January 23, 2024 • 48 mins
In today's episode Ben and Pat pull from the world of Norse legend a vengeful, pitiless necromancer sorceress. We're talking bear massacres, viking zombies (hell yeah!) and general epic bloody battles. Even her name is awesome: Skuld!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by
High five Content. A giant, demonic wild boar whips a
volley of spines from its razorback and an on rushing
phalanx of vikings, the arrow like needles ripping men apart
where they stand across the battlefield. A spectral grizzly bear
(00:23):
wearing a horned Viking helmet swipes a massive paw'send new
dozens of skeletal warriors in armor flying towards a stone wall,
where they shatter on impact. This is Viking Camelot, and
it is the last stand of the legendary Viking ruler
(00:43):
Rolf Kracky. It is King Rolf's half sister, the mystical
and deadly Viking Necromancer's Skuld, who now leads the army
that batters down his defenses. Abandoned by her father, betrayed
by her brother, she has dedicated her life to vengeance,
which now hangs within reach. But in order to get it,
(01:06):
she must use her powerful dark magic to lead an
army of ghouls, dark elves, monsters, and Viking zombies against
the most formidable brotherhood of Norse berserkers ever assembled. This
is the story of Parolf Kracky both var Biarchy and
Skulled the Necromancer, and it's quite possibly the most badass
(01:29):
Viking myth ever written. Hey, hey, hello, and welcome back
to Badass of the Week. My name is Ben Thompson
and I am here as always with my co host,
doctor Pat Larsh.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Hello, badasses.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Hello, Yes, we are doing something really fun this week.
You know, we have for the last couple of weeks
written and talked about a lot of historical figures.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Like real people who actually existed.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, yeah, And I love those stories. And in a
lot of ways, those stories are more interesting to me
because they're real people who did real things, So every
real thing that happens seems just more and more unbelievable
as these stories go on. But you know, our first
episode was about Hercules, and I keep thinking about our
(02:25):
Jengar episode that we did, which I think was one
of my favorite ones that we ever have done. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Mongolian here legend.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yes, the Mongolian mythology of Jengar.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
He was not a harvestent real, but he was totally
one hundred and ten percent badass.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yes, yeah, I just love I love talking about myth
because you know, you can have some fun with the
stories because they're not real people and the other stories
that we talk about, generally, the type of stories we
talk about, like real people are dying and there is
that component to and in a myth it's it's not
quite the case. So in a myth everything's nothing's it's
(03:05):
not real. So you can have a little bit of
fun and make a little bit more jokes with stuff
and talk about some of the more like unseemly characters.
And you know, I enjoy a good mythological villain.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Okay, so, Ben, I'm getting the sense that you have
a particular mythological villain in mind.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I do. I do. So you had kind of done
the Jangar thing, the Mongolian myth, and so for me,
like I always have this soft spot for Viking myth
because they're pretty pretty awesome, and you know, sometimes they're
a little they're a little tricky to read. Sometimes they're
a little tricky to parts because they the style of
(03:48):
writing is is a bit antiquated, and it makes it
a little bit hard to read and track some of
these stories. But there's a lot of good stuff in there.
This week, what I want to talk about is a
particular myth of a sorceress, a necromancer sorceress named Skuld
who comes from a skull that.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Sounds Viking, I mean the sounds Scandinavian, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yes, it's Skuld skulled like a skull, right, Like it's
awesome And.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Okay, I have to say I looked up etymologies and
stuff and the name Scold is related to the word should,
as in what has to happen.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, so this is kind of an interesting thing about
school because Viking myth is very very hardcore, very intense,
and so Sculd is interesting. Yeah, like should I love that? Right?
That's very that's very cool. And in Norse myth, that
works for this story because because Schold is not only
the name of this particular necromancer we're going to talk
(04:57):
about in this particular kind of scure myth involving wolf
Kracky and both var biarchy, but like, Skuld was also
the name of one of the Norns, which is a
group of three goddesses that are basically equivalent to like
the fates or the furies. They're like the cosmic beings
(05:20):
that determine the fate of warriors and combat and they say,
they're said to have like traveled alongside the valkyries, that
kind of thing. But they determine who lives and who dies,
and so you know, there is a Scold that does that.
There are three of these norns and they're you know,
Banshees are another good example of something that's like, you know,
(05:43):
a spirit that determines whether you live or die. And
we're going to see from Scold that she's a human
woman that also does that. Yes, so we're going to
take a quick break here and when we come back,
(06:04):
we are going to talk about a really badass, really
obscure Viking hero or I guess villain.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And I mean it's good and obscure if you're not
steeped in Norse mythology, right, you know, I just I
just I just want to give a shout out to
people who geek out about Norse mythology.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
You know, yeah, absolutely absolutely, But like even among that,
this story is a little bit of a of a
weird one. It's a little bit of an outlier, right,
This isn't isn't Loki and Hell and Thor and Odin
and all of those. You know, when you think about
Norse myth even as somebody who kind of studies it.
You know, this one's kind of a Yeah, she's a
(06:50):
bit of a minor character and a bit of a
minor myth But like, the story is cool, and I
think it'll be really fun to tell it.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, And I like to think of myself as someone
who knows a thing or two about mythology, including Norris,
And honestly, Schoold was new to me, so I appreciate
the opportunity to learn more.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yes, So we are going to take a quick break
and we'll get back. We are going to get into it.
Scold's story begins with a Danish king named Helgi, and
(07:34):
the version that we're using here is from a book
called the Saga of Hrolf Kracky. It's the story of
a couple of generations of semi legendary Danish kings. We're
talking like Jengar kinds of things here where maybe this
is there's some reality here, maybe something some of these
like a King Arthur kind of thing. Maybe these people lived,
maybe they didn't. We don't know, but it probably didn't
(07:57):
go down the way that this story indicates.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
No, But on the other hand, most things probably didn't.
If we're talking about several centuries slash millennia ago, and
let's just lean into the story.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
This gold story begins with a Danish king named Helgi,
and one year around Yule time, you know, winter solstice,
and Helge is a pretty pretty powerful king of Denmark.
And he's not like the king of Denmark. Denmark is
a bunch of smaller little areas at the time, but
he's a major king of a major kingdom in Denmark.
(08:35):
And he is he's at home and there's a knock
on his door and the door opens and there's a
woman there. She's dressed in these kind of ragged robes.
It's raining outside, and she says, oh, you know, can
you help me? Can you just give me a little
bit of food? He says, oh, no, come on in,
come on in, and oh she's a sexy elf lady. Great,
(08:58):
this is great for Helgi. He's very happy. So he says,
come on in, have some wine. You know, we'll put
on some music. You know, you can stay here if
you need to anyway. The next morning, she says, I'm
pregnant by you, Helgi.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Wait wait a minute, wa, wha wha what what?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
What?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
What? Whoa what? What? Like we're talking like not even twenty
four hours, like twelve hours.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Like she's an elf, she's magical, she knows this stuff.
So she says, I'm pregnant with your kid. Back behind
your long house. There's a little boat house there where
you set off your Viking warships to go to war.
Come back there in nine months and uh, pick up
your daughter.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Wait wait, wait, wait wait. She knows the gender. Like
we've had gender reveal party.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
She knows the gender, she knows the date. She says,
in nine months, you come back to this boat house,
you pick up your daughter. Bye, I gotta go, and
she leaves. And Helgi I mean Helgi is he's a
badass Viking warrior. He travels around, He plumbed nerves, he pillages.
He's not the kind of guy that like is going
to come back in nine months to pick up the daughter.
(10:05):
He just completely forgets about all this. Hell's Hellcky's not
a good guy. He's a Viking. He's a murderer, right,
He's not a good person. Here's the moral of that story,
is that if you got a kid that you're supposed
to pick up from a boat house in nine months,
you better show up because he doesn't show up. And
then more months pass, and after about three years, one
(10:30):
day he gets a knock on his door.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
That's so three years, that's like okay wait wait checks,
nos does math thirty six months? Okay, that's like four
times times nine months?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Okay, yeah, yeah, So three years he gets a knock
on his door and it's a group of elves and
they have a three year old girl with them and
they say, here you go, this's your daughter, and now,
because you didn't pick her up, we are going to
put a curse on you. And that's what they do.
I don't know where the mom's at, I don't know
(11:01):
what the deal is, but they they show up and
they drop this girl off. Her name is Scold. Scold, yes,
and she is going to be the story. Yeah should
you should have picked her up on? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So Scold is three years old and she starts growing
up with Helgi in the court of Helgi, and she
doesn't get the attention that you know, she kind of
gets kind of shoved off to the side, and she
decides she is half elf, half Viking. She's pretty badass.
She is going to start learning the dark arts. She
(11:43):
wants to be able to kill people with her mind
and catch their heads on fire. And she is going
to study all the evil dark magic that you're not
allowed to study because she wants she has elf powers,
she has magic powers, so she wants to learn to
have powerful magical energy. So Helgy the curse doesn't work
(12:05):
out that well for Helgy. He accidentally marries his own
daughter and then has a son with her named Rolf.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
That's okay, okay, that's that's just that's just awkward, And
I guess I just I guess I should just intervene
and say, we're in the we're in the realm of
myth and legend, and.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
This is extremely common.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yes, yeah, family trees are you know, as Tani said,
or as our guest said a few episodes ago. Sometimes
these family trees are more like family rambles or family wreaths,
you know.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, yeah, it looks like a diagram of a parallel circuit. Yeah,
it's it's hard, right. So Helgey accidentally marries his own daughter,
has a kid with her named Rolf Cracky, and then
he dies named what Rolf Cracky? So h R O
L F so.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Okay, Rolf kracky k R A K I Rolf, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah. And then Helgi dies in a fire, which is
just how Viking sagas go.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Okay, okay, okay, So moving on.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah and so so Rolf Cracky becomes the king and
Skuld is still his sister. She's still a princess, right,
And so she ends up marrying a very powerful Swedish
king name Horvarf who was very strong, very brave, apparently
(13:34):
not a verse to women who can conjure operations through
their knowledge of the dark arts.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And that seems like a feature, not a bug.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, I like it right. He seems like he seems
like an understanding kind of guy. And they rule the
kingdom of the Gouts, which are like Swedish Goths. I
think is my understanding. He's a king of Sweden and
he rules the Gouts Scouts g a U t s Scouts.
