00:06Well, I personally do tend to like the Minnesota Vikings.
00:11Oh, yeah.
00:12They got nice people up there.
00:13Their fan base.
00:14Cheese.
00:15Yeah, Dante Culpepper.
00:17Good cheese.
00:18No, that's Green Bay.
00:19Yeah.
00:20They probably have good cheese in Minnesota, though.
00:23They almost certainly do.
00:24Yes.
00:25And we think of Vikings today as being these horned-helmeted...
00:29Yeah.
00:30Kind of...
00:30But the truth about Vikings is slightly different,
00:38and that's what we're going to be working on today.
00:39Uh-oh.
00:40Is that good or bad?
00:41Well, you can be the judge.
00:43Is it objective?
00:46I mean, I'm going off Wikipedia.
00:49Because it was a long time ago.
00:51The Viking Age.
00:52Could be subjective.
00:54Sure.
00:55The Viking Age was from the 8th to the 11th century.
00:59Oh, 800.
01:01This is a group of people.
01:03These are the people that were from what is now Scandinavia.
01:08Okay.
01:08Which is where?
01:10Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
01:13Okay.
01:14Yep.
01:14And maybe Finland, too.
01:15I like those people.
01:17The best.
01:17Yeah.
01:18Good people.
01:19I feel like you would be one.
01:20Every time I've ever been there, when I'm on the street, if some stranger starts talking
01:25to me, they talk to me in their native tongue.
01:27Really?
01:27Which I find very flattering.
01:28What is it?
01:29Blah, blah, blah.
01:30Yeah.
01:31Yeah?
01:31I don't understand it.
01:33But they assume that I'm one of them.
01:35You don't know any of the sentences?
01:35And then I try to come back and be like, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:38And they're like, what the fuck?
01:40I feel like you could easily learn Scandinavian, move there, and live a happy life.
01:46But it's not, there's no such thing as Scandinavian.
01:49They speak different languages in each of their countries.
01:53Denmark-ish?
01:53Norwegian, Danish.
01:55Ah.
01:55Do you know what they speak in Finland?
01:58Uh, Finnish.
01:58Yeah.
01:59Come on.
02:01That's what I used to say when I was done with something.
02:03I would say, this is Finnish.
02:05I am Finnish.
02:07I don't believe you.
02:08I'd call my buddy Rob Jones right now.
02:11Rob Jones.
02:11That's a real person.
02:12I swear to God.
02:13Dude, you want to call Rob Jones?
02:16Old Bobby.
02:17We're not calling Bobby Jones.
02:18Yes, we are.
02:19Rob.
02:20Oh, God.
02:21Francis didn't believe I had a friend named Rob Jones tell me that's real.
02:26Yeah, pretty generic.
02:26I mean, I'd argue it's a robber, but, uh, yeah.
02:29Okay.
02:30Second of all, when we had our podcast in 2016, how would we always end it?
02:34Something to do with Finland?
02:36Are we Finnish?
02:37Finnish.
02:38This episode is Finnish.
02:40See?
02:41My name is Rob Jones, and we did say we're Finnish.
02:44All right.
02:44All right.
02:45Thanks, Rob.
02:46See ya.
02:47Bye.
02:48Suck my car.
02:49Wow, he really offered a lot of that.
02:52In no way was that you just being like, didn't we do this?
02:55The Vikings were seafaring people.
02:57Okay.
02:57They were expert sailors.
02:58Yeah.
02:59With their longboats that had not only sails and things, but they also had guys that would
03:04row them, right?
03:05Yeah.
03:06And a lot of the time, those people were slaves.
03:08Oh.
03:08I mean, they were a pirating, pillaging, marauding group.
03:13Okay.
03:14And they would venture far, far away.
03:17And they would go into Europe and all the way to the Mediterranean, to North Africa.
03:23They even went to Newfoundland.
03:24Oh!
03:25Yeah, they were not afraid to go near and far.
03:27These boys were hungry.
03:30You know, there is a perception of them as being these berserk lunatics.
03:36Yeah.
03:37And there may be some truth to that.
03:39The berserker mentality of the Viking warrior could have been brought on by some hallucinogenic
03:46things that they would take before going into battle.
03:49Wow.
03:49A very common weapon, a common weapon that they liked, was the two-handed axe that could
03:55cleave the shield of an opponent.
03:57So that was real?
03:58Yeah.
03:58Wow.
04:00That's so sick.
04:00I'd be such a bad Viking, though.
04:03Do you ever think about, like, if you were placed into that era of life, how you would fare?
04:09Yeah, I think I would have been fine, but I would think that the typical lifespan for a
04:14man at that time was, like, 36.
