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Vikings did not wear horned helmets. The look comes from 19th-century paintings and, above all, from the costumes of the first complete staging of Wagner's Ring operas in 1876.

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Horned helmets did exist in Scandinavia, but much earlier: two bronze helmets found at Veksø in Denmark in 1942 date from about 900 BC, some 1,700 years before the Viking age, and were probably worn for ceremonies rather than battle. The horned Viking took hold in the 1800s, when Romantic painters and illustrators gave Norse warriors a wilder look. The costume designer Carl Emil Doepler then put horned helmets on characters in the first complete staging of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth in 1876, and the image spread from there to books, cartoons and sports logos. The only near-complete Viking-age helmet ever found, from Gjermundbu in Norway, is a plain iron cap with a guard around the eyes, and it has no horns.

Türkçe oku
Vikingler boynuzlu miğfer takmıyordu. Bu görüntü 19. yüzyıl resimlerinden ve özellikle Wagner'in Nibelung Yüzüğü operalarının 1876'daki ilk eksiksiz sahnelenişi için tasarlanan kostümlerden kalma.

Boynuzlu miğferler İskandinavya'da gerçekten vardı, ama çok daha önce: Danimarka'da Veksø'de 1942'de bulunan iki tunç miğfer MÖ 900 dolayına, Viking Çağı'ndan yaklaşık 1.700 yıl öncesine aittir ve büyük olasılıkla savaşta değil törenlerde takılıyordu. Boynuzlu Viking imgesi 1800'lerde, romantik ressamların ve kitap çizerlerinin İskandinav savaşçılarını daha yabani göstermeye başlamasıyla doğdu. Ardından kostüm tasarımcısı Carl Emil Doepler, Wagner'in Nibelung Yüzüğü dizisi 1876'da Bayreuth'ta ilk kez eksiksiz sahnelenirken bazı karakterlere boynuzlu miğfer giydirdi; imge oradan kitaplara, çizgi filmlere ve spor logolarına yayıldı. Bugüne dek bulunan neredeyse eksiksiz tek Viking Çağı miğferi, Norveç'te Gjermundbu'da çıkarılan, gözleri koruyan siperlikli sade bir demir başlıktır ve üzerinde boynuz yoktur.

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