Viking Weapons and Combat (with William R. Short)
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- Опубліковано 14 лют 2020
- William R. Short of Hurstwic (hurstwic.com) answers questions about Viking weapons, iron-making, and combat from Patreon supporters of Dr. Jackson Crawford (University of Colorado) in a Patreon-exclusive Crowdcast conversation recorded February 12, 2020.
For more about Hurstwic and Viking-age weapons and combat, visit hurstwic.com and for more about their iron-making project specifically: hurstwic.com/iron (also profiled in this Icelandic media piece, with video: www.ruv.is/frett/hrossaskitur... ).
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Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit JacksonWCrawford.com (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
Jackson Crawford’s translation of Hávamál, with complete Old Norse text: www.hackettpublishing.com/the...
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Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Poetic...
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I run a HEMA and Viking Combat Reconstruction School in NC called Warriors of Ash. About 5 years ago we began to reconstruct Viking combat in a similar method to Mr. Short, and even inspired by some of his work, however, we have come to some very different conclusions about the act of fighting than he expresses at times in this video. I greatly disagree with his idea that Norse fighters were all about power and had little time for or interest in technique, as well as his dismissal of the use of the short edge or false edge of a double-edged Viking era sword. Understanding weapon combat on a larger scope has helped us give some context to some of these unknowable questions. For example, Fiore Dei Liberi in the late 1300's discribes the spear as the King of Battle, as if it is a well established and widely universal weapon, and lines out it's use in his treatise. Given the numerous times spears are mentioned in the Sagas, as well as the large number of long-bladed spearheads we have found from the Viking Era, indicative of use for fighting rather than hunting, it seems to me to be an egregious error to discount them on the Viking and pre Viking era battlefield, or in smaller group or 1v1 combat. It is after all the weapon of choice for the Allfather of the Norse Gods. Our own full contact sparring research with Viking era combat reconstruction has led us to understand some of the most efficient ways that a Norse fighter might use their weapons. And it has also taught us that inefficient fighters die quickly. Therefore, it stands to reason that a culture that revered the daily use and wear of weapons, and knew how to make them and maintain them so well, would figure out in maybe the same trial and error fashion that we have, how to most efficiently kill an opponent, and then pass that skill on along with the weapon. The notion that these notorious and fearsome warriors were all braun and no brain when they fought, but were able to come up with complicated techniques for everything else they did, just seems silly to me. Dr. Crawford, thank you so much for the work that you do, I don't generally have the time to join these videos as a Patreon supporter, so thank you for posting them here as well!
ive been to swordwind in NC many times now, and have spent years engaging with that sort of higher medieval fencing content. I would love to see maybe a response video about some of the major things you've learned using these kinds of norse weapons and false edge play with these shorter, heavier-handed swords of the viking era. Thank you for your input here!
rewatched this video and I can't help but be amused at the fact that earlier there was a conversation about the technique for switching hands with the shield and primary weapon and later saying they didn't seem to be technique driven. For that matter being able to execute a clean cut requires excellent technique as you're not hitting the enemy with a stick of stove wood but a weapon painstakingly forged to be the best blade possible
Hello, Dr. Short! We met at the Higgins museum in Worcester, Massachusetts about ten years ago. We took an elementary HEMA class, and eventually my husband & son built a trebuchet. Our son is now a professional blacksmith, and it all started with Norse re-enacting. (I went down the historical linguistics and clothing research path instead.)
Listening to this conversation is such a treat.
Yeah i bet he's reading youtube comments
@@goodluck2522 Probably not, but I met up with Dr. Wm Short in September 2020 at a blade smithing conference. He’s a great lecturer & conversationalist.
Nice!
I found Hurstwic before I found Dr. Crawford, and that was a while back. So inspiring to see two of my favorite scholars together!
Hurstwic was my introduction to real information about the Viking age. Excellent resource. Thank you!
The possibility of wearing your sword constantly during every day basis sounds awesome to me. It had to be a massive self-confidence support.
Thank you, Dr. Crawford for the great interview with Dr. William Short. Fascinating.
I think I'm first, I am a huge weapons and combat nerd, especially when it comes to old Scandinavia. So this is amazing. Keep doing what your doing Mr. Crawford.
Check out Roland Warzecha, he actually fights with sword, shield and even battle axe on UA-cam.
It was nice to hear them discuss grappling/wrestling.
It's always been a huge part of martial arts around the world up until the last hundred years or so, when rapid fire guns made it more of a rarity. Even in the late 1800s, a lot of fighting still ended up in close quarters. I know wrestling was vitally important in the Viking era.
Part may be that the Roman army, in which many Germanic warriors are trained in 3rd to 6th century, focused heavily on the shield wall and heavy infantry, with knights being Roman nobles. Caesar put Germanic troops on horseback, but the Equites were not happy about it. It seems in that age the Germans could ride, they just didn't fight on horseback. Perhaps they didn't want to risk their precious horses in battle.
That’s Dr Crawford….
Oh cool, an interview with Odin
I went to a lecture last summer, given by two archaeologists who have studied (project started over 20 years ago) making iron here in Norway, very interesting indeed. The expense was quite phenomenal, just to make a piece of iron ca 2.5x2.5x7cm was the equivalent value of a cow, they said. How many it was needed to make a sword i don't know but certainly more than three.
Dr. Short needs to consult for Ubisoft on their upcoming Assassin's Creed game set during the Viking Age. With him on their side, we could get a bombshell game that nails the historical accuracy and atmosphere of the period.
Not really. Dr. Short is really spouting a lot of right-out nonsense in this video.
@@Gilmaris Such as?
