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Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

1:39

Hello, Greg here. Just a reminder that

1:41

our live special about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

1:44

is next week. March

1:46

29th is when you'll get that one.

1:48

So in the interim, here's a lovely

1:50

reversion of a previous episode. All about

1:52

old Norse literature or Viking myths. We

1:54

couldn't quite figure out what to call

1:56

it, but basically it's good stuff. If

1:58

you want the full length one with the quiz. and the rude

2:00

bits, you know where to find it. It's all the way

2:03

back in the BBC archive on

2:05

BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

2:07

So enjoy this and come back next week

2:09

for our Mozart Spectacular. Thank you. Bye. Hello

2:13

and welcome to Your Dentemy, a Radio

2:15

4 history podcast for everyone, for people

2:17

who don't like to speak, people who

2:19

do like history and people who forgot

2:22

to learn any at school. My name

2:24

is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian,

2:26

author and broadcaster and today we're grabbing

2:28

our mythological hammers and setting sail in

2:30

Viking Longboats for medieval Iceland to have

2:32

an introductory image through Old Norse myths

2:34

and literature. And rowing with me are

2:36

two very special guests. In

2:38

History Corner, she's a cultural historian, broadcaster

2:40

and author. She's the director in the

2:43

history of art at the departments for continuing

2:45

education at the University of Oxford. You'll definitely

2:47

have seen some of her many BBC documentaries

2:49

about art and medieval history on BBC Four,

2:51

including Secret Knowledge, The Art of the Vikings

2:53

and the Viking sagas. It's Dr. Yannina Ramirez.

2:55

Hi, Yannina, how are you? Hi,

2:58

Greg. Absolutely delighted to be talking

3:00

Vikings with you today. And

3:02

in Comedy Corner, he's a brilliant standup and

3:04

writer. You may have seen his hilarious debut

3:06

show on YouTube, Curd Your Enthusiasm, or you've

3:08

definitely seen him on Live at the Apollo,

3:10

Jonathan Ross's Comedy Club, Richard Osman's House of

3:12

Games, and more importantly, you'll remember him from

3:14

the Babylonians episode of You're Dead to Me.

3:16

It's Curd. Hey, Curd, welcome back. Thank you.

3:18

Thank you for having me back. It's a

3:20

pleasure. Okay, last time out we heard that

3:22

you enjoyed history at school, but how are

3:24

you with Viking history? Do you know your

3:26

Norse gods? All I remember is going to

3:28

Norway and spending 14 quid on a

3:31

tuna sandwich. So honestly,

3:33

it was just so expensive. So yeah, no,

3:35

absolutely nothing. And have you seen any of

3:38

the Marvel movies? Have you seen Thor, Ragnarok?

3:40

I've seen Thor, Ragnarok. That was quite funny,

3:42

but I'm assuming Thor

3:44

doesn't beat up Hulk in actual

3:46

real life. Well, you know, not

3:48

always. There's a lot

3:51

of manuscripts somewhere. So

3:53

What do you know? That

4:00

makes the third of the podcast it's called the

4:02

so what do you know. This is where I

4:04

have a go at guessing what you home might

4:06

know about today's subject. and I'm gonna bet the

4:09

you know quite a bit about Norse Mythology. maybe

4:11

through accidents. I mean you're going to know the

4:13

names Odin, Thor and Loki although typically that pronounced

4:15

within and the Thor and Loki may be read

4:17

about them in Neil Gaiman Norse Mythology or perhaps

4:19

more likely you stared at the shirtless Chris Hemsworth

4:22

and gone for yes please in the Thor movies.

4:24

But even if you know into that maybe you

4:26

just into the days of the week to say

4:28

is named off the To. Wotan is

4:30

Wednesday soon or Thor is

4:33

Thursday Friday Phraya or fake.

