Cow Viking

[SirNadroj]

I dunno if anyone has tried this yet, but I've replaced the new official cow horns with the older viking horns. Personally, I like them 100 times better, but that's just my opinon. Thought I'd share this with you in case you haven't seen it and/or this is the first time it's being posted.

Thanks!

[Natman8000]

good job! I like it. all I need now is some cow horns.

[Svelte]

Are they more stable than the old ones? In the helmets themselves they used to spin around like a bad case of brewer's droop

[MacK]

I think that the cow horns look better as well. One thing that I hated about the old horns was that they jut out so much making it sometimes hard to put a bunch of Vikings in a tight space. The cow horns seem to eliminate this problem .

[Nikola Bathory]

In a history book I read: "contrary to polular belief, Vikings did not wear horned helmets"!!!!!! ?????

[Sandy]

In a history book I read: "contrary to polular belief, Vikings did not wear horned helmets"!!!!!! ?????

I got the same result from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age_ar...nd_armor#Helmet

This confuses me greatly. Where has this belief of horned helmets sprouted from, then? In all popular culture depictions of vikings they always have a horned helmet. That's like the symbol of vikinghood. I'm bedazzled!

PS. Further reading on the subject: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2...n-their-helmets

[Nikola Bathory]

Well, the popular culture sucks, hehe. There are so many myths in it! The Viking helmets are just one of many examples.

[Dennimator]

Yeah, vikings din´t have any horns on their helmets. It´s only a (stupid) myth.(That´s probably why Ras´ sigfig have a viking helmet without horns.)

@Sandy: Isn´t the symbol of vikinghood their special ships (longships)?

(Look, even the vikings on that pic have horns on their helmets! )

[Nikola Bathory]

@Sandy: Isn´t the symbol of vikinghood their special ships (longships)?

(Look, even the vikings on that pic have horns on their helmets! )

You are right, this is a drakkar, dragon ship. The Vikings even reached America with such ships 500 years earlier than Columb.

btw, why there must be only one "symbol of vikinghood" as you call it? What about the runes??

edit: I noticed that you're from Sweden, so I guess you already know what I wrote in my post.

Edited January 8, 2009 by Nikola Bathory

[Dennimator]

You are right, this is a drakkar, dragon ship. The Vikings even reached America with such ships 500 years earlier than Columb.

btw, why there must be only one "symbol of vikinghood" as you call it? What about the runes??

edit: I noticed that you're from Sweden, so I guess you already know what I wrote in my post.

Yeah, runes too. I didn´t say it was only one symbol of vikinghood, I used it as an example. (You may have misunderstood, my english isn´t very good... )

Edited January 8, 2009 by Dennimator

[Mirandir]

I got the same result from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age_ar...nd_armor#Helmet

This confuses me greatly. Where has this belief of horned helmets sprouted from, then? In all popular culture depictions of vikings they always have a horned helmet. That's like the symbol of vikinghood. I'm bedazzled!

PS. Further reading on the subject: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2...n-their-helmets

If there is someone really interested in this there's a whole article about the horned Viking Helmet myth here.

It seems like it was a Swedish artist named Gustav Malmström that was the first to paint vikings with horned helmets. Before that there had been paintings of pre-viking germans with horned helmets. Which were evolved out of winged helmets.

And there actually seems to have been horned helmets used. But for cermonial purposes only.

Edited January 8, 2009 by Mirandir

[Skafte]

The ship in the picture couldn't reach America, it would break on the waves. They used smaller ships to cross, the big ones were used for rowing or sailing along coasts. Also, the sails weren't striped, they were woven diagonally, forming a checkered pattern.

The ceremonial horned helmets are from the bronze age. Perhaps some viking had one as well, but not in battle. Just imagine how impractical that would be - there is a great risk of getting hit on the horns, thus losing the helmet or breaking your neck...

I hope there will be horns in other colours as well - a pair of tan ones on the Yeti will make it look more like a Wampa than the bananas!

[iamded]

I like the cow horn Viking helmet! Reminds me of Asterix and Obelix, for some reason...

~Peace

[Sandy]

@Sandy: Isn´t the symbol of vikinghood their special ships (longships)?

Might be, but I meant in today's standards. If you're supposed to dress up as a viking, most people would first put a horned helmet on their head (many people don't even know what runes are).

