hovding

Hi Colin!

My improv teacher once said that people censor themselves in improv because they feel it's either unoriginal, a little psychotic or sexual.

Do you have any comments or insight in regards to my teachers statement?

Good question!

There have been found headgear with antlers on but not helmets. The fault lies solely at Wagners feet. When he did his opera about vikings he wanted a more powerful imagery on stage. The heroes got wings on their helmets and the villains got horns.

The reason for the skewed image of vikings is because of the chronicles from Europe of that age. The people we call vikings was 90% farmers and fishermen. And when they traveled it was mostly for trade.

The people that wrote down interesting happenings of that age didn't write about the peaceful traders that came and went, they wrote about the exciting stuff! In other words battles and pillaging. Vikings didn't do it more than others, they were just better at it.

And the reason for that was their boats. With their flat bottoms they floated really high in the water, so they could fly up rivers and land on beaches.

Exploring the world and starting trade routes is a big one. Making the sun compass was a technological marvel of the age. It has been tested and compared to a modern compass and its remarkably correct at finding the direction.

Also the weekdays are named after Norse mythology, except Saturday which is named for saturnus.

Usually viking weddings were held on a friday in honor of Frigg, Odins wife. The celebrations lasted for a week and the family and friends traveled from all over to attend.

The ceremony itself would involve animal sacrifice and the shedding of old clothes to symbolize leaving their old life and starting a new one.

This is one I use with American tourists; Where do southern viking descendants go after death? Y'allhalla.

The concept of jokes is fairly modern in its usage, the vikings did stories with funny outcomes. But it is very hard to know exactly what they thought was funny. We have very little in terms of written accounts from the vikings themselves, but if we go with the stories written down in the Edda they thought Thor dressed in a wedding dress was funny.