4:35

What? Else is that the know about

4:37

Norse mythology and Icelandic literature. Let's crack

4:39

on shall we talk the Nina: When

4:41

we talk about Old Norse literature, we

4:43

kind of talking about Icelandic literature. So

4:46

why Iceland? and when in history? Or

4:48

are we talking. While I was

4:50

just still reflecting on what I said

4:52

about fourteen pounds seen a sandwich because

4:54

sat there Is this a Scandinavian Wilde

4:57

said today as amazing healthcare and school

4:59

and very expensive sandwiches. Thought that the

5:01

unified the Scandinavian well does he like

5:04

as it goes back more than a

5:06

thousand years. But them real high points

5:08

out that is what we call the

5:10

Biting Aids and technically it begins in

5:13

the eighth century with a recorded attack

5:15

on a monastery and Lindisfarne in England.

5:17

Thoughts beats going to. People in

5:19

pop out of nowhere as an

5:21

ancient culture and should set of

5:24

beliefs ancient languages that come out

5:26

of luck. Today we cool Sweden,

5:28

Norway and Iceland which it's only

5:30

the had humans living in it.

5:32

For. One thousand one hundred odd years

5:34

say with a that the fest people

5:37

migrated a the there's no way in

5:39

a seventy eight days really young country

5:41

and immediately the first thing they start

5:44

their his writing this extraordinary that teacher.

5:46

was her abba and etc etc surrounds

5:48

about a fifth of sir of the

5:50

icelandic sagas they com a little bit

5:52

later on written down more in the

5:54

twelve hundreds well when i was a

5:56

christian dust a period of like king

5:58

arthur and the Night's the Round Table.

6:00

I thought you meant that's when you

6:02

went to like uni. Yeah, I

6:05

went to the University of King Arthur. That guy is a boozer.

6:07

So in the 1200s it's the time

6:09

of Schiavallrich literature in France and England

6:11

and Germany Wales, but in Iceland they've

6:13

got their own thing going on. We

6:15

call it the Edders and the Sagas.

6:17

What does that mean? The Edders

6:20

are dealing more with the mythological stories.

6:22

So there's a prize edder written by

6:24

a guy called Snorri Spilsen who's a

6:26

very impressive person. That tells us these

6:28

stories that we all get so excited

6:30

about, like Ragnarok, Odin, about

6:32

all the idea of the world tree

6:34

and the world serpent. And

6:36

then there's the sagas. Now the sagas

6:38

often take a back seat

6:41

when people start to dip their toe

6:43

into the world of the Vikings, but

6:45

they are amazing. They're really gossipy. They're

6:47

really modern. It's a bit like episodes

6:50

of Coronation Street or EastEnders playing out.

6:52

They are more like the novels of

6:54

the last hundred years or so, but

6:56

they're really, really different stylistically to

6:58

anything else than medieval periods. So

7:00

we've got the prose edder and

7:03

we've got the poetical edder. These

7:05

are two different texts. Prose written

7:07

not as poetry. Poetical edder obviously

7:09

is. Why do they exist as

7:11

different things? There's a sense in the

7:14

prose edder that Snorri is trying

7:16

to create something more like the

7:18

sagas in terms of family trees,

7:20

relationships between the gods, the way

7:22

the stories unfold in this narrative

7:24

way. You can see time span

7:26

moving on. So poetry is the

7:29

nearest thing to it is rap

7:31

music because it's all rhythmical and

7:33

it's all alliterative. Do they have

7:35

their own version of like death poetry

7:37

jam or something? I mean, they

7:40

do. I mean, you hear about people being

7:42

killed for not doing good enough

7:44

poems. That's how it should

7:46

be. And Snorri's one of

7:48

the reasons he creates the prose edder is

7:50

to try and explain some of the myths.

7:53

It's coming up the cliff notes or sort

7:55

of Bluff his guide to understanding all these

7:57

really complicated stories. That text in some ways

7:59

really helps us. historians, so it's quite

8:01

handy. I love the idea of there being like some

8:03

version of like, you know the comic book guy and

8:06

the Simpsons? Yeah, just going,

8:08

woot, saga, ever. Like, yeah.

8:14

Definitely the guy sort of complaining about plot holes

8:16

going, oh, that never would have happened actually. Exactly.