04:16Oh, really?
04:17I just don't think you're living that long.
04:19I got four left.
04:20This is my last year.
04:21Wow, shit.
04:21You're 36.
04:23Yeah, I'm 36.
04:23I would have guessed 35.
04:30So generous.
04:3134?
04:31At one point, a group of Rus, I think it's Rus, Rus, Vikings, ventured so far south that
04:38they got all the way to the Byzantine Empire.
04:41Wow.
04:41And served for a period as the bodyguards for the Byzantine Emperor.
04:47These guys are badass.
04:48And then they turned around and attacked Constantinople.
04:51Did they win?
04:52I think so.
04:53I mean, they won everything.
04:53How big was this crew of dudes?
04:55I don't think it was particularly huge, but they were just fierce and highly trained and
05:01ferocious in battle.
05:03You gotta bring Vikings.
05:04Big dudes.
05:04Oh, yeah.
05:05Big dudes.
05:06Burly guys.
05:06They're gonna bring Vikings back, man.
05:08Well, there has been this sort of renaissance of Viking appreciation that happened in the
05:1419th century.
05:14Okay.
05:15Where we kind of Hollywoodized them a little too much because the truth is that there is
05:20no indication that they ever actually wore the helmets with the horns on them.
05:23I like to think there is horns involved.
05:26Yeah.
05:26And like big shoulder pads.
05:29They were civilized people, though.
05:31These weren't just total brutes.
05:33They would use bows a little bit.
05:36Bow and arrows.
05:36Oh.
05:37Bows and arrows.
05:37But they were considered not honorable.
05:40Okay.
05:41And so they would opt instead for melee weapons.
05:45Like an energy sword?
05:47Sure.
05:48You know those?
05:49Yeah.
05:50Remember energy swords, though?
05:51You ever have one of those battles?
05:53Yeah.
05:53Shotty snipes?
05:54Oh, yeah.
05:54You ever do shotty snipes?
05:56Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:56In Halo 3?
05:57Yeah?
05:57Yeah.
05:57Oh, really?
05:58Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:59Wait, really?
06:00I'm a Halo 3 guy.
06:01No.
06:01Oh, I go way back.
06:03Me and Halo 3.
06:03No, no, no.
06:04Really?
06:04We made a video.
06:05Me and Sass.
06:06Did you play as a child?
06:08I played in college.
06:09Really?
06:10Yeah, it was my freshman year of college.
06:12I didn't play much online.
06:13We would just do, you know, 1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v1v2.
06:15That's it.
06:16I don't know why.
06:16That shocks me.
06:17Guardian.
06:18Oh, Guardians of the Goan.
06:19Standard weapons.
06:20Yeah.
06:20You go get the shotgun.
06:21You're a problem.
06:22I was a fucking problem.
06:23Shotty snipes?
06:24Yeah.
06:25I don't know why this, like, makes me glow right now.
06:27Oh, you know.
06:28I was a level 49.
06:29What's that?
06:30Out of 50.
06:31Oh, jeez.
06:32The warfare and the violence of the Vikings, like so many modern cultures, was fueled by their defense of their religious beliefs.
06:39And those beliefs were characterized by believing in Norse gods like Odin and Thor.
06:46Greg.
06:47No.
06:49No.
06:50Ultimately, the Viking Age ended because Scandinavia sort of consolidated power.
06:57European defenses became more...
06:59They could put up a better fight.
07:00Yeah, yeah, yeah.
07:01And the spread of Christianity sort of created a far larger population that could defend against the proselytizing through violence Vikings.
07:17Proselytizing means spreading the word of your religion.
07:19Proselytizing?
07:20Yeah, to proselytize.
07:21I don't hate that word.
07:23It's a good word.
07:23I usually hate a lot of your words.
07:25Oh, yeah.
07:25That's a good one.
07:26It's a good one.
07:27Can you use that for anything or just religion?
07:29Can I proselytize the good word of drinking beers?
07:34You know, if you said that, I bet people would be impressed one time.
07:40But if you continued to do it, they'd be like, he's a one-trick pony.
07:45Okay.
07:45Pretty poetic way to put it.
07:47Pretty poetic way to put it.
07:48Yep.
07:49Triple P.
07:49The Viking Age sort of comes to an end in 1066 at the Battle of Stamford Bridge when King Harold Hardrada is defeated.
08:01And I think this idea, last thing, too, of them being these barbarians who really were uncivilized and drunk all the time and drinking grog out of human skulls is not entirely true.
08:14It's been disproven by scholars.
08:15But you know what?
08:16We can continue to believe our way.
08:18It's more fun.
08:19I'm going to choose to believe my brain instead of that brain.
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