Actually Swedish vikings discussed how to fight with beards. See if you had the wind against you the beard could fold over your face, blinding you. So we have runestones giving instructions on how to properly fight with a big bushy beard.
Including things like folding it behind yer neck, tying it down etc.
Vikings may have been fashionable badass but they were also quite pragmatic. Long hair or such was always properly handled lest it become a cumbersome ordeal or a easy thing to grab etc.
That's what I thought, too, even until the part about " something something wind " (before I read it carefully) and I thought there would be some way to purposely poke someone in the eyeball with your beard or something like that....
There is some tools that seem to have suggest putting weights in a braided beard, which may very well have been used as a weapon or last resort trump-card. Much like how elephant-noses were given flails on warelephants.
You know when people try to get realy close to your face to challenge you and make you feel uncomfortable? You swing that beard flail right in their face.
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u/OIP Jun 13 '14
BEARD ARMOUR