The 9th Century #MeToo | Vikings (Part 1)

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1:25you join us once again for finn versus history i'm here with horatio gould stop thy boat and today we're talking about vikings yes this is ikea's violent prehistory exactly uh the origin story of Bjork. Yeah. Weissleihkings. Weissleihkings. It's Nazi ancient history. Yep. It's excellent stuff. Yeah, it's good stuff. I actually was more interesting than I thought it would be. Yes. I dreaded this coming up. And then as soon as I realised that it was kind of Nazi origin myth, lovely style. Rapist on sea, despite the Nazis. Rape on sea. Are we back in rape on sea? Is that where we are? I believe we said it was in East Anglia somewhere.

2:02Rape on sea. It's an old Viking settlement. Yes, of course. Most of Scandinavia was rape on the sea. To be fair, they didn't rape on land. No. We don't want to judge these people by the standards of today. There's a pagan culture, so they have different values. Aquatic rape, is it as bad? Horatio Gould. That's just me on question time. Me hosting question time. Aquatic rape, is it as bad? Horatio Gould, MP. Keir Starmer is like, well, you know, I think all rape is bad. No. Stop equivalating. No. Thank you. Keir Starmer. it's always like they're pushing for a yes or no answer yeah and if you give it you're going to get destroyed either way no but it's disarming yeah and people actually i think respect it nah answer the question all the pigs in the crowd answer it yeah the thing i remember the most is when russell brand did it and then some guy in the in the um crowd went why won't you stand why won't you stand and he went i can't stand i can't i've become one of them i'm a land rapist I don't rape on sea, I rape on land.

3:09Yeah, I guess it's fun. Viking Scandinavian history is quite similar to the Japanese samurai in the sense that it was a huge contrast to their modern forebears. Yes, you're right, because there's that famous meme of the samurai atomic bomb. It's like a bomb. Hello Kitty. So it's gone from really harsh samurai, really intense, sort of just like Chinese, Japanese Nazis. No, no, no, I think... The Chinese Nazis is what they used to be. In the spirit of amalgamating countries, which as we've said is what we'd like to do for, you know, make the map smaller. Conglomerations. Make the world smaller. Close your mind.

3:47Close your perspective. I think Chinese Nazis. So the Vikings, it was rapists on sea who believed in sort of thunder gods like Odin. Aryan rapists. Aryan rapists. And then I guess Howard Hardrada died and they've started making flat pat furniture. Yeah, it becomes pretty tame. Yeah, it's really, their big kind of achievement is like the welfare state. Yeah. I guess Christianity has made one of the great traditions incredibly boring. That's what it does. That's what Christianity does. It just smooths out the edges. If there's ever any sort of sex or rape cults, it just kind of gets turned into sort of just...

4:22Can we just put that rape in an altar and make the victim a young boy? Can we make you guys just kind of efficient and dull, please? Can we just make it pedophilia rather than rape? Can we just smooth off that edge? The rape is too violent. It's too aquatic. You've been to Scandinavia? I have. What do you think of Scandinavia? It's fine. Fine. It's just fine. Yeah. I've been to Finland's atrocious. Atrocious. Finland is a bin. Yeah. Right. Binland. Binland. Norway. Have you been to Moominland though? No, I haven't. That's great to be fair. Shout out Moominland. They've got like a theme park that's based on Moominland and it's great.

4:54Yeah. I would like to go to Lapland and do that whole thing. Huskies. I'm into that. i'd like to just ride around yeah i'd like to meet santa give santa a hand shandy so i mean santa that's what's weird is that santa comes from this place and and sort of all the nazi you know racial science is from the same place what's the we don't talk enough about that what's the point you're is santa is santa nazi that's what i'm asking is it is he we're not saying we have all the answers but we do the right questions i think i'm asking a a legitimate question. Is Santa Nazi? There is something quite fascistic about Santa.

5:32Oh, maybe not. He gives all the presents. Well, he gives better presents to rich kids. Santa Claus is not a Nazi. Okay. Thank you, Charlie. I mean, we don't know what he believes politically. That's why he's able to stay so popular for so long is that we don't know what he thinks. But if we did have a sort of white van man talking head with Santa, you know, leaning out there, what do you think? I think it would be atrocious. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like a man of that age. Yeah. That remote. he's living in rural lapland he's not going to be obeying opinions i mean yeah he's he's listens to lbc as he's delivering presents yeah he's just going on so date khan makes it fucking impossible i've got a fucking fly over londonis down but i can't fucking see where all the christians are anymore you're all fucking muslims down there now um so they say santa is odin that's interesting we'll get on to norse mythology but it's quite interesting the idea that it's kind of based on that anyway the nor the nordic the viking age now this is now one thing i must say as well is that in terms of the historians that we have had to uh encounter how ugly these are ugly as it gets ugly as it gets ugly and as autistic as it because this is that's a bold claim considering now listen listen this is we need to make a scale of how ugly the historians on math are i take it back which female witch historians are balding fat dandruff even though they're bald like it's it's they got face dandruff it's bad right i'd say level below that this you get viking historians because the problem with this topic for me is that so much of the topic is is myth which has then been put into like world of warcraft all that you know right gamer stuff yeah so you know the thunder god thought all that stuff yeah there's a lot of spit coming out when they talk about it so you think on the the the best looking end is sort of 20th century history yeah sort of vietnam war yeah maybe world war ii yeah i do think you over egg how some of these world war two historians look like in there they're their own sort of losers in their own way i guess it's a it's tallest dwarf isn't it yes yeah none of these people are winners but there is a you know there is definitely but you're putting vikings a notch below uh which is it basically as far from reality as you go i spoke about ancient egypt what have we not got there yet yeah no okay i guess this is as far as we've made it right i saw dan snow interview a man who literally was so dan snow drum what's that dan dan dan's yeah sorry this is a historian with dan snow drum dan snow drum does it work down syndrome he's dan dan snowdron he's got dance he's got dance Peter Snowden had a son with Dan Snowdram he loves his horses Dan Snowdram's history here is it's mainly the history of ice cream and horses anyway I saw Dan Snow who, thank you Charlie apparently Dan Snow's ideal lunch is smoked salmon, lasagna and poached pears he's a good looking bloke Dan Snow That's not a Dan Syndrome diet.

