The truth about the most feared white people in history.
When most of us think of vikings, we see horn-helmeted violent blond men raping and pillaging everything in sight. But, in fact, many of these images are misconceived � as you are about to find out. The Vikingslived from the late eighth to the early eleventh century and theirrelatively short history had had a massive impact on western society.
Misconception 10: The Vikings were a nation
The Vikings were not one nationbut different groups of warriors, explorers and merchants led by achieftain. During the Viking age, Scandinavia was not separated into Denmark,Norway and Sweden as it is today, instead each chieftain ruled over asmall area. The word Viking does not refer to any location, but is the Old Norse word for a person participating in an expedition to sea.
Misconception 9: The Vikings were all dirty, wild-looking people
In many movies and cartoons, the Vikings are shown as dirty, wild-looking, savage men and women, but in reality, the Vikings were quite vain about their appearance. In fact,combs, tweezers, razors and �ear spoons� are among some of the mostfrequent artifacts from Viking Age excavations. These same excavationshave also shown that the Vikings made soap.
In England, the Vikingsliving there even had a reputation for excessive cleanliness because oftheir custom of bathing once a week (on Saturday). To this day,Saturday is referred to as laugardagur / laurdag / lørdag / lördag, or�washing day� in the Scandinavian languages, though the originalmeaning is lost in modern speech in most cases. However, �laug� doesstill mean �bath� or �pool� in Icelandic.