December 18, 2018 • 37 mins
Like many Viking leaders, Halfdan and Bjorn wanted to be known for their fearlessness in battle and their ability to locate the finest spoils -- they wanted the community to tell stories of their valor for generations to come. Their father Ragnar built a name for himself raiding Paris, so they wanted to kick things up a notch and raid an even more prominent city: Rome. However, there was one small problem with their plan.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians and possible Viking descendants.
My name is Ben, my name is Nuel. I used
(00:31):
to have a little red in my beard. Does that
mean I'm a possible Viking descendant? Well, it means you
definitely have the possibility of that red haired jean. You know,
we would need to we need to do some more testing.
I also have a red beard when I grow it out.
And in the part of Tennessee where I'm from, there
is this old folks saying about how you can't trust
(00:54):
someone who has two different colors of facial hair, So
like I have brown hair on my head and then
red hair on my face. Not to be trusted. What
about people with two different color eyes? Because I have
the different colored beard and two different color eyes, I
mean I'm super untrustworthy. No, no, no, not in not
in my part of the world, hetero chromia. They seem
(01:15):
fine with what they think. I'm a witch. I think
you might have to have a milky eye, very like
apparently different eyes. But you know who is super trustworthy,
knowl our super producer Casey Pegram, who is also I
believe not not a Viking. Is that correct? Casey is correct. Yes,
(01:36):
I mean he's not an active Viking. His rating days
are behind him, right, I don't want to talk about it,
fair enough, Okay, So we were we were talking about
Viking names a little bit before we went on the
air today and one of the questions, one of the
questions I have. We have one character in this story
named hostin the Raider, and the question is how many
(01:57):
raids do you have to accomplish? How many do you
have to rack up or have under your belt for
that to become part of your name? And I said
save it for the pod, and you did not like that.
It's kind of like telling someone to shut up. I
don't know if that's it. Just no, it just means
this conversation would be best had it spontaneously in one go,
instead of doing it once and then trying to do
(02:17):
it again, because the magic is never the same. Man,
I see you're coming from. But it is like telling
someone to shut up. Okay, man, that's fair. But um,
but I seriously wonder though, Nola is like, do you
do one raid or do you do five? That's a
really good question. I mean, surely there's a metric for
these things, or maybe he gave himself his own nickname. Oh,
(02:39):
good call, that's interesting. I bet that's I bet that's
true because it is kind of a badass nickname. And
you can tell in a lot of these stories when
someone has a not quite complimentary nickname like Charles the
Bald or something exactly, that was probably bestowed upon him
by people that didn't care for him too much. Propaganda.
(02:59):
But why are we talking about Vikings today? Nol? Who? What?
What's this deal with Hosting the Raider? Costing the Raider
and his homie biorn Ironside, great name, also a great name.
They they did a little military blunder. That's a lot
of fun. Uh. It involves some sort of trojan Horse
like tactics. Uh, it involves possible decapitation of members of
(03:22):
the clergy and a whole lot of raping and pillaging
and raiding along the way. Yes, yes, yes, at least
that is if they actually existed. That's the strange part.
I hate that part about history where it's like, God,
this is so great, but it's probably not true. Yeah,
or it's or they'll try to make it a little
more optimistic and say they may have been real people.
(03:46):
You're thinking what. I am so invested in this story
right now, so take it with a grain of salt.
This was a long, long time ago. Hosting was a
Viking chieftain in the late ninth century, and some of
the characters in today's story are going to be familiar
to you if you are a fan of the television
series Vikings. Ye do you ever check that out? I haven't.
(04:07):
I watched a little bit of it here and there,
But I also know apparently it takes quite a few
liberties with some of these stories as well, and their
depiction of the character of yourn Ironside, he doesn't quite
do what he probably actually did in historical accounts because
it helped them with their storyline a little bit. Ah, yeah,
I see what you're saying. Was that on History Channel?
(04:30):
I think it was like the weird, anomalous, like big
budget kind of Game of Thrones e type show on
the History Channel. That's right, Well, let us know if
you're a fan, and let us know what you think
they got right. We're wrong, But this is a as
much as we can determine an historically true tale that way. Yes,
(04:50):
So we don't know much about hostin the Raider, his
early life aside for the fact that you know, he
rated a bunch of stuff, that's right, It wasn't ironic, uh,
And he came from a well established bloodline. Yeah, all
signs point to him being the son of a Ragnar
(05:11):
loath Brock, and apparently that was also You're and Ironside's father,
so they were possibly brothers, possibly brothers, or because bloodline
was such a big deal in this culture at this time,
it is also completely possible that Hosting just said that
to try to get some more street cred hip cred
got it vikings. So these vikings, they they kind of
(05:35):
had a singular mission, didn't they. Yeah, yeah, they had.
They the raiding economy, if you want to call it that,
it's a it's a It's a huge part of the
life of this culture, so much so that of course
people would get appellations or names for their performance or
(05:59):
lack of performance in a raid, And if there was
a really well done raid, then it would become part
of this world tradition. It was a legend. So Ragnar
loath Brock one of his big claims to fame was
the sacking of Paris. This occurred in eight forty five
and five thousand Vikings led by Ragnar, took over Paris.
(06:22):
It was the largest, richest, most defended city in Northern Europe.
This this was this was like a very violent proto heist, right,
and the king of the time, Charles the Bald, paid
a huge ransom of seven thousand pounds of silver to
Ragnar just to make them go away. Yeah, that'll do it.
(06:43):
So that's what a sacking is, right. It's so interesting
that term because I think of it in the British
parlance as getting fired, but it also means like getting
kind of conquered, which I guess they sort of mean
the same thing. Yeah, yeah, completely, I guess I could
see that. Yeah, that's an interesting etymology. Well, seven thousand
pounds of silver did not work. They returned a decade
(07:05):
later to sack the city again. There's no honor among Vikings,
I guess, yes, yeah. And the French in that time
were prepared and they were able to fight the Vikings off.
But then in eight fifty seven bure and Ironside, son
of Ragnar, actual son, uh, He takes his crew and
(07:25):
they returned to Paris. But they noticed that Paris Is
is in ruins. Only after after they're done looting. Only
four out of the what thirty something churches were left standing.
And they were encouraged by this wanton mayhem, this gleeful destruction,
and they said, you know what, raids are cool. Raids
(07:47):
are super cool. But Paris has kind of been done.
Let's go for something bigger. Why was it in such ruins? Then?
So from to eight fifty seven, we're talking about three
different sackings. There's not enough time the city to really
repair itself, you know what I mean. You can only
squeeze so much. I was gonna see milk from a cow,
but that seems weird. You can't get blood from a stone.
(08:09):
Poor Paris. Yeah, haven't they had enough? I mean, So
that's basically what the takeaway was, right, That's what I mean.
They were literally like, you know what I think? Uh,
I think we're gonna leave them alone this time, right right,
pretty much right now. But we should probably really quickly
mentioned that Houstin was such a badass that he actually
(08:30):
had quite a few names, whether they were aliases or
other nicknames, but he was known a k A half Dan.
That's my favorite one. By this, I mean he's like
half he used to be half dan. He used to
be like that. He's also all sting and also hastening
with that really cool A e uh combined letter. What
(08:52):
do you call that? Ben? Technically speaking, it's a grapheme
formed from the letters A and e originally represented the
Latin dipthong. A just sort of got smushed into one thing.
