August 22, 2023 • 48 mins
The most revered of all the sword-swinging Viking rulers, the legendary Olaf Crowbone, baptized the Vikings the only way he knew how — with extreme violence. Pat and Ben talk about the national hero of Norway, a guy who consistently dealt with all possible foes by planting them on the point of his sword. This episode has action, adventure, death, destruction, Viking longships, epic battles, and just the slightest hint of religious philosophy thrown in for good measure.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by
High five Content.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A winter Nordic sea breeze would chill the skin of
most men. They'd feel it in their throat, their hands,
their eyes, their bones. But to this twelve year old boy,
the only thing he felt was a burning hot rage.
(00:29):
It's nine seventy two AD. Norway Vikings rule the land
and seas of Scandinavia and all off Crowbone, an orphaned
slave is destined for greatness. With a blood splattered swing
of an axe, he took his first life, and with
(00:49):
a blood splattered swing of a crucifix, he took Norway.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Hello and welcome back to Badass of the Week. My
name is Thompson and I am here as always with
my co host, doctor Pat Larish. Pat, we are talking
about some cool Viking stuff today. We are, indeed, you
have a really fun Viking that we're gonna be talking about,
one of the Viking greats. It's a thing. So I
(01:17):
wrote a book about Vikings. One of my Guts and
Glory books is about Vikings. I always love hearing Viking
stories because one of the things I always say is
that everybody loves Vikings, but it's hard to name one,
you know, other than I guess leif Erickson, but he's
not the kind of Viking you're thinking of when you're
thinking about Vikings. And so after today people will be
(01:37):
able to name one. And he's got a pretty.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Cool name all off Crowbone.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Crowbone, which is awesome. And I just want to, like,
in the course of my research for that book, I
came across a lot of really fun Viking names. I
was thinking, maybe it would be fun to just read
some here. Yeah, I have a PowerPoint slide on the
talk I do for kids' schools about Vikings. And there's
actually a little beer hal near my house called Skull
(02:05):
that is kind of Viking themed. Yeah, they have old helmets,
and they do have different types of meads, and they
have various you know, replica of Viking armor and weaponry
and stuff hanging up, and there's a mug club, and
they do a lot of Viking style food.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Oh, Viking style food. Do you have a favorite Viking
style dish?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
For my birthday one year, it was like the middle
of COVID, but you could like go pick up a
box and make it at home. And I got some
kind of like roasted chicken thing that was really awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
But I've done a talk there about this too, and
I like going down like the slide where I go
through all of my my Viking names that are fun.
So I'm going to read a couple of them for
you here. Yes, yeah, okay, so some of them have
stories for it. There's a couple of Haralds. There's a
Harold war tooth and a Harold Bluetooth, and Bluetooth is
actually named after Harold Bluetooth.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, the idea being that he unified his people, and
your Bluetooth system will unify your earbuds and your laptop
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, it is that, which is pretty cool. But the
reason he's called Bluetooth is kind of still a mystery
to historians, as with many Viking history things, that there's
a thought, like we have seen evidence of people who
like they think maybe the Bluetooth is he just had
a dead tooth, you know, and it just had gone
gray or blue. But we've also seen evidence that, like
(03:30):
in some of the bones that we've dug up of
Norse people, that there are scratches, like man made scratches
in the teeth, and there's a thought that maybe they
tattooed their teeth. Oh wow, like with a blue line
like scrimmershop.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah yeah, but on your own teeth.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Just to be extra terrifying, which it's like a like
a Viking grill.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, yeah, you know, like you go get your nails done,
you go get your teeth done.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, I don't know. There's also a guy who goes
by Magnus bear Legs. He was fighting in Scotland.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Now is this bear as in the animal roar or
bear as in not clothed?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Oh I didn't even think about that, but yeah, no,
it's it's b A r E. Magnus bear legs, okay,
because he fought the Scots and he thought the kilt
looked cool, so he started wearing one. It's so all
of the Vikings called him bear Legs because he wore
a kilt.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Then there's a Ininar jingle scale he was a musician.
That's fun.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Great name. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
My favorite might be isend the plagiarist. He was a writer.
And plagiarist is interesting because there's two different ways you
can translate that word. One is plagiarists and one is
destroyer of Skalds scaled being a person who wrote and
did poetry. So he was either like really awesome at
it or he ripped everybody off and we don't know
(04:52):
enough about it to know which.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, I'm imagining someone using chat GPT to write his sagas.
Oh I like it, don't I ch I school, I'm
not allowed to like chat GPT.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
But oh, I like you. I like where you're going
with it. No, chat GPT is going to put me
out of business. I'm a professional writer, remember, Like that's
what I'd be for a living. This I'm out. I's
like I had chat gpt right, like right, I was
just like write about a samurai in the style of
Badass of the Week, and it produced something and I
was like, damn it, this is better than what I do.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I don't know about that. But did you fact check it?
Because sometimes chat GPT will just kind of go on autopilot,
which is what it does, and make stuff up.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, that's fair. I didn't double check it. I just
printed it directly to my book. Just kidding.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, no, doctor Learish says, double check your sources.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yes, good idea.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Anyway, anyway, so we've got these names, Yeah, do you
have a few other Viking names with cool epithets up
your sleeve.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, there's a there's an Ivar the Boneless whoa he
led the Great Heathen Army into England. We don't know
why he's called boneless. There are a number of suggestions
for this. One is that he might I've had some
sort of like leg leg things, some kind of degenerative
leg disorder. He's mentioned being carried around on a shield
a lot, okay, which was actually a thing that you
(06:11):
did ceremoniously, like ceremonially for Viking kings. But it's possible
that he couldn't walk and they called him the boneless.
He also didn't have kids, and people have suspected that
it could be that. But I don't know if I'm
even allowed to make that joke on the website but
on the podcast. But but yeah, so I'm gonna I'm
gonna read a couple more of these that I don't
(06:31):
have any good stories for.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Just go through the list.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, Thorfin Skull, Cleaver, Hothbad, the indomitable thor Leaf, Gody,
the overbearing Olaf, the peacock had the hard rolf, the
woman loving and then oh cigarette snake in the eye.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
What does that mean.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I don't know. He might have had some kind of
eye thing going on. We don't know why. It's called
Sigarett Cigaret snake in the eye, Bure and Ironsides and
Ivar the Boneless. We're all brothers. Is just great. They
were all sons of Ragnar. Harry Breeches, who was called
Harry Breeches because there's a story that in order to
save a princess he had to fight this big snake.
So he made like he took leather pants and stuffed
(07:12):
them with hair so that the snake bit him. It
couldn't penetrate through to bite his leg. It was a
super venomous snake or something. I don't know. I don't know.
Tactical pants, yeah, kind of rockstar tactical pants.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah. Oh.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And then to round off the list, Eric the Red's
mother was called thor Berg the ship chested like ship
like a boat. So whoa, yeah, I don't know. Make
of that what you will. So now, dear listeners, you
can name some Vikings and pat after you tell us
the story of oll Off Crowbone. They'll be able to
provide some interesting details about at least one of them.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yes, yeah, And so we will get into that after this.
I think, hey, welcome back. So Ben gave us a
list of several Vikings with their awesome Viking names, and
(08:07):
let's zero in on one particular Viking named Oloff Crowbone.
And this dude baptizes the Vikings with violence. If you're
looking for a chronological ballpark, we're talking the years maybe
nine sixty to about one thousand CE. And who is
this guy? Who is this Olof? Obviously he's not the
(08:29):
snowman from the movie Frozen. Let's let Snorri Starlson introduce him.
This is Snorri Sterlson, who wrote a lot of Icelandic
sagas and works that are important for the history of Vikings, honestly,
and one of his works is the Heims Kremlin. And
(08:50):
Snorri Sterlson says, Oloff drove some out of the country,
mutilated others of hand or feet or stung. Their eye
is out, hung up, some cut down some with the sword.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I'm getting Olga vibes here, Yeah, yeah, yeah, baptizing with violence.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Baptizing with violence.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Making descent of baptizing with violence.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah. It's also making me reassess the category of what
qualifies for sainthood.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
It's good to be the king it is.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Or queen slash princess, right, yeah, yeah, So who is
this all Off guy? Well, this is all Off Trigva son.
His father was named Trigva and he was known as Crowbo,
and we'll talk a little bit about that later. He
is the man typically credited with dutifully bringing the Holy
Word of the merciful Christian God to the heathen lands
(09:45):
of previously quote unquote uncivilized Norsemen. He was baptized at
the hands of a mega holy English bishop in a
really fancy cathedral somewhere, and he's actually still a legendary
figure in Norway. He's a national hero, and as often happens,
he's so revered by his countrymen that many of the
(10:08):
stories surrounding him have exploded to near mythical proportions. And
maybe let's take what follows not so much as a
historical documentary biography, and maybe more of a series of legends.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
It's one of the problems with Viking history is that
they kind of have a very strong tendency to conflate
their myths with their real people, and it's trying to
extricate what's what's myth and what's real? The great example
would be like if Hercules was actually a real guy
and we could record that he was a real guy, Like, uh,
I don't know, what what did we do? Latively didn't
(10:48):
go to Hell and pull the Cerberus out, but like,
what did he do? Is that a reference to something?
