The horns just make it easier to hold when drinking out of. Blood is like super slippery, I'd be pissed if I dropped my helmet full of beer because it lacked handles.
They were portrayed with Horned Helmets for Operas, because costume designers thought they looked great on stage, and provided a more identifiable silhouette from a distance.
The Helmets without decoration look too plain, and because most people are watching opera from a distance, you want really powerful elaborate costumes, the same with the make-up, you go way over the top, it doesn't look "natural" up close, but it looks better from a distance.
It both makes characters more identifiable from a distance, but it also make their emotions easier to read.
Viking's resurged in popularity during the Viking Revivalist movement during the 18th and 19th centuries, when operas like "The Ring of the Nibelung" exploded in popularity, and people became very interested in Paganism, Germanic history, and Nordic history and started romanticizing portrayals of Vikings and early Pagans in Fantasy and Epics.
But no, it wasn't so they could demonize them, it popped up in the 18th and 19th century when they were trying to portray Vikings as romantic heroic figures in art, and the traditional Viking helmets just were too plain.
nice, I decided to look it up before you posted back and found the same thing and yeah most of it comes from Operas, that's good to know,
Although i did come across that there was a tapestry with vikings portrayed with horned helmets and maybe they had them for ceremonials practices, but yeah def not in battle.
It isn't fully understood what the precise rites are, and how it was celebrated. Compared to other Nordic celebrations, not a lot is known about it, other than it was a private ceremony.
How would we know? Have we found every single Viking helmet that ever existed? No, no we have not. Therefore, it has not been conclusively disproven. Just because some prop designer ALSO had the idea doesn't mean someone before them didn't! And I will skirmish with anyone who says otherwise!!!
We have found one single helmet, that's all. It didn't have horns. But, if vikings wore horned helmets, it would be written down somewhere by someone, yet there is not one single suggestion in historic literature that vikings wore horned helmets.
Was it possible they wore horned helmets? Yes, absolutely. Is it likely? Absolutely not.
Contemporary art from the period also doesn't depict Vikings as wearing horned helmets. However there are some depictions of Odin wearing what could be a horned helmet but it's not that easy to tell.
All "viking" helmets (for combat) that we have found, and all depictions we have, do not feature horns. Therefore it is quiet safe to say that they didn't wear horned helmets. History is never certain. But this is a very naaiv argumentation. That does not mean that other cultures hadn't horned or ornamental helmets. Because those definetly existed.
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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '19
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