So Scold and Rolf Kracky her brother, and also probably
(14:04):
some other relation because he he married his daughter. I
don't know how that works, but I'm not going to
do the math on what other thing he how else
he's related to her. But they get along until one
day Rolf tricks Skuld's husband hre Varth into accidentally becoming
a vassal of Denmark. So how does something like that happen? Yeah,
(14:26):
apparently Rolfe had a magic sword that he'd found, this
really really awesome sword. It was magical, it cuts through
things like it's great, and he offers it to hure
of Arth as a gift, and the Swedish king of
course he wants it. It's awesome magic sword.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I mean it sounds cool. Yeah, like I would want that, like.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, yeah, of course, and so here of Arth accepts it.
But then apparently there's some secret rule amongst the Vikings
that if a king offers you a sword and you
accept it, that means a vassal of his. And so
now suddenly a rolf Kracky is the king of Denmark
and Sweden. Pure of Arth is like now bound by
(15:10):
some stupid sense of honor to like accept this as fact.
And okay, yes, now I must declare my fealty to
you and pay you a yearly tribute. And you have
now conquered Sweden through trickery, and even though you were
completely devious in your actions, I, as an honorable Viking king,
(15:30):
must adhere to my honor and be the king.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Okay, So yep.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
What do we know about Scold so far?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah? What do we know about her? Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
She is a master of the dark arts and has
been looking for kind of revenge on her father who
mistreated her and ignored her her whole life. That father, Helgi,
his son Wolf Kracky, is now the king of Denmark
and also the lord of her husband. She has kind
of like made her way. She's learned magical powers. She
(16:04):
found this good king to marry and she rules this
kingdom with him, has separated herself from the world of
Helgi and Rolf Kracky and has made her own fiefdom.
And then Earlf Cracky shows up and subjugates her again.
And so how do you think that's going to go
with someone like Scold?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Ooh? Would she like place a curse or a blessing
or a spell or something? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
She goes to her husband, he or of Arth, and
she tells him this is freaking stupid, tell him you're
not going to pay the tribute and that this is
lame and that you got tricked and this is dumb.
What are you doing? Why are you accepting this idiot? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Okay, so she's making a financial argument.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, she says, why are you why what do you
get rid of your stupid sense of honor? And this
guy tricked you, and like uh huh tell this guy
to go to hell and don't pay him. What are
you doing?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah? Sure of Barth of course, is not open to
listening to this. He says, no, no, I must, I
must adhere to my I don't know, it's a it's
a Viking honor thing. Grow of cracky. For his part,
he goes on to be really famous and super powerful.
He plunders and conquers and amasses this huge treasure hoard.
He recruits all of the greatest warriors of Norway and
(17:21):
Sweden and Denmark to come join him. He has this
court of twelve berserkers, which kind of is our theory.
And if you think about it, these berserkers, they are
the greatest er intervene and.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Just say, like with berserkers like berserk in like English,
the way people use it conversationally today, it's just like, eh,
you know, like all over the place, chaotic whatever. But
for these warriors, it was it was this state of
mind that you got into that allowed you to like
(17:56):
badass all over the place.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, yeah, they would kill animals, either wolves or bears.
Usually kill some kind of like wild predator with a
with a hand to hand weapon, right, So, like fight
a bear with an axe and they'd kill it and
they'd skin it in with as like that's real hunting.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Right from the point of view of the human, that's
pretty bad ass.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Well, the idea is that these berserkers are more badass
than the bears, right, So they skin the bear and
they wear the skin of the bear as a coat.
You've seen this kind of thing with Viking stuff where
they had the wolf head on their as like a
hat or whatever.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and like you like absorb the energy
or like inhabit the energy.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. A berserker just means bear skin
like they would like they would the guys who wore
bear skins, Okay, yes, the entomology of that word. And
these guys would like they would stay up late the
night before a big battle and they would like chant
music and they'd drink some concoction that involved mushrooms of
some variety, and they'd get all like they'd stay up
(19:02):
all night and get super hyper and they'd like just
charge like frothing at the mouth into battle the next
day and fight everything, and there's there's stories of like
the battle was over, but there were berserkers that were
still just like chopping down trees because they were so
like hyped up to fight that like they couldn't turn
it off. They would just chop down trees after the
battle because they was nobody left to kill. Like this
is the style of guy that that Rolf Kracky enjoys,
(19:26):
like recruiting to his side because like you said, you
want bears to be your friends, and these guys are
tougher than bears.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, there's what is It's not the
the transitive property, the commutative property. Like bears are badass,
we are batter ass than bears. Therefore we are even
more badass.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yes, yeah, exactly, yeah yeah. And so Rolf gets his
gets this huge empire. Basically he's one of the greatest
heroes ever. He's been accumulating all the wealth and Scold
still has to pay him taxes and tribute every year.
And she says, okay, look, she goes to.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Her brother, I mean, you know, death and taxes.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, yeah, well she doesn't think she's have to pay that.
She used to be a queen and now she's she's
a vassal. Right, so she she goes to her half
brother and she says, hey, can I just get a
three year break on the tribute. But at the end
of the three years, she's going to pay all three
years at once. She's like, give me a slack first,
I mean, I'll just pay all three years at once
(20:34):
at the end of it. Rolf says, okay, fine, that's
that works for me. Cool. But by this point in
the story, you know, Rolf is he used to be
like kind of this great hero. You know, he's well known.
Like the saga of Rolf Kracky covers the entire life
of Rolf and Scold is kind of the Morgana or
(20:56):
the Mordred of this King Arthur story. So rolfe has
had tons of cool adventures and all of these recruited,
all of these berserkers. Recruiting each berserker is a story
of itself. There's this huge book on Rolf Kracky and
all of the cool, amazing adventures he has had. But
the last chapter, yes, he's this awesome badass like Danish king,
(21:16):
Viking warrior. He's cool, but he's very traditionally Viking warrior cool,
which is not quite as you know, doesn't stand out
quite the way that Skuld story does. And so Herolf
has had this amazing career, but he's passed his prime
and towards the end of his career he starts to
become kind of a jerk. His guys, they get kind
(21:37):
of arrogant and pretentious and lazy. Instead of questing, they're
they're either eating slovenly in their long houses, they're throwing
chicken bones at their servants. They're drinking too much, they're
disrespecting the gods. It's not cool to throw chicken bones
at the servants, even in Viking mythology.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Okay, Like, okay, actual asses are like nice and humane
to servants or servant like people.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, it's like we said, kayota good. Right, Like when
these guys started getting all egg, they just become really
like self absorbed and and sculled. Over these three years,
she doesn't pay her taxes because she doesn't have to.
She's going to pay it all at the end, but
she has no intention three years at the end, Yeah,
she is going to use that money to hire mercenaries
(22:25):
and troops and soldiers, and she uses her magical abilities
to summon monsters, and she uses her eleven connections to
get demons and other terrible things from the underworld. She
starts building this big giant army of monsters and bandits
and criminals and dark elves and all kinds of bad things.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
What is she doing? Like, are we just like getting
together to like play scrapple.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
No, we are. We are going to kill her olf Kracky.
That is that is the objective. We're going to kill
this guy and not pay him that three years of
taxes we owe.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I feel like there's like many jokes to be made
about taxes, but let's just move on.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, you should pay your taxes and we can't advocate taxes. Yeah, yeah,
we brought down at the poem Kracky and his berserkers.
They've become complacent, They've become lazy. They've they don't pay
their respects to the gods the way they should anymore.
They don't do they don't achieve more glory for the gods.
They sit at home and drink too much and disrespect
(23:32):
the people that work for them and the gods and
all this other stuff. And so why these guys are
kind of disrespecting everything. Skulled makes this huge army and
she builds this massive force and she marches it to
Hrolf Kraky's castle, which is basically like the Camelot of
Viking Denmark. And he doesn't notice until the entire castle
(23:53):
is surrounded by soldiers and monsters. And she has her
tent set up with a big black flag hanging above it,
and she is in there doing witchy stuff on a
on a witchy table. And a messenger arrives at rolf
Kracky's castle and it says, you know, there's an army outside, and.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
If you hadn't noticed, like if you hadn't like looked
out a window.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And rolf Kracky is sitting in his throne room, which
I imagined to be just a pig sty I imagine to
look like a like a dorm room, right, and.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
And I feel like that's unfair to dorm rooms.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I mean, come on, okay, that's like my old dorm room.
And rolf Kracky listens to this messenger and he says,
tell scold, I'm going to finish this drink of ale
and then I'm going to come out and destroy your army.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Okay, now to be fair, to be fair. If you've
got a quaff of ale, if you've got like, you know,
half a pint left, or like a quarter of a
pint left.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
You know you probably going to die. Like hell yeah,
this is like a bad ass response. This is Rolf Cracky,
Like I've been underplaying how cool he is because like
he's the bad guys, he's the antagonist of this story.