8:19

Snorri Sturluson, who is this great poet who

8:21

writes one of our texts we're talking about,

8:23

he's living in the 1200s. He's

8:26

a law speaker, which is a really important job

8:28

because he's in charge of knowing all the

8:30

law and all the history. He gets embroiled in politics.

8:32

He's murdered by his sons-in-law, so it doesn't end up

8:34

that well. But the thing I love most about him,

8:36

he builds a hot tub in his garden. And

8:39

that's one of the things we know about him. He

8:41

built a David Lloyd in his back garden. I love

8:44

this guy. We've got the prose editor

8:46

and the poetical editor, and then we've got the sagas.

8:48

And the sagas are more family stories about real people,

8:50

actual kings, actual families. And there's loads of them, but

8:52

I think you've chosen one that you want to talk

8:54

about, which is the Lax Dealer saga. It's

8:57

amazing. I'm telling the story

8:59

really about the original settlers in

9:01

Iceland, not the supermarket that comes

9:04

right here. Tuna fish sandwich at Iceland is a lot

9:06

cheaper than in Iceland, it seems like. It

9:09

starts off with the original settlers.

9:11

Now, as I mentioned earlier,

9:13

Iceland as a landmass wasn't occupied

9:15

by humans. A couple of Irish

9:17

monks managed to get over there,

9:19

set up a tent, and I

9:21

think survived for a short while

9:23

because they didn't manage to reproduce,

9:25

surprisingly. So it was only when

9:28

people were being exiled out of

9:30

Norway, they were finding new places

9:32

to set up home. And in

9:34

Lax Dealer, it starts with Unthe

9:36

Deep-Minded, which is the seriously coolest

9:38

name for any woman in literature,

9:40

Unthe Deep-Minded. She sets up a

9:42

generation of families thriving around this

9:44

fjord in Iceland. But the real story

9:46

kicks in about halfway through, and it's

9:49

a love triangle between a good friend

9:51

who is described as the most beautiful

9:53

woman ever to have grown up in

9:56

Iceland, and no less clever than she

9:58

was good looking. I'm using that,

10:00

that's going to go on my business card. She's

10:03

beautiful. These two best friends, my foster

10:05

brothers are desperate to win her over. She's

10:07

told by a wise man, she'll have four

10:09

husbands. She does end up having four husbands

10:12

across her life. And the first one, she

10:14

doesn't like him very much. She says she

10:16

divorces him. And the way she divorces him

10:18

is in Icelandic law. You could divorce a

10:20

guy if he dressed up in ladies clothes.

10:22

So what she does is she takes his

10:24

shirts and cuts a really low neck life.

10:28

So when our husband goes out the next day with

10:30

this low cut neckline, she's like, oh

10:32

my God, he's dressing up a woman.

10:34

Divorce. So she's divorced by 15. And

10:37

then she goes on and gets these

10:39

other partners. Next husband dies drowning

10:41

through witchcraft. And

10:43

then ultimately it ends up in this

10:45

horrible clash between these two best friends,

10:47

Kjalltan and Botley, where Botley kills Kjalltan.

10:50

She was at a Kim Kardashian at that

10:52

age, just getting married to anyone. And the

10:54

Laxdale saga, what's interesting about it is, as

10:56

well as featuring some pretty extraordinary women, we

10:58

think it might have been composed by women.

11:01

Yeah, it's difficult to know. Various studies have been

11:03

done to look at word patterns that doesn't sound

11:05

more like a woman talks than a man talks.

11:08

I can't say that. Maybe you can say that. I'm not allowed to

11:10

say that. Did you see the way I just moved away from a

11:12

microphone when that was it? What

11:15

we can say is that we know

11:17

from DNA analysis, the first set of

11:19

people who seem to settle Iceland, the

11:21

men seem to be your typical Viking

11:23

men warriors coming over big, scandey guys.

