Most SURPRISING Facts About Vikings!

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from discovering America to setting fire to their own urine here are 10 things you probably didn't know about the Vikings [Music] number 10 Vikings discovered America 500 years before Columbus despite what most of us were taught in school Christopher Columbus did not actually lead the first expedition to discover the Americas in fact he was over 500 years late as there is increasing evidence to support the idea that Vikings were present in areas of what their leader Leif Erikson called Finland and what we now know as Canada well there's also evidence that the Chinese and the Basques also arrived before Columbus so it is still not looking good for him anyway and has long been thought that the Vikings had made the trip to the edges of the continent around the Year 1000 an initial settlement was found in Newfoundland in the 1960s but in 2016 a team of archaeologists using satellite imagery found another site 400 miles further inland that bore all the landmarks of Viking civilization by taking a route past Iceland Greenland and then down through Canada it's quite possible that they also made it much further south with some researchers now looking for concrete evidence that they also visited the modern day USA number 9 Viking legends were a major inspiration for the Lord of the Rings as one of the most famous stories of modern times it seems fitting that the Lord of the Rings takes a lot of creative direction from some of the greatest myths and legends from the Vikings j.r.r tolkien was greatly inspired by the Vikings and studied them intensively the story of the curse of and Varis ring provided the core ideas to Tolkien revolving around a supernatural ring that brings tragic consequences to anyone who wears it with characters such as gods a dwarf a Valkyrie a dragon and a witch queen it's clear where the tales set in middle-earth came from but that's just the beginning Midgard for example is according to Norse mythology one of the three worlds that make up the universe this is where men dwarves elves and Giants live and form the battleground between good and evil it perhaps not a surprise then that the English translation of Midgard is middle-earth and formed the foundation for the entire world that the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are set in number 8 Vikings were very active in the slave trade the slave trade has been a blight on human history since before the times of the Vikings but during their heyday they were some of the most prolific advocates of human incarceration that have ever existed the first recorded attack by Viking warriors was from a Christian monastery in England where the monks were killed and all the treasure was stolen but it's thought that the real reason the Vikings first took to the Seas was to find women and capture slaves or thralls as they called them thralls were on the bottom rung of Scandinavian society often finding themselves in such a position as a result of losing wars accruing large amounts of debt or being born to other thralls slaves were also used to facilitate trade with the East with records showing numerous North European thralls to have been channeled through Russia Byzantium and Baghdad number seven Vikings did not wear horned helmets it's the prerequisite of many a Viking TV show theme party or stag weekend the Vikings never actually had horns on their helmets this doesn't mean that they didn't have intimidating head wear of course but they were typically far less ornate paintings from the time show Viking warriors to be either bareheaded or wearing simple helmets made from iron or leather a helmet that was found on a Norwegian farm in 1943 had a rounded iron cap and a guard around the eyes and nose some cultures have been known to have horns on their helmets however examples of ones that date back to the Bronze Age have been found around northern Europe as well as more recent ones that have been uncovered from Cyprus and Sardinia another famous one the Waterloo helmet was found in the river tames in London and features street horns so why do we associate horn helmets with Vikings as with many things it comes down to storytelling and entertainment in the 1800s a Swedish artist named Gustav Malstrom made a series of paintings that showed Vikings wearing helmets probably the most significant usage of horned helmets that may have started the myth was when Karl ml Dobler the costume designer of Wagner designed horned headgear for one of the most famous works the Ring cycle number six Vikings were incredibly hygienic it must have been tough back in the 10th century to keep clean and tidy so it's not a surprise Vikings are often depicted as being dirty brutes but the truth is they took their hygiene very seriously archaeological dates often find collections of tweezers razors combs and ear cleaners that have been made from animal bones or antlers they would usually bathe at least once a week which was far more often than most other Europeans at the time and would regularly gather at social events that involved bathing and natural hot springs not too dissimilar to people today they also took great pride in their appearance particularly valuing light hair as many Vikings didn't look that way they would use a strong soap with a high content of lye to bleach their hair and beards to look more like they wanted this is also thought to have had a beneficial side effect that killed off head lice which were a common problem back in the 900s one Viking beauty resume that hasn't made it to the 21st century was their apparent use of coloring pigments to change the appearance of their teeth remains have been found with grooves carefully drilled into them that are believed to have helped retain the dye and it is thought that the King Harald Bluetooth whose symbolic runes we see on modern-day smartphones as the logo of Bluetooth connections wasn't named that because of tooth decay but because he had stained his teeth that colour