Got it? Got it? So at this point, um, Hastin
and Bjorn decided to make their way to the south
of France on the Lower River. Ah, Casey on the case.
(09:22):
You know what usually we I thought it was always
vampire rules with you, Casey, don't we invoke you. I
thought we had to invite you in to jump in there.
He couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't let that that gross
mispronunciation stand. Just trying to save us all some emails.
I appreciate it, buddy, I appreciate um. So so yeah,
(09:42):
so they're sailing, uh, I believe a fleet of sixty
two ships down the Loire River. Excuse me, case you
don't need to have you popping into my head again. Uh.
And they're going to the Iberian Peninsula. So, um, where
they are is in what isn't today modern day France.
And then they're going to um what is now Bane
in Portugal, and along the way. They don't always do
(10:04):
too hot because they're kind of persona on grata at
this point. They keep running around, sacking places and pillaging
and just having their way. So people are kind of
wise to them a little bit at this point, aren't they. Yeah,
this is all during this time. This is part of
the Umad Caliphate, and you can only do this kind
of thing so many times before people start realizing there's
(10:26):
trouble of foot, you know what I mean, unless you
kill everyone in the town you attack. So they did
not have a flawless record. In fact, when they were
raiding ships along the Galatian coast, they found that the
local resistance overall was just too strong. So they weren't
moving because they were maybe seeking greater riches. They were
(10:48):
seeking easier targets, easier pickings. Easier picking is sir, That's
how a lot of predators work, you know. And so
they moved on to pillage the west coast of the Emirate,
and there they started and cow entering more success. The
coast Guard of the time captured two long ships scouting
ahead of the main fleet and they found that these ships,
these scout ships, were already full of treasure and food
(11:11):
and slaves or captives that were destined to be enslaved.
So at this point they're almost in their almost switching
their tactics to more traditional pirate kind of right, right,
And they suffer another defeat when they land in southwest Spain.
The fleet next goes to the mouth of the guaddal
Quivier with the intention, maybe historians guests, of attacking Seville
(11:37):
for a second time, but then they get confronted by
the Moorish fleet. These were actual trained soldiers, They had
maritime war tactics. These were not just helpless fishing community.
And didn't they lose a whole bunch of ships and
men And in this confrontation, Yeah, because the Moorish fleet
had incendiary weapons, they were literally lighten them up and
(12:01):
the yeah, the ships burned, people died. What are the
Vikings used typically? Were they using like I mean the
access I imagine in close combat? But what what would
they use in c combat? Do you think? Well, one
thing we know for sure is that it was a
long standing rule of theirs to leave town, to leave
the scene if resistance was too strong. That's why their raiders,
(12:23):
you know what I mean. And so if we're if
we're guessing, we know that a lot of their fleets
had little to know cohesion, you know, it's kind of
like more like a convoy on the road. Yeah. So
they didn't attack ships with the intent of destroying them.
They wanted to board them. So one of their common
(12:45):
tactics was to try to ram ships and then once
they're close enough, jump on the shore you go. And
then they probably go to town with those battle axes
right with them and they web. But I do believe
they also used bows and arrows and spears and things
like that. I could picture shooting volleys of arrows, you know,
onto other ships. Possibly, I don't know. I can't confirm that,
(13:06):
but it seems like that would be one way of
getting it done. M Yeah, yeah, agreed. So typically their
their aim was to get in close quarters to kill
enslave plunder. But this other fleet that is well, uh
well accustomed two maritime ship on ship warfare there, you know,
(13:28):
their woutang style. They're nothing to with for sure. No,
And I mean they were designed for that purpose of
ramming as well. I mean the way the whole the
whole ship was kind of built with that in mind.
And so as as we said, noel uh, they encounter
professional naval forces and they get the horns slapped off
(13:51):
the helmets, which by the way, is a stereotype. And
and they were barely able to make their way home,
the few that were left alive. If we're forced to
pay a ransom to escape. But this defeat, this ignominious defeat,
did not scare or extinguish the thirst for vast treasures
and glory on the part of your and iron side
(14:14):
and hastin half Dan half I love half Dan. So
at this point they've had some wins, they've had some losses,
you know, but they still want more. That's sort of
the nature of this kind of life, right. You don't
really rest on your laurels, you know, otherwise you'll be
(14:37):
seen as weak, and then you won't be the toughest
viking in the sea, right And then what's the point
what's the point? Well, no, it's it's kind of like
mob rules, right, Like if it's as soon as you
let up and stop you know, kicking people's asses all
the time and taking collections, then all of a sudden
someone else is going to move in on your turf,
so they couldn't have that. And I think we've all
(14:58):
heard that expression all roads lead to At this time
that was especially true because Rome was seen as like
the crown jewel of sack Herble places, right, Like that's
the one that you would guarantee to have a crazy,
incredible haul because it was full of riches and wealth,
and like we had this whole you know, civilized society
(15:18):
with culture and like it was just practically the streets
were paved with gold right in the minds of these
vikings and the minds these vikings, And this leads us
to another character. We have to introduce the Norman monk
Dudo of St. Quentin. Doo dude, oh uh. We don't
(15:41):
know uh a ton about this guy, except that he
was born around nine, he was in the Norman court
Normandy for a while, and in his second stay in
Normandy he wrote his history of the Norman's And as
for the rest of his life, we know that he
died some time before ten forty three, So we don't
(16:02):
know a whole heck of a lot about him, but
we do know that he is the source of the
story that takes place. Next. Here's what happens. According to
the story Your Ironside and there's buddy half Dan. They
land in a place after they've been raiding the coast
(16:23):
of Africa and getting their butts whipped by some professional
naval forces. They land somewhere in Italy and they think,
this is the most amazing city. Holy smokes, bro, we
made it. We're in Rome and we're about to get down.
We are going to tear the place up. We're gonna
(16:46):
light it up, yolo time. It's total Viking yollosish. So
they want to use a little bit of cunning because
from everything they know about Rome, it's huge, it's home
to opulent wealth, and it's probably very well protected. Right,
So they said, there's no way we can take this
(17:07):
by force. Like we're we're great guys, half Dan, but
we we've got to think this through. Let's let's through.
Our usual bloodthirsty, ruthless kind of smash and grab techniques
are not going to serve us in this particular situation. Yeah,
half Dan, that's how that went. This is uh So
(17:30):
then you say, okay, well, let's let's give it tonight.
Let's think on it. The next morning, a small group
of Vikings approaches the city walls and they say, hold on,
hold on, hang on. I know we look crazy, dressed
in furs, dirty and sea worn, but we have not
come to plunder you. We have no strength left. We're exhausted.
(17:52):
We've been traveling a lot. Could you just make peace
with us and let us buy what we need, you know,
like food and provisions are chiefs are weak and broken,
and uh, we need help. And our boy half Nan
here is not doing so well. Yeah, he is on
death's door and he has seen the light in the
(18:13):
way of Rome. He seeks the absolution of your religious leaders.