Are we just being metaphorical here or is.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It someone a historical figure who acquired some sort of
importance in people's imaginations and then stories just sort of
glom onto them.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, you have you don't have comic books, so you
have to have to make up your stories with your
real people. And that's what happens with the with the
Viking kings and heroes.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
If you were a tenth century Viking hoping to convert
some people to Christianity, how would you go about doing it?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Well, when you think Catholic saint or you know, hero
of you know, religious hero from this time period, this
kind of one thousand CE time period, I don't know,
you picture a Saint Augustine or a you know, maybe
a wandering monk, somebody in robes going around, you know,
(11:43):
turning rocks into bread and healing the sick and kissing
babies or whatever, that kind of stuff. Some older, very
holy man, soft spoken with a beard, who eruditely changes
the minds of the people with his great works and deeds. Yeah,
is that what Olaf did well?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
If we define great works and deeds very very broadly,
he was aik. And even though he brought Christianity to
Norway and converted his people to the religion that they
still practiced today, he didn't do it in the way
that you describe. He was not peaceful. He was he
(12:26):
didn't lead with the love thy neighbor message.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
He didn't turn the other cheek.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah. I mean, if he turned the other cheek, it's
because he was preparing for some swipe with a sword
or something, you know. Yeah, yeah, No, No, our boy
all Off did it a Viking style. He terrorized anyone
who defied him. He cut out the tongues of pagan priests.
He burned heathen acolytes to death on their own altars,
(12:53):
and he inflicted other gruesome tortures on his enemies and
basically used fire and steal and violence to persuade them
to reassess the theological error of their ways.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Okay, so that's a strategy.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
That's a strategy. That's a strategy. And you know, to
be fair, he's not the only person in history who
gets canonized or heroized for bringing a particular religion to
a particular group of people. We could look at Saint
Olga of Cube, for example.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Sure, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, all off.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
He's got this kind of larger than life reputation, and
it's quite probable that later writers basically retconned his life
and they wanted to make him sound even more ofesome
than he already was. But whatever the actual documentary historical facts,
(13:57):
we like to tell the story because it's a good story.
So let's just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, we don't have any other sources, so we gotta
go with the one we got. We got to tell
the Hercules version of the story because no other version
of this story exists.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yes, and along the way we'll get to encounter a
lot more of these awesome Viking names. So around nine
sixty eight CE, Norway was under the control of a
dude named Harold gray Cloak. He was a son of
Eric blood Axe, and Eric blood Axe had violently taken
(14:33):
over Norway after the death of the significantly less bloodthirsty
king Hokong the Good and Harold gray Cloak was advised
by his mother, who is known as Gunhild, Mother of Kings,
and she's she is an interesting character.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Guenhild, Mother of Kings is awesome. Yeah, she is kind
of she's the wife of Eric blood Axe and she's
the mother of Harold gray Cloak and some of these
other Viking kings follow. But she's basically remembered as having
like mythical like witch powers, like magic, as being kind
of like a magical being. Think like the evil witch
in Snow White. You know, that's kind of the vibe
(15:12):
for Goonhild, Mother of Kings.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, and she's one of those pull no punches kind
of people. So gray Cloak, Harold gray Cloak was told,
possibly by his mother, Gunhild, Mother of Kings, that if
you really want to solidify a rule, some might rule,
the best way to do it is just wipe out
anyone who could possibly oppose you in any way whatsoever.
(15:38):
And okay, so that's that's his agenda, that's his business plan.
Now here, We've got our guy all Off all of
Triggvisen's father is a minor Norwegian yarl named trigg viall Oloffson.
And what is a yarl? Jarl?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
People who play a lot of Skyroom will recogniz is
the name, but a yarl was the word earl comes
from it. So the English word earl derives from yarl,
which is kind of like a Viking prince or chief.
For basically it's a chief. He's not a king, but
he runs, he rules his little war band and his
little tribe. And they're of all differing sizes. So some
(16:19):
yarls have huge holdings and some have very small ones.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, So Trigga Olison, Yarl Trigva Ollison, who in some
way or another is related through some complicated family tree
to the long dead Norwegian king Harold fair Hair, was
exactly the sort of person who could cause trouble for
Harold gray Cloak and his mother Gunhald.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, and King fair Hair was the guy who is
another famous Viking, Harold Fairhair United Norway. He was like
one of the first guys to unite Norway. He said
he wasn't he's called fair Hair because it's like not
like he had light hair or that, like it's that
it was it was great, Like fair isn't good like
Harold good hair because he had awesome hair. Yeah, and
(17:02):
he said that he wasn't going to cut his hair
until he conquered Old Norway. Uh, and so that's what
he did. And so Triggva is related to him. So
he's a threat because he's related to the first king
of Norway.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, he's got some sort of family tree related claim
on the throne kind of if he chooses to follow
up on this. So Gunhilda is kind of worried about
this guy, and she's clearly thinking strategically, and she's clearly
hard edged about this. Let's say, so she orders a
bunch of guys to stab Trigva in his sleep and
(17:36):
burn his house down. And he hadn't done anything specifically wrong.
He was just who he was, and he was part
of the wrong branch on the family tree or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
That's what you do. You got to consolidate your powers,
so you've got to kill all potential rivals. So Gunhild's
mother of Kings gets her reputation as being kind of
a diabolical, like villainous kind of honestly, because the first
thing she advises her son Harold Great Cloak to do
is to kill all potential rivals, so they do. They
stab Triggva to death in his sleep and burn his
(18:12):
house down. But I'm guessing Olof makes it out alive.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Well, yes, because we're doing a whole episode about him.
Trinva doesn't survive stabbing, burning, but his wife, Astrid, a
Swedish noble woman, kind of figured out what was going
on and she escaped and she has a band of
(18:36):
loyal followers with her and they're running for their lives. Now.
Fun fact about Astrid, She's pregnant. That's our all off.
That's how Olof survives. And Astrid and her followers they
flee through the forest, and Astrod is pregnant enough that
(18:56):
at one point she actually has to stop in a
marsh somewhere in a tiny hut and give birth to
alaf Wow. And she spends the next three years being
pursued by murderous agents of Queen Gunhild. So Astrid protects
her newborn child, she escapes her would be assassins, and
(19:18):
she and her followers make their way towards Kiev and
russ and they try and seek refuge with the King
of Kiev, who at this point is a guy named Vladimir.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Oh, Vladimir Kiev is this is a dian to Saint
Olia because he is the grandson of Olyav Kiev.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
There you go. So we're in Kiev and russ we're
in Kiev and or we're heading towards Kiev. Astrad doesn't
actually make it. So somewhere on the Vaulta coast, she
and her bodyguards were ambushed by slavers. Most of them
don't make it. The adults don't make it, but Olaf,
who is three years old at this time, does survive.
(19:56):
He's captured because that's what you do with babies if
you're a I suppose. And the guy who captured him, well, okay,
he doesn't kill all Off, but he's also thinking, well
what am I going to do with a baby? He
trained three year old all Off for a goat because
I guess in his eyes, goats are way more useful
than babies.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Anyways, I don't imagine like a three year old is
going to be real a lot of fun to carry
her own on your Viking war band with you.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, more hassle than anything. Yeah, are we there yet? No?
So the guy who got all Off in this exchange,
the guy who traded a goat for all Off quickly
changed his mind setting. Yeah, okay, maybe I'm not really
interested in lugging around a three year old. So he
swaps baby oll Off to some Estonian guy in exchange
(20:47):
for a really sweet jacket. And I hope it was
a good jacket. I mean, you're trading a human being
for a piece of clothing.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I mean he's probably only really trading the goat for
the jacket because he the baby was just kind of
the intermediary. You trade the goat for the baby, then
the baby for the jacket. Okay, yeah, and I do
it should be a sweet jacket. I would hope it
would be.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Maybe it has pockets, maybe it doesn't. I tried googling
Baltic outerwear in this period. I feel like it's important
to know. It's important to me to know whether it
has pockets. Olof is in Estonia now and he's being
raised there for six years, and then finally remember his mom, Astrid.
She's dead, but her brother is alive, and Astrid's brother
(21:35):
manages to track down baby Olof or not baby kid
all Off, purchase his freedom and take all Off to
the court of King Lad of Kiev Wow, which is
where Astrid was trying to end up in the first place. So, okay,
this is all working out somehow.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, it only took like ten years to get there
or whatever we're at now, but you know he's there.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah. Yeah. Olof was taken in and you know he's
clearly of noble birth. He grew up with the Varangians,
who are the descendants of Viking colonists and noble Viking colonists,
and he learns all sorts of things, including a lot
(22:18):
of good warrior training, like how to stay buff, how
to cut people with a sword if you want them
to die.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Important skills for a Viking.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Very yes. And then when Olof is twelve, he actually
manages to get a little bit of revenge. He's on
the docks. You know, there's a lot of bustle, there's
a lot of crowds, there's a lot of ships coming in,
people loading ships, unloading ships. So Alaf sees a guy who.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Enslaved him and killed his mom, and I'm.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Going to let Icelandic writer Snri stirless and describe the moment. Now,
Olaf had a small axe in his hand and he
drove it into the head of klerkon so that it
went right down into his.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Boy killed this first man at age twelve in revenge, Yeah,
in vengeance for his mother and for being enslaved and
traded for a jacket and a goat.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Okay, so he killed a guy. We're okay, that is
technically murder, but instead of facing justice, he faced westward.