@@vr46girl85 Such as what he said about ambidexterity, that they switched weapon hands a lot in combat; that viking combat was not technique driven but rather all power based (what a load of bull, which is even contradicted by himself with that ambidexterity nonsense); longboats having shallow drafts (a common myth); iron produced in Iceland being 100% pure...
@@Gilmaris Yeah and stuff like "vikings wanting to fight up close and personal" and a lot of weird "viking power" myths - not exactly a compelling reason for why they fought like that and makes it hard for me to take him seriously.
@@Gilmaris But longboats did have shallow drafts?
I would think what would really seal the deal as far as Viking Age people drowning in their armor is the combination of the mail and the wool clothes they would be wearing underneath. Even without armor drowning was a huge problem for people all across Northern Europe up until cotton clothing, because wool holds so much water weight.
Horses would also have been of great value which is why I believe they wouldn't take horses into battle on purpose. As you said horses were used for transportation over land just as ships were used on water.
Northern horses (ponies) were very small.
What's interesting is that there's evidence that horses were actively used in combat during the migration period in scandinavia. Clearly something changed between the migration period and the viking age. I wonder if roman horses were imported and used in scandinavia at some point. The horses from Sweden during the late roman era and migration period were widely known as fantastic war horses, so i have to wonder if they had larger horses before the viking age.
@@bobjoe7508 the Vikings would have used horses more similar to icelandic horses, the fjord horses are a later breed.
A comment on cavalry... it is a difficult and expensive thing. You need a special trained horse (that eat a lot), a lot of gear and a guy that knows how to fight on horseback. And the Vikings were sailors! It makes sense they dont use cavalry! The great mystery is why the English didnt...
Additionally, a cavalryman almost HAS to be a full time warrior. He has an expensive horse to maintain and spends a TON of time training the horse and training himself to stay proficient. You rarely see amateurs fighting from horseback unless they are herders who live on horseback, like Mongols. Otherwise you see nobles or the wealthy who have time and money to learn this skill, and you see full time professionals supported by nobles or a government.
Most viking-ers Norse were basically farmers who raided as a sideline.
@@johnmatkinson and that should amswer the question. Simply put its too costly. A horse is worth more off the battle field than on it. Horses werent in large supply compared to other places at the time.
They are also pretty hard to transport by ship. It doesn't make sense you would train for years to fight skilfully on an expensive animal only to have to leave it behind. On that note, it is a wonder the Normans managed to sail the Channel during such a stormy period with horses in open boats. See David Howarth's 1066 Year of the Conquest.
It is even kind of problematic to use horses similar to one Civil War cavalry tactic for transporting troops to a key position very rapidly, then dismounting to fight. See, you need to designate some number of troops (every fourth man to hold the horses for cavalry) which if you need to make a shield wall doesn't make any sense. That is a significant part of your fighting force. Better to just sail to your desired battlefield.
They probably had the occasional mounted fighter when fighting battles in their *own* homeland.
@@CapComMDb William had to wait for weeks for an opportune moment to cross the channel, when the weather and winds were just right. His first attempt of crossing was actually a failure, with several ships sunk and quite a few men (and presumably horses too) drowned.
William of Poitiers writes in his "Gesta Willelmi ducis Normannorum et regis Anglorum" :
"Presently the whole fleet, equipped with such great foresight, was blown from the mouth of the Dives and the neighboring ports, where they had long waited for a south wind to carry them across, was driven by the breath of the west wind to moorings in Saint-Valery. There too the leader, whom neither the delay and the contrary wind nor the terrible shipwrecks nor the craven flight of many who had pledged their faith to him could shake, committed himself with the utmost confidence by prayers, gifts and vows, to the protection of heaven. Indeed, meeting adversity with good counsel, he concealed (as far as he could) the loss of those who had drowned, by burying them in secret; and by daily increasing supplies he alleviated want."
"Science is a process is by where you get a hypothesis, you attempt to break it and when you can't....you cannot say this is the Truth, but rather this is good enough that we can move along."
That definition of science is much more useful and accurate than what is currently taught.
Thanks for this opportunity, Dr. Crawford and Dr. Short.
That _is_ how science is currently taught. The problem is, "am I actually trying to disprove my own hypothesis, or am I doing a half-hearted job?" And that's what peer review is for.
Totally fascinating. Bringing the sagas to life. Thanks
This is an awesome video, seeing the two of you talking is awesome!
I have used both of your texts in the teaching of my "Old Norse Literature in Translation" course here at Salisbury University. I regularly take student groups to Iceland to visit prominent saga sites. Thank you for your research and publications. Perhaps someday, we will meet in person.
Excellent interview. Learned a great deal and even got some laughs out of this one!
there are thoughts that the bow that Gunnar had was a hunnic bow because they found a bone thumb ring in a kulm(grave), it is also wierd that one of the sagas is about the huns atlakviða.
Thank you Dr. Crawford for doing this. I'm also a weapons, combat and tactics nerd!
LOVED this interview. many, many thanks to both gentlemen. FASCINATING..
Listening to this interview a year and a half later - I found it absolutely fascinating - thank you to both - I see that I have several more Viking/Norse related interviews to look forward to catching up on, but for now - maybe something less bloodthirsty. Thanks, gentlemen.
I have been waiting for a Crawford-Hurstwic video for ages. Keep up the good work everyone! It reflects on us in ways you may not even imagine :-)
Stunning. I love this.
Concerning the lack of cavalry: often, the terrain decides whether a fight on horseback is possible. So maybe fighting on horseback was not possible in a fjord with high mountains on the sides.
