Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and this is short stuff, just the two
Speaker 1: of us, um with the Viking hordes. We've taken a
Speaker 1: bunch of mushrooms and we're entering berserker mode. Now. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: this I remember. That was one of the early, early,
Speaker 1: early stuff you should know episodes, was our episode on Vikings.
Speaker 1: That was one of the great facts of the podcast
Speaker 1: in the early days. Berserker in the mushrooms. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine seeing a Viking with the battle axe
Speaker 1: on mushrooms coming at you going crazy? Yeah? And I
Speaker 1: know I think I mentioned it recently, but the guy
Speaker 1: who did The Lighthouse, his his next movie is a
Speaker 1: Viking movie. I just that's a good reason to build
Speaker 1: a time machine so we don't have to wait around
Speaker 1: for that. Yeah, Robert Egger's boy, that's gonna be good.
Speaker 1: And I bet it's gonna be crazy. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: wait because the Vikings were crazy. And if you watch
Speaker 1: the History Channel show Vikings have not I haven't either,
Speaker 1: but it was pretty popular. It ran for about six seasons.
Speaker 1: But there was a character in their name I have
Speaker 1: are the Boneless uh And on the show, he was
Speaker 1: a ruthless guy. He was sort of the leader on
Speaker 1: the battlefield, and he had a medical condition on the
Speaker 1: show that made his legs useless basically, so he would
Speaker 1: crawl around and he would ride on chariots and stuff,
Speaker 1: and he had crutches. Um. But he led what was
Speaker 1: known as the Great Heathen Army on that show, and
Speaker 1: he was actually a real person. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: more mystery about who he was and whether or not
Speaker 1: he even had this condition in real life. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I've are the boneless one of the great all time
Speaker 1: nicknames ever. Um. But he he does pop up here
Speaker 1: there in historic documents that chronicle the Vikings. Um. And
Speaker 1: we're working from a house Stuff Works article that I
Speaker 1: think makes a great point or one of the historians
Speaker 1: that they interviewed very cast historians in this article, which great, Um.
Speaker 1: But this this historian makes a really great point that
Speaker 1: first off, let's let's kind of get across that the
Speaker 1: Vikings and everything we understand about the Vikings were written
Speaker 1: by our historic or cultural ancestors here in the States
Speaker 1: and in the US or the UK and Australia and Canada, um,
Speaker 1: who were the enemy and the sufferers at the hands
Speaker 1: of the Vikings, so they didn't paint the most flattering
Speaker 1: portrait of the Vikings around. And um, you know, you
Speaker 1: can make a really good case that the Vikings were
Speaker 1: no more violent or terrifying than anybody else. Um, during
Speaker 1: the Medieval Age, it was a violent time. Like we're
Speaker 1: not saying they were, you know, just super chill dudes
Speaker 1: who had just hang around and and drink beer. But
Speaker 1: it was just a violent time, like everybody was killing everybody. Charlemagne,
Speaker 1: they you know, they point out this article ordered the
Speaker 1: beheading of Sacks since and he was in one day.
Speaker 1: He was the Holy Roman Emperor at the time too,
Speaker 1: not a Viking. Yeah, so there were plenty of violent
Speaker 1: cultures at the time, and this whole image of these
Speaker 1: barbarians that we get. You're right, it's because it was
Speaker 1: written by people who were their victims. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: they were pretty scared, right exactly, Um and again rightfully,
Speaker 1: So it's not that the Vikings weren't violent, it's just
Speaker 1: that everybody was violent. And I feel like that was
Speaker 1: such a mind blowing, paradigm altering part, Chuck, that we
Speaker 1: should take a break real quick. Let's do it all right,
Speaker 1: late ninth century. Ninth I said that weirdly, uh, something
Speaker 1: came out called the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, which was this,
Speaker 1: uh sort of a history book. It was a collection
Speaker 1: of records about English history and it was you know,
Speaker 1: update over over the next couple of hundred years. And
Speaker 1: in that book we do find a notation for the
Speaker 1: Great Heathen Army or the Great Army, which were the
Speaker 1: Scandinavian invaders in this big Viking army basically that hit
Speaker 1: the British Isles and eight right, So, um, this is
Speaker 1: like the Viking Horde that you think of. Apparently, this
Speaker 1: Great Heathen Army, which again they called it the Great
Speaker 1: Army too, but I'm not going to call it anything
Speaker 1: but the Great Heathen Army because it's just so much cooler. Um.
Speaker 1: This was a number of different armies from different Scandinavian
Speaker 1: lands that kind of um all work together. But over
Speaker 1: the course of more than a decade of invasions and
Speaker 1: conquerings and all that, they were just this kind of
Speaker 1: fluid group um that collectively were called the Great Huthan
Speaker 1: arm And it wasn't just one single solitary mass of
Speaker 1: the same people over thirteen years who invaded England. So
Speaker 1: they are mentioned in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, and Ivar
Speaker 1: himself has mentioned I believe in the Anglo Anglo Saxon
Speaker 1: Chronicle as well, right, yeah, I think so it was Um, Well,
Speaker 1: at least the brother of Ivar was mentioned with two rs,
Speaker 1: which was would have been the North spelling of it.