He just ended up popping the first long ship out
of town. He turned Viking. He never looked back, kind.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Of crossed that point in overturn, driving that axe through
that guy's head.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
So Oloff is a mighty warrior with terrible manners. I
think we can assume most Vikings probably had terrible manners.
But Oloff at one point in his life slapped the
future Queen of Denmark in the face.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Her name was Sigrid the Haughty, and not haughty as inattractive,
but haughty as in arrogant, which might be why Olaf
slapped her, a thing that we don't endorse here on
Badass of the Week. It's bad manners to slap the
Princess of Denmark. So anyway, in response, Sigrid, rightfully mad
said that acts will bring about your death, and it will,
(24:13):
and we'll get to that, I think later, but he
will come to regret doing that, but it was a
good example of how he dealt with any setback in life.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
So Olaf. He's famous for being one of the straight
up toughest fighters in the combat filled history of the
Viking Age, and he developed quite a reputation among his
fellow Viking warriors. Among other things, he married a Polish princess.
He fought in the army of the Holy Roman Empire
as a mercenary, he circumnavigated the British Isles, and this
(24:48):
is where he gets his name from. He becomes so
good at casting bones, which is a fortune telling type
of thing, and prophesying the outcomes of battle that he
earned the nickname all Off Crowbo.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And so it's kind of what we said in the intro,
where some of this is a little it might be embellished.
A lot of this is kind of from action novels
of the time, But you know, this kind of encompasses
his next few years as a Viking. He is fighting,
he marries a princess, he's fighting in the army. He's
a good sailor, he's you know, throwing the bones as
(25:22):
a kind of pagan ritual. It's not very he is
going to become a Catholic saint, but he never stops
doing this. Yeah, but yeah, it's a good story and
we're just gonna we're gonna run with it.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
We're gonna run with it. Yeah. What we do know
for certain is that all Off Crowbone was Norwegian. He
spent lots of time in Kievan Russ growing up, and
he was already a heroic figure who had proven himself
countless times and raids across Europe. And he first shows
up in a legitimate, verifiable historical context around nine to
(25:55):
ninety one, when England was ruled by a man so
terrible at responding to Viking attacks that he has a
nickname of his own in history. He's known to history
as Ethelred the Unready, or if you prefer ETHI read
the ill advised, and I hope.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
You're ready for ethel Read the Unready, because he's just
the worst. He's the King of England, and that's how
he's remembered is ethel Read the Unready. He took everything
that his great great grandfather, Alfred the Great, and that's
a lot of greats, but he was a pretty great guy.
I guess he took all of the great progress that
Alfred had made and just completely bungled. It was totally
(26:31):
unprepared for every Viking attack on his kingdom, and all
he did to respond to them was just buy the
Vikings off with gold and silver. And that's not a
good way to deter Vikings that if they just can
kind of show up and get gold for nothing and
then sail away, that's not a great way to deter
Vikings from raiding your lands.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
We'll hear more about him after this word from our sponsor.
So yeah, So ethel Red the Unready is in charge
in England. And then in the year nine to ninety one,
(27:11):
a black holed fleet of ninety three warships shows up
and they're looking to ravage the town of Sandwich. At
the head of this fleet is Off Crowbone.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Lots of good sandwiches they got. Let those sandwiches give
me the silver end of sandwiches.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yes, yes, And Ethel the Unready, whose name didn't see
it coming all off Lands's fleet. These guys get off
the boats. They ran Sackson towns and okay, yes there
is some resistance. It's not put up by Ethel red.
There's this guy, this English nobleman named birth North, and
(27:52):
he rallies the people of the outlying villages. He scrambles
together a militia and they do their best take on
the Viking invaders. Was an incredibly brave fighter, and that's good,
I mean from the English point of view. He also
had a code of honor, which you think would be
a good thing, but sometimes it backfires. And Brittanoff, he
(28:16):
and his ragtag militia, they were on a roll. They
were doing great. They surprised Oloff and his Viking troops
on the bank of a river, but he let the
Vikings basically call a time out so they could move
their troops into position before battle.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, Oloff wanted a truce and he was like, oh,
cease fire, I'm not ready. And this guy was like, well,
I want to defeat you with honor, so I'll wait
for you. Yes, And that's that's also not how you
deal with Vikings, because the Vikings are not going to
give you that same not going to do that same
thing for you if the situation's reversed.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Now, So brittan Off, he's sitting there and he's very
honorably twiddling his thumbs while Olaf marches his guys across
the bridge. And this is you know, this is not
a HSS tournament or whatever. It's an actual real world battle.
And the Vikings what are they going to do? Of
course they're going to take advantage of this. They form
up into one of their shield walls, all of their shields,
(29:16):
this impenetrable steel. And of course in the ensuing battle,
Brithnoth and his English troops get the crusts cut off
their ham and cheese by a berserking horde of trample
happy Norsemen. And that's basically the end of.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Brithnov There's a poem about this, and it's in Old English,
and it's considered one of the finest pieces of Anglo
Saxon literature ever written. It's one of them some there
with like Beowolf in those things you should read if
you're studying this. This is probably a small consolation to
britanof who never got to read it, because he was
buried under a pile of dead Vikings with a sword
(29:53):
in his heart.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
And if we could go back in time, we would
tell him, well, at least you have a reputation for
being honorable you have a reputation for maybe some other
things too, giving your choices at the end of the battle.
But whatever. So this is going on specifically in this
area of England, and ethel Red they unready remember him.
He gets wind of what's going down, and he actually
springs into action. He sends his fastest riders down to
(30:17):
the sea and he sends a very clear message to
deliver to the Viking invaders. And Ben, what do you
think Ethelred's message was?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Was it something very brave and heroic? And you know
ceats now and there's more brith not offs where that
one came from. You'll you'll pay for every inch of
this island with blood or whatever. We'll fight on the beaches,
we'll fight on the landing grounds in there, something like.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
That, something like that, if by something like that we
mean something actually very not like that. He basically said, Hey,
Viking guys, here's ten thousand pounds of silver. Could you
maybe kind of stop killing us? Pretty pleased with a
cherryop cop did he?
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Well?
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Actually, Oloff Crowbone took the cash and he sailed to
Denmark and there he met up with the Danish king
Spain fork Beard, and I would like to just pause
from one to imagine what would cause someone to be
called fork beard. I'm imagining like a bipartite facial hair fork.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Beard or fork beard. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah, unless he held a fork with his beard now.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Out of it like a hair brush. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
But this guy, you know, he's he's known for his
majestic facial hair. And this Spain fork beard guy had
seized power by overthrowing his own father, but that cost
him a little bit, so he actually welcomed the opportunity
to make a little bit of money on the side.
So when Olaf showed up and talked about how the
(31:56):
English kings athel Red guy was giving out cash rewards
for killing Englishmen, these two Vikings and their guys hopped
into their ship and they went back into action. So
just a little while later, in nine ninety four, they
roll up on the coast of England with a fleet
of ship's ninety four ships, and they burned Essex, they
(32:19):
burned Kent, they burned Sussex, they burnt Hampshire before laying
siege to London itself.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Ethel Red was unready for it.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Well, ironically, he was in his own way. More silver
more silver, more silver, sixteen thousand pounds of glistenings.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Over godol Red, yeah, ethel red thread over just spent
this by troops, by armor for your guys or something,
by something else with that.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Maybe he just doesn't want to deal with the hassle.
Now this is a thing, though, it's not just about
the silver, because you know, in talks with all love
to hand over the silver, I say, hey, I give
you silver, you leave my people alone. Somehow he manages
to convince Olof to convert to Christianity. Okay, yeah, and
(33:12):
Olof apparently took this very seriously. And why well was
he into the theology? Was he into the whole love
thy neighbor message? Unclear? From a political or strategic view,
it seemed like maybe Oloff viewed this whole Christianity thing
as a way to unify all of Norway under one
(33:34):
common cause, which on the surface was Christianity. But also
maybe was just the thing that Oloff was doing. So
it's Christianity, and also it's.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
About Olof, which is kind of an interesting thing because
at this point where at a thousand a d and
Christianity is spreading pretty well. So while this does seem
really weird for him to convert and then be a
true believer. You know, he never stops throwing those crowbones
to before battles to like read the you know, casting
(34:07):
of bones or whatever, to prophesy how the battle's going
to go. He never gives that up. But it's interesting
because there are Christians in Norway at this point in
Norway's where he's from. Norway's, his birthright is king is Norway.
He wants to return there, and guen Hild, mother of Kings,
I think, is still there with her kids. He wants
(34:28):
that revenge and maybe this is a way in of like, hey,
I'm the Christian option, I'm a different political party than
the incumbent. Maybe it's time for a change and you
can support me instead. And he's got this sixteen thousand
pounds of silver that he just got from Ethelred the Unready,
So this is actually kind of a good opportunity for him.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah, because he's showing up with what could be a
deep spiritual experience, but in practical terms, more like a
mascot that he can rally people under. And he's also
showing up with a big sack of silver.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, because nothing would sell religion and kingliness to the
masses more than the Philly fanatic and sixteen thousand pounds
of silver.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And a bunch of English priests wallowing at the Norsemen until.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
They converted, which was definitely not Olaf's preferred method.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Now, he and his army of Norsemen who are battle
hardened and into the hole. Hey, if he give us
a reason, we will totally you know, kill and pillage
and whatever. They have other methods of conversion. So he's
going to reclaim the throne of Norway and assert his
might and write as a descendant of Harold fair Hair.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Right, because he does have that kind of weird tangential
relationship or descent from from the from the main guy.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
So Olaf's finally, after plundering and pillaging and being the
being a good, honest Viking for many years, has an
opportunity to get promoted, and.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
So he and his guys, which includes you know, his
warriors and also some priests, he makes a little pitstop
in the Orkney Islands just kind of try things out,
test out his theory about the most effective ways to
convert a Viking population to Christianity. So when he lands
in the Orkney Islands. He goes straight to the yarl's house.