I love this interview! Fascinating.
This was great. Look forward to more content like this. 🤩
This video cleared up SOOOOOOOO much thank GOD!!!!!
Cool! I worked with/collaborated a little with Dr. Short at the former Higgins Armory Museum (Now at Worcester Art Museum) with the Higgins Sword Guild, which looked at fencing manuals and such from the 13th to 17th centuries. Although my particular focus at the time was looking into Roman and Greek fighting, but found Norse/Viking stuff pretty interesting. I also provided some of the illustrations in his “Icelands of the Viking Age” book.
It makes me happy to see him mention the importance of grappling
I find the use of the ( scrama)seax specialy interesting because it is still usefull in modern fire arm time .
Wow! Wonderful video and guest!
Thank you guys, Your rant does have value. Here is an old saying I was told by my forefathers in Iceland , not sure if you have heard this before, "Ef sverð þitt er of stutt, stígðu skrefi framar" If you word is too short, step forwards.
Super valuable as always.
Love your videos. Thank you.
Great interview
A horse was for the rich, most Vikings where poor farmers. I can imagine leaders using horses, but for the ordinary private in that army, that was a luxury. The Icelandic Horse is a good animal to get you around and would fit well on a boat.
They also have those small horses rumoured to kill more people in combat that its owner, going up on its blacklegs and hammering the opponents with its hoofs.
Horse ownership was actually fairly widespread among the Vikings bondi, at least in Iceland, and a free man who has the wherewithal to go abroad on raids could also be reasonably expected to have a horse. Plowing and drawing carts with horses was something Vikings commonly did before it became widespread in the rest of Europe. However, just because a Viking farmer knew how to harness and drive a team of horses and ride one casually, it did not mean that he could actually fight on one. Fighting on horseback was a very specialized skill requiring years of dedicated practice to master, and its unlikely that many farmers had the time to do so.
The reason Vikings did not bring horses on their campaigns was largely space. Yes an icelandic horse was fairly small, but it would still require 5x the weight of food and fresh water a man would need during a voyage. Also during bad weather at sea the Vikings' open boats were very poorly made to contain a panicked horse, let alone a small herd. It simply made no sense for the Vikings to do that tradeoff of having one cavalrymen rather than six foot soldiers on a voyage. At any rate their longships already provided them with great mobility, greater than most cavalry forces, so they could do with just infantry.
Very interesting discussion
Hurstwic is great! Their videos are awesome, they do a lot of re-enactment combat told in the sagas as well as HEMA combat!
Amazing Video!!!
Thank you
That Viking Mindset about treating a weaker person well seems to apply to those who are of your class or kind. They seem to be quite at ease that their honor will be intact after killing slaves or carrying off people to be slaves.
Wtf?
Greath interview.
Great video. Just an Idea, but a video comparing Tacitus and other Roman sources to the Eddas would be cool.
Absolutely fascinating.
Very skilled in metal and wood work, Vikings were innovative in combat
About the horses for combat. I can’t help but to think that it might be because of the terrain. In an earlier video you talked about how it seems like all travel have gone by ship and because of that we think that most of scandinavia was hard to travel through.
In that way if most of the land was forest or march land, then it is really not suited for cavalery combat.
Norway would have been the hardest. Sweden is somewhat flat in the southern part, Denmark is very flat, but also made up of more than 400 islands, so boating was the way to go. And a horse would have been of great value.
@@ChaosToRule You seem to be thinking of the countries today. It is not only about mountains or islands, but march, forests and bogs. Store Vildmose in Denmark for example, used to cover most of Vendsyssel until it was drained. Denmark is very flat as you say and because of that it used to be mostly bog, march and forest, before these were drained. Not places where you could fight on a horse.
I will point out that in the 17th century, Sweden and especially Finland were actually known for the great quality of their cavalry. Swedish cavalry was chasing German and Spanish horse from the field.
@@MrGeneration83 That was also a reason why our king lost just south of the border, loosing our original version of Dannebrog.
Marching is difficult when crossing from Sjælland to Fyn. Where I live used to be seven small islands, now it is one big island. The terrain in Denmark have changed but not the topography.
@@MrGeneration83 Ditmarsken! I finally remembered hahaha
If it is any help, your website informed a great deal of my early experience and perhaps evangelism in certain aspects of shield making.
Great video.
Loved Higgens Armory as a kid.
Good stuff
I want to go back to Iceland! My Amma and Afi are from there and my old man was a American soldier bringing my mother here to USA
On the issue of archers being more useful in mass battles rather than in skirmishes, more than four centuries after the end of of the Viking era a notable participant of the Hundred Years War (where the English longbow figured very prominently), Phillip de Commines, had this to say:
"In my opinion archers are the most necessary thing in the world for an army, though they should be counted in the thousands, for in small numbers they are almost useless."
The Ormen Lange ("The Long Serpent") was the most famous longship of ...
The Norman tapestry shows chain mail shirts being loaded on board on poles,interesting video thank you for sharing.
@27:00 One has to consider the fact that most horses were small till around medieval late medieval age, post which selective breeding made them bigger on avg, also improvements in horse gear effectively allowing a horse to carry human with a heavy Armor and still be agile and have stamina to run and jump over obstacles. This is not to say that bigger sized especially taller horse will necessarily be better than a smaller one in all conditions but this evolution has to be taken into account when talking about usage of horses in wars by various groups
Can you cover the lessons from African languages in the origin and evolution of language in general. For example consonant evolution in the context of the wider repertoire in the African situation.