And you know, let's keep our opinions out of it
because he's the boss. So he needs to be baptized
if he dies here, he wants to be buried in
this city, a Christian burial consecrated ground. So and I mean,
(18:34):
I think you know that probably like the word conversion
is like catnip to these people, you know, I mean,
it's like, okay, sure, the Heathens, you want one one
one will give one to God. Let's do it. Let
him in, open the gates. So if I guess he
and like a couple of his associates come in, and
you'll hear a couple of different versions of the story, right,
(18:55):
and one story hostin or half Dan is already dead
quote unquote, and they his followers take this coffin in
there to just get the burial and other versions of
the story. He is taken in and he's the technical
word is malingering. He's acting like he's a little more
(19:18):
ill than he actually is. And he sits through a
baptism ceremony right acpoint him with Holy apointment in oil,
and he's smiling and he falls backwards on a stretcher.
He's carried back to the ship by his companions, really
doing a real Meisner number. Yeah yeah. And after after
(19:40):
he gets carried back, they're doing a con right, And
so now the people trust that the Vikings are sincere.
And again, according to Doudo, I love the name. According
to Doudo, this is when half Dan says to his followers,
when night comes, you should say to the priests stand
the Duke that I am dead, and fervently pray that
(20:03):
I may be buried in the city. Say that you
want to give them the sword and bracelet and everything
that belongs to me. Spooky stuff right, treachery too right, indeed,
treachery most foul. And so they go back and they say,
our chief, as you have just named him, is dead.
We pray that you could be buried in your convent
and that you received these rich gifts he gave for
(20:25):
you on his deathbed. So hey, there's an upside for
you Rome. But what happens next? Oh well, my favorite
version of the story is when he pops out of
the coffin and uh slices off the head of a
priest and then says, you know, yolo, And then he
and his dudes charged back through the city to the gate.
They open it up to the horde, you know, the
(20:47):
remaining foot soldiers, I guess. And then something occurs to
uh Bjorn or half Dan or Hastine Hastin. Yes, it's
a terrible realization, quite embarrassing relation. And I'm not sure
what did it for them, but something there was an
aha moment or like an oh moment when they realized
(21:10):
they had successfully sacked the wrong city, a completely different city.
They were Viking rubes from the wild. They had no
idea that they never made it to Rome. Instead, they
were in a different town. Yeah, it's called Luna. And
again these are all some questionable retellings of this because
(21:33):
there are two different versions. Will tell the other one
in a second. But in one version of this, they
were so embarrassed that they massacred the entire population of
the city. They don't take well to surprises, I guess, so, yeah.
According to this version, they turn into full on lunatics.
They kill everyone, or at least all the adult men,
(21:57):
and then they say, Okay, we're gonna keep sailing. We're
going southeast, maybe to Alexandria and Egypt or something, and
then they raid the Mediterranean for a few years. Than
they return home, never to tell people of their embarrassing
wrong turn. That's right. And then there's a whole another
conflict involving Alfred the Great, where the um forces of
(22:20):
Hastin and Bjorn are kicking and around um Europe, the
United Kingdom, specifically Wales. Um. Actually his family gets abducted
by the forces of Alfred the Great and he ends
up having to negotiate with him to get his family
returned to him, and one thing leads to another, and
he does not succeed, and he more or less disappears
from history around eight nineties six, usually no more mention
(22:43):
of hastin half Dan, all sting whatever you wanna call. Yeah, yeah,
he you're you're correct. He disappears around eight nine six.
By then he is an elderly man. He's been described
as the lusty and terrifying old warrior of the Louis
in the Psalm, and we now know that he was
one of the most notorious and successful Vikings of all time.
(23:08):
But can't be that way without making enemies. So the
Norman monk Dudo of St. Quentin was incredibly critical of
our boy half Dan. He said, quote, this was a
man a curst, fierce, mightily cruel and savage, pestilent, hostile,
somber truculent, given to outrage, pestilent and untrustworthy, fickle and lawless,
(23:29):
death dealing, uncouth, fertile and ruses or monger, general trait
or fomentor of evil and double diided dissimulator. Goodness, gracious, right,
that is a war of words, right there, my friend,
fertile and ruses is such a great insult. He also
uses pestilent twice, which I couldn't help but notice that.
(23:51):
But yeah, so he definitely lives on in infamy even after,
you know, disappearing from the record. You're right, he doubled
down on PESTI. It really did. M So the question
then becomes a matter of how much we can trust Judo.
You know what I mean? Is he just spinning tales
(24:13):
to amuse himself or you know, what are his sources?
So we can say that this still counts as ridiculous
history despite the fact that many, many people died because
these guys, if we are to believe the story, were
so intelligent that they figured out a trojan horse type
ruse or heist on their own, but still didn't know
(24:34):
what city they were in. Yeah. Well, I mean it's
not like they had all the maps or anything. They
were kind of just like going by their gut, their
Viking guts. So thank you so much for tuning in everyone.
We hope that you enjoyed today. A man, every time
I thought maybe it wasn't gonna happen again, every time
(24:55):
it's time, gentlemen, Strickland a quiz or you guys you
like to call him the quizzler. I take his like
it's like using his name in vain or you know,
the Quizzler is a trademarked candy coming straight from the
chocolate shop. I also happened to run. Why are you
(25:15):
announcing that in such an archway? I mean, congratulations, man,
that's cool evil candy. That's do you sell those giant
gob stopper things like the jawbreakers you know that are
impossible to fit in your mouth? Is it like that
frustrating candy right? Yes, the kind that you have to
unhinge your jaw in order to put it in. Then
then you then you're just stuck with it. Edgy inconvenient candy.
(25:38):
We like to turn good kids into horrible kids and
then release them upon the world. That I don't go
in for all this nonsense of taking evil kids and
then you know, turning them into blueberries. That's just that's
amateur work. Okay, okay, this became a bit of an
exercise to throw some shade at Wonka. You get nothing,
(26:00):
all right, you lose, Well, it's little early for that
good day. Say, let's find out if you will lose,
because we all know that I've been summoned here, and
that tis my wuant whenever I find out, when I
finally figure out who is summoning you, the woe be
unto them. I just say, there's a little button under
(26:22):
one of these desks, and when someone pushes it, a
light comes on at my desk, and I run over
here as fast as my little legs can carry, like
a bat phone kind of situation do you have, like
a red telephone? The blanks or teller? What joined the
twenty one century? Noel here? All right, So as I
understand what you're talking about, invasion, So I've come up
(26:45):
with my own invasion quandary. If you do not understand
those listening what is happening, I don't blame you. I
haven't bothered to explain it yet. Oh let's do. Let's
do that part. So this is the This is the
part of the show where you, Jonathan Strickland the Quister,
arrive at the most unexpected moments, which tend to universally
(27:08):
be towards the end of the show, fully in disguise,
despite the fact that you have already established I am,
in fact Jonathan Strickland the quizter. Yes, yes, these are
all true things, and you are here to once again
test our knowledge. You are going to give us a scenario,
Is that correct? A scenario, and then you will determine
(27:29):
whether or not in fact the scenario I present to
you represents a true event in history, or if I
made it up. Seats, and you will have three minutes
to do so. In that three minutes, you will also
be allowed to ask questions of me, but only if
you first obey a rule of obitrary nature that I
will come up with at the time of the question.
So first I will give you the scenario. Then I
(27:50):
will tell you what the rule is you must follow
to ask any questions, and then we shall begin the
Great Grandfather clock timer. Okay, guys, have it touched that
since Daylight Saving Town? Okay, look irritating me, it's an
entire hour. I don't. I don't support daylight Saving time.