But that was that's him, right, He's like, yeah, no, what,
I'll only finish this first and then I'll get my
guys together. Don't worry about it. I'll be right out
there to kick it.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Like we know that gesture, like the gesture of like
the thing where you do that you do with your hand.
It's like, okay, just give me a sec while I
finished my beverage.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, I'll be out there. You sit tight, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Okay, yeah yeah, because you just got to go out
in style.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah yes, yeah, okay, so scold. When she hears that
she doesn't like it, she orders her army to attack,
and Rolf Kracky sends these guys out and now we
have a battle. And this is like a crazy Viking
battle outside the castle of like the King of Denmark.
The great Viking ruler Rolf Cracky and and her army
(25:56):
is like elves and monsters. I'm picturing like centaur and
minotaurs and that kind of thing. Like I'm picturing all
kinds of weird mythological creatures here fighting Viking berserkers, and
it is, you know, everything bigger than a cantelope is
getting sliced in half. Bodies are piling up. The way
they describe the battle is I think of like Battle
of the Bastards of Game of Thrones, right, Like the
(26:18):
way they described the battle is that like the piles
of bodies were stacking up so high that like warriors
had to climb over piles of bodies to fight each
other with swords, like you couldn't shoot over them with
arrows or whatever. But nobody was using arrows. They were
just running at each other and hitting each other with
axes and swords, and horses were kicking each other and
you know all this crazy.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Can you never around the horses. I feel like this
is like very grim for the humans.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, I mean it's probably wasn't great for like the
dark elves and the minitars either. They're getting killed by
these berserkers Everybody's Everybody's getting killed. One of Rolf's berserkers
is a hero named Bofvar Biarchy. We're going to talk
about them right after this message from our sponsors. So
(27:05):
bothfar piarchy. He's a berserker, but he's not just a
regular berserker. We talked earlier about how the berserkers would
skin bears and wear their hides. Well, Buffar he doesn't
need to wear bear hide because he can go into
a sleeplike trance and summon a spiritual bear. His father
had some kind of curse where he would turn into
(27:26):
a bear during the day and back into a human
at night. Boffart inherited some part of that, and this
is how it manifests. I generally like to think that
Bofar actually turned into the bear.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So okay, you say curse like okay, like a wear
bear feature, bug feature bug feature. You know.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, whenever he goes into berserk mode, whenever he blood rages,
he turns into a bear.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Tuesday at ten thirty am, I feel like turning into
a bear bing.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah, that's leg day. So he summons the spiritual bear
from within Rolf's castle, so his body is safe while
he's in this trance, and his spiritual bear goes out
and just starts wrecking shop. He's tearing things up, he's
destroying Skuld's army. He can't be hurt. It's a ghost spirit.
Skuld can't control it because it's not the type of
spirit that a necromancer is involved with. He starts biting
(28:17):
horses in half. I picture in my mind whenever I
think about this story, I imagine that the spiritual bear
it's still wearing like a horned Viking helmet. That's how
I picture this bear.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
And the hat has horns.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yes, actual Vikings didn't have horned helmets. People who like
Viking stuff will always tell you that that was invented
in like the eighteenth century for the operas or whatever.
But yeah, the hashtag, I know that, But that's how
I picture this bear anyway.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, but we're okay. But the thing is like, we're
like now in the imaginative universe of imagining a bear
with a hat.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yes, none of this is real. I can look like
whatever I want, it, can wear a disco hat or whatever.
But Buffar is fighting for her rolf Kracky, so he's
on the other side here. So Scold is in her
witchy black flag tent here and her army, her massive
army she's been assembling to avenge herself upon Rolf Kracky
for all of the wrongs that have been done to
(29:14):
her by him and his father. They are they're losing,
they're getting beat by this force that's heavily outnumbered. Scold
has put this awesome force together with all this magic,
and she's losing. And so she decides, Okay, it's time
to really go big here. So she summons a large.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
To go home.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, so she summons a wild boar that is apparently
demonic and extremely large, and I'm picturing Caledonian boar here, so.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Like we're imagining like thirty to fifty feral pigs, but
like as one being.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
As one entity. Yes, wild boar is one of the
most ill tempered and like angriest land animals, and this
one's summoned from an evil dimension, be on the mortal realm,
so it's probably worse.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Is it necessarily evil or just like.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Crank, I think it's the I think it's probably actually evil.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Okay, Okay, I'm on team just like Cranky, but like
that's because I'm always cranky.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
So yeah, so this thing's flinging people around with its tusks,
and apparently it can shoot. It's got a tough hide
that's impervious to swords, and it can shoot arrow like
quills out of its back.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
So it's like a porcupine, but a pig.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
So it's like like a razorback. You know, they have
they got the hair back there. It shoots quills. It
shoots quills, and those quills can rip a person in
half of it. Okay, yeah, okay, and you can't hurt
it with bows or swords. It's bad. It's a bad news.
And you don't want to be on the You don't
want to be dealing with that. So okay. The fight
is continuing, and the everybody now is kind of covered
(30:52):
in blood, and they go to great lengths to describe
how much everybody is covered from like sword help to
shoulder to the foot in blood of their enemies. At
some point during the battle, one of w LF's berserkers
goes to Baffar in the castle, sees he's sleeping and
is like, yo, we're killing ourselves out here. What do
you do when you're sleeping. The berserker, who is one
of Baffar's very good friends starts shaking him and wakes
(31:13):
him up, which makes the spiritual bear go away. Now
Boffar can't go back into the trance, and he's got
to like pull a weapon and join the battle personally.
So baff War's forces end up taking a huge hit
just because Boffar's friend wakes him up, thinking Baffar is
just napping and we could use him in the battle,
and he already was in the battle as a giant
killer Viking helmet wearing bear. Everybody left alive is has
(31:37):
killed many people and there's blood everywhere.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, I look bad, but you should see the other guys,
or the other gals, as the case maybe.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Scold and Rolf Kracky. Their armies are fighting, and there's
there's the giant board, there's all kinds of other weird
animals and things happening here. But Scold realizes she is losing.
She's not gonna she's she's not gonna win here. So
she's like, Okay, the bore wasn't enough, I got to
go bigger. So so what does she do? Well, I'll
(32:09):
i'll quote both of our biarchy here. He runs into
the throne room and rolf Kracky is kind of sitting
on the throne. Still, he's got his weapon with him.
He's he's kind of guarding the inner sanctum here. He's
the one they want, so like he's going to be
there with some of his even more tougher warriors.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Okay, so we should imagine we're inside a building. Maybe
there are tapestries on the walls. Maybe there are wisconces,
you know.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Okay, yeah, there's some there's some cooked meats, there's some
empty wine goblets rolling around on.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, we are inside.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
And both of our says, I fear now that the
dead stir here, rise up again.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I fear now that the dead stir here.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yes, rise up and fight again us, and hard will
it prove? To fight with fetches and for all. So
many limbs as here are cloven shields split, and helms
and corselets soeon into pieces, and many a chieftain cut
asunder these the dead are now the grimmest to contend with.
(33:17):
Nor have we the strength to cope with them. Damn
Skuld has created Viking zombies. She has raised the dead warriors.
Those piles and piles and piles of dead warriors are
now rising to fight again it's the middle of winter.
(33:38):
There's a big Viking fortress, the Viking Camelot. It's engulfed
in flames. There's smoke, there's corpses, it's bitter cold, there's
the winds of a Scandinavian December, and with no hope
of survival. The King of Denmark, he's half drunk. He's
defending his throne room against what he knows as an
impossible army. He wants to have a last stand.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
To him, you know, yeah, yeah, he's doing.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
This is how he goes out right. This is his
this is his swan. Song's got He's got to die
a good death for Valhalla. He has to make up
for those years of of laziness. And so he and
his personal champions, those twelve, the last of those twelve warriors,
they fight kind of helms deep against you know, alongside
a giant ghost bear against a necromancer with dark elves
(34:27):
and Viking zombies and the wild boar that shoots arrows
out of its hide and yeah, and so this is
the final battle. As the Scold's armies begin to enter
and break into the throne Room, and we're seeing a
lot of Game of Thrones tie ins here with it.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I mean, I know that I know that this episode
is about Scold, but in a way I'm kind of
running for the people against Scold because you have to
be badass to put up with.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Those Oh yeah, yeah. And so here's the thing with
Rolf Kracky. So he carries a magical sword. It's called
Skofnung okay, skulf Long, skulf Long, and there's an um
laps over the o.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I just want to acknowledge this.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yes, it's described as quote the best of all swords
carried in the Northern Lands.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Oh okay, that's you know, that's a good thing to
put on your LinkedIn profile.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yes, so Skulflong it's got some design flaws. You can't
you can't unsheathed in the presence of a woman or
when the sun is shining on the pommel.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Okay, so this seems like there might be restrictions on
one's actions.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Maybe there's there's some upsides. There's a magic sword, right,
which is cool. Wounds inflicted by the blade cannot be
healed except by the sword itself. So the sword can
heal a wound that it inflicts, but nothing else can wait.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
So it's a sword that can heal a very specific
subset of.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Wounds of wounds, but any wound that it inflicts stays forever.
And apparently when it hits an enemy, it makes a sound.
It sings.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Okay, it breaks into song.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I picture this in the zombie myth thing. I picture
it as this. I picture it as sounding like a
chainsaw when it swings, because like we've got zombies here happening.