11:25

But the women seem to have come

11:27

from Ireland and Hebrides and the British

11:29

Isles. And there's a combining of storytelling

11:31

techniques between those two cultures. The Celtic

11:33

people have a really long tradition of

11:35

telling amazing sort of fantasy stories and

11:38

spinning yarns. It's usually the women doing

11:40

the storytelling in that society. Combine that

11:42

with the sort of heroic sagas of

11:44

the Viking men, and you've got

11:46

this unique flowering of storytelling. Nina,

11:48

in these stories, there are three time

11:50

periods. There's the mythical past, the mythical

11:52

present and the mythical future. Let's start

11:55

with the past, the creation of the

11:57

universe. What is it? Big Bang?

11:59

Is It a goddess? Bomb seven days, no

12:01

worries or is a bit more Viking? a

12:03

bit more magical. The mysterious. Is.

12:05

Crazy. But then so many of these were

12:07

created. read: saw amazing You I imagining what

12:10

com that nothing and the way I imagine

12:12

it is I didn't is that. Soon.

12:14

as this space. The a

12:16

sort of of bullied. It's cool if you

12:18

know that gap in order to fill the

12:20

space in the boy they kill this giant

12:23

the first being called a nap and then

12:25

they pull his body apart. They may sit

12:27

out of his body say earth is made

12:29

from his skin. the seas mates miss blood.

12:31

The man since from is fine and a

12:33

day that you have. Existence A would

12:36

make a good Craig David song by

12:38

would his attorney had like seven days.

12:40

The classic live you to sing in

12:42

space and avoid this. Not the same

12:44

but. So. He has

12:46

no in world's but only for nothing

12:48

really important and they are connected by

12:50

huge world free which is an asterisk

12:52

what it's like So you have got

12:54

the world of men, the human world

12:57

which is of miss God you've got

12:59

the underworld me for him. These.

13:01

Are all great. Products are an Ikea blood

13:03

on a success. If. You

13:05

go as god or as gods which is the

13:08

world of the gods that's connected to the wolves

13:10

men by the be thrust of the by for

13:12

of the rainbow bridge with a to sell their

13:14

on it he him though then you've got the

13:16

world of the giants at the bottom of the

13:18

tory this a serpents for the top of the

13:20

treat as an eagle in the middle of the

13:22

tree to guess what animal there is there tie.

