Parker 1

Wolves of the Sea

So you think pirates are cool?

Of course you do.

I mean, cutlass in hand, they sailed the seas to get all the

ladies and the booty. They were bloodthirsty and ruthless, but

theres a group of people who were doing this centuries before

them: Vikings.

They arent typically considered pirates. But, Viking

literally means pirate.

Still not convinced? Viking is from the word vikingr. The

textbook definition of vikingr is to set out by sea to raid and

pillage a city.

In other words, pirate raids.

Unlike pirates, Vikings didnt wear ruffled shirts and tri-

corner hats or have parrots on their shoulders.

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No, Vikings wore armor with helmets. And no, their helmets

did not have horns on it like they do in popular media.

But the helmets were pretty wicked looking. Seriously, the

rounded iron helmets had a face guard on it called a wicked

spectacle guard. The guard went around their eyes and nose like a

mask--like a really badass mask.

Because thats what Vikings are: badass.

And being badass, Vikings didnt always like to wear armor,

because badassery cannot be contained in armor.

They chose to wear quilted cloth, leather, or mail armor.

Or none.

Some Viking warriors fought so fiercely that they went balls

out in battle.

Thats because these guys had balls of steel. I mean, these

guys ate nails for breakfast.

But seriously, they probably did eat nails at least as a

snack, since they could not actually feel any pain during battle.

These warriors were called berserkers.

Berserkers were simply too badass to wear armor, let alone

clothes. If they did wear something, they wore the skin of a wolf

or a bear.

The bear skin was probably the skin of the bear they had

just wrestled last night, because thats just the kind of thing

they did.
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If this wasnt enough to make the enemy pee their pants,

berserkers would bite their shield before charging forward like

bulls and killing people with a mere swing of their axe.

And if they didnt have their axe? No problem. These guys

had the strength of a bear--literally. One saga even told of a

berserker who was said to take on the shape of a bear, and

another saga told of a berserker shifting into a wolf.

Basically, berserkers were pirate werewolves.

But, berserkers werent the only brutal warriors among

Vikings.

I mean, all Vikings went out on raids a couples times a year

to pillage--and left behind a body count that could fill up a

couple of ships.

And by a couple of ships, I dont mean two. I mean three to

three hundred ships, because thats the range of how many ships

would sail on one raid.

Aside from the sheer terror of seeing hundreds of longboats

sail up to coastal lands filled with Vikings holding massive

axes, their raids were particularly devastating because no one

knew when or where they would attack next.

But Im not sure the Vikings did either.

These guys didnt know much more than lopping off heads,

drinking mead, and bedding women. But what else is there to do

when youre a Viking?

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Aside from the unpredictability, their raids were also

ruthless because nothing was off-limits.

Vikings would raid churches and steal everything--even the

holy altar--and slice the throat of all the monks in the nearby

abbey.

In other words, Vikings were way more bloodthirsty and

ruthless than pirates.

This might be because Vikings only followed the Norse Gods--

the likes of Odin and Thor.

A brief mythology lesson: Odin was basically Gandalf, and

Thor is exactly what you are imagining--lightning, the hammer

Mjolnir, and all.

But the point is that even their Gods were epic, and Vikings

would not even think twice about stealing from and then killing

the innocent.

If they did fight some French or European guys, they went

all-out in battle. This is because they aspired to go out like

men and die in battle.

They believed that if you died in battle, you would go to

Valhalla. In Valhalla, they would get to hang out and be served

an endless supply of mead by Valkyries--which are sexy angel

chicks--until Ragnarok or the end of the world. During Ragnarok,

all the warriors of Valhalla fight frost giants alongside Odin,

Thor, and the other gods.

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Which sounds like a pretty good time.

But there were some Viking warriors who even made even the

berserkers look like teddy bears.

When someone pissed off Ivar the Boneless, instead of

hitting the mead hall to drink it off, he performed a little

ritual called blood eagle. Blood eagle is just a little something

where the ribs were torn from the spine. Then the lungs were

pulled out through an eagle-shaped cut on the back.

He probably got a tip or two from his legendary Viking

warrior father: Ragnar Lothbrok. Yes, the same Ragnar Lothbrok

from the History Channels Vikings television show.

He was the definition of the fear and unpredictability that

Viking warriors had in battle. Using the rivers like highways,

Ragnar raided France and England and left behind a trail of

devastation and death.

Oh, and Ragnar supposedly battled two giant serpents and

won. No big deal.

Not to mention that Ragnar allegedly married a sexy Viking

princess, whose dad was Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer.

By far, Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer was the most legendary and

badass Viking warrior.

A dragon stole Sigurds treasure. What does a guy do when a

dragon steals his treasure? He cuts out the dragons heart,

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roasts it, and eats it for breakfast. Or at least, thats what

Sigurd did.

Blackbeard set his beard on fire, but did he slay a fire-

breathing dragon?

Didnt think so.

Although pirates are cool and all, Vikings are the true

wolves of the sea. And in the case of berserkers, they are

literally wolves of the sea.