(36:19):
He captures the yarl's son, and he friends to kill
the yarl's son with a knife. If the yarl didn't convert,
what do you think happened?
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Converted?
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Okay? Converted?
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
So then all I've sent a message to all the
norsemen of Orkney telling them, hey, you guys are all Christian. Now,
those necklaces you have with Thor's hammer on them, those
are now crossings mule festival. We're calling that Christmas now,
and Odin the big king of the gods, whom you
(36:54):
have been worshiping, he's Santa Claus now. And here's some churches.
And I hope you're okay with that. And if you're
not okay with that, I'm going to burn your houses
down and chop you into tiny little bits and pieces
of mince meat with an axe. And that worked.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, It's a technique that has kind of worked for
crusaders for centuries. Right. Yeah, you arrive in a place
and you know, let's just take these things that you're
already doing. We'll file off the serial numbers, we'll re
skin them as Christian symbols and rituals, and if you
don't like it, I got a.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Sword, and so all Off Crowbone and his entire pointy
object bearing entourage arrives in Norway. A few weeks later,
things are a mess. Harold gray Cloak was dead, a
gun held mother of King's was exiled, and is there
a power vacuum? No, because there's this guy named y're
(37:52):
All Hakon, but everyone hated him because he issued a
lot of taxes. He kept stealing all the other yar
All's girlfriends and af Crowbone crashes his ships into the
Arl Howkon's fleet. He bashes it into flatsam and you've
got wood. These ships are just splintering all over the places.
He crash lands. All Off crash lands on the shores
(38:15):
of Norway. He unloads his crucifixes and his battle axes,
and he marches straight for the capitol. Well, Yurl Hawkon,
who was totally popular, not for various reasons, he's running
for his life, and he's running for his life from
all Off Crowbone and his guys. And he and a
(38:36):
guy that he has enslaved hide in a pig sty,
and the slave Yarl Hawkon slave stabs him Crowbone. All
Off Crowbone goes into this barn, this pig sty, and
rather than thanking the slave for killing yurl Howcon, he
actually kills him too, because that's his mo.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Yeah, offered a reward to whoever killed Hackon, So this
slave killed Hackon and expected a reward for it, and instead, Hey,
you can't kill kings. It's bad for a king to
be killed by a non king, and you can't have
that killer of kings go unpunished, especially by another king.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
So, hey, slave who killed Url Hawkon, thank you for
your service, but I'm afraid don't take it personally. I'm
going to cut your head off. He cuts off the
slave's head. He also cuts off eur Al hawk On's head,
and he puts them on spikes outside of the town
so villagers could throw rocks at them, and also infer
who's exactly in charge now? And all Off strides on
(39:36):
into the palace and sits down on the throne of Norway.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
I'm picturing like Conan the barbarian here, right, like King Khnan.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, yep. So during his five year stint as king
of Norway, which might seem short, but also i mean,
given what we've been talking about holding onto anything for
five years. Holding onto any throne for five years is
actually pretty big accomplishment anyway. All Off Crowbone or excuse me, King,
all Off Crowbone set up the city of Trondheim. He
(40:08):
meant it coins. I mean, you got to do something
with all that silver you got from the English, and
he established, get this, an English style bureaucracy. And what
he's most famous for is the way he converts Norway
from the old gods, you know, Odin and thorn Pounds,
to Christianity. And he does this well, it's pretty much
(40:29):
in keeping with his usual style. He threatens to torture
and kill everyone who refuses to accept Jesus Christ as
their personal lord and savior. And well, there's one moment
where he has eighty some Norse priests in a temple
of Odin. He locks them in, he sets it on fire.
He finds some pagan sorcerers. He ties them to rocks
(40:53):
during low tide and leaves them there to drown and
the tides coming in, which is don't fare very well either.
He cuts out their tongue. And there was one Yarrel
who committed blasphemy. Aloft makes me a snake which kills him.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
So, I mean, it's so crazy to think about because
Olaf Crowbone is still doing pagan stuff. He's just so
the important thing to keep in mind here is that
I don't believe that he really cares that much about
the Christianity thing. It's more like the way in which
(41:28):
these people are tortured to death, burned to death in
a temple of Odeen, tied to rocks during low tide.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And one thing you've also we also should mention is
when we're talking about some of this legendary stuff, is
that some of this stuff is written by people who
didn't like Aloft, and perhaps they're exaggerating and ascribing various
pains and tortures that he did that he didn't really do.
But Olof. That's not to say that. I mean, Olof
was a pretty hardcore dude. He was a pretty tough guy,
(41:55):
so I wouldn't put any of this past him. But
I guess the thing we're saying is that I don't
think it's so much that he is a true believer,
a true crusader, as much as it's that by not converting,
these people are defying him, and he can't stand that.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
It's a power play.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, yeah, you can't tell me no, not so much
so that like, you know, God wants me to do this, So.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
This is all off. And his methods were brutal, and
they were also effective. And in addition to converting Norway,
he also converted Iceland and Greenland, although much less blood thirsty,
and with Iceland he did something a little more strategic.
He cut off trade between his people and the Icelanders
until they converted. He refused to send ships to non
(42:43):
Christian lands or to have non Christian cruise doc on
his ports. And so these Icelanders they accepted Christianity at
the All Thing, which was there deliberative assembly.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
And one thousand and eighty and that's the same we've
talked about this sol Thing before in our episode about
the Valkyries. This is the one where one of the
Icelandic people said, oh, you know, we should convert to Christianity.
But in the course of that speech he called Freya
a bitch.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Freya was the Freya being one of the Norse goddesses.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, and people agreed with him, but still exiled him
for blaspheming against one of the old gods. Yeah. Yeah,
and this was kind of a strategic move for the
conversion as well as like a strategic move for Olaf
because all of the neighboring kingdoms that can give him
a lot of financial and military and other aid are
(43:32):
Christian countries. So by kind of converting his people, he's
allying them with other Christian kingdoms, which is good for
him strategically and politically.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah. Yeah, religion is definitely a political thing. It's a
power thing. Yeah, So he's thinking strategically. And we talked
about how he converted Iceland and with Greenland. Will he
just had Eric the Redsung Leif Ericson come stay with
him for a couple summers and talked to him about
how awesome it was to be a Christian, and Leif
(44:04):
converted and went back to Greenland and eventually started building
churches and stuff. Now, from all Off's perspective, was being
pretty successful. He was quashing Pagans, he was promoting Christianity,
he was getting people to do his thing. But not
everyone was super excited about the fact that all Off
(44:26):
Crowbone was running things in Norway. And remember Spane Forkbeard, Well,
he had already been kind of thinking that he might
like to conquer Norway. So he joins up with his
step son, King Olof of Sweden. This is a different
all Off. And remember Yarrol Hokon who died in a
pig sty. While his son Eric joined up with them.
(44:47):
And together the three of them Span fork Beard, King
allof of Sweden and Eric Hoppinson, they built up a
huge army. And they thought, oh, why don't we try
to get rid of all Off Crowbone once and for all.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
And to add on to that triumvirate there of Stain
fork Beard, all Off of Sweden and Eric Hackinson, the
wife of Zaane Forkbeard was secured. The haughty who you
will remember is the Danish queen that Oloff Crowbone slapped
in the face. She said that slapping her in the
(45:21):
face was going to bring about his death, and it
does in a very direct way, as we will see.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yes, so off all Off Crowbone, that is, puts out
a call for troops. Now the thing is all off.
He's got a lot of things going for him, but
how to put it, a warm, fuzzy manner that endears
him to a lot of people is not one of
his qualities. And so he was only able to wrestle
(45:47):
up eleven ships and he's facing the combined navies of
the Danes the Swedes, and you're all Eric Hugkinson. These
navies sail into town. He's like, oh, he's badly outnumbered.
Imagine the sea covered with Viking longboats. Oloff orders his
(46:07):
troops to stand their ground. He personally launches himself into
a ferocious last stand against impossible odds. He's packs the
things he swings, he cuts down or tries to cut
down anything that moves. He goes into a battle frenzy,
and he does actually send dozens of enemy warriors flying
from the deck of his burning warship. He was last
(46:30):
seen standing on the bow of his flagship named Long Serpent,
covered in the blood of his enemies, engulfed in smoke
and flames, swinging wildly as a horde of Danes swarms
around him. His body was never recovered. Some legends claim
(46:50):
that Oloff jumped overboard swam ashore, traveled by land to
Jerusalem and became a monk. Some people think he just drowned,
And one way or the other does it matter? Will
The upshoot is that the most famous and renowned Viking
in history all Off crow Bone was gone, never to
(47:11):
be heard from again except by reputation in legends and podcasts.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Well, that is the story of Olloff Crowbone. He was
a true Viking in every way that you would imagine
a Viking to be. And yeah, I guess that's all
the time we have for today. Thank you guys so
much for listening, and we will see you next week
(47:41):
with another one.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Stay Badass. 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
(48:03):
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
(48:25):
with questions ideas, you can email us at Badass Podcast
at Badass oftheweek 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
(48:47):
wherever you get your podcasts.