8:43No. I think Dan Snowdream dinner party is like hundreds of thousands. It's party rings. You know what it is? It's a party ring every day. In the same way that Vikings have Valhalla, Down Syndrome people have the ice cream bar at Peter Hut. That's Down Syndrome Valhalla. Sprinkles. Unlimited refills. The Hall of Warriors.

9:09that's down's valhalla is the ice cream buffet at pizza hut which for a long time was my valhalla as well i had real issues with that and i only just got out of valhalla i was in valhalla for a long time you know if i died age 10 my parents would have buried me next to a viking burial next to the ice cream you you you got a spoon and you're lying like this and it's loads of ice cream dishes and there's hundreds of thousands and jelly babies and minstrels got and the sauce god i did some real damage what's it called is it called the ice cream factory that's what it's called ice cream factory right let me tell you i was doing overtime were you working out or were you on the conveyor belt hey i was on the conveyor belt just going round and round and round i don't know if you're a product or a worker i had big problems with the the oxford high street ice cream factory as a as a pre-teen i did a lot of damage in there It's just, yeah, it's like an old alky going to William Hill.

10:05I once got kicked out of the Pizza Hut buffet for eating too much. Really? They said, I said, it's all you can eat. And then they were like, after a while, they were like, you've got to stop now. Because now we're in the red for the day. They hadn't taken into account someone like you when they came up with all you can eat. Because all you can eat, they're thinking of the average person. They're not thinking of a thoroughbred fatty. from the shires it was a viking raid a viking raid ice cream factory it was devastating raped several waiters pillaged pillaged the ice cream factory only the salad bar remained yeah the salad bar is the only evidence we have of this raid is that the salad bar was left completely intact and we can't know the wonders that were lost anyway that's enough about my childhood my point was my point was I watched an interview Dan Snow talking to a Viking historian and his he was so fucked this guy that one eye wouldn't open right so he was like the Viking age has thought of starting in the 6th century like he was such a hum actually that he couldn't open one eye right right so on the league table of ugly historians the Vikings is is strong strong it's just strong showing okay alright well we'll keep you up to date because we've got some other real ugly topics coming up yeah we tell you if we find because i guess we have to do the research to find out who who actually is the ugliest so we'll keep you up today do you know i think it adds to it a bit if if you have like a really fucked looking historian like if they look like a toad like boulder man with like one eye just what you want you trust it because someone down to know there's a tv element to it and you're like are you just using this up do you know what i mean yeah there's a there's you're making this sex you're making this glam when you have someone who looks like they were pulled out of the archives yeah like someone pulled open the thing and had to grab the open a viking rock and some guy was like and he just just keep talking he's not even doesn't he don't you're like this is this is more of a primary source this is a better source it's like a chateauneuf de pape label you're like i trust this yeah this is quality but you'll see you're getting it this is doc no this is when you go to wholesale right yeah you're buying stuff that normally restaurants buy you're buying it without any prices trade yeah you're getting it straight from the source there's no zhuzhing up i'll decide what to do with the information yeah because you're just going anyway the viking age so one of the things these these um these pond life what they say is that you know vikings they get annoyed at that they go there was no such thing of vike you know yeah they're always that's every time to take oh actually it wasn't there wasn't there wasn't the race once there wasn't a holocaust all right all right well i'm listening uh the viking age is what they say they say there's no vikings say there's a viking age right and the viking age goes from but that's disputed as well yeah well everything's disputed you know the renaissance the holocaust it's all up for grabs that's why we've started this podcast to try and give people clarity over what didn't didn't happen oh firstly we must shout out these socks yes we got what's the brand called swole panda swole panda they sent us free socks after my harrowing shows of my and I would say that any other brands that would like to, like them wants to align with our values, which I say again, is overt Holocaust denial, Nazi apologism, and any brands think, yes, I want to get into that slipstream.