For the record, I choose to daylight waster. Well, we
(28:12):
just spent so much money on this clock. Quick peek
behind the curtain. This was a television show originally, but
we blew the budget on this enormous clock and that's
my fault. And now we're a podcast. Still feel obligated
to wear the costume. Thank you man, Thank well. I
just want to apologize. I'm sorry, No, I'm sorry, Casey
I'm somewhat sorry, tights chafe, So where are the year
(28:38):
six hundred and twenty five saw an entire English invasion
of Spain called off on account of drunkenness. Allowed me
to explain for complicated reasons involving a Spanish princess giving
the cold shoulder to Prince Charles, the son of James
the First, the Duke of Buckingham, wanted to use the
(28:58):
English fleet to put a hurt on Spain. James died
in sixty five and his boy Chuck became Charles the First.
Chuck dissolved parliament and Buckingham got to have his invasion,
except he forgot to supply the boats. So the fleet
attacked Cadiz, Spain, and takes over suppertuous fort, and the
(29:20):
commander of the invasion, seeing that he didn't have the
food and supplies needed to feed his invasion force, gave
the English permission to sack the fort's supplies, and so
the English began to drink copious amounts of wine until
the entire force of fifteen thousand soldiers were drunk as skunks.
(29:42):
Seeing no way to victory, the commander ordered a retreat
and Spain's invasion was cut very short due to public drunkenness.
Now your arbitrary rule is before you ask a question,
you must make a toast. Start the timer, all right?
Do you me running? Start? Oh far, and we're off
(30:04):
to the races. What do you think? Now? He's so
good at this, He's really good at this. And I
hate to say it. I hate to even give a
shred of a compliment to the quister, but he really
knows how to push my buttons. Yes, yes, uh, let's see.
That wasn't helpful for the questions. Here's valuable context. Man
(30:25):
um a toast, A toast to half Dan. Good enough,
he was in the episode that we just did. Okay,
So how common was wine at this time? Extremely? Well?
Wine is ancient. And then this was Spain, which is
not that far from I don't know if you know
your geography France. All right, Also a toast to Tuba solos.
(30:52):
You're not even trying, Mr, Buthea, they're great. Uh? Was
was Spain? Uh? A caliphate at that time? This is
immaterial of the question. And you know I've just I've
just tried to I can give you a lot more
details if you want. I can either make them up
seas or I can tell you real things about Spain.
(31:16):
That's true. That's an irrelevant question on my part. Older
you have a question. I just don't even know where
to start. I'm just so flamm x by this one.
I tend to lean towards I'm going with true. Okay,
it in three to one true. You are correct. Yes,
(31:40):
this actually did happen. Let me explain what was happening,
because the story gets so much crazier. But really that
was running a long already and I didn't want to
make it the super long one. So here's the story.
We have James, the first of England, and he wants
to make peace with Spain. There had been hostilities between
the two nations for quite sometimes you might have heard
of a little thing called the Spanish Matter, and Elizabeth
(32:03):
was all not having it. Anyway. To a secure peace
in the Renaissance really meant one thing, which is mary
one of your kids to one of the snot nosed
kids of the other place, and then hope that everything
turns out all right. So James reaches out to see
if perhaps they might be able to arrange a marriage
between a Infanta of the Spanish royalty and his son,
(32:29):
Charles the First or Charles at that point, and Charles
and Buckingham went incognito to Spain. That means no, they
weren't letting everyone know who they were. Are you kind
of sending to me, sir? So they go to Spain.
Nathan condescending means talk down to people. You're talking to
(32:49):
an expert. The Infanta says thanks, but no thanks, Chuck,
I don't think you're really revving my engines. And so
they were returned to England, Bucky him immediately. Bucking Him,
by the way, was one of James the First favorites,
possibly lover, and they wanted to immediately to create an
invasion of Spain. James the First didn't want to make
(33:10):
things worse, so until he died, which was in That's
how things stood. Then they tried to get Parliament two
agree to this invasion, but they were worried that perhaps
Parliament would agree to the invasion but then not pay
for it to happen, so they waited until Charles, now
Charles the First dissolved parliament, so Parliament is not in session,
(33:35):
and then they go and mount this invasion. They hire
a Dutch commander who was a brilliant land soldier take
up this armada invade Spain. They take over a fort
that doesn't remotely give them access to the town they
actually need to take, and the only supplies they had
(33:58):
any access to a wine. And then the commander says,
tell you what, why don't you guys go ahead and
get yourself something to drink because this might take a while,
And they got a rotten, stinging drunk they ran away.
One thousand English soldiers were left behind. Not a single
shot was fired in that invasion, and all one thousand
(34:19):
English soldiers were put to the sword. Cheerful, cheerful into
that story run through as it were, They probably didn't notice,
having been full of sack, which is a very strong wine,
we're back to We're back to sack, you saying, because
we were debating, we were actually we were trying to
figure out on the fly while we're recording the difference
(34:42):
between sack ran sack and looting, and there's not really one. Well,
and also sack isn't getting fired in Britain, and then
sack isn't taking over a city. Well, and there's also
a sack which is very strong wine, which I love.
Now I'm going to refer to any cheap, cheap wine
a sack. Should Henry, Henry the fourth pot one false
Staff is known for his sack. That's a that's a
(35:04):
pun as well. I think we've okay, okay, good, so
very body middle school? Shakespeare's man is a body boy?
Middle school me? Was it completely off base? Jonathan Strickland's
also known as the Quister. Thank you for returning to
the show. I think we're still a little behind him,
(35:27):
one behind me at this point. I think we're almost even.
You know what that means? Yeah, going to get way worse.
I don't know if that's possible. You're kind of the worst,
I think. I I think you're all right. I appreciate learning.
I'm gonna use the word sack a lot more. I
feel like I never appreciated it. You're sort of a
(35:47):
Carmen san Diego type figure, you know, Carmen. It is
true that Rockafella sings wherever I go. So so, Jonathan,
I feel like we don't say this too often when
you are on this show. You can be found not
just here, but on your other podcast, Tech Stuff and
(36:09):
The Brink, as well as Large Nerve Drawn Collider coming soon.
Available wherever you find your favorite shows. So in the meantime,
we hope that you enjoyed this story. If you find
names as cool as half Dan or your and ironside,
let us know sac Man, sac Man, half half Sack.
(36:32):
We gotta get up. That happened. People can tell we're
recording on a Friday. Yeah, let's so. You can find
us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Join your fellow listeners
over at our Facebook page. Ridiculous historians. Dare we say
it's more than just a page, it's a family? Oh yeah,
I don't dare no go, you're there all the time. There,
(36:54):
I don't dare say it's a family. Oh, because that
would be nice because the holidays are coming up. But
I already have a really low shopping list. That's fair,
That makes sense. Well, thanks to all of you guys
out there in podcast land. Thanks to you Ben for
being such a good co host and friend and happy
holidays and all that. Uh quister, thank thank you, thank you,
(37:18):
thank you. You know, um, I gave you a little
present as your desk. Don't drink it. I feel badly
about it now. Thanks for the heads up? What okay?
You know what we're a Family Show, so thanks to you,
Casey Pegraham. As always, thanks to Alex Williams who composed
our track and Chris frostiotis our research associate for this episode.
