The

The Hello and welcome to the history of Vikings.

Today I'm joined by acclaimed YouTuber and inspirational historian Hilbert of the notable YouTube

channel, History with Hilbert. Over the past week,

I've had the privilege of working with Hilbert in preparing something very special for all of our

listeners. Today, Hilbert and I will be presenting you with the collaboration that we've been working on

about why the Viking Age began as well as the existence of Shield Maidens. Hilbert, thank you so much for

coming on the show today. Thank you so much for the kind introduction as well. I'm really excited. I've really enjoyed listening to the previous podcasts on here. And I'm thrilled to finally be in one of them myself and honored to be joined by you for this discussion. Thank you very much for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure. It's a real treat to have you on. I would love for you,

Hilbert, to start off the discussion today by making a case for why the Viking Age began. You know,

why did these people from Scandinavia go off raiding and exploring and writing the sagas and doing

these great and incredible deeds that they did? Why did the Viking Age begin? Well, that's a really

pivotal question, and obviously no one here doubts that the Viking Age begin? Well, that's a really pivotal question,

and obviously no one here doubts that the Viking Age happened. But really, even when it began, is a question, although really everyone thinks, or the mainstream idea is that 793 is the key

date there for the raid on Lindisfarne. But why it happened is a lot more complicated. So one of the reasons at the

time that the Christian monks were writing about was that the Vikings simply couldn't stop having

sex. And for this reason, obviously, the limited space among the fjords in Scandinavia, especially

Norway, was soon taken up by all these little Viking babies. And they had to do something,

so what else could they do? But Harry, the good Christian folk of Europe. Now, this is one interpretation.

Another interesting way of looking at why it started, obviously, is related to the rising power of

the Frankish Empire. Did that have a religious connotation? Obviously, they converted the Germanic peoples like the

Frisians and the Saxons, among others, at the point of the sword. And were the people in

Scandinavia worried that the same thing would happen to them, lest they stop the rising power of

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