Badass of the Week is an iHeartRadio podcast produced by
High five Content.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
A winter Nordic sea breeze would chill the skin of
most men. They'd feel it in their throat, their hands,
their eyes, their bones. But to this twelve year old boy,
the only thing he felt was a burning hot rage.
(00:29):
It's nine seventy two AD. Norway Vikings rule the land
and seas of Scandinavia and all off Crowbone, an orphaned
slave is destined for greatness. With a blood splattered swing
of an axe, he took his first life, and with
(00:49):
a blood splattered swing of a crucifix, he took Norway.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Hello and welcome back to Badass of the Week. My
name is Thompson and I am here as always with
my co host, doctor Pat Larish. Pat, we are talking
about some cool Viking stuff today. We are, indeed, you
have a really fun Viking that we're gonna be talking about,
one of the Viking greats. It's a thing. So I
(01:17):
wrote a book about Vikings. One of my Guts and
Glory books is about Vikings. I always love hearing Viking
stories because one of the things I always say is
that everybody loves Vikings, but it's hard to name one,
you know, other than I guess leif Erickson, but he's
not the kind of Viking you're thinking of when you're
thinking about Vikings. And so after today people will be
(01:37):
able to name one. And he's got a pretty.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Cool name all off Crowbone.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Crowbone, which is awesome. And I just want to, like,
in the course of my research for that book, I
came across a lot of really fun Viking names. I
was thinking, maybe it would be fun to just read
some here. Yeah, I have a PowerPoint slide on the
talk I do for kids' schools about Vikings. And there's
actually a little beer hal near my house called Skull
(02:05):
that is kind of Viking themed. Yeah, they have old helmets,
and they do have different types of meads, and they
have various you know, replica of Viking armor and weaponry
and stuff hanging up, and there's a mug club, and
they do a lot of Viking style food.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Oh, Viking style food. Do you have a favorite Viking
style dish?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
For my birthday one year, it was like the middle
of COVID, but you could like go pick up a
box and make it at home. And I got some
kind of like roasted chicken thing that was really awesome.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
But I've done a talk there about this too, and
I like going down like the slide where I go
through all of my my Viking names that are fun.
So I'm going to read a couple of them for
you here. Yes, yeah, okay, so some of them have
stories for it. There's a couple of Haralds. There's a
Harold war tooth and a Harold Bluetooth, and Bluetooth is
actually named after Harold Bluetooth.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, the idea being that he unified his people, and
your Bluetooth system will unify your earbuds and your laptop
or whatever.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, it is that, which is pretty cool. But the
reason he's called Bluetooth is kind of still a mystery
to historians, as with many Viking history things, that there's
a thought, like we have seen evidence of people who
like they think maybe the Bluetooth is he just had
a dead tooth, you know, and it just had gone
gray or blue. But we've also seen evidence that, like
(03:30):
in some of the bones that we've dug up of
Norse people, that there are scratches, like man made scratches
in the teeth, and there's a thought that maybe they
tattooed their teeth. Oh wow, like with a blue line
like scrimmershop.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah yeah, but on your own teeth.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Just to be extra terrifying, which it's like a like
a Viking grill.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, yeah, you know, like you go get your nails done,
you go get your teeth done.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, I don't know. There's also a guy who goes
by Magnus bear Legs. He was fighting in Scotland.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Now is this bear as in the animal roar or
bear as in not clothed?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Oh I didn't even think about that, but yeah, no,
it's it's b A r E. Magnus bear legs, okay,
because he fought the Scots and he thought the kilt
looked cool, so he started wearing one. It's so all
of the Vikings called him bear Legs because he wore
a kilt.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Then there's a Ininar jingle scale he was a musician.
That's fun.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Great name. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
My favorite might be isend the plagiarist. He was a writer.
And plagiarist is interesting because there's two different ways you
can translate that word. One is plagiarists and one is
destroyer of Skalds scaled being a person who wrote and
did poetry. So he was either like really awesome at
it or he ripped everybody off and we don't know
(04:52):
enough about it to know which.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, I'm imagining someone using chat GPT to write his sagas.
Oh I like it, don't I ch I school, I'm
not allowed to like chat GPT.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
But oh, I like you. I like where you're going
with it. No, chat GPT is going to put me
out of business. I'm a professional writer, remember, Like that's
what I'd be for a living. This I'm out. I's
like I had chat gpt right, like right, I was
just like write about a samurai in the style of
Badass of the Week, and it produced something and I
was like, damn it, this is better than what I do.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I don't know about that. But did you fact check it?
Because sometimes chat GPT will just kind of go on autopilot,
which is what it does, and make stuff up.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yeah, that's fair. I didn't double check it. I just
printed it directly to my book. Just kidding.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, no, doctor Learish says, double check your sources.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Yes, good idea.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Anyway, anyway, so we've got these names, Yeah, do you
have a few other Viking names with cool epithets up
your sleeve.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, there's a there's an Ivar the Boneless whoa he
led the Great Heathen Army into England. We don't know
why he's called boneless. There are a number of suggestions
for this. One is that he might I've had some
sort of like leg leg things, some kind of degenerative
leg disorder. He's mentioned being carried around on a shield
a lot, okay, which was actually a thing that you
(06:11):
did ceremoniously, like ceremonially for Viking kings. But it's possible
that he couldn't walk and they called him the boneless.
He also didn't have kids, and people have suspected that
it could be that. But I don't know if I'm
even allowed to make that joke on the website but
on the podcast. But but yeah, so I'm gonna I'm
gonna read a couple more of these that I don't
(06:31):
have any good stories for.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Just go through the list.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, Thorfin Skull, Cleaver, Hothbad, the indomitable thor Leaf, Gody,
the overbearing Olaf, the peacock had the hard rolf, the
woman loving and then oh cigarette snake in the eye.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
What does that mean.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I don't know. He might have had some kind of
eye thing going on. We don't know why. It's called
Sigarett Cigaret snake in the eye, Bure and Ironsides and
Ivar the Boneless. We're all brothers. Is just great. They
were all sons of Ragnar. Harry Breeches, who was called
Harry Breeches because there's a story that in order to
save a princess he had to fight this big snake.
So he made like he took leather pants and stuffed
(07:12):
them with hair so that the snake bit him. It
couldn't penetrate through to bite his leg. It was a
super venomous snake or something. I don't know. I don't know.
Tactical pants, yeah, kind of rockstar tactical pants.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah. Oh.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
And then to round off the list, Eric the Red's
mother was called thor Berg the ship chested like ship
like a boat. So whoa, yeah, I don't know. Make
of that what you will. So now, dear listeners, you
can name some Vikings and pat after you tell us
the story of oll Off Crowbone. They'll be able to
provide some interesting details about at least one of them.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yes, yeah, And so we will get into that after this.
I think, hey, welcome back. So Ben gave us a
list of several Vikings with their awesome Viking names, and
(08:07):
let's zero in on one particular Viking named Oloff Crowbone.
And this dude baptizes the Vikings with violence. If you're
looking for a chronological ballpark, we're talking the years maybe
nine sixty to about one thousand CE. And who is
this guy? Who is this Olof? Obviously he's not the
(08:29):
snowman from the movie Frozen. Let's let Snorri Starlson introduce him.
This is Snorri Sterlson, who wrote a lot of Icelandic
sagas and works that are important for the history of Vikings, honestly,
and one of his works is the Heims Kremlin. And
(08:50):
Snorri Sterlson says, Oloff drove some out of the country,
mutilated others of hand or feet or stung. Their eye
is out, hung up, some cut down some with the sword.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
I'm getting Olga vibes here, Yeah, yeah, yeah, baptizing with violence.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Baptizing with violence.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Making descent of baptizing with violence.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah. It's also making me reassess the category of what
qualifies for sainthood.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
It's good to be the king it is.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Or queen slash princess, right, yeah, yeah, So who is
this all Off guy? Well, this is all Off Trigva son.
His father was named Trigva and he was known as Crowbo,
and we'll talk a little bit about that later. He
is the man typically credited with dutifully bringing the Holy
Word of the merciful Christian God to the heathen lands
(09:45):
of previously quote unquote uncivilized Norsemen. He was baptized at
the hands of a mega holy English bishop in a
really fancy cathedral somewhere, and he's actually still a legendary
figure in Norway. He's a national hero, and as often happens,
he's so revered by his countrymen that many of the
(10:08):
stories surrounding him have exploded to near mythical proportions. And
maybe let's take what follows not so much as a
historical documentary biography, and maybe more of a series of legends.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
It's one of the problems with Viking history is that
they kind of have a very strong tendency to conflate
their myths with their real people, and it's trying to
extricate what's what's myth and what's real? The great example
would be like if Hercules was actually a real guy
and we could record that he was a real guy, Like, uh,
I don't know, what what did we do? Latively didn't
(10:48):
go to Hell and pull the Cerberus out, but like,
what did he do? Is that a reference to something?