on purpose number 5 Vikings skied for fun skiing has been around for thousands of years having originally been invented in Scandinavia over 5,000 years ago as an effective means of transport to quickly traverse terrain and aid with hunting but the Vikings loved it for recreational purposes as well so much so in fact that they had their own God dedicated to skiing called allure or earl or earl or something like that allure as well as another god called scotty were often depicted hunting on skis and were believed to accompany the vikings as they negotiated cold climates representations of the gods would also be present at come key events where participants would race down the mountain to prove who was best number for the Vikings built a desert accidentally the Vikings were also responsible for creating Europe's largest desert on the once beautiful island and a stark warning to us about how human activity can affect the environment the desert is an unusual one found in the highlands of Iceland where the Vikings plundering of natural resources along with major deforestation has meant that water and snow now sinks into the volcanic soil so quickly that there is no chance for plants to access it at the time the Vikings arrived on the island about 60% of the country was covered in bushes trees and grasses but it soon diminished from grazing and construction and never had a chance to recover now it's virtually all gone leaving just a pitch black sand covered desert among the towering glaciers here's an interesting fact erik the red purposefully named Iceland and Greenland backwards because he wanted to keep Iceland to himself because of the lush environment he was hoping to encourage settlements on Greenland instead which is mostly covered in ice number three Vikings didn't bury their dead in boats like with horn helmets another tradition that we associate with Vikings that they buried their dead and boats at sea has also turned out to be nothing more than a myth they did actually place bodies on ships during the ceremony but this was usually conducted on land the deceased was placed on a reel or stone ship depending on their wealth and standing in society along with grave offerings that would include items needed to survive in the afterlife such as treasure weapons and in some cases sacrificed slaves Vikings usually cremated their dead so these pyres would be sent a light and covered with piles of stones and soil to create what is known as a tumulus the only known reference to a boat that was set alight and pushed out to sea comes from the myth of the god Val d'Or after he was accidentally killed by his blind brother hor who during a game threw a spear that was given to him by lucky as the largest ship ever built the greenhorn II was said light with Boulder's body on board and boulder's wife threw herself into the flames before the boat was pushed out to sea by a giant issed named Harrigan who then wrote away on a wolf number two vikings were never part of just one group the word viking only started being used in the 19th century to describe a series of scandinavian tribes that had previously simply been referred to as danes or a Norseman the term took hold after being used in a series of old norse sagas that became popular with the notion of horned helmets also originating from the same sources there was never one large Viking society that worked together the groups referred to as Vikings did not ban together based on any ethnic political or religious identities the term instead refers to groups of pirates and raiders that originated from Scandinavia and were present from Canada to the Middle East between 800 AD to 1050 ad the phrase Viking actually meant a raiding expedition where a group of outlaws irva Keener's would go on a Viking and return with the spoils of battle at any one time there were a number of Viking kings from across Denmark Norway and Sweden and when not trading with each other would be just as likely to fight between tribes as they would be to raid other groups of people number 1 Vikings set fire to their urine fire was invaluable to the Vikings it was used for cooking sanitation and during their raiding expeditions for raising villages to the ground the difficulty was that they didn't have lighters or matches and it could be tricky to create a spark from Flint in the middle of a battle to overcome this problem they created a material that would continually smolder which let them take fire wherever they wanted the ingredients of this material though were quite gross and so smelled horrible they started by collecting a fungus that grew on tree bark called touch wood they would cut the fungus into strips and then beat it until it resembled felt this would be charred by burning in an oxygen-free environment and finally would be boiled in a cauldron of human urine for a few days the sodium nitrate that had been absorbed into the fungus from the urine would then give it the small properties all they would need to do to start a fire was to place the smoldering substance down and blow on it much easier than any alternative method who know urine could be so useful just ask the Romans thanks for watching know any other cool facts about the Vikings let us know in the comments below be sure to subscribe and see you next time bye

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Channel: Origins Explained

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Keywords: most, surprising, facts, about, vikings, most surprising, facts about vikings, most surprising facts about vikings, viking facts, viking, vikinger, top 10, top ten, top10, list, top 10 list, viking raids, early vikings, viking women, viking teeth, viking mead, famous vikings, viking battles, you won't believe, you didn't know, lord of the rings, slaves, colombus, discovered america, horns, horned helmets, origins explained

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Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2017

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