Is that that's the it makes it sing. It makes
a singing sound.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Musical theater like steven Sonheim or something. Okay, but okay,
you know, hey, we've got range.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, it makes this sound that strikes fear into the
hearts of those who hear it. It's referred to as
singing a song, but they never really describe what that is.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I'm going to strike fear into your spirit, yes.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And so he's got this scripe. I picture it sounding
like a chainsaw. That's the only sound I can hear,
is like those chainsaw swords from Warhammer. But that's what
I'm picturing. But you know, Skuld is raising the debt
and she's going to get her revenge. And for every
guy that Roof and his warriors cut down another walking
corpse centers to take its place. Baffar even gets into
single combat Boffer Bierarchy, the the bear guy. He gets
(37:01):
into a fight with the Swedish king Cure of Varth,
the husband of Scold. They have a they have a
showdown in the throne room, and it's complicated. Yes, both
of our cuts off both of Var's arms, one of
his legs, and then cuts him in half through the
torso he cuts off both of his arms, then a leg.
It's like the Black Knight from the Mighty Python, the
(37:22):
Holy Grould.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Wait, okay, so he's got literally one leg.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
To stand on and then he gets cut in half.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Zero Okay, I was gonna say zero limbs to like
swing a sword or other weapons with no off.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Okay, rip, Well maybe not rip, because Scold brings him back.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Okay, She's like magicy elfie like okay.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Okay, No, she just raises him as like a like
an undead corpse, like a zombie to like keep fighting.
And this is demoralizing for Bathfar and his friends. Uh,
Scold is in her army or are stumping there like her.
Wolfe is fighting as hard as he can and he's
gonna lose but he's he's battling very heroically. This is
very Ragnarok, right, He's fighting this losing battle that he's
(38:08):
you know, uh, she's doing it, but he's got to
do it for his honor. And Scold enters and she's
using magic against the heroes, and you know she she
had been kind of unwanted and pushed to the side
and disrespected, and now she has returned into the throne
room and she destroys the greatest warriors in the land.
(38:31):
And maybe they should have just given her a break
on her taxes, right, Maybe they should have just not
tricked her into becoming a vassal. Maybe Helgi should have
shown up to pick up his daughter nine months suffer.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, okay, I mean, like I'm a big fan of
like childcare.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
This is the should this is the Norns, this is
the fates, this is you should have. You should have. Like,
there's a lot of a lot of mistakes happened along
the way to Scold leading an undead army of zombie
vikings in to your throne room with a giant wild
boar and killing you and all of your friends. But
that's what happens. Her Cracky dies Sparftwar bierarchy dies and
(39:10):
Skulld becomes the new Queen of Denmark and Sweden.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Okay, so she becomes a Queen of Denmark and Sweden.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Are these particular kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden basa?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it sounds like that's
like a non trivial amount of territory and people, and
like maybe there's some influence here, some power here also
maybe some responsibility, maybe some paperwork involved. I mean, I
(39:44):
don't know, but yeah, okay, So so she needs to
update her LinkedIn profile.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yes, she's not the queen of everything. So she rules
for a while, but you know, and I love the
story of I love this story of her kind of
you know, it's the Mordred story in King Arthur, where
like just nobody wanted you, nobody respected you, morganas like this,
and then they just kind of eventually get their revenge
(40:10):
once like the great King starts to kind of lose
his way, Like, you know, I enjoy this type of
this type of story. She rules for a while, but
she eventually you know, and this is a very Viking
end of this story because she ends up getting overthrown
as well. Because all Viking stories end with everybody being dead.
So she is defeated. Remember both far biarchy, the Viking
(40:32):
who turns into a bear.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Oh yeah, that guy.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
So he's got a brother. His brother's name is Elg Frothy,
and Elg Frothy decides he's going to avenge his brother.
Bothvar and Elg Frothy, they're dead had that curse where
he turned into a bear at night. Both art could
do that at will, but Elk Frothy got a little
bit of a different thing happening for him. He has
the upper body of a man and the lower body
(40:58):
of an elk.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
So okay, so yeah, I just want to like make
sure I've got this image. So he's like a centaur.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yeah, he's half elk half Frothy.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Okay, so he's got the torso of a human. Yes,
and then like, okay, he's got an elk. Except the
thing the thing is to think about elks is that
part of what makes elks cool is they have these
amazing antlers. And you know, if he's a human, okay, either.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
He I picture him with the antlers.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Okay, yeah, okay, so he's I.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Picture elk antlers on a human oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yes, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So I realized that
this may not actually be you know, like historically or
culturally accurate, but like we feel like it. We're going
to imagine him with antlers.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yes, okay, no canon, but I do. It's this is
he has the upper body of a man and the
lower body of an elk, but like you must have antlers,
I imagine you must. So Elk Frothy has an interesting story.
When he was twelve, he entered the county wrestling tournament
and he ended up crippling every single man in his
hometown and inn single afternoon, and so they exiled him. Yeah,
(42:09):
and so, so he moved into the wilderness and he
did the normal thing you could do at a Viking time.
He became a bandit leader.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Oh wait, okay, yeah, yeah, that's a career move.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah. Yeah, So he became like this very powerful bandit leader.
He had these two magical short swords that he fought with,
and yet everybody was afraid of him, and he they
just pay him off to not kill them whenever they
were passing through the wilderness.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Okay, okay, like we have names for that.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Yeah, he's kind of a bad guy. And he was
also like the other brother, right bothvar Biarky was the greatest.
He's the Sir Lancelot in this King Arthur's story. Right,
he's the most famous knight in the realm. But when
he gets killed, elk Frothi's he's got to revenge his brother, right,
he can't let this hang. And so he finds Hrolf's
(42:54):
mother slash sister and yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And we say mother slash sister because this is miss slash.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Legend and right because Helgi accidentally married his own daughter. Yeah.
So so so elk Frothy goes to her Old's mom
and says, hey, I want to get revenge on Scold
and she's like, yes, I'm in cool. Let me sneak
into the castle because I know a secret passage that
Skull doesn't know about.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Doom.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
And they go in and they capture her before she
can use her magic, and the myth says that they
quote together they killed her with divers torments, but they
spell it in the myth like, I don't know if
this is a translation thing or the myth I was
reading was a kind of an old one. They spell
it d v e r s torments which I originally
read as divers torments like.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Diving down into the water.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, like nautical torture like waterboarding. I guess I don't
know what that would be. Yeah, no, I like nautical torture.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yeah you hey, you know, anything could happen. But I
suspec it's actually just like a spelling for like diverse,
like various or differentiated or a mishmash.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the end of the story, is that
Elk Frothy and Rolf Kracky's mom eventually Avenge, Rolf and
Bopry are by a defeating skulld and killing her. But
uh but yeah, I don't know. This is a myth
that I have always, like, I loved the idea of
(44:29):
the Viking Sorceress, like resurrecting Viking zombies and fighting this
huge army with the giant boar and the bear guy
and the berserkers. Like, I love everything about this story,
and this is one of the This is a very
Viking myth because it's a tragedy and everybody's dead at
the end.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
But on the other hand, it's a myth, so we've
got distance from that, so we're like, Okay, yeah, everyone.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Dies at the end, but in the in the in
the mythology of the Vikings, like that's how the world works, right,
that's life. Everybody he dies, And life is misery.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
I mean, life is misery. I mean okay, so hey, hey,
badasses who are listening to this podcast, I mean, yeah,
life is misery, and you know what, you can handle
it somehow.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
It could definitely be worse. You could be killed with
diving torments, right, you know, you could be fighting zombies.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
You can be fighting zombies, yeah, okay, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
You know you could be that poor dude who like
was just trying to like be the honorable right guy
and then like yeah, got his arms and like jobs
off and got cut in half.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Okay, Yeah, that's yeah, that's okay. That sucks. And I'm
going to go on a limb here and say, statistically speaking,
that's not a likely circumstance for like actual listeners in
(45:59):
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I really really hope that's not a common occurrence in
twenty twenty four. That would be really awful.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
So on the subject of necromancy, you know, okay, necromancy
is kind of by definition of kind of badass, but
it's also kind of complicated.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
And problematic, but I guess i'd have to say there
are a lot of morals to this story. First off,
don't abandon your child, especially if you have a child
with a magical being. Second, don't take advantage of your
family members spouses. Don't trick them into doing things like
making them your vassal and demanding taxes. Thirdly, do not
piss off your siblings or other people's siblings, especially if
(46:38):
you're a Viking, because they are going to come seeking revenge.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
So I guess the moral of the story is, like
I don't know, stay badass, and I mean badass can
mean different things in different contexts, and and stay badass
at least until next week. Well we've got another episode.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Hell yeah, thanks so much for listening. Please tell your friends, family,
maybe those siblings that are seeking revenge on you to
go give us a listen as well. Subscribing and liking
all that really helps us out and we really really
appreciate it. In the meantime, thanks so much for listening,
and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, stay badass, and don't do necromancy unless you absolutely
have to. Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast
produced by High five Content. Executive producers are Andrew Jacobs, Me,
Pat Larish, and my co host Ben Thompson. Writing is
(47:39):
by me and Ben. Story editing is by Ian Jacobs
Brandon Phibbs. Mixing and music and sound design is by
Jude Brewer. Special thanks to Noel Brown at iHeart Badass
of the Week is based on the website Badass of
Theweek dot com, where you can read all sorts of
stories about other badasses. If you want to reach out
(48:02):
with questions ideas, you can email us at Badass podcast
at badassoftheweek dot com. If you like the podcast, subscribe, follow, listen,
and tell your friends and your enemies if you want as.