13:32I'm thinking suit supply, M &S. Maybe not them though. That's a Jewish brand, but you know, something, if you want to align with our values as a podcast, send us free stuff anyway. So we're going to do like big long thing saying this didn't align with our values when it's someone saying the Holocaust. did happen sorry sorry right we must say that we took the gift but we don't um we don't align with their shirts would be nice so there's a shirt anyway the viking age is sort of seen as the 8th to the kind of 11th century yeah so the first sort of sense we have of them is a raid on a lindisfarne which is a monastery off the coast of northumbria yeah yeah holy island lindisfarne where is it northumberland yeah this is 793 i think this is considered kind of the birth of how we imagine the viking age even though the norse gods have been around a lot of things that you would attach to the vikings have already existed but the idea of them being rapists and pillagists sort of starts on lindersfarm where this kind of a bit strong to call them rapists because we shouldn't judge them by today's standards i think that they're raiders right they're travelers yeah to them they're backpacking they're tourists they're tourists yeah no they're brits abroad they're holiday makers there that yeah they're seeing it as they're they're traveling around europe yeah they're interrailing who are they interrailing let's not get into that yeah um so that but this is the interesting thing about the vikings is that they didn't write stuff down really or they did but it's in like runes i know that the ss logo is is rune they're writing into rocks it took fucking ages no one's taking notes of meetings they're probably licking rocks as well i mean yeah you know you couldn't have um what's it called the the handsard no No, there's no Hansard.

15:14Because that would just take forever. Some poor guy carving. What? Give me a fucking second. Sorry, but the only kind of, they're framed entirely as, from a Christian perspective. So that's why people think of Vikings as rapists, pillagers, raiders, because that was the only way we experienced them. We experienced them as, which gives you a sense of maybe what like, you know, Kenyans thought of the Brits. Right. Because they don't have their side of the story. because we killed them all right because that story is wrong yeah okay our story is correct but i mean if you so if you had the viky side of the story would it be similar to like robin thick's blurred lines yes yeah they kind of see the the coast of england yeah and they're thinking they want it do they want it they want it she asked you what she's asking for it and i guess in a weird way but the reason why the lindisfarne raid happened and why loads of raids happened like it is there was lots of money in a monastery undefended they're asking for what are they wearing habits yeah to be fair part of the imagery because i think a lot of vikings it's quite broad we can't really pin on too many individual characters it's more like a broad thing like pirates it's kind of it's a sweeping it's a sweeping thing it's an era part of the imagery is terrified bald monks running away right yeah that's a huge part which is a very kind of benny hill thing in my head loads of people with shit haircuts yeah oh no yeah and then these these massive chads yeah yeah it's um it's like a thousand ben stokes yeah landing on shore with a thousand jack leeches all running away yeah it is um while there's no specific historical evidence confirming the vikings systematically raped monks they did engage in violence and pillaging during their raids on monasteries yeah so yeah i don't think they were raping monks charlie yeah why not they probably were i don't think we need to go more yeah i think we've probably covered that yeah i think we've got that we'll still get comments saying what are you scared to not do you only did 25 minutes on right why didn't you do 55 i need this podcast to relax you've only talked about rape for 15 minutes my commute's 35 um anyway so they uh they land This is the first contact the Christian world has with them.

17:34Linda's fan. I think it's 793. Just check that, Charlie, for the autists listening. Sorry. The listeners. Yeah, the ones with Dan Snowdron. Dan Snowdron. 793. Now, do you want to place this? Oh, okay. So 793. I feel like you'll be better at this than I want. It is after the invention of Islam. Yes. Not that much after, but 610. Yep. And it is before... Where's he going with this? It is before... I know what I'm thinking. What were you thinking? Charlie Hebdo. It was before Charlie Hebdo. It was before Charlie Hebdo. For the Sacre Bleu. Oh, no! I mean, that frames it quite nicely. It's before the French finally came back from lunch for one day and the terrorists were there.

18:21Tragedy. Tragedy. The one day they take an hour lunch break. Masked. So, yeah. So, this is after Islam, before Hebdo. Yeah. This is when the Viking Age really begins. And the first, it shocks the Christian world. Which again, I don't really, it's hard to visualize, but these ships come out of the water and these monks who are just minding their own business. I don't know what the fuck they're doing. A lot of botany. These are sort of, it's kind of botany. Big botany. Plants? Yeah. They love botany monks. Do they? Yeah. So a lot of them would be. Gardening. Yeah. It's just like, it's a bro's paradise, right?

18:58they're all blokes with fucking bald heads yeah and they're all doing like herbology and they're just kind of getting into gay ships there's no women around yeah do you know what i mean yeah you don't feel like you have to be judged for your masculinity because there's just loads of blokes being gay together right that's what a monastery is oh so this is a terrible story it really is so then the vikings turn up in these long out just out the mist this the monks see this dragon yep this and then they go oh no it's this front of a ship right and they've brought the vikings and they've carved this big dragon head into the front of a long ship which is a new innovation new innovation the most devastating military technology part of the reason they become so dominant is the long ship yeah the key reason the long ships are so devastating is because they're so shallow so you can get right up onto the beach basically so rather than being short and deep and deep and they're long so they can sort of like and they can beach and they hold a lot of men so that one beach one long ship going on the beach this is like the first d-day landing craft yeah i guess so yeah people are sailing before this and not yeah lots of sailing then can they not land yeah i think it's harder to land up against rocks and stuff like that i think it's it's harder to get i think you have to land by the beach and then get another smaller boat speed as well i guess they're fast i think the efficiency of carrying men look at the shape of it yes so it means that you can like get a lot of because if you're having a ship that can't carry that many men and you get on the beach there's four of you yes four yeah and the monks are like fuck off do you want to join our herb garden commune here we go viking long ships had a variety of roles on board key positions including the skipper steersman cook and the ordinary crew members called the hollow hollow men additionally some ships may have had a barber surgeon a barber surgeon a barber surgeon are you going to see your barber surgeon i've got an appointment what's it for uh keyhole actually yeah yeah keyhole and short back and sides yeah i need a full mastectomy and i thought i'd go to see my barber well luckily why are you down there you can just cut my tits east london barber's got this new thing where you also do intense bowel surgery this episode is brought to you by paypal you know how a mom's bag has everything sunscreen

21:33This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With AppleCard, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, AppleCard is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, AppleCard is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. Fall has never looked or tasted this good. Sweetgreen's fall harvest menu is back with seasonal favorites dressed to impress and made to be devoured.