13:25

A wolf, the squirrel and the squirrels job

13:27

is to pass information between or but if

13:29

world's best what you'll put it on your

13:31

coat of arms. The squirrels yeah that a

13:33

brother. And then

13:35

the bottom of the three there were three

13:37

new ones who are magical women who feed

13:39

the treaty but allies and they represent the

13:41

past present future you could imagine in your

13:43

head. Is this a few story with all

13:45

these different branches and as a different world

13:47

on each branch. And then we got the

13:49

Gods Nina You mentioned already there are two

13:51

types that the Us here and Vanya said

13:53

what's going on there. seventy or the

13:55

more as the gods and goddesses said

13:58

that the fertility god said mary to

14:00

magic and mysticism. Whereas

14:02

the Aesir, it's like a party

14:05

on Mount Olympus, they have Odin

14:07

who's married to Frigg, Thor

14:09

among their children. It's more of a family

14:11

tree going on there but eventually there's one

14:13

person who crosses between the two and becomes

14:16

goddess of the Aesir and the Vanir and

14:18

that's Brea. It's a bit like

14:20

boxing where they combine the two belts and

14:22

they become like the undisputed heavyweight champion. She

14:25

goes from big amateur to pro. So we've

14:28

got us guardies, the world of the gods,

14:30

the Aesir, the main gods, Thor, the Odin,

14:32

the Loki. We've also got magical dwarves, magical

14:35

elves, trolls and

14:37

giants. Nina, are the big problem aren't

14:39

they? A giant problem, yep. Magic

14:42

is pretty problematic. People do bad

14:44

spells on one another. Anybody likes to talk

14:47

about Thor but Odin is the really interesting

14:49

over-god if you like because he's a god

14:51

of wisdom and poetry which I think again

14:53

going back to what we were saying about

14:55

the power of poetry, it was so important

14:57

to them. They express themselves, they express their

15:00

ideas through this poetry but he also gives

15:02

up one of his eyes to achieve ultimate

15:04

wisdom. So he's a one-eyed god. I'll be

15:06

honest with you, I've not given up an eye

15:08

for all of that. He throws his eye down

15:10

the magical well of Mimia in order to gain

15:13

knowledge. He also stabs himself with his own spear,

15:15

fasts for a week and he hangs himself

15:17

from a tree for nine days. These are

15:19

all his techniques for acquiring wisdom. I mean

15:21

Wikipedia is just there. He's

15:25

married to Frick and then

15:28

there's also Thor, their kid, god of

15:30

thunder, god of war and he's a

15:32

bit thick Thor. I think what's

15:34

also interesting is how Pike of Waititi

15:36

and the Ragnarok film do his dumbness

15:39

because you'd think it's played up, you'd

15:41

think oh come on, you wouldn't have

15:44

a god that's really that dumb but

15:46

the stories about Thor, he is seriously

15:48

lacking in the brain department and he's

15:50

constantly being outmaneuvered by Loki, god of

15:52

mischief, who while being really bad is

15:55

actually really funny and clever. Does he

15:57

actually have a hammer or was that like a Marvel

15:59

invention? It's quite a hard thing to

16:01

say, even harder to spell, but Mjolnir is

16:03

the hammer. Mjolnir, Mjolnir. Yeah, that's right. Sounds

16:05

like the name of a centre-back. Yeah, exactly.

16:08

Yeah, Man United designed him from Bronzy. Yeah.

16:11

I just want to talk quickly

16:13

about Freya, or Freya is the

16:15

Old Norse pronunciation. She is the

16:17

goddess of sex, fertility, poetry

16:19

and shamanic magic. What I

16:21

love about her is she's got a chariot. Do you want

16:23

to guess what it's pulled by? What animal, Kay? Is

16:26

it a rabbit? No, good guess. It's cats.

16:28

She's got a chariot pulled by cats, which

16:30

I think is a terrible idea, because cats,

16:32

they don't go in the same direction. A

16:35

team of cats, they wouldn't do anything. They'd

16:37

go nowhere. Because cats just like, after a

16:39

while, they're like, well, she seems to be

16:41

going through hard times. See you later, and

16:43

ends up like in some nubber flat. One

16:46

of my favourite stories, actually, is that Thor's

16:48

hammer is stolen, because Thor's so thick, it

16:50

gets stolen off him by a giant called

16:52

Thrym. The giant blackmails them and says, I

16:55

will give you your hammer back if Freya

16:57

agrees to marry me. Good luck, mate. Kay,

17:03

do you want to guess how they

17:06

get out of this predicament? And I'll

17:08

tell you that Loki, Thor and Thrym

17:10

are all involved in this plan. They

17:12

lure him into Freya's house. Meanwhile,

17:14

Loki takes the hammer.

17:16

It's a good plan. It's slightly different than

17:19

the real plan, Nina. So they dress Thor,

17:22

the macho god of thunder,

17:24

up as Freya. And this

17:26

wasn't obvious. Well,

17:29

it wasn't obvious until at one point, they sit

17:31

down at the Bridal Feast and

17:33

then Thor devours chickens

17:36

and salmon whole, and then proceeds

17:38

to drink ten vats of

17:40

beer. This is like

17:42

getting Conor McGregor to dress up like Holly

17:44

Willoughby. They get far

17:47

enough in the plan that they are actually able

17:49

to take Mjolnir back. And as soon as he

17:51

gets Mjolnir, he just smashes Thrym to smithereens.

17:53

We haven't said much about him so far,

17:55

but Loki in Thor movies is definitely the

17:57

most fun, obviously, because he's a trickster. He's

18:00

naughty, but he's really really

18:02

really naughty. He's also, that's not the only time

18:04

He's had to save Freya from getting married to

18:06

a giant. There's a giant who turns up and

18:09

says I can build you a wall around Asgard.

18:11

I can do it in record time and if

18:13

I do it in record time I get to

18:15

marry Freya and the gods are like sure yeah

18:17

You'll never do it in record time and then

18:19

he turns up with his stallion this huge mighty

18:22

horse That helps him build the wall really

18:24

fast and they're panicking because they're like uh-oh We're gonna have

18:26

to marry Freya to this this giant. He

18:28

turns himself into a female horse

18:30

and he seduces the stallion

18:33

and then Gets pregnant and

18:36

Loki becomes a mother to

18:38

an eight-legged horse called Sleipnir

18:40

That is then Odin's famous eight-legged horse.