(37:41):
And stay tuned for the next episode where we talk
about the surprising roots of the Tooth Fairy. See you then,
Yeah, welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians and possible Viking descendants.
My name is Ben, my name is Nuel. I used
(00:31):
to have a little red in my beard. Does that
mean I'm a possible Viking descendant? Well, it means you
definitely have the possibility of that red haired jean. You know,
we would need to we need to do some more testing.
I also have a red beard when I grow it out.
And in the part of Tennessee where I'm from, there
is this old folks saying about how you can't trust
(00:54):
someone who has two different colors of facial hair, So
like I have brown hair on my head and then
red hair on my face. Not to be trusted. What
about people with two different color eyes? Because I have
the different colored beard and two different color eyes, I
mean I'm super untrustworthy. No, no, no, not in not
in my part of the world, hetero chromia. They seem
(01:15):
fine with what they think. I'm a witch. I think
you might have to have a milky eye, very like
apparently different eyes. But you know who is super trustworthy,
knowl our super producer Casey Pegram, who is also I
believe not not a Viking. Is that correct? Casey is correct. Yes,
(01:36):
I mean he's not an active Viking. His rating days
are behind him, right, I don't want to talk about it,
fair enough, Okay, So we were we were talking about
Viking names a little bit before we went on the
air today and one of the questions, one of the
questions I have. We have one character in this story
named hostin the Raider, and the question is how many
(01:57):
raids do you have to accomplish? How many do you
have to rack up or have under your belt for
that to become part of your name? And I said
save it for the pod, and you did not like that.
It's kind of like telling someone to shut up. I
don't know if that's it. Just no, it just means
this conversation would be best had it spontaneously in one go,
instead of doing it once and then trying to do
(02:17):
it again, because the magic is never the same. Man,
I see you're coming from. But it is like telling
someone to shut up. Okay, man, that's fair. But um,
but I seriously wonder though, Nola is like, do you
do one raid or do you do five? That's a
really good question. I mean, surely there's a metric for
these things, or maybe he gave himself his own nickname. Oh,
(02:39):
good call, that's interesting. I bet that's I bet that's
true because it is kind of a badass nickname. And
you can tell in a lot of these stories when
someone has a not quite complimentary nickname like Charles the
Bald or something exactly, that was probably bestowed upon him
by people that didn't care for him too much. Propaganda.
(02:59):
But why are we talking about Vikings today? Nol? Who? What?
What's this deal with Hosting the Raider? Costing the Raider
and his homie biorn Ironside, great name, also a great name.
They they did a little military blunder. That's a lot
of fun. Uh. It involves some sort of trojan Horse
like tactics. Uh, it involves possible decapitation of members of
(03:22):
the clergy and a whole lot of raping and pillaging
and raiding along the way. Yes, yes, yes, at least
that is if they actually existed. That's the strange part.
I hate that part about history where it's like, God,
this is so great, but it's probably not true. Yeah,
or it's or they'll try to make it a little
more optimistic and say they may have been real people.
(03:46):
You're thinking what. I am so invested in this story
right now, so take it with a grain of salt.
This was a long, long time ago. Hosting was a
Viking chieftain in the late ninth century, and some of
the characters in today's story are going to be familiar
to you if you are a fan of the television
series Vikings. Ye do you ever check that out? I haven't.
(04:07):
I watched a little bit of it here and there,
But I also know apparently it takes quite a few
liberties with some of these stories as well, and their
depiction of the character of yourn Ironside, he doesn't quite
do what he probably actually did in historical accounts because
it helped them with their storyline a little bit. Ah, yeah,
I see what you're saying. Was that on History Channel?
(04:30):
I think it was like the weird, anomalous, like big
budget kind of Game of Thrones e type show on
the History Channel. That's right, Well, let us know if
you're a fan, and let us know what you think
they got right. We're wrong, But this is a as
much as we can determine an historically true tale that way. Yes,
(04:50):
So we don't know much about hostin the Raider, his
early life aside for the fact that you know, he
rated a bunch of stuff, that's right, It wasn't ironic, uh,
And he came from a well established bloodline. Yeah, all
signs point to him being the son of a Ragnar
(05:11):
loath Brock, and apparently that was also You're and Ironside's father,
so they were possibly brothers, possibly brothers, or because bloodline
was such a big deal in this culture at this time,
it is also completely possible that Hosting just said that
to try to get some more street cred hip cred
got it vikings. So these vikings, they they kind of
(05:35):
had a singular mission, didn't they. Yeah, yeah, they had.
They the raiding economy, if you want to call it that,
it's a it's a It's a huge part of the
life of this culture, so much so that of course
people would get appellations or names for their performance or
(05:59):
lack of performance in a raid, And if there was
a really well done raid, then it would become part
of this world tradition. It was a legend. So Ragnar
loath Brock one of his big claims to fame was
the sacking of Paris. This occurred in eight forty five
and five thousand Vikings led by Ragnar, took over Paris.
(06:22):
It was the largest, richest, most defended city in Northern Europe.
This this was this was like a very violent proto heist, right,
and the king of the time, Charles the Bald, paid
a huge ransom of seven thousand pounds of silver to
Ragnar just to make them go away. Yeah, that'll do it.
(06:43):
So that's what a sacking is, right. It's so interesting
that term because I think of it in the British
parlance as getting fired, but it also means like getting
kind of conquered, which I guess they sort of mean
the same thing. Yeah, yeah, completely, I guess I could
see that. Yeah, that's an interesting etymology. Well, seven thousand
pounds of silver did not work. They returned a decade
(07:05):
later to sack the city again. There's no honor among Vikings,
I guess, yes, yeah. And the French in that time
were prepared and they were able to fight the Vikings off.
But then in eight fifty seven bure and Ironside, son
of Ragnar, actual son, uh, He takes his crew and
(07:25):
they returned to Paris. But they noticed that Paris Is
is in ruins. Only after after they're done looting. Only
four out of the what thirty something churches were left standing.
And they were encouraged by this wanton mayhem, this gleeful destruction,
and they said, you know what, raids are cool. Raids
(07:47):
are super cool. But Paris has kind of been done.
Let's go for something bigger. Why was it in such ruins? Then?
So from to eight fifty seven, we're talking about three
different sackings. There's not enough time the city to really
repair itself, you know what I mean. You can only
squeeze so much. I was gonna see milk from a cow,
but that seems weird. You can't get blood from a stone.
(08:09):
Poor Paris. Yeah, haven't they had enough? I mean, So
that's basically what the takeaway was, right, That's what I mean.
They were literally like, you know what I think? Uh,
I think we're gonna leave them alone this time, right right,
pretty much right now. But we should probably really quickly
mentioned that Houstin was such a badass that he actually
(08:30):
had quite a few names, whether they were aliases or
other nicknames, but he was known a k A half Dan.
That's my favorite one. By this, I mean he's like
half he used to be half dan. He used to
be like that. He's also all sting and also hastening
with that really cool A e uh combined letter. What
(08:52):
do you call that? Ben? Technically speaking, it's a grapheme
formed from the letters A and e originally represented the
Latin dipthong. A just sort of got smushed into one thing.
Got it? Got it? So at this point, um, Hastin
and Bjorn decided to make their way to the south
of France on the Lower River. Ah, Casey on the case.