...as for the emphasis on strength, I follow Roland Warzecha here on youtube, and there seems to be quite a bit of technique in the sword/shield system. the axes I see are a bit short for high-power strikes too... not like the Great Axe ("Dane Axe"). I freely admit I know next to nothing, though, and playing with wasters Just Does Not Count for much.
Iv played around with alot of Hurstwic, Roland's and Thrand's thoughts on the matter. And it seems that im my experience the more technical style of rolands is better for unarmored dueling. But the heavier style like thrands is better for armored fighting.
As far as axes go you actually have to expend less energy for the same amount of force impact for an Axe and you would a sword due to the weight disposition the problem is you have to spend more energy due to the weight being farther away from your body due to the weight disposition so you can hit a lot harder with a lot less but you also have to spend a lot more to keep it controlled access an interesting weapon in all honesty it's kind of like a mix between a mace and a sword you have the heavy-hitting impact of the mace but a more versatile if you want to call it that blade and use of a sword mixed together in this amalgamation of hard-hitting yet extremely perilous if you overshoot your Target and don't hit on the small surface area of the blade I have seen it as a myth though mostly in pop culture references bit and acts is easier to learn to use than a sword and I have to say that the practitioner with both not so much a sword has a more technical side to it but you can pick it up as a peasant and use it and an axe you can still pick up a dependent Muse but it is more complicated do two smaller striking area so that's the main reason and the no defense is also another reason there's really nothing protecting you with an axe a sword you have a cross guard an axe you have oh dear God don't hit my fingers please. as mentioned earlier it's really really easy to overshoot and hit with the hats instead of the blade and then you're kind of in a can of worms like you don't have armor or don't have good enough armor your dead due to that simple little overshoot a sword is more forgiving to a beginner unless you're going against someone who knows what they're doing and has doing it for 20 years then you're pretty much screwed either way
sorry for the terrible format of this I am currently at work and having to talk on voice to text so it may come out looking like an amalgamation of oh dear God what is that monster but I hope it's understandable enough cuz I'm not going to proofread it cuz screw it
The question of honor is interesting. My father's family that claimed that it could tell of ancestors going back to the tenth century had a strong sense of honor. Simply put, we are expected to do nothing that impugns the honor of one's father and the way he raised us and by extension the way his father raised him. I can trace this back to my twice great grandfather and assume that the tradition precede him.
IIRC most of the archeological weapon finds from the previking iron age consist of spearheads, but weapons of the viking age are much more diverse. I wonder if the viking age norse had access to better technology or if they had more need for a sidearm that they could carry while doing normal farmwork.
There is the versatile axe. Maybe a seax? The latter is a weapon I would have loved to hear more about. But I guess most people back then had an axe.
@@ChaosToRule Vikings lived in cold, rough wooded terrain, and were often hard working farmers and lumberers when not fighting. The single bladed axe was the most accessible weapon, though I'm curious how common double-bladed axes would have been.
@@dawn-blade I know, I am from Denmark myself. The double bladed axe is pure fantasy. I have not seen one in any of the museums at least.
@@dawn-blade No double-bladed axes in the West until the 19th century, and then only as a felling axe. Mainly in America, where it first appeared. A very few examples of double-bitted war axes do exist from the Near-East, but none of the examples I have seen look convincing as anything other than decorative weapons. The labrys is known from classical Greek mythology, but only from mythology. Some decorative examples exist.
@@ChaosToRule
Scolagladitoria (a reneactment youtuber) made a video, where he claimed that the two-handed Dane axes had thin blades, so they probably weren't useful for felling trees. Perhaps it was a specialized weapon ua-cam.com/video/-mjjrCQiuO0/v-deo.html (EDIT but apparently the vikings also had one handed axes ua-cam.com/video/UzGqmbfqF1w/v-deo.html )
In regards to cavalry it's quiet weird, various Germanic tribes certainly used it even many centuries before Christ and there is even the evidence for cavalry at the battle of Tollense in North Germany 1250 BC! Also Vendel period swedes seemed to have used cavalry, attested by Jordanes and in Sagas talking about Adils.
The use of animal glue, hide glue is the problem in wet environments. The moisture would dampen the glue and cause the bow to fall apart. Not unlike water does with Boren's white glue.
Mindsets differ but body mechanics don't. I use as much as I can to help me in Viking Reenactment combat from Easterm Martial Arts and it does have a lot of use. Because of body mechanics. The body only functions a certain way. No matter where you come from in the World.
whale bone charcoal instead of a tremendous amount of trees for smelting? Most charcoal briquette's today are made of bone.
How did use of mounted cavalry, as opposed to merely riding horses to a fight to dismount and fight on foot, relate to the invention and spread of stirrups and reins?
The sip the serpent had a very flexible keel,the first serpent ship was an innovation in ship building,but you do not hear or see much about the ship design or the designer.
Wargames Research Group assigns archers generously to Danish units in the Viking age.
Great video it's hard to listen to while driving because of the volume difference between you and Mr. Short. If you could upload an audio version with that adjusted it would be amazing.
hm.. this is good but I think dr. crawford needs to talk to some audio people...
I want to add to the conversation about why the Norse and the British people did not fight while on horses. I heard on a podcast called the history of English, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in medieval history and especially those interested in the migration of the Vikings into the British Isles on multiple occasions, and this podcast covers this really well especially in the first 30 episodes or so.
In one of the early episodes he mentions that the reason why Western Europe did not fight on Horseback was because they lacked the invention of the stirrup. It was only after fighting the Hun that they were introduced to the stirrup, as the Hun were already successfully using them for some time. I am almost sure the podcaster, Kevin, cites his sources but as I listened to those episodes sometime last year I do not remember this specific episode in which he mentions it, nor do I remember the sources. If you go to his website he also has transcripts of every single episode which may be useful to some.