[Nikola Bathory]

(many people don't even know what runes are).

And that is very very sad!

[Etzel]

But LEGO seems to know:

The big ones says "LEGO" and the small one around the edges says "leg godt" and "play well" ("leg godt" is "play well" in danish)

It looks like they got some knowledge at TLG but they uses it sparse. To bad they didn't made the helmets more accurate...

The real viking helmets looked something like this:

or this:

The ceremonial helmet from the bronze age is the only horned helmet that has been found in Scandinavia and is about 1000 years to early for the vikings:

But I like the way you used the cow horns, Sir Nadroj. It might be useful in some Fantasy-style MOC

[Dennimator]

But LEGO seems to know:

The big ones says "LEGO" and the small one around the edges says "leg godt" and "play well" ("leg godt" is "play well" in danish)

It looks like they got some knowledge at TLG but they uses it sparse. To bad they didn't made the helmets more accurate...

The real viking helmets looked something like this:

or this:

The ceremonial helmet from the bronze age is the only horned helmet that has been found in Scandinavia and is about 1000 years to early for the vikings:

But I like the way you used the cow horns, Sir Nadroj. It might be useful in some Fantasy-style MOC

Yeah, there´s this too:

[Captain Blackmoor]

I knew the myth about the non-horned helmets of the Vikings. It looks more heroic and terrefying then no horns, old stories from Denmark say Vikings made their own helmets.

A kind of tradition, so it can be someone has ever worn a helmet with horns but the science proved they defenitely didn't wear horned helmets in battle. And that's what the Vikings did when they worn a helm.

They did not have horns on the helmet, it's just to make the Vikings in stories look better and fiercer.

[Dadster]

Love this idea!

[Fezziwig]

About horned helmets in history, I don't think Vikings wore them (they wore helmets with snakes on them similar to horned helmets, though) but I'm pretty sure Celtic horned helmets have been found. There is an aritcle about horned helmets here:

Click!

Might be, but I meant in today's standards. If you're supposed to dress up as a viking, most people would first put a horned helmet on their head (many people don't even know what runes are).

I do!

[Erdbeereis]

I really love the way the new horns look. It's always nice to have a bit of variety.

Thanks for posting those pictures of the LEGO pieces with runes, I didn't realize what they translated to. I find runes quite fascinating.

Nice picture Sir Nadroj!

[castlestrike666]

Jep, already tried, and it looks (in some views even better than the elder horns..)

[Paul cantu]

Thank You! I also did that when I got the Medieval Market Place. Those horns look way, way better. What was lego thinking when they made those other viking horns? I hope those horns are more available in the new sets so I can update my vikings.

[*Jerry Man*]

I got the same result from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age_ar...nd_armor#Helmet

This confuses me greatly. Where has this belief of horned helmets sprouted from, then? In all popular culture depictions of vikings they always have a horned helmet. That's like the symbol of vikinghood. I'm bedazzled!

PS. Further reading on the subject: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2...n-their-helmets

The Horns on their helmets were artistically placed by English because they saw the vikings as demons and evil.

[BlueBard]

The Horns on their helmets were artistically placed by English because they saw the vikings as demons and evil.

I agree, but not only the english! French, spanish, italians (at that time there was no such countries, it's just a geographical indication) and the half of Europe and mediterranean countries saw the vikings as real demons. In fact, the image of the "demon" as the christians see it comes from the early "fight" between this new faith and the old ones. More specifically from celtic tradition where one of the principal gods, Cernunos (sorry if that's not the spell in english, I know it only in french...) that means, more or less, "the horned" and was usually representated as a man with horns or directly as a "goaty" spirit, was taken as the main representation for the evil seen in the early christian faith. What I want to say is that for the IXth or Xth century european society anything evil must have horns (you never asked yourself why dragons and other mythical evil beasts from the medieval tradition use to be horned?), and as the vikings seemed so evil for them because of their faiths and ways of life they represented them as evil things, so, horned.

Sorry if all that is not very Lego related, but I'm an european medieval History freak

Oh, and please, in History matters (I don't know about the rest...) NEVER trust Wikipedia, it uses to be ALL wrong. If you want my advice as historian: take a book.