25 Crazy Things That The World Forgot About The Vikings

Although by this point you probably know that the Vikings didn't actually wear horned helmets, there are a lot of things you may not have realized about these Scandinavian raiders. These are 25 crazy things that the world forgot about the Vikings.
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You may know this by now, but the Vikings didn't actually wear horned helmets
In spite of their raiding, Vikings were a clean people. Archeological sites have revealed tweezers, razors, and combs
They also bathed once a week, which is much more than any of their European counterparts at the time
Vikings collected a fungus known as touchwood from tree bark and boiled it in urine for several days. They then smoothed it out into felt and used it to create fire.
The reason for this is that the sodium nitrate in the urine would cause the felt to smolder rather than burn
This ingenious method allowed them to take fire with them on their journeys
The greatest honor for a Viking was to be buried on board a boat
They believed that the boat would take them to the afterlife and so they were usually buried like the pharaohs - surrounded with weapons and valuable goods
Sometimes prominent Vikings would be buried with sacrificed slaves
Enslaving people was a big thing for them. They would quite often capture as many slaves as they could while they were pillaging Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and Slavic villages
Music: Crusade - Video Classica by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (/)
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