18:43

So Loki is a mum. I just

18:45

love the Chaotic wonder of

18:47

their world anything goes Loki

18:50

as well as being a mum to an

18:52

eight-legged horse is also a dad

18:54

to a normal human child With his wife

18:56

called Sigin, but he's also a dad to

18:59

three monsters Do you want to

19:01

guess what the monsters are and one of the monsters you've already actually

19:03

Name-checked and I shot you down so one of them you

19:06

were already right which is the wolf Do

19:08

you know what bro says you said three monsters all I

19:10

can remember is that scene from Toy Story? Wada

19:13

vast, wada vast Where

19:16

mr. Potato head becomes their dad Given

19:19

how ridiculous everything sounds I'm gonna say a poodle

19:21

on a goldfish So the poodle

19:24

K would be I guess the wolf Goldfish

19:26

a little small actually a huge serpent

19:29

that curls all the way around the

19:31

world and bites its own tail And

19:33

then the third weirdly is a sort

19:36

of human but a half-dead half living

19:38

human She's half blue half pink colored

19:40

and she is called hell and

19:43

you can probably guess which kingdom she's given to

19:45

run She's given the underworld to look after Those

19:48

are the three monsters that are born from Loki

19:50

and a giant he has sex with a giant

19:52

and gets a pregnant three times and Ragnarok

19:54

or Ragnarok is I think it was called in Old Norse

19:56

is The end

19:58

of the world Nina really intense. When

20:01

Ragnarok is going to kick off, there's

20:03

all these different signs that start. So

20:05

crows make sounds in each of the

20:08

different kingdoms and there's a blood-red one

20:10

down in hell that starts crowing. The

20:12

wolf-garn that guards the gate of

20:15

the underworld rapes free of his

20:17

chains. All this sort of tension

20:19

building up, but ultimately it's a

20:21

battle, it's a cataclysmic battle and

20:23

it's between the gods and

20:25

essentially the giants, but you get

20:27

all sorts of other people joining

20:29

in. You get an army of

20:32

the dead, Loki leads them, you

20:34

have different creatures, so

20:36

the world serpent lets go

20:38

of its tail, Thor fights

20:40

the world serpent, both die,

20:42

Fenrir manages to kill Odin.

20:44

So sort of wiping the

20:46

slate clean of the ancient

20:48

gods and goddesses. That's a

20:50

really interesting moment because Christianity

20:52

has now come to most of Scandinavia and

20:55

it is a sort of end of days,

20:57

but it's also the end of that world

20:59

view, that end of that world religion. But

21:01

it is really, really dark and really intense

21:04

and the descriptions of it are like nothing

21:06

else you'll read. There's a real sense in

21:08

the way it's written in the different versions

21:10

as well of the sounds and the effects

21:12

of it, all that there's flames and the

21:14

world tree is shaking. This is

21:16

like a EastEnders Christmas special. Way

21:21

too much going on at once.

21:23

Ian Beale has been slaughtered by

21:25

a giant wolf. Rag butchers come

21:27

back from the dead. Everyone basically

21:34

kills everyone else, but there are

21:36

a couple of gods left over and there is a

21:38

reincarnation, isn't there Nina? Yeah, there's a

21:40

revisiting of the wonderful Baldur, that

21:42

golden boy, and he's

21:45

going to start the world afresh. A

21:47

lot of the gods die, but there are

21:49

these few that manage to make it through

21:51

and create a better world afterwards. But as well

21:53

as the gods, there are also

21:55

other creatures that we haven't mentioned. So just

21:57

very quickly Nina, who are the Valkyrie? The

22:00

Valkyrie actually are women who fly over

22:02

the battlefield. So they mention them a

22:04

lot in battle poetry, because they are

22:06

the ones that are supposed to select

22:08

the heroes that have died in battle.