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22:44The weird thing about Norse is it's a very friendly language. Yes. So these terrible Aryan mad eight foot guys. Have you seen Frozen? Yeah. Yeah. So it's those guys. Big summer blowout. I mean, that makes it more terrifying. Do you think? Yeah. When you hear. Like a clown. Yeah. But if they're like, they've got an axe, they're set in fire and they're raping and pillaging and it's like, hello, hello. Imagine that. Terrifying as they come up there. I'm going to rap you. Uh-oh. Woo-hoo. Big summer black, blow out your back. Big summer black, blow out. Big summer, blow your back out. That's what those Vikings are doing.

23:29Old English, because these guys are Saxons, right? Who are? The monks. Oh, the monks, yeah. Can we get some Old English up? Because that's like... Old English. It's like... So this is 8th century Old English.

23:48So it's sort of like The Sims. Come on, schnana. So the... For a scound scape for our listeners, which is what we're trying to do on this podcast, There's monks going flirty, here, flirty, here, flirty. So you do the monks? Funti, da ode, herbalology, ode. Oh, big summer, blow your back out. Flirty hurt, sniffly. My fernum, flirty, flirty. Flirty, blirty. No, flirty. The flirty hurt, and the hurt, and the hurt, and the flirty. My flirty hurtie, flirty hurtie.

24:20That was a rape and pillage Viking raid on Linda's farm. Right, did we just do an act out of you raping me? I think so. right in old english yeah and norse i guess that's all right what do you mean what do you mean this we're trying to make this vivid this happened you know thousands of years ago we're trying to make it vivid for our listeners yeah they can't picture this yeah what is it also you are i mean if anyone's game like you're you're not going to rape him yeah yeah come on come on yeah but yeah i just uh we just didn't act up where i was a monk getting raped don't love that yeah they will don't love that i didn't love i didn't like that of course not but it's acting yeah i guess so you had to you know what are you gonna do what are you gonna fucking go and do one of those cans panel where they complain about how they were they didn't like filming it got raped at work you're gonna complain about i didn't say that it was a rape act out at work where's that in the hr code yeah oh it was just pretended anyway um that's the terrifying raid on lindersfarn which we have we have rendered i think uh fantastically well yeah the listener yeah we need to bring in more soundscapes i've always said this maybe we went too far too soon um but from this point on the vikings they start persistent raids on the on the british isles they sort of terrified it's just loads of booty there's loads of booty there's loads of monks yeah um and now we need a lot of them are supposedly the vikings like eight foot tall i don't think so well this is what everyone so there's i reckon they were tiny there's a thing that says in one of the the only surviving texts from this time right the what's called the poetic edda yeah which is the thing they found in iceland which says that a viking king was five l's right and an l would basically that would mean that he was eight and a half foot right in today's thing but that's built with myth that's the giant well this is what i mean it's what's quite hard to separate the myth from what actually happened i'm just thinking for trying to get protein i just don't think it's what i don't understand is that you envision a viking now and there's this huge broad-chested guy blonde beard huge muscles holding like a club or an axe i'm like how the fuck are they you know people are only doing that now because of like creating yeah yeah these guys are eating stinky fish yeah like they're fermenting fish these guys are like five foot five and then the monks are like four eleven so they're but then vikings also have a huge thing about dwarves they love it they love dwarves right like they they found in norway they found a dwarf burial site and they could tell because there's the shape it was like a kid with a two bigger head or whatever yeah and they were like they were buried like respectfully with lots of stuff around them and they they think that dwarves were like blacksmiths and craftsmen like gimli they but that's where all this stuff is what Tolkien based it on yeah right so there's probably never been a better time I don't think I think dwarves would have never been more respected than in Viking Age well have you seen the recent controversy of Lamina Mao for his 18th birthday had got was it like 10 dwarves he got to the yeah he brought 10 dwarves and then the dwarf to the woods yeah that's where his party was yeah yeah so he's cut and to be honest doing studying a lot of history for this podcast the amount that like dwarves crop up in recreational settings yes like dwarves being used in a party second setting is a long history um yeah it's a tough one because the dwarf uh union came out and said this is terrible dwarf union so they've unionized thatcher didn't smash the dwarf unions close the mines close them close the miners um it's an interesting one because i think a lot of dwarfs the the woke backlash against dwarfs being used in comedy has put loads of them at a job yes it's a tricky one it's the same as grid girls yeah at formula one they got rid of the girls that would wave the thing was i don't have any qualifications yeah and they're like i'm thick what do you want me to do now now now i'm thick and poor you've made my life worse it's a tricky one is it it's not tricky no it's choice well you think it's chucking uh dwarfs at dartboards if it's a job it's not capturing a dwarf and chucking them at a board yeah is it it's a guy who can't do any other job so has to be chucked at a dartboard that's the free market i mean i wouldn't do it the invisible hand it is the invisible hand lifting up the dwarf and throwing him at a dartboard i mean i don't think i'd do it i would feel weird to do it but i wouldn't say you can't do that i see it like when you see someone firing a gun in like a shooting range in America, I'd be like, that would probably be really fun.