We'll be back next week with another one. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(48:23):
wherever you get your podcasts
Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by
High five Content. A giant, demonic wild boar whips a
volley of spines from its razorback and an on rushing
phalanx of vikings, the arrow like needles ripping men apart
where they stand across the battlefield. A spectral grizzly bear
(00:23):
wearing a horned Viking helmet swipes a massive paw'send new
dozens of skeletal warriors in armor flying towards a stone wall,
where they shatter on impact. This is Viking Camelot, and
it is the last stand of the legendary Viking ruler
(00:43):
Rolf Kracky. It is King Rolf's half sister, the mystical
and deadly Viking Necromancer's Skuld, who now leads the army
that batters down his defenses. Abandoned by her father, betrayed
by her brother, she has dedicated her life to vengeance,
which now hangs within reach. But in order to get it,
(01:06):
she must use her powerful dark magic to lead an
army of ghouls, dark elves, monsters, and Viking zombies against
the most formidable brotherhood of Norse berserkers ever assembled. This
is the story of Parolf Kracky both var Biarchy and
Skulled the Necromancer, and it's quite possibly the most badass
(01:29):
Viking myth ever written. Hey, hey, hello, and welcome back
to Badass of the Week. My name is Ben Thompson
and I am here as always with my co host,
doctor Pat Larsh.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Hello, badasses.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Hello, Yes, we are doing something really fun this week.
You know, we have for the last couple of weeks
written and talked about a lot of historical figures.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Like real people who actually existed.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, yeah, And I love those stories. And in a
lot of ways, those stories are more interesting to me
because they're real people who did real things, So every
real thing that happens seems just more and more unbelievable
as these stories go on. But you know, our first
episode was about Hercules, and I keep thinking about our
(02:25):
Jengar episode that we did, which I think was one
of my favorite ones that we ever have done. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Mongolian here legend.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yes, the Mongolian mythology of Jengar.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
He was not a harvestent real, but he was totally
one hundred and ten percent badass.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yes, yeah, I just love I love talking about myth
because you know, you can have some fun with the
stories because they're not real people and the other stories
that we talk about, generally, the type of stories we
talk about, like real people are dying and there is
that component to and in a myth it's it's not
quite the case. So in a myth everything's nothing's it's
(03:05):
not real. So you can have a little bit of
fun and make a little bit more jokes with stuff
and talk about some of the more like unseemly characters.
And you know, I enjoy a good mythological villain.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Okay, so, Ben, I'm getting the sense that you have
a particular mythological villain in mind.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I do. I do. So you had kind of done
the Jangar thing, the Mongolian myth, and so for me,
like I always have this soft spot for Viking myth
because they're pretty pretty awesome, and you know, sometimes they're
a little they're a little tricky to read. Sometimes they're
a little tricky to parts because they the style of
(03:48):
writing is is a bit antiquated, and it makes it
a little bit hard to read and track some of
these stories. But there's a lot of good stuff in there.
This week, what I want to talk about is a
particular myth of a sorceress, a necromancer sorceress named Skuld
who comes from a skull that.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Sounds Viking, I mean the sounds Scandinavian, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yes, it's Skuld skulled like a skull, right, Like it's
awesome And.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Okay, I have to say I looked up etymologies and
stuff and the name Scold is related to the word should,
as in what has to happen.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, so this is kind of an interesting thing about
school because Viking myth is very very hardcore, very intense,
and so Sculd is interesting. Yeah, like should I love that? Right?
That's very that's very cool. And in Norse myth, that
works for this story because because Schold is not only
the name of this particular necromancer we're going to talk
(04:57):
about in this particular kind of scure myth involving wolf
Kracky and both var biarchy, but like, Skuld was also
the name of one of the Norns, which is a
group of three goddesses that are basically equivalent to like
the fates or the furies. They're like the cosmic beings
(05:20):
that determine the fate of warriors and combat and they say,
they're said to have like traveled alongside the valkyries, that
kind of thing. But they determine who lives and who dies,
and so you know, there is a Scold that does that.
There are three of these norns and they're you know,
Banshees are another good example of something that's like, you know,
(05:43):
a spirit that determines whether you live or die. And
we're going to see from Scold that she's a human
woman that also does that. Yes, so we're going to
take a quick break here and when we come back,
(06:04):
we are going to talk about a really badass, really
obscure Viking hero or I guess villain.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
And I mean it's good and obscure if you're not
steeped in Norse mythology, right, you know, I just I
just I just want to give a shout out to
people who geek out about Norse mythology.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
You know, yeah, absolutely absolutely, But like even among that,
this story is a little bit of a of a
weird one. It's a little bit of an outlier, right,
This isn't isn't Loki and Hell and Thor and Odin
and all of those. You know, when you think about
Norse myth even as somebody who kind of studies it.
You know, this one's kind of a Yeah, she's a
(06:50):
bit of a minor character and a bit of a
minor myth But like, the story is cool, and I
think it'll be really fun to tell it.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, And I like to think of myself as someone
who knows a thing or two about mythology, including Norris,
And honestly, Schoold was new to me, so I appreciate
the opportunity to learn more.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yes, So we are going to take a quick break
and we'll get back. We are going to get into it.
Scold's story begins with a Danish king named Helgi, and
(07:34):
the version that we're using here is from a book
called the Saga of Hrolf Kracky. It's the story of
a couple of generations of semi legendary Danish kings. We're
talking like Jengar kinds of things here where maybe this
is there's some reality here, maybe something some of these
like a King Arthur kind of thing. Maybe these people lived,
maybe they didn't. We don't know, but it probably didn't
(07:57):
go down the way that this story indicates.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
No, But on the other hand, most things probably didn't.
If we're talking about several centuries slash millennia ago, and
let's just lean into the story.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
This gold story begins with a Danish king named Helgi,
and one year around Yule time, you know, winter solstice,
and Helge is a pretty pretty powerful king of Denmark.
And he's not like the king of Denmark. Denmark is
a bunch of smaller little areas at the time, but
he's a major king of a major kingdom in Denmark.
(08:35):
And he is he's at home and there's a knock
on his door and the door opens and there's a
woman there. She's dressed in these kind of ragged robes.
It's raining outside, and she says, oh, you know, can
you help me? Can you just give me a little
bit of food? He says, oh, no, come on in,
come on in, and oh she's a sexy elf lady. Great,
(08:58):
this is great for Helgi. He's very happy. So he says,
come on in, have some wine. You know, we'll put
on some music. You know, you can stay here if
you need to anyway. The next morning, she says, I'm
pregnant by you, Helgi.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Wait wait a minute, wa, wha wha what what?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
What?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
What? Whoa what? What? Like we're talking like not even twenty
four hours, like twelve hours.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Like she's an elf, she's magical, she knows this stuff.
So she says, I'm pregnant with your kid. Back behind
your long house. There's a little boat house there where
you set off your Viking warships to go to war.
Come back there in nine months and uh, pick up
your daughter.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Wait wait, wait, wait wait. She knows the gender. Like
we've had gender reveal party.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
She knows the gender, she knows the date. She says,
in nine months, you come back to this boat house,
you pick up your daughter. Bye, I gotta go, and
she leaves. And Helgi I mean Helgi is he's a
badass Viking warrior. He travels around, He plumbed nerves, he pillages.
He's not the kind of guy that like is going
to come back in nine months to pick up the daughter.
(10:05):
He just completely forgets about all this. Hell's Hellcky's not
a good guy. He's a Viking. He's a murderer, right,
He's not a good person. Here's the moral of that story,
is that if you got a kid that you're supposed
to pick up from a boat house in nine months,
you better show up because he doesn't show up. And
then more months pass, and after about three years, one
(10:30):
day he gets a knock on his door.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
That's so three years, that's like okay wait wait checks,
nos does math thirty six months? Okay, that's like four
times times nine months?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Okay, yeah, yeah, So three years he gets a knock
on his door and it's a group of elves and
they have a three year old girl with them and
they say, here you go, this's your daughter, and now,
because you didn't pick her up, we are going to
put a curse on you. And that's what they do.
I don't know where the mom's at, I don't know
(11:01):
what the deal is, but they they show up and
they drop this girl off. Her name is Scold. Scold, yes,
and she is going to be the story. Yeah should
you should have picked her up on? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So Scold is three years old and she starts growing
up with Helgi in the court of Helgi, and she
doesn't get the attention that you know, she kind of
gets kind of shoved off to the side, and she
decides she is half elf, half Viking. She's pretty badass.
She is going to start learning the dark arts. She
(11:43):
wants to be able to kill people with her mind
and catch their heads on fire. And she is going
to study all the evil dark magic that you're not
allowed to study because she wants she has elf powers,
she has magic powers, so she wants to learn to
have powerful magical energy. So Helgy the curse doesn't work
(12:05):
out that well for Helgy. He accidentally marries his own
daughter and then has a son with her named Rolf.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
That's okay, okay, that's that's just that's just awkward, And
I guess I just I guess I should just intervene
and say, we're in the we're in the realm of
myth and legend, and.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
This is extremely common.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yes, yeah, family trees are you know, as Tani said,
or as our guest said a few episodes ago. Sometimes
these family trees are more like family rambles or family wreaths,
you know.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, yeah, it looks like a diagram of a parallel circuit. Yeah,
it's it's hard, right. So Helgey accidentally marries his own daughter,
has a kid with her named Rolf Cracky, and then
he dies named what Rolf Cracky? So h R O
L F so.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Okay, Rolf kracky k R A K I Rolf, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah. And then Helgi dies in a fire, which is
just how Viking sagas go.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Okay, okay, okay, So moving on.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah and so so Rolf Cracky becomes the king and
Skuld is still his sister. She's still a princess, right,
And so she ends up marrying a very powerful Swedish
king name Horvarf who was very strong, very brave, apparently
(13:34):
not a verse to women who can conjure operations through
their knowledge of the dark arts.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
And that seems like a feature, not a bug.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Yeah, I like it right. He seems like he seems
like an understanding kind of guy. And they rule the
kingdom of the Gouts, which are like Swedish Goths. I
think is my understanding. He's a king of Sweden and
he rules the Gouts Scouts g a U t s Scouts.
