What Did The Vikings Really Look Like?

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Were the Vikings the original trendsetters?

Even when they were raiding the poor monks in Lindsfarne in 793, they were passing on hairstyles that annoyed some of the local elders.

Why did they file their teeth? How often did they bathe? And what influence did their gods have on all of this?

Joining Kate today to explore the beauty standards of the Vikings is Dr. Eleanor Barraclough, author of Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age.

This episode was edited by Tom Delargy. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

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Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Picture this, static cars, idling engines, angry horns.
0:08.0	Now, picture you, zooming past it all, light and breezy.
0:15.0	Ah, the sweet feeling of whizzing past traffic.
0:20.0	Book your train journey via Avanti westcoast.co. UK.
0:25.0	avante west coast feel good travel.
0:29.0	Hello my lovely but Twixters it's me Kate Lister how the hell are you doing
0:37.8	well I'm thrilled to hear that I'm so glad that you've come back for more but before I can give you anymore I have to tell you that this is an adult podcast
0:47.4	book by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adult way covering a range of adult subjects and you should be an adult too.
0:53.4	Does that sound fair? Does that sound okay? Do you want to proceed?
0:56.5	Well all right fair doos, I did warn you. Forget the horned helmet,
1:17.0	the horned helmets, spoiler alert. They are a myth made up by the Victorians. Hair was actually far more important to the Vikings than horned helmets. Yes, we can all picture the slow motion rugged Viking macho type standing a strider craggy rock with the sun
1:26.2	catching his bulging biceps and the wind in his hair. Is that just me?
1:32.4	But their hair is something that they took a lot of pride him.
1:35.3	The King of Norway himself was called Harold Fairhair no less.
1:39.3	And before that, we had Harold Tangle Hair because he refused to run a comb through his
1:44.2	barnet until the whole country was under his command. That is a weird request.
1:48.6	But it does show you just how seriously the Vikings took their appearance and I don't know about
1:54.8	you I want to know more about their beauty regimes.
2:00.0	What do you look for a man?
2:05.0	Oh, money, of clothes.
2:07.0	You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.
2:09.0	I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs.
	...

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