28:59Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it shouldn't be in a school. A guy shouldn't pick up a dwarf and go around a school and throw it at the fat kids. Yeah, it should be like bankers letting off steam. Yes, exactly. But dwarves are highly respected in the Viking Age. It's the best time to be a dwarf. I think so. Yeah. And there's also a huge... The dwarf union's ever been stronger. Never been stronger. Right. It's been downhill for dwarves since then. And it wasn't a high peak. Yeah. So the politically correct term is little person, which is far more demeaning than dwarf. yeah it really is yeah little person yeah fuck off yeah i'm a dwarf dwarfs but dwarf has an element of like power to it like a power power dwarf yeah dan rath has that great bit about dwarfs is the only thing that's in the spiritual realm and the real world yeah it's like the it's the spiritual medium like they're the only thing that are both mystical and real yeah well in viking mythology we should talk about what the vikings believed actually yeah but vikings have a big there's there's kind of they're more goblins i think but they call them dwarves in that they're more like sort of conniving well a lot of the lord of the rings uh builds in a lot of the norse kind of stuff so the idea of going into the forest there's there's there's elves there and elves might kill you because elves are naughty i think and uh elves they still go on about elves in iceland today they all go i mean it's obviously just a tourist thing yeah uh we should talk about what they believe right because that the kind of i listened to some quite interesting stuff presented by some deeply deeply troubled looking people troubled looking troubled looking right they i look to them and i go my god problematic looking i really hope i'm really glad i don't live your life that's what i thought i'm an empath yeah is that what empathy is yeah i think so there you go yeah yeah that's not that far off actually yeah so what are they what this guy was talking about the viking mindset you've got to get into the fact that the reason they were such terrifying warriors the viking mindset sounds like an instagram page that's posting motivational this is this is grinds the original like a massive guy on a fucking podcast telling you to wear mouth tape yeah that is the viking mindset so they're massive and they're ripped but again we don't really know how because they were eating fish not creatine but anyway this is pre-christian before the christianity rounded off the edges this is the great thing about paganism is that you get so many unique strange belief systems yeah that's completely different from each other and it feels just christianity completely just smooths off all the edges so they're all about the fates yeah and they think that everyone's going to die they know that they like very fatalistic it's a death system essentially what because ragnarok is a reckoning yeah so you have you have uh we're gonna do we'll do a patron special in mythology but you have essentially you have odin yeah who is the god the the called the old father but that more than anything how they saw odin was basically the god of the mind so right thoughts were odin so it was it was odin was the representative of your kind of cerebral brain basically right and then uh you what a warrior did which is basically how you were judged in in north society was how good you were at fighting how useful you were yeah which is why i think they like dwarves because they're like yeah fucking they're not going to expect them they got a little center of gravity yeah put them in a out of bolt so um so they uh you wanted to do was going to die with honor yeah you were going to die that was a given but i also understand dying with honor if life is that shit i do think dying with honor i could i can see it being quite appealing yeah so if you died with honor you would get to valhalla which is the whole odin's hall of warriors it was basically like a weather spoons yeah maybe it was like a beer hall yeah a beer hall push it's like a per like a just you're permanently at the pub basically you're basically permanently in the pub but i know loads of people at my local who basically live that life vikings well they're just local alcoholics who don't they're not dying with honor they're dying in a chair they're drowning in the bath they're not dying with honor but i'm saying the the valhalla dream is that you're basically in the hall of warriors drinking beer forever yeah but i know people who do that in real life but it's not very sad but it's not forever though is it the most honorable warriors in valhalla odin's keeping for Ragnarok where the gods all fight and the world ends.

32:59Oh, right. So you die with honour on Earth, which, by the way, they think is made out of a corpse. They think Earth's made out of a corpse. Yeah, we'll get into it on the Patreon, but it's wild. But then Odin then takes all the warriors to fight the other gods. Well, that's why the Avengers uses so many Viking references is because that is literally an Avengers plotline, right? Yeah, I must say, I don't... But the idea of assembling a team of superheroes to... fight off the end of the world yeah that's like all comes from mythology yeah anyway so you wanted to die and if you didn't die with honor you'd go to what's it's called they call it hell yeah but just one l but it's not bad it's just like it's just like it's just the office you know it's nothing it's like oh another day well it's just like oh you weren't you're a pussy yeah you just live a boring it's boring it's like purgatory basically but it's only christians that have the the fires and the oh and you know all the devil tongues but yes they act in a world where they think it's all going to it's crushing towards an end so there's a guy called ragnar lothbrok who is kind of semi-mythical right but what isn't mythical is that his sons come to uh the uk or england as it was then and uh it was anger land yeah and they um they ragnar lothbrok is captured supposedly by the king, whatever the fuck, of England.

