Next you're gonna tell us the Vikings had no horns on their helmets! I love this channel, filled with delightful nuggets of truth. Fact is by far more interesting than fiction.

In Arabic the word for tattoos make up and body paint is the same. It just speaks on the use of body beautification with ink oils and paints or pigments so to say.

I have one tattoo. A "bindrun" that I stick and poked on myself. Just some runes put together to symbolise some things that are important to me. Never will I be delusional about the historical accuracy of the tattoos nor think that the way I used the runes to be accurate. Just one little symbolic reminder of my swedish heritage, bonds, and personal principles. 🇸🇪

Excellent video....
Much like many in Scandinavia today, I'm returning to my roots....
I will be getting tattoos honouring my ancestors, but will do so properly with getting books, plenty of books....I'll also work in some art symbolizing Celts, as I'm living in Scotland these days....
You can never learn, educate, yourself too much, right?

Greetings from a Swede in Glasgow, Scotland! 🤜🏻🤛🏻🍻

Ibn Fadlan's account of the Rus has unduly informed modern laypeople's perception of Norse culture during the Viking age.  Tropes such as the "Viking Funeral" involving the burning ship with the live slaves, the tattoos, passing around a bowl of water and drinking and spitting into it before passing it on, these don't really seem to have been documented in other sources from the Western and Northern Norse, as far as I've been able to find. People often tend to cultivate a monolithic perspective on ancient tribal cultures, which is axiomatically rather absurd, as the term "tribal" indicates multiple groups which, though they may share language and some general customs, develop their own specific variations of language, traditions, dress/hairstyles, art, interpretations of beliefs and whatnot, and these differences broaden over time unless or until some type of unification under a monarchy or some other sort of centralised  political structure takes over. The most obvious area of divergence over time is linguistic, as is strongly evident with the Scandinavian languages, the various German dialects, and the variation between the Latin-based languages.

I have read the Vikings tattooed their sword arms to intimidate the enemy. As it says in the description you give, these tattoos went from hand to neck.

Man, I like how you keep it real and look at what source information is available.  I'm 100% Northwestern European according to my genealogy and DNA, mostly Scandinavian, and my Norse ancestry has intrigued me for a very long time. I was interested in Heathenry for quite a few years but realized after a while that there's no going back and what I learned about my Norse ancestors was that their lives were often tragic due to unchecked passions.  I found my traditional Catholic heritage, via the northern French, to be closer to the mark so I returned to that.  Still, I feel a connection to my Danish and Swedish ancestors that I can't ignore.  Thanks for making these videos.

I would’ve liked to see a comment in the video about the Scythians—the Vikings’ distant Pontic Steppe cousins—who did raids all over the place.

They infamously incorporated tattoos within their cultural heritage.

Note that Ibn Fadlan wrote about the "Rus"  not necessarily Scaninavians. Byzantine records indicate that Sviatoslav had adopted a lot of local customs/culture (Cossack Hetman)

I’m not a pagan in the sense that I believe in a set of forces or symbols from a certain time period or culture but I’m still very inspired by your channel and how you talk about sympathetic magic and rituals that connect us to earth and a wider idea of being. I have a tattoo of the sun wheel inspired by bronce age petroglyphs found on Bornholm. For me it has a specific meaning connected to discipline, strength and rhythm and I use it in a ritual I perform every day.

This is why the bindrunes I have are dark  blue. Actually all the tattoos relating to the norse I want I’m debating getting all in blue

Awesome videos bro!  Keep up the good work keeping Germanic culture alive!

I have two tattoos currently. One, on my left wrist, is a four-lobed knot in a ring with the runes representing Thor, Odinn, and Freyr, since I look to them most for inspiration in how to live my life. On my right arm, I have an as-yet unfinished sleeve piece which is a Galdr I wrote to imbue strength, which I translated into old Norse. Both are hand drawn by myself, as will all the tattoos I plan to get, using old style imagery (instead of the super sharp-lined, symmetrical stuff you see a lot of people get) because I really like the way that the older artwork looks. Pulled a lot of inspiration from the Urnes style runestones.

The tatoos on that netflix series were ridiculous, much of the wardrobe used was also highly questionable...  thanks for the great video..

I just don’t like the shows that put every symbol they can think of on them when they don’t even know if they even had any tattoos

Excellent video brother!

I have many tattoos, a 3/4 color sleeve on my left arm of conceptual organic forms that symbolize my love and connection to Nature and the roots of Yggdrasil (with a touch of Giger influence thrown in), several Military/ Warrior culture tattoos (Infantry crossed rifles, etc.), my Shaw Clan/ Scottish/ Celt/ Pict side of my family Crest (I'm getting my Danish/ Norwegian family side piece done next with context), and another 1/2 sleeve that's getting covered up with different blackout work because the original artist for that piece royally screwed it up LOL.

Very clarifying. Thanks.

While the movie may not be the most accurate by god that final stand scene in 13th warrior will always be fucking badass ;p

Important to recall we have pre bronze age and bronze age mummies from the related and ancestor peoples of these cultures that DID have tattoos, and a lot of them. Even the women! Kurgen mummies and related.

I have no knowledge of ancient Arabic I am not even Arabian but when I read that text I just assumed the Vikings had tattooed Yggdrasil on their bodies…. I would like to reiterate this is my opinion only! I have no historical reference for Facts to Back this claim up