22:11

So the only way hell, as in

22:13

H-E-L, is

22:15

almost the opposite of Christian hell.

22:17

It's not flames and torture. It's

22:20

very cold and it's very boring.

22:22

It's like an eternal winter. Some

22:24

of our Iceland. Ah, that's amazing.

22:26

You basically carry on living your

22:29

same cold life for eternity. And anyone who

22:31

doesn't do anything amazing as a hero ends

22:33

up there. So there's a real sense in

22:35

which you kind of want to be a

22:37

warrior and you would quite like to die

22:39

on the battlefield, because then you get a

22:41

chance to go either to Valhalla,

22:44

all of Odin, or you get to go to

22:46

Freya's Hall. And the Valkyries are the ones that

22:48

sweep around in the battlefield and choose those people.

22:50

Choose who's going to go to Freya and who's

22:53

going to go to Odin. I

22:55

love that. That's like when your flight gets cancelled, isn't

22:57

it? And the airline gives you an option of two

22:59

places you could go. You could

23:01

go Barcelona in May, or you

23:03

could go to Vienna in March.

23:05

Which one do you choose? So

23:08

as well as the gods, the kind of

23:11

real hardcore weird myths, and as well as

23:13

the historical documents, we've also got

23:15

a third category, which are the sort

23:17

of fantasy, sort of legendary, but they're

23:19

humans. So stories like Sigurd, who

23:22

is the dragon slayer. And

23:24

as well as Sigurd, there's also Brunhilde,

23:27

which brings us onto women in these

23:29

stories. We're not sure if women were

23:31

allowed to be warriors in Viking society, but they

23:33

are allowed to be warriors in the stories they

23:35

tell, aren't they? We've mentioned Freya

23:37

and the fact that she takes warriors of

23:40

life. We've mentioned the Valkyries and the fact

23:42

that they play a role in the battlefield.

23:44

But recently, there's been discoveries made from archaeology

23:46

that suggest that we could be looking at

23:48

warrior women being a real thing. He used

23:50

to be assumed if a skeleton came out

23:52

of the ground and it was holding a

23:54

weapon, but it was probably a man. So

23:57

there wasn't the DNA analysis being done,

24:00

returning to skeletons, returning to base and

24:02

having another look and saying, you know, maybe some

24:04

of these people that were buried with weapons were

24:06

about women. So it's exciting. It's exciting time. Discovery

24:08

is being made all the time. So the

24:10

sagas, Nina, are written in old Icelandic.

24:12

That's the language, which is pretty similar

24:15

to modern Icelandic. The language hasn't changed

24:17

in a thousand years, but

24:19

they're written late. They're written

24:21

in the 1200s. After

24:24

the Viking Age, these people were

24:26

Christians. They weren't pagans anymore. How

24:28

reliable are they as insights into

24:30

actual Viking mindsets? Well, this thing

24:32

is really coming back to the

24:34

notion of writing and what writing does.

24:36

Nowadays, we tend to use the word

24:38

illiterate to suggest someone's a bit sick

24:40

or ignorant. But actually in

24:42

societies that didn't use writing, people were

24:44

using so much more of their brain

24:46

to remember information. They had to remember

24:48

who was married to whom, who owned

24:50

what, and all their myths,

24:52

and all their stories. So their capacity

24:54

to remember, for me, makes them all

24:56

the more intelligent. But when writing comes

24:59

along, that is not a biting thing.

25:01

They are not using long-form writing to

25:03

record information. It's Christianity that brings writing.