34:24And he's thrown into a pit of venomous snakes. And what he says as he's thrown into the pit is, oh, my piggies are going to squeal when they hear about this. And what apparently this means is my sons are going to come fuck you up. And he goes into the pit laughing at the idea of his pigs, his sons, back in Norway, at the idea of avenging his death. So you're like, laughing shall I die? there's a big book about that because they're just loving they love it they love death yeah i mean i guess it's a comedic culture i think their idea of what's funny is quite different to what we find funny yeah it is because i think what they find funny is their their own head being chopped off well so yeah yeah exactly brilliant i'm dead yeah yeah there is that i get stabbed 13 times by by other men so suicide's not tragedy to them no because it's not it's glorious suicide would be bad it's being killed by other people that's funny yeah but it's not like i'm so miserable i'm gonna slip my wrist it's that it's not that no it's honest they don't have a suicidal culture because in in japan in rome the honorable thing is to kill yourself but then you know we found out that thing about called death by cop i can't remember when we found that out death by cop yeah it's when you try and mel gibson we did on the patreon about mel gibson yeah you could do suicide where you just yeah yeah suicide by cop where you purposely provoke a police officer into shooting you yeah That's kind of what they do.

35:46So there's this great story about how these Vikings are captured in Dorset. And again, it's very funny to think of a beheading happening in Dorset. But that's... It was a different time. Different time. Yeah. I mean, we can't make that clear enough. This is the sort of ninth century. The not modern day Dorset, which is a toilet. Yeah. That's not fair. It's got elements of quite nice. Right. Anyway, not the point. Not the point. This is not Finn versus Dorset. But it very nearly was. It nearly was for a second. I saw it in your eyes. I was like, should we do an episode on Dorset? No. I'm not doing an episode on Dorset.

36:14anyway uh these vikings are captured and they're lined up they're sat kneeling down to be beheaded they love it and they're like it's literally like the cue for bonnie blue yeah they're like they can't wait and then one of them says like oh can you hold my hold my long hair so i don't get blood on my hair when you behead me but with a very wry smiles yeah they're all like roger moore just insane puns insane danish roger moore and then uh so one of the one of the um captors holds this guy's hair in like a knot and he's leaning forward got his hair and then just as the axe is about to come down to behead him he snaps his head back and then dragging the guy's hands forward so the blade cuts the guy's hands off and then the captor the king finds it so funny that he lets all the Vikings go and then the guy holding the hand is he laughing as well is he like is he like you fucking got me you got me never gonna wank again no because they're not like the English aren't laughing they're English oh fuck oh oh fuck it oh no those are my hands he's like mark gold mark goldbridge oh oh come on again another one both hands oh both hands i need both hands oh for god's sake that's what he's doing and the vikings are just laughing oh yeah they love it uh there's also stories of like that whole thing that's now very cinematic in games of thrones or whatever where a king kills everyone and there's one guy left and he goes, you need to swear an allegiance to me.

37:44Here's the sword to swear allegiance with and the guy just stabs the king. Right. And then obviously gets killed straight away. But it's like that kind of twist of fate. They call it wit in a way. It's like that clear-sighted thinking. So like a kind of like, I don't know, Paul Merton on Have I Got News For You. Was it a dolphin in the bathtub? That sort of wit. I guess so. Yeah. I mean, this is early Have I Got News For You, isn't it? Before it got soft. That Viking was next to Ian Hislop, I think. I think he was on Ian's team when it happened.

38:41This message is brought to you by AppleCard. With AppleCard, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, AppleCard is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval, AppleCard is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at AppleCard.com. push your limits train with precision see the results at equinox that's high performance loving everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at equinox start today at equinox.com um yeah so there's also we should talk about berserkers which is the crazy this is part this is a theory as to why they were so fucking terrifying vikings yeah because it's interesting with vikings it's basically like even though i guess they were so bloodthirsty they did it was all just like burning and pillaging and destroying things there is such a like allure to them in the modern age because they're they just i guess they're so sick they're so masculine yeah there's something like and you compare with the ancient greeks they're actually quite unique as well i think that their whole worldview and everything yeah i don't think there's lots of similarities well the iceland the reason iceland is so distinct is because it's it was there was no people there before the vikings arrived yes and then it hasn't it was christianized peacefully and then it hasn't really ever changed no like europe it was you know you i mean you you i've been to it my wife won't stop going on about it it is amazing yeah it looks it's just like i think she was born in an egg there maybe right she came out of a volcano it's like a mistake by god because it doesn't look like anywhere else yeah it looks like god sneezed basically right and uh it's just like such strange it'd be like landscapes where it's just all perfectly sized rocks in a field covered in a layer of stonehenge sort of oh we got that but yeah no what are you saying well i was just saying you you know something about the origin of iceland right in that there was a king there was a norwegian king who got exiled or something and then he went to iceland and he brought loads of well because because of the long ships uh it meant that they could basically not only would they could they raid but that it meant there was amazing migrations that happened yeah that's how they colonized iceland all right um but they also went to greenland uh and the kind of they they traveled very far uh they set up early settlements on greenland but also the the greenland vikings even though it was quite a short-lived civilization they are said to be the first people to europeans to go to america yeah they went to canada they went to canada so it was actually before columbus and they call it vinland did they canada right yeah because they grew wine there what so in like an all-star battle of like vikings cowboys aztecs uh everyone mayans yeah it's like it's mario super smash bros do you think vikings win i think it's quite funny that you put cowboys in there yeah because cowboys like centuries later and have got have guns no but it's history's great yeah yeah well we're not samurai in like a bayblade sort of dome right well what 1v1 i guess vikings vikings well well if we're talking about berserkers samurais versus yeah we're talking about berserkers which we should talk about yeah then vikings are winning every time because what a berserker is so this is where you get the phrase going berserk right because you're the berserker with these units sort of like viking special forces yeah or like the ss or something sort of sas is like well organized oh the ss come on special soldiers yeah yeah super super soldiers yeah they would supposedly now we don't know how they did this but they would get into this alternate state, this trance where, and they sort of wear like a bear skin or a wolf head with no armor.