(09:22):
You know what usually we I thought it was always
vampire rules with you, Casey, don't we invoke you. I
thought we had to invite you in to jump in there.
He couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't let that that gross
mispronunciation stand. Just trying to save us all some emails.
I appreciate it, buddy, I appreciate um. So so yeah,
(09:42):
so they're sailing, uh, I believe a fleet of sixty
two ships down the Loire River. Excuse me, case you
don't need to have you popping into my head again. Uh.
And they're going to the Iberian Peninsula. So, um, where
they are is in what isn't today modern day France.
And then they're going to um what is now Bane
in Portugal, and along the way. They don't always do
(10:04):
too hot because they're kind of persona on grata at
this point. They keep running around, sacking places and pillaging
and just having their way. So people are kind of
wise to them a little bit at this point, aren't they. Yeah,
this is all during this time. This is part of
the Umad Caliphate, and you can only do this kind
of thing so many times before people start realizing there's
(10:26):
trouble of foot, you know what I mean, unless you
kill everyone in the town you attack. So they did
not have a flawless record. In fact, when they were
raiding ships along the Galatian coast, they found that the
local resistance overall was just too strong. So they weren't
moving because they were maybe seeking greater riches. They were
(10:48):
seeking easier targets, easier pickings. Easier picking is sir, That's
how a lot of predators work, you know. And so
they moved on to pillage the west coast of the Emirate,
and there they started and cow entering more success. The
coast Guard of the time captured two long ships scouting
ahead of the main fleet and they found that these ships,
these scout ships, were already full of treasure and food
(11:11):
and slaves or captives that were destined to be enslaved.
So at this point they're almost in their almost switching
their tactics to more traditional pirate kind of right, right,
And they suffer another defeat when they land in southwest Spain.
The fleet next goes to the mouth of the guaddal
Quivier with the intention, maybe historians guests, of attacking Seville
(11:37):
for a second time, but then they get confronted by
the Moorish fleet. These were actual trained soldiers, They had
maritime war tactics. These were not just helpless fishing community.
And didn't they lose a whole bunch of ships and
men And in this confrontation, Yeah, because the Moorish fleet
had incendiary weapons, they were literally lighten them up and
(12:01):
the yeah, the ships burned, people died. What are the
Vikings used typically? Were they using like I mean the
access I imagine in close combat? But what what would
they use in c combat? Do you think? Well, one
thing we know for sure is that it was a
long standing rule of theirs to leave town, to leave
the scene if resistance was too strong. That's why their raiders,
(12:23):
you know what I mean. And so if we're if
we're guessing, we know that a lot of their fleets
had little to know cohesion, you know, it's kind of
like more like a convoy on the road. Yeah. So
they didn't attack ships with the intent of destroying them.
They wanted to board them. So one of their common
(12:45):
tactics was to try to ram ships and then once
they're close enough, jump on the shore you go. And
then they probably go to town with those battle axes
right with them and they web. But I do believe
they also used bows and arrows and spears and things
like that. I could picture shooting volleys of arrows, you know,
onto other ships. Possibly, I don't know. I can't confirm that,
(13:06):
but it seems like that would be one way of
getting it done. M Yeah, yeah, agreed. So typically their
their aim was to get in close quarters to kill
enslave plunder. But this other fleet that is well, uh
well accustomed two maritime ship on ship warfare there, you know,
(13:28):
their woutang style. They're nothing to with for sure. No,
And I mean they were designed for that purpose of
ramming as well. I mean the way the whole the
whole ship was kind of built with that in mind.
And so as as we said, noel uh, they encounter
professional naval forces and they get the horns slapped off
(13:51):
the helmets, which by the way, is a stereotype. And
and they were barely able to make their way home,
the few that were left alive. If we're forced to
pay a ransom to escape. But this defeat, this ignominious defeat,
did not scare or extinguish the thirst for vast treasures
and glory on the part of your and iron side
(14:14):
and hastin half Dan half I love half Dan. So
at this point they've had some wins, they've had some losses,
you know, but they still want more. That's sort of
the nature of this kind of life, right. You don't
really rest on your laurels, you know, otherwise you'll be
(14:37):
seen as weak, and then you won't be the toughest
viking in the sea, right And then what's the point
what's the point? Well, no, it's it's kind of like
mob rules, right, Like if it's as soon as you
let up and stop you know, kicking people's asses all
the time and taking collections, then all of a sudden
someone else is going to move in on your turf,
so they couldn't have that. And I think we've all
(14:58):
heard that expression all roads lead to At this time
that was especially true because Rome was seen as like
the crown jewel of sack Herble places, right, Like that's
the one that you would guarantee to have a crazy,
incredible haul because it was full of riches and wealth,
and like we had this whole you know, civilized society
(15:18):
with culture and like it was just practically the streets
were paved with gold right in the minds of these
vikings and the minds these vikings, And this leads us
to another character. We have to introduce the Norman monk
Dudo of St. Quentin. Doo dude, oh uh. We don't
(15:41):
know uh a ton about this guy, except that he
was born around nine, he was in the Norman court
Normandy for a while, and in his second stay in
Normandy he wrote his history of the Norman's And as
for the rest of his life, we know that he
died some time before ten forty three, So we don't
(16:02):
know a whole heck of a lot about him, but
we do know that he is the source of the
story that takes place. Next. Here's what happens. According to
the story Your Ironside and there's buddy half Dan. They
land in a place after they've been raiding the coast
(16:23):
of Africa and getting their butts whipped by some professional
naval forces. They land somewhere in Italy and they think,
this is the most amazing city. Holy smokes, bro, we
made it. We're in Rome and we're about to get down.
We are going to tear the place up. We're gonna
(16:46):
light it up, yolo time. It's total Viking yollosish. So
they want to use a little bit of cunning because
from everything they know about Rome, it's huge, it's home
to opulent wealth, and it's probably very well protected. Right,
So they said, there's no way we can take this
(17:07):
by force. Like we're we're great guys, half Dan, but
we we've got to think this through. Let's let's through.
Our usual bloodthirsty, ruthless kind of smash and grab techniques
are not going to serve us in this particular situation. Yeah,
half Dan, that's how that went. This is uh So
(17:30):
then you say, okay, well, let's let's give it tonight.
Let's think on it. The next morning, a small group
of Vikings approaches the city walls and they say, hold on,
hold on, hang on. I know we look crazy, dressed
in furs, dirty and sea worn, but we have not
come to plunder you. We have no strength left. We're exhausted.
(17:52):
We've been traveling a lot. Could you just make peace
with us and let us buy what we need, you know,
like food and provisions are chiefs are weak and broken,
and uh, we need help. And our boy half Nan
here is not doing so well. Yeah, he is on
death's door and he has seen the light in the
(18:13):
way of Rome. He seeks the absolution of your religious leaders.