Are we just being metaphorical here or is.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
It someone a historical figure who acquired some sort of
importance in people's imaginations and then stories just sort of
glom onto them.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, you have you don't have comic books, so you
have to have to make up your stories with your
real people. And that's what happens with the with the
Viking kings and heroes.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
If you were a tenth century Viking hoping to convert
some people to Christianity, how would you go about doing it?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Well, when you think Catholic saint or you know, hero
of you know, religious hero from this time period, this
kind of one thousand CE time period, I don't know,
you picture a Saint Augustine or a you know, maybe
a wandering monk, somebody in robes going around, you know,
(11:43):
turning rocks into bread and healing the sick and kissing
babies or whatever, that kind of stuff. Some older, very
holy man, soft spoken with a beard, who eruditely changes
the minds of the people with his great works and deeds. Yeah,
is that what Olaf did well?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
If we define great works and deeds very very broadly,
he was aik. And even though he brought Christianity to
Norway and converted his people to the religion that they
still practiced today, he didn't do it in the way
that you describe. He was not peaceful. He was he
(12:26):
didn't lead with the love thy neighbor message.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
He didn't turn the other cheek.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah. I mean, if he turned the other cheek, it's
because he was preparing for some swipe with a sword
or something, you know. Yeah, yeah, No, No, our boy
all Off did it a Viking style. He terrorized anyone
who defied him. He cut out the tongues of pagan priests.
He burned heathen acolytes to death on their own altars,
(12:53):
and he inflicted other gruesome tortures on his enemies and
basically used fire and steal and violence to persuade them
to reassess the theological error of their ways.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Okay, so that's a strategy.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
That's a strategy. That's a strategy. And you know, to
be fair, he's not the only person in history who
gets canonized or heroized for bringing a particular religion to
a particular group of people. We could look at Saint
Olga of Cube, for example.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Sure, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, all off.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
He's got this kind of larger than life reputation, and
it's quite probable that later writers basically retconned his life
and they wanted to make him sound even more ofesome
than he already was. But whatever the actual documentary historical facts,
(13:57):
we like to tell the story because it's a good story.
So let's just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, we don't have any other sources, so we gotta
go with the one we got. We got to tell
the Hercules version of the story because no other version
of this story exists.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yes, and along the way we'll get to encounter a
lot more of these awesome Viking names. So around nine
sixty eight CE, Norway was under the control of a
dude named Harold gray Cloak. He was a son of
Eric blood Axe, and Eric blood Axe had violently taken
(14:33):
over Norway after the death of the significantly less bloodthirsty
king Hokong the Good and Harold gray Cloak was advised
by his mother, who is known as Gunhild, Mother of Kings,
and she's she is an interesting character.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Guenhild, Mother of Kings is awesome. Yeah, she is kind
of she's the wife of Eric blood Axe and she's
the mother of Harold gray Cloak and some of these
other Viking kings follow. But she's basically remembered as having
like mythical like witch powers, like magic, as being kind
of like a magical being. Think like the evil witch
in Snow White. You know, that's kind of the vibe
(15:12):
for Goonhild, Mother of Kings.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, and she's one of those pull no punches kind
of people. So gray Cloak, Harold gray Cloak was told,
possibly by his mother, Gunhild, Mother of Kings, that if
you really want to solidify a rule, some might rule,
the best way to do it is just wipe out
anyone who could possibly oppose you in any way whatsoever.
(15:38):
And okay, so that's that's his agenda, that's his business plan.
Now here, We've got our guy all Off all of
Triggvisen's father is a minor Norwegian yarl named trigg viall Oloffson.
And what is a yarl? Jarl?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
People who play a lot of Skyroom will recogniz is
the name, but a yarl was the word earl comes
from it. So the English word earl derives from yarl,
which is kind of like a Viking prince or chief.
For basically it's a chief. He's not a king, but
he runs, he rules his little war band and his
little tribe. And they're of all differing sizes. So some
(16:19):
yarls have huge holdings and some have very small ones.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, So Trigga Olison, Yarl Trigva Ollison, who in some
way or another is related through some complicated family tree
to the long dead Norwegian king Harold fair Hair, was
exactly the sort of person who could cause trouble for
Harold gray Cloak and his mother Gunhald.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, and King fair Hair was the guy who is
another famous Viking, Harold Fairhair United Norway. He was like
one of the first guys to unite Norway. He said
he wasn't he's called fair Hair because it's like not
like he had light hair or that, like it's that
it was it was great, Like fair isn't good like
Harold good hair because he had awesome hair. Yeah, and
(17:02):
he said that he wasn't going to cut his hair
until he conquered Old Norway. Uh, and so that's what
he did. And so Triggva is related to him. So
he's a threat because he's related to the first king
of Norway.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, he's got some sort of family tree related claim
on the throne kind of if he chooses to follow
up on this. So Gunhilda is kind of worried about
this guy, and she's clearly thinking strategically, and she's clearly
hard edged about this. Let's say, so she orders a
bunch of guys to stab Trigva in his sleep and
(17:36):
burn his house down. And he hadn't done anything specifically wrong.
He was just who he was, and he was part
of the wrong branch on the family tree or something
like that.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
That's what you do. You got to consolidate your powers,
so you've got to kill all potential rivals. So Gunhild's
mother of Kings gets her reputation as being kind of
a diabolical, like villainous kind of honestly, because the first
thing she advises her son Harold Great Cloak to do
is to kill all potential rivals, so they do. They
stab Triggva to death in his sleep and burn his
(18:12):
house down. But I'm guessing Olof makes it out alive.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Well, yes, because we're doing a whole episode about him.
Trinva doesn't survive stabbing, burning, but his wife, Astrid, a
Swedish noble woman, kind of figured out what was going
on and she escaped and she has a band of
(18:36):
loyal followers with her and they're running for their lives. Now.
Fun fact about Astrid, She's pregnant. That's our all off.
That's how Olof survives. And Astrid and her followers they
flee through the forest, and Astrod is pregnant enough that
(18:56):
at one point she actually has to stop in a
marsh somewhere in a tiny hut and give birth to
alaf Wow. And she spends the next three years being
pursued by murderous agents of Queen Gunhild. So Astrid protects
her newborn child, she escapes her would be assassins, and
(19:18):
she and her followers make their way towards Kiev and
russ and they try and seek refuge with the King
of Kiev, who at this point is a guy named Vladimir.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Oh, Vladimir Kiev is this is a dian to Saint
Olia because he is the grandson of Olyav Kiev.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
There you go. So we're in Kiev and russ we're
in Kiev and or we're heading towards Kiev. Astrad doesn't
actually make it. So somewhere on the Vaulta coast, she
and her bodyguards were ambushed by slavers. Most of them
don't make it. The adults don't make it, but Olaf,
who is three years old at this time, does survive.
(19:56):
He's captured because that's what you do with babies if
you're a I suppose. And the guy who captured him, well, okay,
he doesn't kill all Off, but he's also thinking, well
what am I going to do with a baby? He
trained three year old all Off for a goat because
I guess in his eyes, goats are way more useful
than babies.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Anyways, I don't imagine like a three year old is
going to be real a lot of fun to carry
her own on your Viking war band with you.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Yeah, more hassle than anything. Yeah, are we there yet? No?
So the guy who got all Off in this exchange,
the guy who traded a goat for all Off quickly
changed his mind setting. Yeah, okay, maybe I'm not really
interested in lugging around a three year old. So he
swaps baby oll Off to some Estonian guy in exchange
(20:47):
for a really sweet jacket. And I hope it was
a good jacket. I mean, you're trading a human being
for a piece of clothing.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
I mean he's probably only really trading the goat for
the jacket because he the baby was just kind of
the intermediary. You trade the goat for the baby, then
the baby for the jacket. Okay, yeah, and I do
it should be a sweet jacket. I would hope it
would be.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Maybe it has pockets, maybe it doesn't. I tried googling
Baltic outerwear in this period. I feel like it's important
to know. It's important to me to know whether it
has pockets. Olof is in Estonia now and he's being
raised there for six years, and then finally remember his mom, Astrid.
She's dead, but her brother is alive, and Astrid's brother
(21:35):
manages to track down baby Olof or not baby kid
all Off, purchase his freedom and take all Off to
the court of King Lad of Kiev Wow, which is
where Astrid was trying to end up in the first place. So, okay,
this is all working out somehow.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, it only took like ten years to get there
or whatever we're at now, but you know he's there.
That's great.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah. Yeah. Olof was taken in and you know he's
clearly of noble birth. He grew up with the Varangians,
who are the descendants of Viking colonists and noble Viking colonists,
and he learns all sorts of things, including a lot
(22:18):
of good warrior training, like how to stay buff, how
to cut people with a sword if you want them
to die.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Important skills for a Viking.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Very yes. And then when Olof is twelve, he actually
manages to get a little bit of revenge. He's on
the docks. You know, there's a lot of bustle, there's
a lot of crowds, there's a lot of ships coming in,
people loading ships, unloading ships. So Alaf sees a guy who.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Enslaved him and killed his mom, and I'm.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Going to let Icelandic writer Snri stirless and describe the moment. Now,
Olaf had a small axe in his hand and he
drove it into the head of klerkon so that it
went right down into his.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Boy killed this first man at age twelve in revenge, Yeah,
in vengeance for his mother and for being enslaved and
traded for a jacket and a goat.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Okay, so he killed a guy. We're okay, that is
technically murder, but instead of facing justice, he faced westward.
He just ended up popping the first long ship out
of town. He turned Viking. He never looked back, kind.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Of crossed that point in overturn, driving that axe through
that guy's head.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
So Oloff is a mighty warrior with terrible manners. I
think we can assume most Vikings probably had terrible manners.