42:28Yeah. And they would just go fucking apeshit with like a club. And now supposedly maybe they took mushrooms. I think, yeah, it's quite, it feels quite like cokey. They drunk the blood of bears. They were then outlawed later in like, once it was Christianized, cause they were just too, they were too mental. Yeah. But they weren't even. Calm down. they weren't even like they'd be like every Viking invasion would have like a few of them and at one point they'd be like I'll just let them go and then these fucking they're furries they're dressed in like furry things it's terrifying that's what I mean we need to weaponise furries well yeah these are terrifying these guys but they're not trying to fuck you are furries a sex thing I never know what a furries is they are sort of they're sort of it's kind of blended there's a community as well but most communities yeah but communities now I mean it's people you want to fuck yeah I guess it's part of that it's not like the 50s where a community was like the green grocer and the woman at the wi no it's not it's definitely communities now like i want to dress up like a squirrel and fuck a badger there's a lot of fucking but there's also the world's gone down the toilet it's like fine we might have got into this to fuck animals but also it was about the friends we made along the way i mean that's sort of the vibe of furries right you know we came into this because we have weird sexual stuff about animals but that is what it is right but now i met you uh you're a friend for life what a badger yeah another badger right I came in here, this would be a speech at a furry conference.

43:49I came in here trying to fuck a squirrel. Yeah. And I left with a new friend.

43:56Anyway, the Vikings have these insane drugged up furries. Go on a fursona. Go on the Wikipedia of fursona. Is that your furry persona? Your fursona? What would your fursona be? Is a personally claimed persona resembling? All right. Anthropomorphic animal. Yeah. I mean, Christ. These are adults. Have you ever seen a furry? I saw one in Tottenham Court Road. In the flesh? in the wild yeah no terrifying I don't believe they exist I would try and shoot it I what I find funny is the idea that in like Victorian London there was a guy who wishes he was a furry but there was just no language for it oh so you see it as like an innate thing that's only just been allowed to be let out well it's it I don't know what it is but it's funny it's like transgender it'd be funny to think of it like that yeah so there was a guy in Victorian London who was just dressing up like a pig like in secret and everyone thought that guy's a bit weird society hasn't moved that queer is weird isn't it the Overton window hasn't no anyway this is when the furries were not autistic losers they were terrible no these were alpha furries if you can imagine such a thing if you can imagine insane like dressed in a fucking bear head they'd get a bear skin and they'd wear that because they'd get so mad they would literally kill anyone yeah they'd kill their own team they'd kill their own children they'd kill their own team they'd just attack animals they'd like cut a dog in half it's crazy they'd go fucking bananas yeah so that's where you get this phrase going berserk because they'd enter the state they're fired up they were pumped up they're david cameron at the election it pumps me up he's a conservative berserk he's a conservative berserker yeah it pumps me up what election was that 2015 so this is when cameron became a berserker an english berserker this is an english conservative berserker this is about as much as it gets okay this is going to be terrifying coming into downing street cowering what they've done often giving up a well-paid career, taking a risk, having a punt, having a go, that pumps me up.

45:49That's it. That's Cameron going, that pumps me up. Yeah, so he'd be right at the front of the army. Yeah. Everyone in suits with their sleeves rolled up. Everyone's like, hold back. Don't release the Berserker, the Cameron Berserker. And they're just coming and going, it pumps me up. And that's it. Right, I'm going to go home now. I'll let you get shot in the head of me. Shot in the head of me, did you? Anyway, should we talk about burials? Yeah. You need to know more about this. Well, there's an incredible... So what we haven't talked about really is how much they travel. We're going to do that more in the next episode.

46:16But so they settle Iceland and Greenland and then Newfoundland. They found Dublin. And what they do in England is they... If you think about the map from a Norwegian perspective, they basically go in like a straight line across England to Ireland. So there's like a corridor that they colonise. They go diagonally down. They go to York, York Viking Museum. York. York Viking Museum. Yeah. and they sort of so i guess if you're thinking about why are northerners so different to southerners right a lot of it is because they've got more viking blood than we do and why is cornwall such an outlier because they weren't really touched by it so they're yeah they're pure celts yeah they're pure britons okay yeah they're all that right because celts are and vikings are right you know and then saxons are like yeah i'm actually that's a map of britain yeah the genetic makeup of white british people yes is made up fundamentally of four parts yes right it's made up of celts so that's ireland the reaches of scotland cornwall yeah uh wells uh it's made up of vikings it's kind of more the east coast of scotland the north yeah and then you've got uh normans and saxons no you've got gypsies yes i guess yeah okay so there's five and then the saxons which is um um yeah so excuse me the autism comes from sax yeah it's the germanic germanic counting things shepherding things putting them in places most of the southeast southeast yeah and then the further west you go the further kind of celtic you get right right and then the further north is more vikings right and then the further kind of up towards scotland island there's the more like that's that and then the posh southerners are normans yes which are descended from vikings are they did you know this so this is very funny yeah in in um there's a guy called rollo and he was a viking who conquered because they go they go they go down and conquer france or frankia as it is then yeah and in 9 11 the original 9 11 the year 9 11 yeah france frankia give rollo uh the normandy and it's called normandy because it's Norseman D.

