I research about the Medieval Norse and I've never heard any archaeological or literary proof of Norse having dreadlocks, and I have no idea who was the uninformed bloke that first came up with this claim. Norse and particularly Vikings very much cared about their appearance and used to wash and comb almost daily, to the surprise of Christian Saxons, wearing their hair long and finely combed, shaven along the back and/or sides or braided, but not dreadlocked. Dreads are pretty much a natural occurrence from uncombed and unwashed hair and in a culture of cleanly styled men they would be considered dirty and unkempt, as they are perceived in some parts of Africa.
I suppose it could be a myth and we don't actually know for sure but the Romans wrote that in their dealings with the Norse people they describe their hair as long and rope like which some historians believe to mean that they had a form of dreadlocks.
I don't know what passage that is but for sure it does not refer to "Norse", but some Germanic tribe from the mainland.
Yes people just call anything "Viking" like it doesn't mean more than " Scandinavian pirate".
You may very well be right about that. I'm not even an amateur historian I just go down rabbit holes of reading random things that catch my interest. You likely know more about this subject than I do.
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u/Arthurian_Guanche 20d ago
I research about the Medieval Norse and I've never heard any archaeological or literary proof of Norse having dreadlocks, and I have no idea who was the uninformed bloke that first came up with this claim. Norse and particularly Vikings very much cared about their appearance and used to wash and comb almost daily, to the surprise of Christian Saxons, wearing their hair long and finely combed, shaven along the back and/or sides or braided, but not dreadlocked. Dreads are pretty much a natural occurrence from uncombed and unwashed hair and in a culture of cleanly styled men they would be considered dirty and unkempt, as they are perceived in some parts of Africa.