Vikings preferred to groom themselves rather than loot

London, Oct 27 : A new study by researchers at Cambridge University in the UK is trying to change the traditional view of Vikings as "illiterate warring thugs", and recast them as "new men" with an interest in grooming, fashion and poetry.

According to a report in the Telegraph, academics claim that the old stereotype is damaging, and want teenagers to be more appreciative of the Vikings' social and cultural impact on Britain.

They said that the Norse explorers, far from being obsessed with fighting and drinking, were a largely-peaceful race who were even criticized for being too hygienic.

The university's department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, has published a guide revealing how much of the Vikings' history has been misrepresented.

It says that the Vikings did not wear horned or winged helmets, and they appear to have been a vain race who were concerned about their appearance.

"It seems that the Vikings may not have been as hairy and dirty as is commonly imagined," the guide says.

"A medieval chronicler, John of Wallingford, talking about the eleventh century, complained that the Danes were too clean. They combed their hair every day, washed every Saturday, and changed their clothes regularly," it added.

The guide reveals that Norsemen were also stylish trend-setters.

"Contemporaries who met individual Vikings were struck by the extreme bagginess of their trousers," it said.

"A tenth-century Persian explorer described trousers (of Vikings in Russia) that were made of one hundred cubits of material, and a number of runestones depict warriors with flared breeches," it added.

The traditional view of the Vikings as "illiterate warring thugs" exaggerates considerably the reality of their life, the academics argue.

"Although Norse men and women may have sometimes liked fighting and drinking, and were sometimes buried with weapons, they also spent much of their time in peaceful activities such as farming, building, writing and illustrating," they said.

Dr Francis Pryor, an archaeologist, said that the discovery had shown the Norse warriors to be part of an advanced society.

"Far from the illiterate warring thugs in horned helmets who brought us to new depths of barbarism after landing by boat to sack monasteries and molest women, they were a settled and remarkably civilized people who integrated into community life and joined the property-owning classes," he added.

ANI