200 years, but this was far after the time period in which the shown clip is suppose to take place. - Christopher Columbus did not commit genocide; this was done by other people descended from the same region as Columbus. There are several more little things, but I can't be bothered to name it all. You present the content in a fun way, but if you're making informational videos, please check if it is right and if your sources are reliable.

News to everyone but Scandinavian people, who already know all this stuff and wearily have to explain it to everybody else...

What? All Canadians aren't hockey players.....?!?

*the norse discovered america* Seriously, They came before us?!!! What a shame to be a dane. Next thing your going to say that the swedes invented IKEA. ... oh wait. Seriously, we haven't invented shit besides plastic cubes?? Shame.

I loved your video, but Columbus and the Iberian nation's weren't genocides

Talking about the Vikings sailing to turkey. 1)Turkey wasn't a thing at the time 2) you dismiss the Rus

Not rush it rus a tribe native east coast of sweden not norse or danes and first king to crowned as a king to control a united slavic kingdom called kieven rus i enjoyed ur clip thanks a lot

I can imagine some Vikings traveling across the ocean for years, to trade Pokémon cards.

Proud to be white. And this why.

The Scandinavians the Egyptians and the Chinese all made it to America and back before Columbus 😂

I knew all of this already and more And vikings bathed once a week btw

"Poopypants McGenocide"

Thank you for being one of the few sources that mostly tells the truth about my heritage.

Vikings - Not a weirdly brutal legion of boat psychos. I already knew all this, but this line sums it up best for me.

Viking is a verb, not a noun. They did viking, meaning raiding.

Lesson: if you put "alternative facts" into pop culture, the masses will think it's fact.

Vikings aren't just bad people plundering everyone they are actually just simple farmers and salesmen trying to get their lives toghether. the word "viking" is another word for "seawarior" But you can also say: I am traveling to viking.

Why bring up current politics; with making a loose connection between civilization characteristics. Inaccurate. Lame.

I should send this to my friend who somehow believes all of vikings were "evil people"

Norway is actually fairly mild. In fact the Germanic/Norse day of the week after Friday would translate as Bath Day... It is the only English day of the week that isn't taken from the days used by the Danes. Instead it uses the Roman based Celtic day with the Dane system. Sunday - Sunnu's Day Monday - Mani's Day Tuesday - Tyr's Day Wednesday - Woden/Odin's Day Thursday - Thor's Day Friday - Freya Day Saturday - Saturn's Day because apparently bathing is bad.... Germanic and Icelandic Days go further by eliminating Woden in German, and the three major Deities in Iceland, Odin, Thor and Freya after "conversion" to Christianity. Viking is basically a Pirate. And... THOR IS A GINGER. Marvel didn't get that right..

Odin himself wrote this episode

I have two questions, how common was pillaging and rape, and were the vikings more or less like the rest of the raiders of that time period?

Why didn't we learn these things about this amazing civilization in school? Oh, right. They were pre-Christendom, which means they were bad, apparently. (And no, I'm not a Heathen or Odinist, by the way!)

good show, painfully unfunny guy

*So much wrong information, this gave me a damn brain aneurysm.*

While i can say i knew all this [Being Irish i've studied them a fair bit to help contextualise my own heritage] It's great to see this kind of content. I'd love to see more.

This is very interesting. Could someone tell me the accuracy of this video please ?

No Vikings comes from the word vik which means bay Vikings mean people who come from the bay

However, Chris Hemsworth's blonde blondie blonde blondeness is actually an inaccurate portrayal of Thor, who was rendered as a redhead; while also lacking his belt Megingjord, gauntlets Jarngreipr, and goats Tanngnjostr and Tanngrisnr. And not only was Thor most definitely with Sif, with whom he had a daughter named Thrudr, he also had a mistress named Jarnsaxa, with whom he had one or two sons (Magni is definitely the son of Jarnsaxa, but Modi's mother is never definitively cited). So this nonsense of a human lover played by Padme is ridiculous. Generally, it's accepted that there were female vikings, but the term "Shieldmaiden" was never used as an endonym by the Scandinavians, but was invented either by the neighboring Roman Empire as an exonym or thought up much later, like horned helmets. There's several hundred years following the Christianization of Scandinavia and preceding the 20th century known as the Romanticism of Vikings, where many misconceptions were drummed up and spread around until eventually calcifying as facts. So what we definitively do know of them is actually relatively minimal, not unlike the Gauls. We have our much beloved Roman Empire to thank for that, who never bothered with accurate chronicles of their neighbors; even the Romans invented plenty of myths about their neighboring empires. Much of our knowledge of Norse beliefs were also composed well after those very beliefs were no longer held valid by the very people, as the Eddas were written after most every Scandinavian became Christian. Fun fact: Dwarves aren't short, but elves may be. Thanks to the skewing of the meaning of dwarf, we now use the word synonymously with anything small, but that'd be like saying "soft" to describe something very wide; it literally makes no sense.

Sooo many facts you got wrong bud, like the bleach thing, there was no such thing as bleach during that period, it was natural

Poopy-pants McGenocide was Columbus’s nickname back in the day. A lot of people don’t know that.

You talked about Scandinavia, not Viking warriors, and you even made the point that there was a significant difference between the old pagan pirates and the traders and explorers and other non-combatants and yet you still referred to them as Vikings. I definitely got click baited, the title implies you were gonna talk about Vikings, not the non-combatants

he knows what he's talking about but he's such a democrat it's bothering the hell out of me

They were demorats ewww

McGenocide? when i unsubbed.

3:15 this dosen't really seem fair as everythign you mention is after this point, the scene in qestion is basicly the begining of the viking age.

WHY DO PEOPLE FOCUS ON NORWAY!!! SWEDEN HAD MORE "VIKINGS" Just saying

Imagine if vikings actually tried to fight against actual countries not just small raids. They would get slaughtered beyond doubt.

That was painful.

Judging from his analysis on the Greco-persian I bet this video sucks. And here it is, the winner: the small statue at 2:48 is not from France, not from Persia, not from Japan, but Cyprus. It's a statue of Apollo from 12th century BC! *_Well done again! You are a disgrace for the historical studies!_*

It's not even really a job title... vikingr comes from the word vik, which means bay. effectively, a vikingr is just a bay-inhabitant. Obviously, with a culture that depends so heavily on naval vessels, these bay-dwellers are the ones that go out do explore, trade, fight and whatnot. So when someone back then asked such a surprise-visiting norsemen "hvæ ære þó? (who are you)" the Norsemen obviously replied "Ek em vikingrinn. (I am a bay-inhabitant)" Chris Hemsworth might be accurate for a Norsemen, but not for þórr, who he is supposed to play. þórr is actually a ginger.

I loved this!! So well delivered, hilarious, and informative!💖💪🏻

STOP TELLING VIEWERS WHAT TO DO! (subscribe, like etc) - We are (mostly) intelligent adults who DO WHAT WE WANT!