Speaker 1: So it's the brother of Ivar has mentioned. Therefore Ivar
Speaker 1: has mentioned, right, and it actually makes Ivar seemed that
Speaker 1: much more important if you're you're saying that somebody is
Speaker 1: a brother of somebody else, you know what I'm saying. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: who cares? So I guess that's the only time that
Speaker 1: he pops up in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. It's more
Speaker 1: that he's associated as a leader um of the Great
Speaker 1: Heathen Army in the Anglo sex and Chronicles. So we
Speaker 1: have a contemporary piece of writing that basically chronicles, at
Speaker 1: least in part, the Great Heathen Army coming from the
Speaker 1: North and messing stuff up pretty bad. Um. And Ivar
Speaker 1: is in there, okay, right, And he's also mentioned in
Speaker 1: some Irish records. The Annals of Ulster really cool, great read,
Speaker 1: and they reveal a Viking by the name of Ivar
Speaker 1: or Emar, who was the king of the Northman and
Speaker 1: all Britain and Ireland when he died in eighty three.
Speaker 1: And the thing here is, we just don't know if
Speaker 1: that is the same person, but chances are it probably was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think most historians of that period in that region
Speaker 1: tend to think that this is the same Ivar. Think
Speaker 1: the timing potentially works out. Um, And yeah, it's possible
Speaker 1: there's more than one Ivar. But if he was a
Speaker 1: leader of the Heathen Army in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles
Speaker 1: and the leader of all the Great Army um in
Speaker 1: the Ulster Annals or the Annals of Ulster, why not
Speaker 1: it could be the same guy. Doesn't really matter if
Speaker 1: it's not at this point really so, uh yeah, they
Speaker 1: think that the same You know, it's England and Ireland.
Speaker 1: They're close enough to where he was probably just conquering
Speaker 1: everywhere he went. But none of this has anything to
Speaker 1: do with his boneless nickname um that he that you
Speaker 1: know that we hear on the TV show. Uh So,
Speaker 1: now we need to talk about the Icelandic sagas which
Speaker 1: were transcribed in the thirteenth and centuries. These are pros narratives.
Speaker 1: These aren't history books. These are novels basically. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they were written um by the descendants of these same
Speaker 1: vice king conquerors, who would have revered and looked up
Speaker 1: to and probably exaggerated the legends of these guys. But
Speaker 1: it's apparently in the Icelandic saga's and they've been compared
Speaker 1: to like historic novels, like definitely based on real things,
Speaker 1: but just maybe a little more overblown. So you got
Speaker 1: to take him a bit with a grain of salt.
Speaker 1: But apparently it was in the Icelandic saga's that um
Speaker 1: Ivar gets his boneless nickname. I guess that's boneless is
Speaker 1: just because all I can think of his chicken. Sure,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, boneless wing is awesome. Uh So this
Speaker 1: is where you know, it could have been some transcription problem,
Speaker 1: like boneless could have met legless maybe, which you know
Speaker 1: that would make sense of if you've watched the TV show.
Speaker 1: He wasn't legless, but he at least didn't have the
Speaker 1: use of his legs, so they may have called someone
Speaker 1: with that disability legless at the time. But Chuck, there's
Speaker 1: another potential transcription error that makes the History Channel interpretation
Speaker 1: UM really unique or singular. I guess you could say, okay,
Speaker 1: let's hear it. So there's um two Latin words that
Speaker 1: medieval transcriptionists may have UM mistaken. One is exos, which
Speaker 1: means boneless. One is xo suss, which means detestable. So
Speaker 1: it's possible that Ivar's nickname really was i've are the
Speaker 1: detestable or i've are the hated, and that some medieval
Speaker 1: monk got it wrong and he became i've are the boneless,
Speaker 1: and then centuries after that some executive producers for History
Speaker 1: Channel decided to actually take that literally and create this
Speaker 1: character i've are the boneless, who did not have the
Speaker 1: use of his legs. Even probably the likely story is
Speaker 1: this great conqueror probably did not have no use of
Speaker 1: his legs, would be my guess, which makes it UM
Speaker 1: kind of funny and TV way right. But from what
Speaker 1: the historians are saying, it just it just doesn't jibe
Speaker 1: with the Viking culture. That's just probably not the case.
Speaker 1: Although they do say it's possible the History Channel's interpretation
Speaker 1: is correct, it's also it seems to be doubtful. You
Speaker 1: never know, you never know. Uh, that's what this is
Speaker 1: when we need the way Back machine, but it's in
Speaker 1: the shop right now. Unfortunately. Yeah, we uh, we should
Speaker 1: do a go fund me to pay that bill. We should,
Speaker 1: although I think we might be convicted of fraud if
Speaker 1: we actually collect any of those funny I think, So
Speaker 1: you got anything else? I got nothing else? Short stuff
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