But the Huns came 300-400 years before the viking age started, and they came very close to the Danish borders.
Time wise, it would make more sense that stirrups came with the Avars, and the Frankish campaigns against them in the 8th century.
Even so mounted combat was still possible without stirrups in earlier periods with the use of four horned saddles.
@@bootstompify I think it was the Pechenegs that rode without stirrups? But I honestly can't remember.
@@ChaosToRule I'm not sure myself, but I could believe it.
I had more in mind ancient/pre-medieval peoples. There's a couple issues of Ancient Warfare that goes over various cavalry troops in the Roman world: numidians, sassanians, cimmerians, scythians, sarmatians, and even Romans. All of them seem to have fielded cavalry forces without stirrups (though many of them don't appear to have used the four horned saddle either).
Great comments, guys. It's very interesting to read what all of you have to say about this subject. To add to it, let's not forget that just because two civilizations had contact with each other through Warfare it doesn't necessarily mean that either side caught on quick to the other civilizations advantages.
I am certain that there was mounted combat even without the use of the stirrup, but I failed to point out that the Eastern European cultures that did have the stirrup were much more effective in combat than Western peoples like the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons, which is why they had so much trouble with them until they caught on to the other advantages.
Also, I'd like to point out that what I'm saying is just what I remember reading or hearing and my knowledge of medieval combat or Warfare is very limited and I am sure that all of you are much more well-versed in the subject which is why I'm so interested in Reading your thoughts on the matter.
battle of visby sun mystery, its hundreds of years after viking age but noything was looted, complete bodies in armour, brutal
The Klingons are Heavy Metal Space Vkings :-D As Star Trek devloped over the years they did borrow heavliy from Samurai and Viking sources to flesh out the various Klingon characters so it's not a terrible comparison at all :-)
Nice Popper allusion at 15:00, up the epistemology gang.
The youtube weapons researcher Lindybeige has some ideas on cavalry which might be relevant. Basically the natural instinct of a horse in battle is to run away. Training them not to do so takes a lot of time, effort, and resources. So maybe the Norse of the era simply had not developed those techniques or if they did have them did not see them as sufficiently worth the investment of time and resources.
Did the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons have stirrups? Without those you need particularly bulky saddles to fight from horseback
Jackson Crawford and hurstwic? What is this, a crossover episode?
Total newbie to history and especially combat here, but on the topic of why the Vikings didn’t utilize horses in battle - is it possible that this was because of scarcity? I have no idea how common horses were in Scandinavia in that time period, but could it be that they had more important uses in labor and maybe even as a food source than to be wasted and killed in battle?
Thanks for the video Doc, I was hoping for a bit more, being a collector of Viking age weapons and artifacts. I have more interest in metallurgy and production of Viking weapons, styles and progression throughout the age. There has not been much in that area, more over I was hoping for style of weapons from different parts of Scandinavia like Danish swords or Norwegian axes compared to others from say from Gotland. Ther are ways to analyze that are not invasive such as XRS spectroscopy. I have also concerns of your guest saying the belt is a modern invention as I have a belt or should I say what's left of it from around 900 that still has leather intact with the adornments and sword hangers. I am not disappointed though as your information to me is priceless. Thank you again for all you do.
I know almost nothing about wrestling, but it was my impression he was referring to a wrestling belt. That was part of the discussion of glima, I believe.
@@lughlongarm76 I'm guessing your right, I also know nothing of wrestling. I guess also I was looking for more from this video but I have not found much from Dr Crawfords guest I have known of him for years and haven't found much useful info as a collector and archeology enthusiast from his site or research for my interest. Each to their own.
Another subject he talks of thumb rings as if it was only used with only hunish bows but thumb rings were found throughout Scandinavia, most recently in the ring forts in Denmark. I even have an archer's ring "thumb ring" and he implies as I get that the huns only used the archers ring. no hunish bows were found only the long bow.
A thought about bows. Sami and Finnish tribes also used composite bows but made of birch and pine the wrapped in birch bark that was heated to make them water resistant. Some of these bows has been found in south of Sweden and even thesouth of Norway if my memory serves me right. We know that Sami and Icelanders were trading so why not trading bows as wellas other goods? Who knows...
In Birka they have also found traces of what has been interpreted as parts of Hunnish bows. Not sure but I believe a thumb ring has also been found there.
Lars Magnar Enoksen suggest in his book "Martial Art of the Vikings" that bows where used kind of like a "sniper rifle" where warriors who were too hard to overcome in melee were kept busy by one or more opponents and then shoot down with a bow from pretty close range. A way to takeout key warriors in a line etc.
He also suggests a heavy use of throwing stones in battles where the lines further back used slings (or just their arms) to hurl stones at the enemy, not just throwing spears. This was also a way to make use of younger people not yet fit to fight in the frontlines. Snowball wars would be part of the training for this he suggested.
No clue of the validity of those suggestions but they kind of make sense to me.
Snowball fighting is engrained in the Scandinavian DNA! If we see snow, we start throwing it at each other.
@@ChaosToRule Ohh yes we tend to do that 😄 Every break during school we all rushed out and had (quite serious) snowball wars! Even as an adult, as soon as it is snow the snowballs are in the air (not as serios any longer though) 😄
@@sirseigan yup! Sounds just like what I grew up with lol
@@Meevious I am from Denmark and I have always enjoyed a good snowball fight. But it is not like we have snowball fights everywhere, mainly in schools and parks.