And you know, let's keep our opinions out of it
because he's the boss. So he needs to be baptized
if he dies here, he wants to be buried in
this city, a Christian burial consecrated ground. So and I mean,
(18:34):
I think you know that probably like the word conversion
is like catnip to these people, you know, I mean,
it's like, okay, sure, the Heathens, you want one one
one will give one to God. Let's do it. Let
him in, open the gates. So if I guess he
and like a couple of his associates come in, and
you'll hear a couple of different versions of the story, right,
(18:55):
and one story hostin or half Dan is already dead
quote unquote, and they his followers take this coffin in
there to just get the burial and other versions of
the story. He is taken in and he's the technical
word is malingering. He's acting like he's a little more
(19:18):
ill than he actually is. And he sits through a
baptism ceremony right acpoint him with Holy apointment in oil,
and he's smiling and he falls backwards on a stretcher.
He's carried back to the ship by his companions, really
doing a real Meisner number. Yeah yeah. And after after
(19:40):
he gets carried back, they're doing a con right, And
so now the people trust that the Vikings are sincere.
And again, according to Doudo, I love the name. According
to Doudo, this is when half Dan says to his followers,
when night comes, you should say to the priests stand
the Duke that I am dead, and fervently pray that
(20:03):
I may be buried in the city. Say that you
want to give them the sword and bracelet and everything
that belongs to me. Spooky stuff right, treachery too right, indeed,
treachery most foul. And so they go back and they say,
our chief, as you have just named him, is dead.
We pray that you could be buried in your convent
and that you received these rich gifts he gave for
(20:25):
you on his deathbed. So hey, there's an upside for
you Rome. But what happens next? Oh well, my favorite
version of the story is when he pops out of
the coffin and uh slices off the head of a
priest and then says, you know, yolo, And then he
and his dudes charged back through the city to the gate.
They open it up to the horde, you know, the
(20:47):
remaining foot soldiers, I guess. And then something occurs to
uh Bjorn or half Dan or Hastine Hastin. Yes, it's
a terrible realization, quite embarrassing relation. And I'm not sure
what did it for them, but something there was an
aha moment or like an oh moment when they realized
(21:10):
they had successfully sacked the wrong city, a completely different city.
They were Viking rubes from the wild. They had no
idea that they never made it to Rome. Instead, they
were in a different town. Yeah, it's called Luna. And
again these are all some questionable retellings of this because
(21:33):
there are two different versions. Will tell the other one
in a second. But in one version of this, they
were so embarrassed that they massacred the entire population of
the city. They don't take well to surprises, I guess, so, yeah.
According to this version, they turn into full on lunatics.
They kill everyone, or at least all the adult men,
(21:57):
and then they say, Okay, we're gonna keep sailing. We're
going southeast, maybe to Alexandria and Egypt or something, and
then they raid the Mediterranean for a few years. Than
they return home, never to tell people of their embarrassing
wrong turn. That's right. And then there's a whole another
conflict involving Alfred the Great, where the um forces of
(22:20):
Hastin and Bjorn are kicking and around um Europe, the
United Kingdom, specifically Wales. Um. Actually his family gets abducted
by the forces of Alfred the Great and he ends
up having to negotiate with him to get his family
returned to him, and one thing leads to another, and
he does not succeed, and he more or less disappears
from history around eight nineties six, usually no more mention
(22:43):
of hastin half Dan, all sting whatever you wanna call. Yeah, yeah,
he you're you're correct. He disappears around eight nine six.
By then he is an elderly man. He's been described
as the lusty and terrifying old warrior of the Louis
in the Psalm, and we now know that he was
one of the most notorious and successful Vikings of all time.
(23:08):
But can't be that way without making enemies. So the
Norman monk Dudo of St. Quentin was incredibly critical of
our boy half Dan. He said, quote, this was a
man a curst, fierce, mightily cruel and savage, pestilent, hostile,
somber truculent, given to outrage, pestilent and untrustworthy, fickle and lawless,
(23:29):
death dealing, uncouth, fertile and ruses or monger, general trait
or fomentor of evil and double diided dissimulator. Goodness, gracious, right,
that is a war of words, right there, my friend,
fertile and ruses is such a great insult. He also
uses pestilent twice, which I couldn't help but notice that.
(23:51):
But yeah, so he definitely lives on in infamy even after,
you know, disappearing from the record. You're right, he doubled
down on PESTI. It really did. M So the question
then becomes a matter of how much we can trust Judo.
You know what I mean? Is he just spinning tales
(24:13):
to amuse himself or you know, what are his sources?
So we can say that this still counts as ridiculous
history despite the fact that many, many people died because
these guys, if we are to believe the story, were
so intelligent that they figured out a trojan horse type
ruse or heist on their own, but still didn't know
(24:34):
what city they were in. Yeah. Well, I mean it's
not like they had all the maps or anything. They
were kind of just like going by their gut, their
Viking guts. So thank you so much for tuning in everyone.
We hope that you enjoyed today. A man, every time
I thought maybe it wasn't gonna happen again, every time
(24:55):
it's time, gentlemen, Strickland a quiz or you guys you
like to call him the quizzler. I take his like
it's like using his name in vain or you know,
the Quizzler is a trademarked candy coming straight from the
chocolate shop. I also happened to run. Why are you
(25:15):
announcing that in such an archway? I mean, congratulations, man,
that's cool evil candy. That's do you sell those giant
gob stopper things like the jawbreakers you know that are
impossible to fit in your mouth? Is it like that
frustrating candy right? Yes, the kind that you have to
unhinge your jaw in order to put it in. Then
then you then you're just stuck with it. Edgy inconvenient candy.
(25:38):
We like to turn good kids into horrible kids and
then release them upon the world. That I don't go
in for all this nonsense of taking evil kids and
then you know, turning them into blueberries. That's just that's
amateur work. Okay, okay, this became a bit of an
exercise to throw some shade at Wonka. You get nothing,
(26:00):
all right, you lose, Well, it's little early for that
good day. Say, let's find out if you will lose,
because we all know that I've been summoned here, and
that tis my wuant whenever I find out, when I
finally figure out who is summoning you, the woe be
unto them. I just say, there's a little button under
(26:22):
one of these desks, and when someone pushes it, a
light comes on at my desk, and I run over
here as fast as my little legs can carry, like
a bat phone kind of situation do you have, like
a red telephone? The blanks or teller? What joined the
twenty one century? Noel here? All right, So as I
understand what you're talking about, invasion, So I've come up
(26:45):
with my own invasion quandary. If you do not understand
those listening what is happening, I don't blame you. I
haven't bothered to explain it yet. Oh let's do. Let's
do that part. So this is the This is the
part of the show where you, Jonathan Strickland the Quister,
arrive at the most unexpected moments, which tend to universally
(27:08):
be towards the end of the show, fully in disguise,
despite the fact that you have already established I am,
in fact Jonathan Strickland the quizter. Yes, yes, these are
all true things, and you are here to once again
test our knowledge. You are going to give us a scenario,
Is that correct? A scenario, and then you will determine
(27:29):
whether or not in fact the scenario I present to
you represents a true event in history, or if I
made it up. Seats, and you will have three minutes
to do so. In that three minutes, you will also
be allowed to ask questions of me, but only if
you first obey a rule of obitrary nature that I
will come up with at the time of the question.
So first I will give you the scenario. Then I
(27:50):
will tell you what the rule is you must follow
to ask any questions, and then we shall begin the
Great Grandfather clock timer. Okay, guys, have it touched that
since Daylight Saving Town? Okay, look irritating me, it's an
entire hour. I don't. I don't support daylight Saving time.
