3. Viking helmets
Vikings were expert sailors and ferocious warriors who terrorized Europe for several centuries. Their fighting skills were in high demand, and even Byzantine Emperors hired them as their personal bodyguards, called the Varangians. So why would such experience warriors go to battle wearing horned helmets, which could be knocked off their head with a single blow? Well, they didn’t. Their helmets were traditional bowls with added nose protection and sometimes an eye protection. If anything, horns were reserved for ceremonial occasions and were never worn to battle. The myth originated in the 19th century when Wagner’s opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen” was staged in Berlin.
Costume designer Carl Emil Doepler thought it would be really cool to give his Vikings horned helmets and the image stuck to the point that even the Hägar the Horrible’s dog wears one.
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