@@Meevious I have been hit by many stray snowballs in my life lol. It is possible that some of them were aimed directly at me.
I've never understood why so many scholars are willing to so easily assume that authors from the past, especially ancient authors, simply lie about everything when things are mentioned that don't make sense or seem plausible at face value. That they wouldn't even be willing to test things out to confirm before jumping to judgements.
There is/was a debate concerning the Salme ships, which were discovered in 2008 and 2010, at the Island of Saaremaa, Estonia.
They were deemed to be Swedish, from 700 to 750 AD, so somewhat older than the first infamous Viking attack on Lindisfarne, 793 AD.
41 people were buried in the two ships, apparently after a vicious battle.
The gravegoods, and the bodies, pointed to upper class people from the region of Mälaren in Sweden.
One of them seemed to be a king/local chieftain. They could be on a military and/or diplomatic expedition.
Could it be king Yngvar, or one of his "role models" from Snorre Sturlasson's Ynglingasagan?
That Swedish king was said to have patrolled surrounding waters to defend his kingdom against Danes and Estonian pirates, and he met his end in a battle in Estonia, where he was buried.
Those are just sagas, some historians said.
I think one of the people responsible for the excavations in Estonia, though, said that we don't know if this is king Yngvar with his entourage, or if they ever existed, but thanks to these, and other, finds, we now know, that Snorre's setting with piracy going in all directions in the pre (?) Viking Baltic Sea area, as well as regular commercial and other connections, existed.
It's sad when available sources aren't evaluated and used.
According to Wikipedia:
"Further proof for this interpretation is found in the geneaology of the Norwegian kings in the early 13th century Historia Norwegiæ, which states that Ingvar died in expeditione occisus est in quadam insula Baltici maris, quæ ab indigenis Eysysla vocatur; "while campaigning on an island in the Baltic called Eysysla", Eysýsla being the Old Norse name for Saaremaa."
It seems to be worth looking into.
@@elisabet-ms6ck was an interesting read. thanks for sharing. and quite an example of the kind of thing i mentioned.
Nice to see Father Christmas doing so well, 🤣
Germanic peoples had been fighting using shield walls since at least late antiquity. The Franks who fought the Caliphate at Poitiers in 732 still fought in this way. During the 8th century however there was a development towards cavalry warfare in central Europe, perhaps due to the influence of the Avars, a Turkic/Central Asian people who invaded and ruled parts of central eastern Europe for centuries. At the very least during the reign of Charlemagne the Franks were conquering using the cavalry that would later be associated with Frankish knights.
The way I see it the Vikings were simply behind the times militarily when it came to fighting battles on land. When the Viking Age starts in 793 the way the Vikings fought was already starting to become outmoded. Their great strength lay in their ship technology which gave them a mobility their opponents struggled to deal with, but we can see several examples of Viking armies coming up short against cavalry on land. In fact, in every engagement I know of with Frankish and other types of cavalry, the Vikings lost. When the Rus went to war against the Khazar horse people, it seems a significant reason for their success was that they could rely on their Alan allies (also a steppe people) to offset the advantage of the Khazars.
In the British Isles however the Vikings' opponents fought in the same "outdated" fashion they did, which meant they could go toe to toe in regular pitched battles and win. Hastings in many ways marked the end of the old Germanic shieldwall's relevance in medieval European warfare. Once we get into the 12th and 13th centuries Scandinavian armies are imitating continental Frankish armies.
Jeanette Varberg next? (or some other archeologist)
This is a superb video from Dr. Crawford and Dr. Smith. My thanks to both for making it! Kindly allow me to make some points. RE: @ 37:00 and following: Ancient Greek naval warfare was completely different from Viking naval warfare. As the video states clearly, Viking naval warfare was not ship versus ship but man versus man where the ships are merely platforms on which men fight. The aim in Viking naval warfare is to eliminate all the warriors on the opposing ship by grappling and then storming the opposing ship to fight a land battle on the opposing ship--and then seizing the opposing ship intact. *In stark contrast,* ancient Greek naval warfare was almost totally ship versus ship. Greek warships had a huge *ram* built into the front end (bow) of the ship at the level of the waterline. No Viking ship had a ram. The whole aim of Greek naval warfare was to put the momentum of the entire oar-driven ship behind the ram so the ram could smash a huge hole in the side of the opposing ship and send it to the bottom. RE: @41:00 and following: The Welsh/English longbow of the 14th and 15th Centuries was comparable in power and range to the Asiatic composite recurve bow which was made of laminated layers of wood, horn, and sinew. The longbow was a "self" bow in that it was made from a single piece of homogeneous material, yew wood in this case. Viking bows were self bows, but they were *not* longbows, they were short bows and thus lacked the power and range of both longbows and composite recurve bows. (A longbow was six feet long from tip to tip and consequently had enormous draw weight.) Asiatic composite bows were invincible in hot or at least dry climates. But they failed in northwestern Europe because the cold damp weather made the glue which held a composite bow together deteriorate. Self bows were immune to the problem of deteriorating glue. Composite recurve bows had tremendous power and range thanks to their laminate construction, plus the way the tips curved back against the curve of the middle part of the bow. Composite bows provided great power and range while being quite short from tip to tip, which made them ideal for shooting from astride a galloping horse. Trying to shoot a longbow from astride a horse would be ridiculous unless the horse was standing as still as a statue. English longbowmen of the Hundred Years' War rode horses from place to place but dismounted to shoot.
A complete viking longbow from Hedeby measured 191 cm unstrung, or 178 cm strung. So they certainly had longbows as well, though shorter bows seem to have dominated. Viking longbows were typically flatbows, however.