But Oloff at one point in his life slapped the
future Queen of Denmark in the face.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Her name was Sigrid the Haughty, and not haughty as inattractive,
but haughty as in arrogant, which might be why Olaf
slapped her, a thing that we don't endorse here on
Badass of the Week. It's bad manners to slap the
Princess of Denmark. So anyway, in response, Sigrid, rightfully mad
said that acts will bring about your death, and it will,
(24:13):
and we'll get to that, I think later, but he
will come to regret doing that, but it was a
good example of how he dealt with any setback in life.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
So Olaf. He's famous for being one of the straight
up toughest fighters in the combat filled history of the
Viking Age, and he developed quite a reputation among his
fellow Viking warriors. Among other things, he married a Polish princess.
He fought in the army of the Holy Roman Empire
as a mercenary, he circumnavigated the British Isles, and this
(24:48):
is where he gets his name from. He becomes so
good at casting bones, which is a fortune telling type
of thing, and prophesying the outcomes of battle that he
earned the nickname all Off Crowbo.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And so it's kind of what we said in the intro,
where some of this is a little it might be embellished.
A lot of this is kind of from action novels
of the time, But you know, this kind of encompasses
his next few years as a Viking. He is fighting,
he marries a princess, he's fighting in the army. He's
a good sailor, he's you know, throwing the bones as
(25:22):
a kind of pagan ritual. It's not very he is
going to become a Catholic saint, but he never stops
doing this. Yeah, but yeah, it's a good story and
we're just gonna we're gonna run with it.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
We're gonna run with it. Yeah. What we do know
for certain is that all Off Crowbone was Norwegian. He
spent lots of time in Kievan Russ growing up, and
he was already a heroic figure who had proven himself
countless times and raids across Europe. And he first shows
up in a legitimate, verifiable historical context around nine to
(25:55):
ninety one, when England was ruled by a man so
terrible at responding to Viking attacks that he has a
nickname of his own in history. He's known to history
as Ethelred the Unready, or if you prefer ETHI read
the ill advised, and I hope.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
You're ready for ethel Read the Unready, because he's just
the worst. He's the King of England, and that's how
he's remembered is ethel Read the Unready. He took everything
that his great great grandfather, Alfred the Great, and that's
a lot of greats, but he was a pretty great guy.
I guess he took all of the great progress that
Alfred had made and just completely bungled. It was totally
(26:31):
unprepared for every Viking attack on his kingdom, and all
he did to respond to them was just buy the
Vikings off with gold and silver. And that's not a
good way to deter Vikings that if they just can
kind of show up and get gold for nothing and
then sail away, that's not a great way to deter
Vikings from raiding your lands.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
We'll hear more about him after this word from our sponsor.
So yeah, So ethel Red the Unready is in charge
in England. And then in the year nine to ninety one,
(27:11):
a black holed fleet of ninety three warships shows up
and they're looking to ravage the town of Sandwich. At
the head of this fleet is Off Crowbone.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Lots of good sandwiches they got. Let those sandwiches give
me the silver end of sandwiches.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yes, yes, And Ethel the Unready, whose name didn't see
it coming all off Lands's fleet. These guys get off
the boats. They ran Sackson towns and okay, yes there
is some resistance. It's not put up by Ethel red.
There's this guy, this English nobleman named birth North, and
(27:52):
he rallies the people of the outlying villages. He scrambles
together a militia and they do their best take on
the Viking invaders. Was an incredibly brave fighter, and that's good,
I mean from the English point of view. He also
had a code of honor, which you think would be
a good thing, but sometimes it backfires. And Brittanoff, he
(28:16):
and his ragtag militia, they were on a roll. They
were doing great. They surprised Oloff and his Viking troops
on the bank of a river, but he let the
Vikings basically call a time out so they could move
their troops into position before battle.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, Oloff wanted a truce and he was like, oh,
cease fire, I'm not ready. And this guy was like, well,
I want to defeat you with honor, so I'll wait
for you. Yes, And that's that's also not how you
deal with Vikings, because the Vikings are not going to
give you that same not going to do that same
thing for you if the situation's reversed.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Now, So brittan Off, he's sitting there and he's very
honorably twiddling his thumbs while Olaf marches his guys across
the bridge. And this is you know, this is not
a HSS tournament or whatever. It's an actual real world battle.
And the Vikings what are they going to do? Of
course they're going to take advantage of this. They form
up into one of their shield walls, all of their shields,
(29:16):
this impenetrable steel. And of course in the ensuing battle,
Brithnoth and his English troops get the crusts cut off
their ham and cheese by a berserking horde of trample
happy Norsemen. And that's basically the end of.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Brithnov There's a poem about this, and it's in Old English,
and it's considered one of the finest pieces of Anglo
Saxon literature ever written. It's one of them some there
with like Beowolf in those things you should read if
you're studying this. This is probably a small consolation to
britanof who never got to read it, because he was
buried under a pile of dead Vikings with a sword
(29:53):
in his heart.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
And if we could go back in time, we would
tell him, well, at least you have a reputation for
being honorable you have a reputation for maybe some other
things too, giving your choices at the end of the battle.
But whatever. So this is going on specifically in this
area of England, and ethel Red they unready remember him.
He gets wind of what's going down, and he actually
springs into action. He sends his fastest riders down to
(30:17):
the sea and he sends a very clear message to
deliver to the Viking invaders. And Ben, what do you
think Ethelred's message was?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Was it something very brave and heroic? And you know
ceats now and there's more brith not offs where that
one came from. You'll you'll pay for every inch of
this island with blood or whatever. We'll fight on the beaches,
we'll fight on the landing grounds in there, something like.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
That, something like that, if by something like that we
mean something actually very not like that. He basically said, Hey,
Viking guys, here's ten thousand pounds of silver. Could you
maybe kind of stop killing us? Pretty pleased with a
cherryop cop did he?
Speaker 1 (31:03):
Well?
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Actually, Oloff Crowbone took the cash and he sailed to
Denmark and there he met up with the Danish king
Spain fork Beard, and I would like to just pause
from one to imagine what would cause someone to be
called fork beard. I'm imagining like a bipartite facial hair fork.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Beard or fork beard. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah, unless he held a fork with his beard now.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
Out of it like a hair brush. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
But this guy, you know, he's he's known for his
majestic facial hair. And this Spain fork beard guy had
seized power by overthrowing his own father, but that cost
him a little bit, so he actually welcomed the opportunity
to make a little bit of money on the side.
So when Olaf showed up and talked about how the
(31:56):
English kings athel Red guy was giving out cash rewards
for killing Englishmen, these two Vikings and their guys hopped
into their ship and they went back into action. So
just a little while later, in nine ninety four, they
roll up on the coast of England with a fleet
of ship's ninety four ships, and they burned Essex, they
(32:19):
burned Kent, they burned Sussex, they burnt Hampshire before laying
siege to London itself.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Ethel Red was unready for it.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Well, ironically, he was in his own way. More silver
more silver, more silver, sixteen thousand pounds of glistenings.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Over godol Red, yeah, ethel red thread over just spent
this by troops, by armor for your guys or something,
by something else with that.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Maybe he just doesn't want to deal with the hassle.
Now this is a thing, though, it's not just about
the silver, because you know, in talks with all love
to hand over the silver, I say, hey, I give
you silver, you leave my people alone. Somehow he manages
to convince Olof to convert to Christianity. Okay, yeah, and
(33:12):
Olof apparently took this very seriously. And why well was
he into the theology? Was he into the whole love
thy neighbor message? Unclear? From a political or strategic view,
it seemed like maybe Oloff viewed this whole Christianity thing
as a way to unify all of Norway under one
(33:34):
common cause, which on the surface was Christianity. But also
maybe was just the thing that Oloff was doing. So
it's Christianity, and also it's.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
About Olof, which is kind of an interesting thing because
at this point where at a thousand a d and
Christianity is spreading pretty well. So while this does seem
really weird for him to convert and then be a
true believer. You know, he never stops throwing those crowbones
to before battles to like read the you know, casting
(34:07):
of bones or whatever, to prophesy how the battle's going
to go. He never gives that up. But it's interesting
because there are Christians in Norway at this point in
Norway's where he's from. Norway's, his birthright is king is Norway.
He wants to return there, and guen Hild, mother of Kings,
I think, is still there with her kids. He wants
(34:28):
that revenge and maybe this is a way in of like, hey,
I'm the Christian option, I'm a different political party than
the incumbent. Maybe it's time for a change and you
can support me instead. And he's got this sixteen thousand
pounds of silver that he just got from Ethelred the Unready,
So this is actually kind of a good opportunity for him.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah, because he's showing up with what could be a
deep spiritual experience, but in practical terms, more like a
mascot that he can rally people under. And he's also
showing up with a big sack of silver.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, because nothing would sell religion and kingliness to the
masses more than the Philly fanatic and sixteen thousand pounds
of silver.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
And a bunch of English priests wallowing at the Norsemen until.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
They converted, which was definitely not Olaf's preferred method.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Now, he and his army of Norsemen who are battle
hardened and into the hole. Hey, if he give us
a reason, we will totally you know, kill and pillage
and whatever. They have other methods of conversion. So he's
going to reclaim the throne of Norway and assert his
might and write as a descendant of Harold fair Hair.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Right, because he does have that kind of weird tangential
relationship or descent from from the from the main guy.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
So Olaf's finally, after plundering and pillaging and being the
being a good, honest Viking for many years, has an
opportunity to get promoted, and.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
So he and his guys, which includes you know, his
warriors and also some priests, he makes a little pitstop
in the Orkney Islands just kind of try things out,
test out his theory about the most effective ways to
convert a Viking population to Christianity. So when he lands
in the Orkney Islands. He goes straight to the yarl's house.
