Talk:Horned helmet

help
anywho ppl anyone one have info on the viking ceremonies? help
 * they liked to march with torches, with brass bands playing Wagner's Valkyrie. Apart from that, depictions on Scandinavian image stones and Vendel helmet decorations are your best bet. dab (&#5839;) 09:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Just the usual - sacrifice the odd virgin at the summer equinox, unnatural acts with rabbits, that sort of thing. PiCo 05:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * So far, there is no evidence of any horned helmets during the viking age.

Near East
I'm sure I've seen depictions of horned helmets in Middle Eastern reliefs of soldiers from Egypt and Mesopotamia. If I can remind myself from a dirtworld book a section could be added to the article - cue conspiracy theories. Stevebritgimp (talk) 13:32, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Carnute
Wasn't there a Celtic tribe that heavily worshipped Cernaunos called the Carnute, something about, the horned ones? Wouldn't that be relevent to mention. Also, if the einherjar were reputed to wear horned helmets, wouldn't it be simple to find a reliable source in some history or religious book? Put it back when you find the sources.

Citation needed
Can any source be found for the statement that helmets with large horns were worn in battle during the middle ages, and "especially by the teutonic order"? I mean outside of Medieval - Total War 2? I have doubts. --2.240.59.115 (talk) 21:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The entire section headed "Middle Ages" is very problematic. There is one citation, to a primary source which doesn't back up the claims made (and even if it did, it would be WP:OR), the rest are unsourced speculations of what seems to me to be of very dubious nature. I am inclined to delete this section entirely. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:09, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Association with vikings
There's a statement claiming that "horned helmets were used in rituals in germanic iron age until 7th century" with absolutely no support or source for such a claim. Specially considering that all examples of germanic iron age helmets described don't even have horns at all, but bird or snake heads. I think it should be deleted.

The next sentence says that there is no evidence of vikings using such helmets in war. This sentence is misleading, as it might imply that they did use them for rituals or something else not specified, which isn't true either. A much better statement would be that there is no evidence of scandinavians using such helmets at all, period.

After the sentence "The depiction of Vikings in horned helmets was an invention of 19th-century Romanticism.", a reference indicating that Wagner's costume designer Prof. Doepler created horned helmets for the Bayreuth production of "Der Ring der Nibelungen" is given. It is not clear how this reference is meant to support the previous claim. Wagner's interpretation of the Nibelung saga (which is based on the German tradition) has nothing to do with vikings but indeed takes place in what is today Germany, for the most part. Furthermore, the Nibelungs were a royal Burgundian and neither a viking lineage. This mistake can probably attributed to the fact that the reference leads to an article of the Economist, which generally is a bad source (specifically, for historic topics). In conclusion, this part of the text should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.195.103.111 (talk) 18:22, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I have clarified this. I think this article needs a lot of work, but I don't think we should delete sourced material, though I agree the Economist is not the best source in this context.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:04, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Since it's been conceded that the article needs work, it might be a good idea to clean up another item: There appears to be a discrepancy between the statement about a 19th-century origin of the horned-helmet-Viking myth and the illustration of a 14th-century Danish coat of arms displaying such a helmet, suggesting the silliness goes back a ways further than the Romantics. Don G Taylor (talk) 04:00, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

The claim that Carl Emil Doepler popularised an image of Vikings wearing horned helmets has absolutely no proof. First, Wagner's operas are set in mainland Germany, not Scandinavia, and given the German Romanticism was focusing on the 'cultural roots' of German Nation, the character depicted were usually construed as Goths, Allemans, Cherusks and other tribes usually associated with Germany. Second, in all Doepler's sketches, there are few horned helmets, worn by extras in the background. All main characters (Wotan, Siegfried, Brunnhilde) wear helmets adorned with [i]wings[/i], some wear circlets with curled ends, some wear helmets with various ornaments, from realistic swine ears to metal wreaths. It is worth noting that the wings were pretty popular, as winged helmet is worn by the Hermann Cherusker depicted on Hermann's Monument, erected in 1875 (year before the premiere of Wagner's opera) and commemorating the defeat of the Romans in Teutoburg Forest. As a further note, I watched a good dozen of the Viking-themed American movies filmed between 1950 and 1990 and noticed that there is nary a horned helmet in sight, even though the promotional posters for the movies sometimes depicted Viking in horned helmets. So, this would further weaken the theory that the 'Vikings in horned helmets' were actually popular at any moment.

As argued before, the article in [i]'The Economist[/i] is a poor proof, but the article itself quotes a solid source, namely 'The Invention of the Viking Horned Helmet' article by Dr. Roberta Frank. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.70.177.202 (talk) 21:08, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

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Where doesBatswana nation emerged from?
Where are the Batswana nation come from? 41.114.26.225 (talk) 03:54, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Viking Horns
Just delete the section on horned helmets being a myth. As this article itself proves, there never was a time when Horns went out of fashion. Most often it is argued "Impractical" despite the fact realistic warfare never cared about people's preference in whether they consider boxing or kickboxing, Judo or Karate, "Practical". Horns and even crested helmets long have existed, and the Germanic Simbri Tribe who are ancestors of the Vikings are known to have worn animal figureheads including Horned helmets. We now have tapestries anyone can look up with horned viking helmets, though there is a valid suggestion that it is possibly a pair of ravens representitive of Odin, even though this carries its own doubts. Most of the Viking helmet thing is Counterculture attacks on Hollywood and popular understanding of History, a common target by Academia and history buffs trained by them. Records become ignored in the process, and we have a tapestry, roman accounts of ancestral heritage of Germans and Europeans wearing horned helmets, and good arguments made in a previous topic that there is a lack of proof the idea of horned viking helmets may have even been started by the Opera. I actually only remember growing up with horned helmets for Vikings, but this may have been something that grew out of knowledge of Horned Knight helmets instead of original Viking helmets...It is in fact possible that the way in which knowledge of predecessing Viking and European ancestors wearing horned helmets led to the introduction of the same for Vikings and barbarians in general throughout Historical fiction and fantasy over time, and presumed to be historically correct. Truthfully speaking, we do not know what Helmets the Vikings wore even, and only have a tapestry showing a horned helmet leading others with a sword in hand, and a barely surviving helmet and mail mask. That is it. 2601:803:C600:4380:84C3:2A4:958B:2F (talk) 02:36, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

About argument against horned Viking helmets
From the introduction: "Headpieces mounted with animal horns or replicas were also worn from ancient times, as in the Mesolithic Star Carr. These were probably used for religious ceremonial or ritual purposes, as horns tend to be impractical on a combat helmet."

I'm not sure the bolded part is a good argument, as other adornments were after all used by various peoples on their on helmets, despite those ardornments being clearly impractical in combat; a good example being the helmet that Galean soldiers wore, which looked like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galea_%28helmet%29#/media/File:Helmet_centurion_end_of_second_century.jpg

Okama-San (talk) 20:05, 26 February 2023 (UTC)