For the record, I choose to daylight waster. Well, we
(28:12):
just spent so much money on this clock. Quick peek
behind the curtain. This was a television show originally, but
we blew the budget on this enormous clock and that's
my fault. And now we're a podcast. Still feel obligated
to wear the costume. Thank you man, Thank well. I
just want to apologize. I'm sorry, No, I'm sorry, Casey
I'm somewhat sorry, tights chafe, So where are the year
(28:38):
six hundred and twenty five saw an entire English invasion
of Spain called off on account of drunkenness. Allowed me
to explain for complicated reasons involving a Spanish princess giving
the cold shoulder to Prince Charles, the son of James
the First, the Duke of Buckingham, wanted to use the
(28:58):
English fleet to put a hurt on Spain. James died
in sixty five and his boy Chuck became Charles the First.
Chuck dissolved parliament and Buckingham got to have his invasion,
except he forgot to supply the boats. So the fleet
attacked Cadiz, Spain, and takes over suppertuous fort, and the
(29:20):
commander of the invasion, seeing that he didn't have the
food and supplies needed to feed his invasion force, gave
the English permission to sack the fort's supplies, and so
the English began to drink copious amounts of wine until
the entire force of fifteen thousand soldiers were drunk as skunks.
(29:42):
Seeing no way to victory, the commander ordered a retreat
and Spain's invasion was cut very short due to public drunkenness.
Now your arbitrary rule is before you ask a question,
you must make a toast. Start the timer, all right?
Do you me running? Start? Oh far, and we're off
(30:04):
to the races. What do you think? Now? He's so
good at this, He's really good at this. And I
hate to say it. I hate to even give a
shred of a compliment to the quister, but he really
knows how to push my buttons. Yes, yes, uh, let's see.
That wasn't helpful for the questions. Here's valuable context. Man
(30:25):
um a toast, A toast to half Dan. Good enough,
he was in the episode that we just did. Okay,
So how common was wine at this time? Extremely? Well?
Wine is ancient. And then this was Spain, which is
not that far from I don't know if you know
your geography France. All right, Also a toast to Tuba solos.
(30:52):
You're not even trying, Mr, Buthea, they're great. Uh? Was
was Spain? Uh? A caliphate at that time? This is
immaterial of the question. And you know I've just I've
just tried to I can give you a lot more
details if you want. I can either make them up
seas or I can tell you real things about Spain.
(31:16):
That's true. That's an irrelevant question on my part. Older
you have a question. I just don't even know where
to start. I'm just so flamm x by this one.
I tend to lean towards I'm going with true. Okay,
it in three to one true. You are correct. Yes,
(31:40):
this actually did happen. Let me explain what was happening,
because the story gets so much crazier. But really that
was running a long already and I didn't want to
make it the super long one. So here's the story.
We have James, the first of England, and he wants
to make peace with Spain. There had been hostilities between
the two nations for quite sometimes you might have heard
of a little thing called the Spanish Matter, and Elizabeth
(32:03):
was all not having it. Anyway. To a secure peace
in the Renaissance really meant one thing, which is mary
one of your kids to one of the snot nosed
kids of the other place, and then hope that everything
turns out all right. So James reaches out to see
if perhaps they might be able to arrange a marriage
between a Infanta of the Spanish royalty and his son,
(32:29):
Charles the First or Charles at that point, and Charles
and Buckingham went incognito to Spain. That means no, they
weren't letting everyone know who they were. Are you kind
of sending to me, sir? So they go to Spain.
Nathan condescending means talk down to people. You're talking to
(32:49):
an expert. The Infanta says thanks, but no thanks, Chuck,
I don't think you're really revving my engines. And so
they were returned to England, Bucky him immediately. Bucking Him,
by the way, was one of James the First favorites,
possibly lover, and they wanted to immediately to create an
invasion of Spain. James the First didn't want to make
(33:10):
things worse, so until he died, which was in That's
how things stood. Then they tried to get Parliament two
agree to this invasion, but they were worried that perhaps
Parliament would agree to the invasion but then not pay
for it to happen, so they waited until Charles, now
Charles the First dissolved parliament, so Parliament is not in session,
(33:35):
and then they go and mount this invasion. They hire
a Dutch commander who was a brilliant land soldier take
up this armada invade Spain. They take over a fort
that doesn't remotely give them access to the town they
actually need to take, and the only supplies they had
(33:58):
any access to a wine. And then the commander says,
tell you what, why don't you guys go ahead and
get yourself something to drink because this might take a while,
And they got a rotten, stinging drunk they ran away.
One thousand English soldiers were left behind. Not a single
shot was fired in that invasion, and all one thousand
(34:19):
English soldiers were put to the sword. Cheerful, cheerful into
that story run through as it were, They probably didn't notice,
having been full of sack, which is a very strong wine,
we're back to We're back to sack, you saying, because
we were debating, we were actually we were trying to
figure out on the fly while we're recording the difference
(34:42):
between sack ran sack and looting, and there's not really one. Well,
and also sack isn't getting fired in Britain, and then
sack isn't taking over a city. Well, and there's also
a sack which is very strong wine, which I love.
Now I'm going to refer to any cheap, cheap wine
a sack. Should Henry, Henry the fourth pot one false
Staff is known for his sack. That's a that's a
(35:04):
pun as well. I think we've okay, okay, good, so
very body middle school? Shakespeare's man is a body boy?
Middle school me? Was it completely off base? Jonathan Strickland's
also known as the Quister. Thank you for returning to
the show. I think we're still a little behind him,
(35:27):
one behind me at this point. I think we're almost even.
You know what that means? Yeah, going to get way worse.
I don't know if that's possible. You're kind of the worst,
I think. I I think you're all right. I appreciate learning.
I'm gonna use the word sack a lot more. I
feel like I never appreciated it. You're sort of a
(35:47):
Carmen san Diego type figure, you know, Carmen. It is
true that Rockafella sings wherever I go. So so, Jonathan,
I feel like we don't say this too often when
you are on this show. You can be found not
just here, but on your other podcast, Tech Stuff and
(36:09):
The Brink, as well as Large Nerve Drawn Collider coming soon.
Available wherever you find your favorite shows. So in the meantime,
we hope that you enjoyed this story. If you find
names as cool as half Dan or your and ironside,
let us know sac Man, sac Man, half half Sack.
(36:32):
We gotta get up. That happened. People can tell we're
recording on a Friday. Yeah, let's so. You can find
us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Join your fellow listeners
over at our Facebook page. Ridiculous historians. Dare we say
it's more than just a page, it's a family? Oh yeah,
I don't dare no go, you're there all the time. There,
(36:54):
I don't dare say it's a family. Oh, because that
would be nice because the holidays are coming up. But
I already have a really low shopping list. That's fair,
That makes sense. Well, thanks to all of you guys
out there in podcast land. Thanks to you Ben for
being such a good co host and friend and happy
holidays and all that. Uh quister, thank thank you, thank you,
(37:18):
thank you. You know, um, I gave you a little
present as your desk. Don't drink it. I feel badly
about it now. Thanks for the heads up? What okay?
You know what we're a Family Show, so thanks to you,
Casey Pegraham. As always, thanks to Alex Williams who composed
our track and Chris frostiotis our research associate for this episode.
(37:41):
And stay tuned for the next episode where we talk
about the surprising roots of the Tooth Fairy. See you then,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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