As for shooting longbows from horseback, I think you should be able to find footage of Mike Loades doing just that in a stride. Draw weight in self bows depends on material and thickness more than it does on length alone.
@@Gilmaris This is fascinating, thanks! The beauty of a central Asian composite recurve bow was that it was so short the horse-riding archer could move it left and right, back and forth, across the horse's neck at full gallop, enabling the archer to shoot in any direction with ease, including over the horse's rear end. That's a vastly more tricky and difficult feat with a longbow. Hence the superiority of the Asiatic composite recurve bow in *horse* archery so long as the climate is mostly arid. EDIT: In Mike Loades' video the historical example he cites of English longbowmen shooting from horseback was a totally unique, once-in-history situation. The English were forced by the strategic situation to make an emergency forced river crossing against opposition to escape being caught in a trap and destroyed. In this situation, the longbowmen only had to shoot in one direction, straight ahead, as they made a desperate headlong charge across the river via a ford. Moving the bow left and right, back and forth, across their horses' necks, and shooting behind them over their horses' tails, was not something the situation required them to do. Earlier in the same video, Loades is crystal clear that longbowmen used their horses strictly for transport from point A to point B and dismounted to shoot.
@@stephenrichey8487 Well, since your hips have limited movement, you are likewise restricted in aiming angles. You could, with a short draw, aim a little ways to the right of the horse's neck, but no more than maybe 10 degrees, give or take (try shooting to your right without moving your legs to adjust the direction you're facing). Perhaps if you are limber, you can rotate your torso more than 90 degrees to the left, in order to cover a few degrees of your horse's right side at the rear as well. But there is a pretty big dead zone on your right hand side where you simply cannot shoot. This is something the samurai, in particular, took advantage of in their early days as horse archers - because they fought as _individual_ horse archers, one on one, in a manner Karl Friday aptly compared to WWI dogfighting: there was a lot of positioning in order to get the best aiming angle, and they tried to exploit the opponent's dead zone as much as possible.
@@Gilmaris Excellent point! But *IF* you have stirrups as medieval (not ancient) period Central Asian horse archers did, you can stand up in the stirrups to achieve more ability to rotate your hips to the right and reduce the dead zone somewhat. To follow up on what you said about the horse's direction, you can also reduce the dead zone to your right rear by (obviously) pivoting your horse to the right while still moving at speed, a skill that was easily within the capability of Eurasian tribal horse nomads. The point is, if your bow is short enough to quickly and easily move the bow to the right of your horse's neck, you can use the two methods I just described to cut down the dead space. Trying to do that with a longbow would be almost ridiculously more difficult.
Time for a video on Viking barbers.
I know longbows are often associated with the Welsh, but from what I understand when the English attacked the Welsh the Welsh had Norsemen fighting on their side. I've also seen mentioned by others that during the Danelaw period of England that they employed longbow archers, but it was mostly Norsemen who made up such units. Further more that later on Swedes, or other Norsemen, were later legally bound to carry bows with them to battle.
Is it possible that the Welsh longbow is actually Viking longbow? Part of the reason why i wonder is that even though there is evidence that the native inhabitants should have knowledge and the ability to have longbows before even the invasion of the Romans I don't remember them, or any boys really, being mentioned much until the invasion of the Welsh. Then why is it that the Welsh are the first to use longbows in mass when all the other celtic groups around them, as far as i can tell, didn't bother with it (i think preferring to use javelins and slings). However, if it is the vikings that were using them then it might make more sense. The "English" would have had a bit of a custom because of the Danelaw (a "viking" law) and if the Welsh longbows were Norsemen then the Norsemen in England, after the fact, would have found reason to extend the concept from the Danelaw to be a more encompassing measure of what was already there and maybe encouraged from, more or less, fighting their Norsemen cousins who were helping out the Welsh.
Vikings seem like they were some of the original Warrior poets.
57:00 I should point out, that despite his extensive expertise on Viking martial matters, Mr. Short is no expert of medieval Japanese society.
The ninja were not a separate community within medieval Japanese society. Being a ninja was a job. The popular dichotomy of ninja vs samurai is also false: doing ninja work was something many samurai did. That is to say, some samurai were also ninja.
Further, the samurai of the Warring States period, while certainly they had and maintained notions of honor, were much more result-driven than what later Edo period samurai were and even more so than modern pop culture samurai.
Sorry everyone for this nitpicking thing. I mean no disrespect to Mr. Short or others with this comment.
Roland Warcheza next!?
I really hope so, he have a VERY different opinion on alot of the things mentioned here. And imho he seems to have more to back his claims. And just to be clear, I did enjoy this talk, there was just several times where I was thinking "that do not fit with the evidence that I know of"
@@GreenLarsen Roland probably has more hands-on experience, but aside from that, his theories are just as much conjecture as William's. There is one main gripe I have with Roland, and that is his over-emphasis on range. It is for this reason that he completely dismisses the hammer-grip, and instead lauds a weaker, less stable handshake grip as the be-all end-all - he insists the same even for the disk-pommeled tulwar (which we _know_ is traditionally used with the hammer grip) - and he has also conjured up a highly bizarre method for thrusting, in which he sort of palms the pommel in a technique which would be excrutiatingly painful with most pommel styles.
That said, I deem most of Roland's conjecture to be a good deal better than Mr. Short's, here.
@@Gilmaris ohh I agree completely. There are diff parts of Rolands theories that I also find lacking in evedense. But many other where I think he have been able to clerify or outright provide new knowladge. Mainly when it come to how shileds were made (alot thinder then many think) and how sharp on sharp sword provide you with a strong bind/blade feeling.