So Scold and Rolf Kracky her brother, and also probably
(14:04):
some other relation because he he married his daughter. I
don't know how that works, but I'm not going to
do the math on what other thing he how else
he's related to her. But they get along until one
day Rolf tricks Skuld's husband hre Varth into accidentally becoming
a vassal of Denmark. So how does something like that happen? Yeah,
(14:26):
apparently Rolfe had a magic sword that he'd found, this
really really awesome sword. It was magical, it cuts through
things like it's great, and he offers it to hure
of Arth as a gift, and the Swedish king of
course he wants it. It's awesome magic sword.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
I mean it sounds cool. Yeah, like I would want that, like.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, yeah, of course, and so here of Arth accepts it.
But then apparently there's some secret rule amongst the Vikings
that if a king offers you a sword and you
accept it, that means a vassal of his. And so
now suddenly a rolf Kracky is the king of Denmark
and Sweden. Pure of Arth is like now bound by
(15:10):
some stupid sense of honor to like accept this as fact.
And okay, yes, now I must declare my fealty to
you and pay you a yearly tribute. And you have
now conquered Sweden through trickery, and even though you were
completely devious in your actions, I, as an honorable Viking king,
(15:30):
must adhere to my honor and be the king.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Okay, So yep.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
What do we know about Scold so far?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah? What do we know about her? Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
She is a master of the dark arts and has
been looking for kind of revenge on her father who
mistreated her and ignored her her whole life. That father, Helgi,
his son Wolf Kracky, is now the king of Denmark
and also the lord of her husband. She has kind
of like made her way. She's learned magical powers. She
(16:04):
found this good king to marry and she rules this
kingdom with him, has separated herself from the world of
Helgi and Rolf Kracky and has made her own fiefdom.
And then Earlf Cracky shows up and subjugates her again.
And so how do you think that's going to go
with someone like Scold?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Ooh? Would she like place a curse or a blessing
or a spell or something? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
She goes to her husband, he or of Arth, and
she tells him this is freaking stupid, tell him you're
not going to pay the tribute and that this is
lame and that you got tricked and this is dumb.
What are you doing? Why are you accepting this idiot? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Okay, so she's making a financial argument.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, she says, why are you why what do you
get rid of your stupid sense of honor? And this
guy tricked you, and like uh huh tell this guy
to go to hell and don't pay him. What are
you doing?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Yeah? Sure of Barth of course, is not open to
listening to this. He says, no, no, I must, I
must adhere to my I don't know, it's a it's
a Viking honor thing. Grow of cracky. For his part,
he goes on to be really famous and super powerful.
He plunders and conquers and amasses this huge treasure hoard.
He recruits all of the greatest warriors of Norway and
(17:21):
Sweden and Denmark to come join him. He has this
court of twelve berserkers, which kind of is our theory.
And if you think about it, these berserkers, they are
the greatest er intervene and.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Just say, like with berserkers like berserk in like English,
the way people use it conversationally today, it's just like, eh,
you know, like all over the place, chaotic whatever. But
for these warriors, it was it was this state of
mind that you got into that allowed you to like
(17:56):
badass all over the place.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, yeah, they would kill animals, either wolves or bears.
Usually kill some kind of like wild predator with a
with a hand to hand weapon, right, So, like fight
a bear with an axe and they'd kill it and
they'd skin it in with as like that's real hunting.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Right from the point of view of the human, that's
pretty bad ass.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Well, the idea is that these berserkers are more badass
than the bears, right, So they skin the bear and
they wear the skin of the bear as a coat.
You've seen this kind of thing with Viking stuff where
they had the wolf head on their as like a
hat or whatever.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and like you like absorb the energy
or like inhabit the energy.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. A berserker just means bear skin
like they would like they would the guys who wore
bear skins, Okay, yes, the entomology of that word. And
these guys would like they would stay up late the
night before a big battle and they would like chant
music and they'd drink some concoction that involved mushrooms of
some variety, and they'd get all like they'd stay up
(19:02):
all night and get super hyper and they'd like just
charge like frothing at the mouth into battle the next
day and fight everything, and there's there's stories of like
the battle was over, but there were berserkers that were
still just like chopping down trees because they were so
like hyped up to fight that like they couldn't turn
it off. They would just chop down trees after the
battle because they was nobody left to kill. Like this
is the style of guy that that Rolf Kracky enjoys,
(19:26):
like recruiting to his side because like you said, you
want bears to be your friends, and these guys are
tougher than bears.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, there's what is It's not the
the transitive property, the commutative property. Like bears are badass,
we are batter ass than bears. Therefore we are even
more badass.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yes, yeah, exactly, yeah yeah. And so Rolf gets his
gets this huge empire. Basically he's one of the greatest
heroes ever. He's been accumulating all the wealth and Scold
still has to pay him taxes and tribute every year.
And she says, okay, look, she goes to.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Her brother, I mean, you know, death and taxes.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, yeah, well she doesn't think she's have to pay that.
She used to be a queen and now she's she's
a vassal. Right, so she she goes to her half
brother and she says, hey, can I just get a
three year break on the tribute. But at the end
of the three years, she's going to pay all three
years at once. She's like, give me a slack first,
I mean, I'll just pay all three years at once
(20:34):
at the end of it. Rolf says, okay, fine, that's
that works for me. Cool. But by this point in
the story, you know, Rolf is he used to be
like kind of this great hero. You know, he's well known.
Like the saga of Rolf Kracky covers the entire life
of Rolf and Scold is kind of the Morgana or
(20:56):
the Mordred of this King Arthur story. So rolfe has
had tons of cool adventures and all of these recruited,
all of these berserkers. Recruiting each berserker is a story
of itself. There's this huge book on Rolf Kracky and
all of the cool, amazing adventures he has had. But
the last chapter, yes, he's this awesome badass like Danish king,
(21:16):
Viking warrior. He's cool, but he's very traditionally Viking warrior cool,
which is not quite as you know, doesn't stand out
quite the way that Skuld story does. And so Herolf
has had this amazing career, but he's passed his prime
and towards the end of his career he starts to
become kind of a jerk. His guys, they get kind
(21:37):
of arrogant and pretentious and lazy. Instead of questing, they're
they're either eating slovenly in their long houses, they're throwing
chicken bones at their servants. They're drinking too much, they're
disrespecting the gods. It's not cool to throw chicken bones
at the servants, even in Viking mythology.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Okay, Like, okay, actual asses are like nice and humane
to servants or servant like people.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, it's like we said, kayota good. Right, Like when
these guys started getting all egg, they just become really
like self absorbed and and sculled. Over these three years,
she doesn't pay her taxes because she doesn't have to.
She's going to pay it all at the end, but
she has no intention three years at the end, Yeah,
she is going to use that money to hire mercenaries
(22:25):
and troops and soldiers, and she uses her magical abilities
to summon monsters, and she uses her eleven connections to
get demons and other terrible things from the underworld. She
starts building this big giant army of monsters and bandits
and criminals and dark elves and all kinds of bad things.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
What is she doing? Like, are we just like getting
together to like play scrapple.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
No, we are. We are going to kill her olf Kracky.
That is that is the objective. We're going to kill
this guy and not pay him that three years of
taxes we owe.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
I feel like there's like many jokes to be made
about taxes, but let's just move on.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, you should pay your taxes and we can't advocate taxes. Yeah, yeah,
we brought down at the poem Kracky and his berserkers.
They've become complacent, They've become lazy. They've they don't pay
their respects to the gods the way they should anymore.
They don't do they don't achieve more glory for the gods.
They sit at home and drink too much and disrespect
(23:32):
the people that work for them and the gods and
all this other stuff. And so why these guys are
kind of disrespecting everything. Skulled makes this huge army and
she builds this massive force and she marches it to
Hrolf Kraky's castle, which is basically like the Camelot of
Viking Denmark. And he doesn't notice until the entire castle
(23:53):
is surrounded by soldiers and monsters. And she has her
tent set up with a big black flag hanging above it,
and she is in there doing witchy stuff on a
on a witchy table. And a messenger arrives at rolf
Kracky's castle and it says, you know, there's an army outside, and.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
If you hadn't noticed, like if you hadn't like looked
out a window.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And rolf Kracky is sitting in his throne room, which
I imagined to be just a pig sty I imagine to
look like a like a dorm room, right, and.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
And I feel like that's unfair to dorm rooms.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
I mean, come on, okay, that's like my old dorm room.
And rolf Kracky listens to this messenger and he says,
tell scold, I'm going to finish this drink of ale
and then I'm going to come out and destroy your army.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Okay, now to be fair, to be fair. If you've
got a quaff of ale, if you've got like, you know,
half a pint left, or like a quarter of a
pint left.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
You know you probably going to die. Like hell yeah,
this is like a bad ass response. This is Rolf Cracky,
Like I've been underplaying how cool he is because like
he's the bad guys, he's the antagonist of this story.