(36:19):
He captures the yarl's son, and he friends to kill
the yarl's son with a knife. If the yarl didn't convert,
what do you think happened?
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Converted?
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Okay? Converted?
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
So then all I've sent a message to all the
norsemen of Orkney telling them, hey, you guys are all Christian. Now,
those necklaces you have with Thor's hammer on them, those
are now crossings mule festival. We're calling that Christmas now,
and Odin the big king of the gods, whom you
(36:54):
have been worshiping, he's Santa Claus now. And here's some churches.
And I hope you're okay with that. And if you're
not okay with that, I'm going to burn your houses
down and chop you into tiny little bits and pieces
of mince meat with an axe. And that worked.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, It's a technique that has kind of worked for
crusaders for centuries. Right. Yeah, you arrive in a place
and you know, let's just take these things that you're
already doing. We'll file off the serial numbers, we'll re
skin them as Christian symbols and rituals, and if you
don't like it, I got a.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Sword, and so all Off Crowbone and his entire pointy
object bearing entourage arrives in Norway. A few weeks later,
things are a mess. Harold gray Cloak was dead, a
gun held mother of King's was exiled, and is there
a power vacuum? No, because there's this guy named y're
(37:52):
All Hakon, but everyone hated him because he issued a
lot of taxes. He kept stealing all the other yar
All's girlfriends and af Crowbone crashes his ships into the
Arl Howkon's fleet. He bashes it into flatsam and you've
got wood. These ships are just splintering all over the places.
He crash lands. All Off crash lands on the shores
(38:15):
of Norway. He unloads his crucifixes and his battle axes,
and he marches straight for the capitol. Well, Yurl Hawkon,
who was totally popular, not for various reasons, he's running
for his life, and he's running for his life from
all Off Crowbone and his guys. And he and a
(38:36):
guy that he has enslaved hide in a pig sty,
and the slave Yarl Hawkon slave stabs him Crowbone. All
Off Crowbone goes into this barn, this pig sty, and
rather than thanking the slave for killing yurl Howcon, he
actually kills him too, because that's his mo.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
Yeah, offered a reward to whoever killed Hackon, So this
slave killed Hackon and expected a reward for it, and instead, Hey,
you can't kill kings. It's bad for a king to
be killed by a non king, and you can't have
that killer of kings go unpunished, especially by another king.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
So, hey, slave who killed Url Hawkon, thank you for
your service, but I'm afraid don't take it personally. I'm
going to cut your head off. He cuts off the
slave's head. He also cuts off eur Al hawk On's head,
and he puts them on spikes outside of the town
so villagers could throw rocks at them, and also infer
who's exactly in charge now? And all Off strides on
(39:36):
into the palace and sits down on the throne of Norway.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
I'm picturing like Conan the barbarian here, right, like King Khnan.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, yep. So during his five year stint as king
of Norway, which might seem short, but also i mean,
given what we've been talking about holding onto anything for
five years. Holding onto any throne for five years is
actually pretty big accomplishment anyway. All Off Crowbone or excuse me, King,
all Off Crowbone set up the city of Trondheim. He
(40:08):
meant it coins. I mean, you got to do something
with all that silver you got from the English, and
he established, get this, an English style bureaucracy. And what
he's most famous for is the way he converts Norway
from the old gods, you know, Odin and thorn Pounds,
to Christianity. And he does this well, it's pretty much
(40:29):
in keeping with his usual style. He threatens to torture
and kill everyone who refuses to accept Jesus Christ as
their personal lord and savior. And well, there's one moment
where he has eighty some Norse priests in a temple
of Odin. He locks them in, he sets it on fire.
He finds some pagan sorcerers. He ties them to rocks
(40:53):
during low tide and leaves them there to drown and
the tides coming in, which is don't fare very well either.
He cuts out their tongue. And there was one Yarrel
who committed blasphemy. Aloft makes me a snake which kills him.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
So, I mean, it's so crazy to think about because
Olaf Crowbone is still doing pagan stuff. He's just so
the important thing to keep in mind here is that
I don't believe that he really cares that much about
the Christianity thing. It's more like the way in which
(41:28):
these people are tortured to death, burned to death in
a temple of Odeen, tied to rocks during low tide.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
You know.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And one thing you've also we also should mention is
when we're talking about some of this legendary stuff, is
that some of this stuff is written by people who
didn't like Aloft, and perhaps they're exaggerating and ascribing various
pains and tortures that he did that he didn't really do.
But Olof. That's not to say that. I mean, Olof
was a pretty hardcore dude. He was a pretty tough guy,
(41:55):
so I wouldn't put any of this past him. But
I guess the thing we're saying is that I don't
think it's so much that he is a true believer,
a true crusader, as much as it's that by not converting,
these people are defying him, and he can't stand that.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
It's a power play.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, yeah, you can't tell me no, not so much
so that like, you know, God wants me to do this, So.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
This is all off. And his methods were brutal, and
they were also effective. And in addition to converting Norway,
he also converted Iceland and Greenland, although much less blood thirsty,
and with Iceland he did something a little more strategic.
He cut off trade between his people and the Icelanders
until they converted. He refused to send ships to non
(42:43):
Christian lands or to have non Christian cruise doc on
his ports. And so these Icelanders they accepted Christianity at
the All Thing, which was there deliberative assembly.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
And one thousand and eighty and that's the same we've
talked about this sol Thing before in our episode about
the Valkyries. This is the one where one of the
Icelandic people said, oh, you know, we should convert to Christianity.
But in the course of that speech he called Freya
a bitch.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Freya was the Freya being one of the Norse goddesses.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, and people agreed with him, but still exiled him
for blaspheming against one of the old gods. Yeah. Yeah,
and this was kind of a strategic move for the
conversion as well as like a strategic move for Olaf
because all of the neighboring kingdoms that can give him
a lot of financial and military and other aid are
(43:32):
Christian countries. So by kind of converting his people, he's
allying them with other Christian kingdoms, which is good for
him strategically and politically.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah. Yeah, religion is definitely a political thing. It's a
power thing. Yeah, So he's thinking strategically. And we talked
about how he converted Iceland and with Greenland. Will he
just had Eric the Redsung Leif Ericson come stay with
him for a couple summers and talked to him about
how awesome it was to be a Christian, and Leif
(44:04):
converted and went back to Greenland and eventually started building
churches and stuff. Now, from all Off's perspective, was being
pretty successful. He was quashing Pagans, he was promoting Christianity,
he was getting people to do his thing. But not
everyone was super excited about the fact that all Off
(44:26):
Crowbone was running things in Norway. And remember Spane Forkbeard, Well,
he had already been kind of thinking that he might
like to conquer Norway. So he joins up with his
step son, King Olof of Sweden. This is a different
all Off. And remember Yarrol Hokon who died in a
pig sty. While his son Eric joined up with them.
(44:47):
And together the three of them Span fork Beard, King
allof of Sweden and Eric Hoppinson, they built up a
huge army. And they thought, oh, why don't we try
to get rid of all Off Crowbone once and for all.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
And to add on to that triumvirate there of Stain
fork Beard, all Off of Sweden and Eric Hackinson, the
wife of Zaane Forkbeard was secured. The haughty who you
will remember is the Danish queen that Oloff Crowbone slapped
in the face. She said that slapping her in the
(45:21):
face was going to bring about his death, and it
does in a very direct way, as we will see.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Yes, so off all Off Crowbone, that is, puts out
a call for troops. Now the thing is all off.
He's got a lot of things going for him, but
how to put it, a warm, fuzzy manner that endears
him to a lot of people is not one of
his qualities. And so he was only able to wrestle
(45:47):
up eleven ships and he's facing the combined navies of
the Danes the Swedes, and you're all Eric Hugkinson. These
navies sail into town. He's like, oh, he's badly outnumbered.
Imagine the sea covered with Viking longboats. Oloff orders his
(46:07):
troops to stand their ground. He personally launches himself into
a ferocious last stand against impossible odds. He's packs the
things he swings, he cuts down or tries to cut
down anything that moves. He goes into a battle frenzy,
and he does actually send dozens of enemy warriors flying
from the deck of his burning warship. He was last
(46:30):
seen standing on the bow of his flagship named Long Serpent,
covered in the blood of his enemies, engulfed in smoke
and flames, swinging wildly as a horde of Danes swarms
around him. His body was never recovered. Some legends claim
(46:50):
that Oloff jumped overboard swam ashore, traveled by land to
Jerusalem and became a monk. Some people think he just drowned,
And one way or the other does it matter? Will
The upshoot is that the most famous and renowned Viking
in history all Off crow Bone was gone, never to
(47:11):
be heard from again except by reputation in legends and podcasts.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Well, that is the story of Olloff Crowbone. He was
a true Viking in every way that you would imagine
a Viking to be. And yeah, I guess that's all
the time we have for today. Thank you guys so
much for listening, and we will see you next week
(47:41):
with another one.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Stay Badass. 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
(48:03):
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
(48:25):
with questions ideas, you can email us at Badass Podcast
at Badass oftheweek 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
(48:47):
wherever you get your podcasts.
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