25:05

So the only reason these things are

25:07

written down at all is because they

25:09

were written down by people who've been

25:11

Christian guys. And that instantly makes you

25:13

think, whoever this person is, however objective

25:15

they are, they're writing it as a

25:18

Christian hundreds of years after the original

25:20

stories were being recited. So there's

25:22

going to be some things that don't quite fit. But

25:25

there's something else going on here, which is that

25:27

Iceland were going through a period of such change

25:30

and independence that they became really traditional in the

25:32

light of that. And so they cling on all

25:34

the more in the 12th and 13th century to

25:36

their old stories. So in a funny sort of

25:39

way, I think they're trying really hard to preserve

25:41

things as accurately as they possibly could at the

25:43

time. That's what for me makes the Icelandic stuff

25:45

all the more exciting. It was

25:48

like there was another guy going, let's go back to the

25:50

good old times. That is the reality

25:52

of it. Because that's

25:54

the only thing, all of these stories, because

25:56

they were part of this oral tradition, this

25:58

shared information. If they hadn't actually read

26:00

it down it could have fallen off. So it

26:03

is amazing that somebody took the time to write

26:05

them down. And they were popular, they couldn't just

26:07

write it down once. Some of them, like Lax

26:27

Well, hopefully you've got the impression of how

26:30

much I love the Viking world that I've

26:32

discovered through

26:53

the literature, through the artifacts, the

26:55

archaeology. But it is

26:58

sadly misrepresented and has been

27:00

for a long time. So the

27:02

traditional idea of the bearded Viking

27:04

warrior sailing out on the seas,

27:07

attacking them. We're learning constantly

27:09

now about how that is not a

27:11

true representation of the Viking world. It

27:13

was much more about trade, about travel

27:15

and about encounter. And the elements of

27:17

the bloodthirsty aspects of the Vikings is

27:19

just a small part of it. What's

27:22

much more exciting is learning about how

27:24

cultured, how civilised, how the women behave,

27:26

how the societies are structured. But what's

27:28

also worrying is how so many of

27:30

these misrepresentations have just become commonplace. If

27:32

you're going to go to a party

27:34

as a Viking, what are you going

27:36

to go and buy? A horned helmet.

27:39

And in fact, just that basic symbol

27:41

of the Vikings is wrong. There's never

27:43

been a Viking horned helmet discovered. So

27:45

why do we have it? We have

27:47

it because just over 100

27:49

years ago, Wagner, the rain cycle

27:51

was being put on. Again, this

27:53

reclaiming of the Viking identity for

27:56

nationalists. And the helmets

27:58

were smooth originally. but they

28:00

couldn't be seen from the back of the

28:02

theater. If they put big horns on the

28:05

top, they'd be more visible. And it's carried

28:07

on as this really unfair identifying symbol of

28:09

the Vikings. But what's even more worrying is

28:11

how the reputation of the Vikings are now

28:14

being assumed by the far right. When we

28:16

saw the attacks on Congress, we saw people

28:19

with Viking-inspired tattoos claiming that they

28:21

were part of this super race,

28:24

this Aryan race. And

28:26

if anything, this conversation you all have

28:28

been hearing today will tell you quite

28:30

what a rich, diverse, and multiracial place

28:32

the Viking world was. They traveled everywhere.

28:35

They got over to the edges of

28:37

the Americas. They went all the way

28:39

down into Constantinople. So I want to

28:41

see an end to this nationalistic hijacking

28:44

of a period of the past that

28:46

I love. All that's left for

28:48

me now is to say a huge thank you to

28:50

my guests. In History Corner, we've had the wonderful Dr.

28:52

Yannina Ramirez from the University of Oxford. Thank you, Nina.

28:55

Thank you. It's been so much fun. And

28:57

in Comedy Corner, we've had Kaye Curd. Thank you

28:59

very much. And to you lovely listener, join me

29:01

next time as we take another trip on the

29:03

Rainbow Byfrost Bridge to a different mythic past with

29:06

two new heroes. But for now, I'm off to

29:08

go and round up the neighborhood cats and try

29:10

and get them to pull my chariot. It's going

29:12

to be an absolute nightmare. Thanks very much. Bye.

29:22

I just fought one guy, and I get jumped by

29:24

his friends on a

29:27

summer's night in Glasgow city

29:29

centre. Two childhood friends become

29:32

mortal enemies. We

29:35

rest our friendship

29:38

for one match. I'm

29:41

Matthew Side, and from BBC

29:43

Radio 4, this is Sideways.

29:46

In the first episode of the new season, step

29:49

into the ring to explore the

29:51

cost of holding grudges

29:55

sideways. Listen on

29:57

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30:05

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