The idea of swords being blunt is a 19th century custom. Military swords were government property at that time and issued to men who never used them until joining the Army. In the 19th century, then, the 'service sharpening' developed into a sort if ritual. But obviously if you were a more 'every day carry' kind of swordsman, then it would make more sense to keep it sharpened just like a concealed carry pistol would be carried loaded.
Didn't Beowulf swim in his mailshirt? Water absorbs a lot of energy. High velocity rounds lose a lot of energy in water, so a shield under water may have less energy to absorb.
What interests me most about Vikings are their beautiful dragon ships - how they were built and sailed.
The Oseberg and Gokstad ships look almost like living things. I imagine they did more so in the water
Then the Sagas and fighting
Dr Crawford were you thinking of Kali or Escrima?
The spelling may be off.
16:30 Why no cavalry? The horse was a very valuable animal, it may be that not knowing the advantage, the soldiers didn't want to risk their horse in battle.
I'm not surprised that human hair makes a workable bowstring. Ancient sources tell us that the torsion bands used to power catapults and ballistae were made either of animal sinew or of human hair, so it makes sense to me that hair would turn out to have enough tensile strength to work as a bowstring. I have no idea how _durable_ it would be in that role, but it doesn't surprise me that it can be pressed into service as a substitute for the preferred material.
As for the comment later, asking wasn't that the reason the English lost at the Battle of Hastings, because they didn't have cavalry and the Normans did... I wouldn't say that's the reason. Well disciplined infantry, with the right weaponry and tactics, have _always_ been able to stand up against cavalry, throughout all of history -- in fact some kinds of infantry formations (e.g. pike squares) are practically invulnerable to cavalry attacks. At Hastings, the Saxon infantry withstood charge after charge, all day long, and the Normans were never able to break their ranks. What lost the battle for the Saxons was that, apparently after King Harold was killed by an arrow, the Normans mounted another charge, and when it too failed to break the Saxon ranks, fell back as if in disarray. It was a ruse however, and the Saxons, seeing what they took to be a defeated enemy retreating in disorder, took the bait and charged down after them from the higher ground they held. King Harold, had he still been alive, might have prevented this, and so kept the battle from being lost. Good infantry can withstand cavalry, but one thing it can't do is _pursue_ cavalry, and any attempt to do so is foolhardy, as the English found to their sorrow. Once the Saxons started after them, they broke the tight ranks that enabled them to withstand the Norman charges, so that after luring them out a sufficient distance to open up their formations nice and wide, the Normans wheeled and charged again, this time tearing through the Saxon troops and ripping them apart. Thus did the Duke of Normandy win both the Kingdom of England, and his sobriquet "William the Conqueror."
For the double - edge sword, they would need to reverse if a nick or dulling occurred but also if they are tossing the sword and changing hands.
You would not have the time to concern yourself with which side can cut or not. Having both sides sharp is ideal for the sudden trick, logically speaking that is.
I don't feel they would use reverse cuts often as it does leave your side exposed, as well as the strength of a reverse cut is not as powerful as it comes from a more unprepared stance.
Skilled warriors / risk takers would be able to pull it off, but it would probably be more of a finisher move or flourish to prepare for another strike or to reposition themselves for the next opponent probably in order prevent the opponent from attacking them.
This is only a amateur opinion though and should not be taken as studied fact. This is only a thought I felt needed saying.
I believe Dr. Short briefly mentioned hair cuts of the Vikings. There's a scene in a video game based in ancient Europe called Witcher 3 The Wild Hunt where Viking warriors cut their hair to a buzz and threw it into a fire during a funeral ceremony. Is this true?
Chicoms those weren’t Vikings, they were Skelligers!
In all seriousness I wouldn’t count on it being too accurate. I was pretty disappointed with The Witcher 3’s portrayal of Skellige. Why are there Sirens of Greek myth swimming around these northern Atlantic-esque seas? Why do these pagan Viking-like people live in castles? CDPR really don’t seem to have done much research on Viking culture.
Jarrod S
Like you said they’re not Vikings. The lore of Witcher games is pretty a much a mix of all things folk and fairy tale. Nothing wrong with adding sirens in their waters. They’re different tales of siren type creatures in different cultures who did any sailing.
Jarrod S, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neck_(water_spirit)
Chicoms the Neck and similar creatures are almost all freshwater “fairies” if I remember correctly (and a cursory scan of the Wikipedia article seems to confirm this). They also are male, not female. This is what I’m talking about. These details were just ignored when Skellige was being conceived and designed, and so much of it as a land and culture feel decidedly un-Scandinavian.
Jarrod S, Nixe is the female river mermaid. The mermaid being a term originating in the Old English language. Scandinavians most certainly have folk lore of mermaids. It is not a purely Greek tale. I agree with you Skellige could have been a bit better but they did do a decent job. I love the burial mounds unique to Skellige. Many places outside Skellige though do look very much like Swedish farmland/countryside
Value in ships ... the same in horses, so not to fight from or with horses?
When you consider all the issues with taking horses on ships it's not hard to understand why they wouldn't use them.
Nerdy thing about horses, in the 1460-80s, surviving german language sources often note in a duel between mounted men, some of these books suggest that if you are a bad raider, of notealbly inferior to the other duelist at riding, dismount as soon as the duel begins, and gives tactic for kill the other horse on foot. if you are this has been born (though not as much as i'd like) in modern attempt to recreate mounted combats. ) so, horse culture will kick but over non horse culture in a mounted fight is the take away.