48:36Oh, right. So that, right, is where Normandy is a Viking colony. And then when, we'll get to it later, but in 1066, when the Normans successfully invade, the Vikings are involved in that before, which we'll get to in the next episode. But William the Conqueror is Norman, i.e. he's a Viking, his great, great, great, great granddad is Viking. Because you'd agree the Norman, the Norman vibe is... Norman. Norman. Norman. Norman. Norman. Yeah? Oh, Norman's here. Oh, brilliant. Oh, guys, now we can start Norman's here. Norman's here, finally. Right, we can start. What are they starting? Bridge? I don't know.

49:10You know, trains. Fucking settlers of Catan. We're having a gaming night. We can't start till Norman's here. Norman's gone berserk. Norman's gone berserk. He's put a bear outfit on. He's trying to fuck John. They don't feel very French to me, the Normans. No, they're not. Well, they're Vikings. They're kind of like the alpha French in a way. Yeah, exactly. They're actually autistic French, which is quite a brutal combo. Sort of cancel each other out. It's a double negative. but anyway so they found dublin yeah they and they found cork and then they also go east towards uh which we talked about in the russian revolution history episode they go down a lot of those rivers and set up like trading enslaving routes basically but they set up the kivan rus which is kind of the birthplace of kind of this uh ukraine and russia uh and then they set up uh they go down to Constantinople, which is like, what's happening in the West because it's since the fall of Rome, this is kind of like the 70s.

50:04Right. It's like 400 years. The lights are going out. It's like... Bin strikes. Anything's up for grabs. We don't know what's going to happen. We're waiting for big mummy Maggie to come and wake us up. That's Christianity, basically. Maggie! Yeah. But this kind of period, why it kind of all blurs into one is because it's all fallen to shit after the Romans have collapsed. And it's before like, I don't know. Charlemagne? when's charlemagne charlemagne is around 900 because the holy roman empire yeah which is part of the reason that the um the vikings get christianized is because of political but before it kind of really gets into the middle ages there's this period where you've got vikings you got it like it's the no one knows how to read you know it's like it's all over the place in the west but in constantinople it's like the golden age yes please my friend please my friend but it's like very good very good price it's never been better to be one of these guys but they have a lot of mercenaries who joined the Varangian Guard which is like an elite force of Vikings in Istanbul yeah so it's like and these fuckers are meant to be 8 foot tall the Varangian Guard but they're not 8 foot tall are they well maybe they're like 6 foot they're not anti I don't think they'll be Charlie's got a photograph of Andy Fordham the darts player the Viking who I think has lost a lot of weight or maybe died he's one of the two I guess it's the same I just don't imagine there's a kind of anyone who's 6 foot back in these days, right?

51:23No, but I think, you know, Danes... This was like a thousand years. Norse people are tall. That's why... They are the tallest people in the world. You've not heard about the fucking Icelander who just broke the world record for deadlifting. Yeah, but that's now. 500 kilograms. He's got modern protein. Yeah, but he's got Norse, you know... They're tallest for then, but it's still... Listen, this podcast does not believe in creating. It believes in scientific racism. Yes. And in the world of scientific racism, Norse is top. Norse is the Trump card. This is what Hitler tried to prove. yeah you try to uh link him try to link norse mythology yeah with because nazis didn't have like a you know the the barbarians the germanic tribes yeah the you know the the way we frame that in christendom is that they were uncivilized like i tell you the hun all this stuff yeah hordes of people who were thick ugly and doesn't work with the nazis doesn't work with the nazi things so the nazi tried to attach um their kind of prehistory to the vikings and the norse and so that's why there's a viking ss division that's why the ss local is viking runes yes that's why they uncovered in uh what's now denmark they uncovered a viking settlement they tried to make that like a nazi thing so the germanic truck the germanic people the arian race yeah that's all norse also the interest in north because they're tall yeah yeah but i think the norse mythology as well the appeal for northern europeans is that because most mythology that they were being taught was like roman and greek middle eastern middle eastern it's in the greek islands yeah in the shade of an olive tree yeah with beautiful clear water that's not so when you hear the norse thing you're like yeah there's a fucking massive giant smashing a forest full of trees fucking mountains yeah yeah that's like that makes it i look out the window and that makes sense to me a guy drinking a bear's head of blood and then going fucking mental saturday night i get it I get it.

53:09That makes sense to me, finally. You're talking to me. As a Protestant. It's not all these kind of, these fruity guys wearing togas. Yeah, asleep most of the day. I don't get it. I don't get it. I've got to understand it. Put it in a language I can understand. Tall men with hammers. Giants throwing dwarves at fucking mountains. Exactly. Giants using dwarves as entertainment at a party. Now I get it. Something I do like about the Norse worldview is, because obviously it feels like a very masculine world, right? Yes. It feels like it would be tough to be a woman. But it's tough to be a woman everywhere.