But that was that's him, right, He's like, yeah, no, what,
I'll only finish this first and then I'll get my
guys together. Don't worry about it. I'll be right out
there to kick it.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Like we know that gesture, like the gesture of like
the thing where you do that you do with your hand.
It's like, okay, just give me a sec while I
finished my beverage.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Yeah, I'll be out there. You sit tight, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Okay, yeah yeah, because you just got to go out
in style.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah yes, yeah, okay, so scold. When she hears that
she doesn't like it, she orders her army to attack,
and Rolf Kracky sends these guys out and now we
have a battle. And this is like a crazy Viking
battle outside the castle of like the King of Denmark.
The great Viking ruler Rolf Cracky and and her army
(25:56):
is like elves and monsters. I'm picturing like centaur and
minotaurs and that kind of thing. Like I'm picturing all
kinds of weird mythological creatures here fighting Viking berserkers, and
it is, you know, everything bigger than a cantelope is
getting sliced in half. Bodies are piling up. The way
they describe the battle is I think of like Battle
of the Bastards of Game of Thrones, right, Like the
(26:18):
way they described the battle is that like the piles
of bodies were stacking up so high that like warriors
had to climb over piles of bodies to fight each
other with swords, like you couldn't shoot over them with
arrows or whatever. But nobody was using arrows. They were
just running at each other and hitting each other with
axes and swords, and horses were kicking each other and
you know all this crazy.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Can you never around the horses. I feel like this
is like very grim for the humans.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Yeah, I mean it's probably wasn't great for like the
dark elves and the minitars either. They're getting killed by
these berserkers Everybody's Everybody's getting killed. One of Rolf's berserkers
is a hero named Bofvar Biarchy. We're going to talk
about them right after this message from our sponsors. So
(27:05):
bothfar piarchy. He's a berserker, but he's not just a
regular berserker. We talked earlier about how the berserkers would
skin bears and wear their hides. Well, Buffar he doesn't
need to wear bear hide because he can go into
a sleeplike trance and summon a spiritual bear. His father
had some kind of curse where he would turn into
(27:26):
a bear during the day and back into a human
at night. Boffart inherited some part of that, and this
is how it manifests. I generally like to think that
Bofar actually turned into the bear.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So okay, you say curse like okay, like a wear
bear feature, bug feature bug feature. You know.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Yeah, whenever he goes into berserk mode, whenever he blood rages,
he turns into a bear.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Tuesday at ten thirty am, I feel like turning into
a bear bing.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah, that's leg day. So he summons the spiritual bear
from within Rolf's castle, so his body is safe while
he's in this trance, and his spiritual bear goes out
and just starts wrecking shop. He's tearing things up, he's
destroying Skuld's army. He can't be hurt. It's a ghost spirit.
Skuld can't control it because it's not the type of
spirit that a necromancer is involved with. He starts biting
(28:17):
horses in half. I picture in my mind whenever I
think about this story, I imagine that the spiritual bear
it's still wearing like a horned Viking helmet. That's how
I picture this bear.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
And the hat has horns.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yes, actual Vikings didn't have horned helmets. People who like
Viking stuff will always tell you that that was invented
in like the eighteenth century for the operas or whatever.
But yeah, the hashtag, I know that, But that's how
I picture this bear anyway.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, but we're okay. But the thing is like, we're
like now in the imaginative universe of imagining a bear
with a hat.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Yes, none of this is real. I can look like
whatever I want, it, can wear a disco hat or whatever.
But Buffar is fighting for her rolf Kracky, so he's
on the other side here. So Scold is in her
witchy black flag tent here and her army, her massive
army she's been assembling to avenge herself upon Rolf Kracky
for all of the wrongs that have been done to
(29:14):
her by him and his father. They are they're losing,
they're getting beat by this force that's heavily outnumbered. Scold
has put this awesome force together with all this magic,
and she's losing. And so she decides, Okay, it's time
to really go big here. So she summons a large.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
To go home.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, so she summons a wild boar that is apparently
demonic and extremely large, and I'm picturing Caledonian boar here, so.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Like we're imagining like thirty to fifty feral pigs, but
like as one being.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
As one entity. Yes, wild boar is one of the
most ill tempered and like angriest land animals, and this
one's summoned from an evil dimension, be on the mortal realm,
so it's probably worse.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Is it necessarily evil or just like.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Crank, I think it's the I think it's probably actually evil.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Okay, Okay, I'm on team just like Cranky, but like
that's because I'm always cranky.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
So yeah, so this thing's flinging people around with its tusks,
and apparently it can shoot. It's got a tough hide
that's impervious to swords, and it can shoot arrow like
quills out of its back.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
So it's like a porcupine, but a pig.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
So it's like like a razorback. You know, they have
they got the hair back there. It shoots quills. It
shoots quills, and those quills can rip a person in
half of it. Okay, yeah, okay, and you can't hurt
it with bows or swords. It's bad. It's a bad news.
And you don't want to be on the You don't
want to be dealing with that. So okay. The fight
is continuing, and the everybody now is kind of covered
(30:52):
in blood, and they go to great lengths to describe
how much everybody is covered from like sword help to
shoulder to the foot in blood of their enemies. At
some point during the battle, one of w LF's berserkers
goes to Baffar in the castle, sees he's sleeping and
is like, yo, we're killing ourselves out here. What do
you do when you're sleeping. The berserker, who is one
of Baffar's very good friends starts shaking him and wakes
(31:13):
him up, which makes the spiritual bear go away. Now
Boffar can't go back into the trance, and he's got
to like pull a weapon and join the battle personally.
So baff War's forces end up taking a huge hit
just because Boffar's friend wakes him up, thinking Baffar is
just napping and we could use him in the battle,
and he already was in the battle as a giant
killer Viking helmet wearing bear. Everybody left alive is has
(31:37):
killed many people and there's blood everywhere.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Yeah, I look bad, but you should see the other guys,
or the other gals, as the case maybe.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Scold and Rolf Kracky. Their armies are fighting, and there's
there's the giant board, there's all kinds of other weird
animals and things happening here. But Scold realizes she is losing.
She's not gonna she's she's not gonna win here. So
she's like, Okay, the bore wasn't enough, I got to
go bigger. So so what does she do? Well, I'll
(32:09):
i'll quote both of our biarchy here. He runs into
the throne room and rolf Kracky is kind of sitting
on the throne. Still, he's got his weapon with him.
He's he's kind of guarding the inner sanctum here. He's
the one they want, so like he's going to be
there with some of his even more tougher warriors.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Okay, so we should imagine we're inside a building. Maybe
there are tapestries on the walls. Maybe there are wisconces,
you know.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Okay, yeah, there's some there's some cooked meats, there's some
empty wine goblets rolling around on.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, we are inside.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
And both of our says, I fear now that the
dead stir here, rise up again.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I fear now that the dead stir here.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yes, rise up and fight again us, and hard will
it prove? To fight with fetches and for all. So
many limbs as here are cloven shields split, and helms
and corselets soeon into pieces, and many a chieftain cut
asunder these the dead are now the grimmest to contend with.
(33:17):
Nor have we the strength to cope with them. Damn
Skuld has created Viking zombies. She has raised the dead warriors.
Those piles and piles and piles of dead warriors are
now rising to fight again it's the middle of winter.
(33:38):
There's a big Viking fortress, the Viking Camelot. It's engulfed
in flames. There's smoke, there's corpses, it's bitter cold, there's
the winds of a Scandinavian December, and with no hope
of survival. The King of Denmark, he's half drunk. He's
defending his throne room against what he knows as an
impossible army. He wants to have a last stand.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
To him, you know, yeah, yeah, he's doing.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
This is how he goes out right. This is his
this is his swan. Song's got He's got to die
a good death for Valhalla. He has to make up
for those years of of laziness. And so he and
his personal champions, those twelve, the last of those twelve warriors,
they fight kind of helms deep against you know, alongside
a giant ghost bear against a necromancer with dark elves
(34:27):
and Viking zombies and the wild boar that shoots arrows
out of its hide and yeah, and so this is
the final battle. As the Scold's armies begin to enter
and break into the throne Room, and we're seeing a
lot of Game of Thrones tie ins here with it.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I mean, I know that I know that this episode
is about Scold, but in a way I'm kind of
running for the people against Scold because you have to
be badass to put up with.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
Those Oh yeah, yeah. And so here's the thing with
Rolf Kracky. So he carries a magical sword. It's called
Skofnung okay, skulf Long, skulf Long, and there's an um
laps over the o.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I just want to acknowledge this.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yes, it's described as quote the best of all swords
carried in the Northern Lands.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Oh okay, that's you know, that's a good thing to
put on your LinkedIn profile.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Yes, so Skulflong it's got some design flaws. You can't
you can't unsheathed in the presence of a woman or
when the sun is shining on the pommel.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Okay, so this seems like there might be restrictions on
one's actions.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
Maybe there's there's some upsides. There's a magic sword, right,
which is cool. Wounds inflicted by the blade cannot be
healed except by the sword itself. So the sword can
heal a wound that it inflicts, but nothing else can wait.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
So it's a sword that can heal a very specific
subset of.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Wounds of wounds, but any wound that it inflicts stays forever.
And apparently when it hits an enemy, it makes a sound.
It sings.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Okay, it breaks into song.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I picture this in the zombie myth thing. I picture
it as this. I picture it as sounding like a
chainsaw when it swings, because like we've got zombies here happening.
Is that that's the it makes it sing. It makes
a singing sound.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Musical theater like steven Sonheim or something. Okay, but okay,
you know, hey, we've got range.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yeah, it makes this sound that strikes fear into the
hearts of those who hear it. It's referred to as
singing a song, but they never really describe what that is.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
I'm going to strike fear into your spirit, yes.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
And so he's got this scripe. I picture it sounding
like a chainsaw. That's the only sound I can hear,
is like those chainsaw swords from Warhammer. But that's what
I'm picturing. But you know, Skuld is raising the debt
and she's going to get her revenge. And for every
guy that Roof and his warriors cut down another walking
corpse centers to take its place. Baffar even gets into
single combat Boffer Bierarchy, the the bear guy. He gets
(37:01):
into a fight with the Swedish king Cure of Varth,
the husband of Scold. They have a they have a
showdown in the throne room, and it's complicated. Yes, both
of our cuts off both of Var's arms, one of
his legs, and then cuts him in half through the
torso he cuts off both of his arms, then a leg.
It's like the Black Knight from the Mighty Python, the
(37:22):
Holy Grould.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Wait, okay, so he's got literally one leg.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
To stand on and then he gets cut in half.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Zero Okay, I was gonna say zero limbs to like
swing a sword or other weapons with no off.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Okay, rip, Well maybe not rip, because Scold brings him back.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Okay, She's like magicy elfie like okay.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Okay, No, she just raises him as like a like
an undead corpse, like a zombie to like keep fighting.
And this is demoralizing for Bathfar and his friends. Uh,
Scold is in her army or are stumping there like her.
Wolfe is fighting as hard as he can and he's
gonna lose but he's he's battling very heroically. This is
very Ragnarok, right, He's fighting this losing battle that he's
(38:08):
you know, uh, she's doing it, but he's got to
do it for his honor. And Scold enters and she's
using magic against the heroes, and you know she she
had been kind of unwanted and pushed to the side
and disrespected, and now she has returned into the throne
room and she destroys the greatest warriors in the land.
(38:31):
And maybe they should have just given her a break
on her taxes, right, Maybe they should have just not
tricked her into becoming a vassal. Maybe Helgi should have
shown up to pick up his daughter nine months suffer.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, okay, I mean, like I'm a big fan of
like childcare.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
This is the should this is the Norns, this is
the fates, this is you should have. You should have. Like,
there's a lot of a lot of mistakes happened along
the way to Scold leading an undead army of zombie
vikings in to your throne room with a giant wild
boar and killing you and all of your friends. But
that's what happens. Her Cracky dies Sparftwar bierarchy dies and
(39:10):
Skulld becomes the new Queen of Denmark and Sweden.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Okay, so she becomes a Queen of Denmark and Sweden.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Are these particular kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden basa?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it sounds like that's
like a non trivial amount of territory and people, and
like maybe there's some influence here, some power here also
maybe some responsibility, maybe some paperwork involved. I mean, I
(39:44):
don't know, but yeah, okay, So so she needs to
update her LinkedIn profile.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yes, she's not the queen of everything. So she rules
for a while, but you know, and I love the
story of I love this story of her kind of
you know, it's the Mordred story in King Arthur, where
like just nobody wanted you, nobody respected you, morganas like this,
and then they just kind of eventually get their revenge
(40:10):
once like the great King starts to kind of lose
his way, Like, you know, I enjoy this type of
this type of story. She rules for a while, but
she eventually you know, and this is a very Viking
end of this story because she ends up getting overthrown
as well. Because all Viking stories end with everybody being dead.
So she is defeated. Remember both far biarchy, the Viking
(40:32):
who turns into a bear.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Oh yeah, that guy.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
So he's got a brother. His brother's name is Elg Frothy,
and Elg Frothy decides he's going to avenge his brother.
Bothvar and Elg Frothy, they're dead had that curse where
he turned into a bear at night. Both art could
do that at will, but Elk Frothy got a little
bit of a different thing happening for him. He has
the upper body of a man and the lower body
(40:58):
of an elk.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
So okay, so yeah, I just want to like make
sure I've got this image. So he's like a centaur.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Yeah, he's half elk half Frothy.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Okay, so he's got the torso of a human. Yes,
and then like, okay, he's got an elk. Except the
thing the thing is to think about elks is that
part of what makes elks cool is they have these
amazing antlers. And you know, if he's a human, okay, either.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
He I picture him with the antlers.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Okay, yeah, okay, so he's I.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Picture elk antlers on a human oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yes, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So I realized that
this may not actually be you know, like historically or
culturally accurate, but like we feel like it. We're going
to imagine him with antlers.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yes, okay, no canon, but I do. It's this is
he has the upper body of a man and the
lower body of an elk, but like you must have antlers,
I imagine you must. So Elk Frothy has an interesting story.
When he was twelve, he entered the county wrestling tournament
and he ended up crippling every single man in his
hometown and inn single afternoon, and so they exiled him. Yeah,
(42:09):
and so, so he moved into the wilderness and he
did the normal thing you could do at a Viking time.
He became a bandit leader.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Oh wait, okay, yeah, yeah, that's a career move.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Yeah. Yeah, So he became like this very powerful bandit leader.
He had these two magical short swords that he fought with,
and yet everybody was afraid of him, and he they
just pay him off to not kill them whenever they
were passing through the wilderness.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Okay, okay, like we have names for that.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
Yeah, he's kind of a bad guy. And he was
also like the other brother, right bothvar Biarky was the greatest.
He's the Sir Lancelot in this King Arthur's story. Right,
he's the most famous knight in the realm. But when
he gets killed, elk Frothi's he's got to revenge his brother, right,
he can't let this hang. And so he finds Hrolf's
(42:54):
mother slash sister and yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And we say mother slash sister because this is miss slash.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Legend and right because Helgi accidentally married his own daughter. Yeah.
So so so elk Frothy goes to her Old's mom
and says, hey, I want to get revenge on Scold
and she's like, yes, I'm in cool. Let me sneak
into the castle because I know a secret passage that
Skull doesn't know about.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Doom.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
And they go in and they capture her before she
can use her magic, and the myth says that they
quote together they killed her with divers torments, but they
spell it in the myth like, I don't know if
this is a translation thing or the myth I was
reading was a kind of an old one. They spell
it d v e r s torments which I originally
read as divers torments like.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Diving down into the water.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, like nautical torture like waterboarding. I guess I don't
know what that would be. Yeah, no, I like nautical torture.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yeah you hey, you know, anything could happen. But I
suspec it's actually just like a spelling for like diverse,
like various or differentiated or a mishmash.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yeah. Yeah, that's the end of the story, is that
Elk Frothy and Rolf Kracky's mom eventually Avenge, Rolf and
Bopry are by a defeating skulld and killing her. But
uh but yeah, I don't know. This is a myth
that I have always, like, I loved the idea of
(44:29):
the Viking Sorceress, like resurrecting Viking zombies and fighting this
huge army with the giant boar and the bear guy
and the berserkers. Like, I love everything about this story,
and this is one of the This is a very
Viking myth because it's a tragedy and everybody's dead at
the end.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
But on the other hand, it's a myth, so we've
got distance from that, so we're like, Okay, yeah, everyone.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Dies at the end, but in the in the in
the mythology of the Vikings, like that's how the world works, right,
that's life. Everybody he dies, And life is misery.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
I mean, life is misery. I mean okay, so hey, hey,
badasses who are listening to this podcast, I mean, yeah,
life is misery, and you know what, you can handle
it somehow.
Speaker 1 (45:16):
It could definitely be worse. You could be killed with
diving torments, right, you know, you could be fighting zombies.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
You can be fighting zombies, yeah, okay, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
You know you could be that poor dude who like
was just trying to like be the honorable right guy
and then like yeah, got his arms and like jobs
off and got cut in half.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Okay, Yeah, that's yeah, that's okay. That sucks. And I'm
going to go on a limb here and say, statistically speaking,
that's not a likely circumstance for like actual listeners in
(45:59):
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I really really hope that's not a common occurrence in
twenty twenty four. That would be really awful.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
So on the subject of necromancy, you know, okay, necromancy
is kind of by definition of kind of badass, but
it's also kind of complicated.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
And problematic, but I guess i'd have to say there
are a lot of morals to this story. First off,
don't abandon your child, especially if you have a child
with a magical being. Second, don't take advantage of your
family members spouses. Don't trick them into doing things like
making them your vassal and demanding taxes. Thirdly, do not
piss off your siblings or other people's siblings, especially if
(46:38):
you're a Viking, because they are going to come seeking revenge.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
So I guess the moral of the story is, like
I don't know, stay badass, and I mean badass can
mean different things in different contexts, and and stay badass
at least until next week. Well we've got another episode.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Hell yeah, thanks so much for listening. Please tell your friends, family,
maybe those siblings that are seeking revenge on you to
go give us a listen as well. Subscribing and liking
all that really helps us out and we really really
appreciate it. In the meantime, thanks so much for listening,
and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, stay badass, and don't do necromancy unless you absolutely
have to. Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast
produced by High five Content. Executive producers are Andrew Jacobs, Me,
Pat Larish, and my co host Ben Thompson. Writing is
(47:39):
by me and Ben. Story editing is by Ian Jacobs
Brandon Phibbs. Mixing and music and sound design is by
Jude Brewer. Special thanks to Noel Brown at iHeart Badass
of the Week is based on the website Badass of
Theweek dot com, where you can read all sorts of
stories about other badasses. If you want to reach out
(48:02):
with questions ideas, you can email us at Badass podcast
at badassoftheweek dot com. If you like the podcast, subscribe, follow, listen,
and tell your friends and your enemies if you want as.
We'll be back next week with another one. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(48:23):
wherever you get your podcasts
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