The hero with a broken horn

The study of Viking stereotypes in How to Steal a Dragon’s Sword

GUSTAVO BRAGA SANTOS

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO MARANHÃO

LETRAS - INGLÊS

Vikings were people who dwelled northern Europe from the late eighth to the

early eleventh century, known for their fiercely savagery and pitilessness. Throughout

History, this community of Norsemen were represented in numerous ways, usually by

the use of horned helmets as well as impolite and aggressive behaviour, summarising, as

beasts. Among these representation media, which include cinema, literature, and plastic

arts, we can find a series of children`s books named How to Train your Dragon, written

by British author Cressida Cowell. This paper intends to analyse the way Vikings are

portrayed in the piece, more specifically in its ninth edition, How to Steal a Dragon’s

Sword, and how stereotypical these depictions may be.

Key-words: Vikings. How to Train Your Dragon. Stereotypical. Literature.

Ferocious Barbarians

Firstly, we need to ask ourselves: who were the Vikings? What do we know about

them? How far does our knowledge reach into the path of the truth?

The Vikings are commonly believed to be:

“Ferocious barbarians in horned helmets with gleaming swords and sharp axes, descending on Lindisfarne, Hamburg,

Paris, Seville, Nantes— almost everywhere— to slaughter, raid, rape, and generally wreak destruction, toppling kingdoms and laying

waste to Europe; the Vikings pique our imagination. We picturethem killing and maiming without regard for age, gender, or status

in society. We imagine them as super- masculine heroes, practitionersof frenzied violence for its own sake, devotees of strange

pagan religions that required bloody sacrifices necessitating horrendoustorture.” (WINROTH, 2014)

We could easily put all these myths down by stating historical facts that attest the

untruthfulness of such concepts, such as wearing horned helmets, being extremely

aggressive and making the living only by raiding and invading.

Nevertheless, our aim here is not to deny those stereotypes but to analyse the

resources Cressida Cowell made use of to reinforce these pre conceived images.

Accordingly, we will be examining some excerpts from the book and

highlighting the resources used by the author to show who the Vikings were.

Thanking the Aesagods

On page 254, among others, there is a passage in which Hiccup shows his

gratitude for the success achieved, which we prefer to leave unsaid not to compromise

the readers’ later enjoyment of the book:

“THANK THOR AND FREYA AND WODEN AND EVERYONE ELSE” (pg. 254)

During most of the Viking age, Vikings were indeed believers of the Norse gods.

They were mainly Woden, Thor and the twins Frey and Freya, besides the wicked Loki.

In spite of knowing the Vikings were later forcefully converted to Christianism,

let us focus here on the paganism, explored by the author.

The Viking mythology describes the existence of nine worlds, among which the

main ones are Asgaard, the Aesagods’s world, the main gods; Midgard, the middle-

Earth, where humans dwell and Jotunheim, land belonging to the Jotun, i.e., the giants.

All these worlds are supported by the huge ash tree named Yggdrasil.

The main gods, who live on Asgaard are initially, Woden (Or Odin), Thor, Loki

and Freya.

Woden is the god of gods, the ruler of the nine worlds; he’s usually represented

wearing an eye-patch due to having traded one of his eyes for wisdom. Besides other

aspects, he’s always in the presence of the crows Huginn (thought) and Muninn

(memory) and his wolves Geri and Freki (both meaning ravenous, famished). His

weapon is the mighty Gungnir by which he was pierced for nine days and nine nights

hanging from Yggdrasil (World Tree) to reach the runes knowledge.

Loki is known as the father of mischievousness, sower if discordance, and the

shape-shifter. His is the son of the giants Farbaut and Laufey (female) and the father of

Hel, Fenrir and Jormungand (the World Serpent) although not being an Aesagod, Loki

was welcomed in Asgaard. However, all his good deeds are to make up for wicked

things he has done, like finding out the only living creature able to have Baldr dead and

cut the beautiful golden hair of Thor’s wife, Sif. On the other hand, he caused the

manufacture of the most precious reliques in the nine worlds.

Thor is one of the members of Woden’s offspring and the most physically

powerful deity. He is the thunder god and hovers among the clouds in his chariot pulled

by two billy goats. Along with iron gloves, which allow Thor to hold it when too hot,

and his belt, provider of his strength and size, his weapon is also the most powerful of

all Norse reliques and representative of himself: the monumental Mjollnir.

“Instead of corn now bring us blood”

This books is basically about a rebellion of the dragons against the Vikings, and

by its end the warriors chant for their god, the song of the dead:

“Turn their bones to coral, ThorTheir songs to wind and hearts to gold,

They’ll live for ever in the skiesEating rainbows with the gods

Give us now our just revenge,Instead of corn now bring us blood,

Turn our peacetime into war,Let us feast on knives and swords.” (pg. 363, 364, our highlight)

The two verses highlighted by us show an interesting point: Thor was the thunder

god, hence the god of the rain, the one who brought fertility to the farms. However, he

was also seen as a quarrelsome deity, since he was the one who protected the Aesagods

and the dwellers of middle earth.

Nevertheless, the fighters sailing and singing that song put aside the crops and

goods to plead for death and destruction upon their deathly enemies.

Great Hero and Leader

Valhalla was the most magnificent palace in Asgaard, it was built by Woden and

was the palace where the best warriors, chosen by the Valkyries, went after they had

died bravely in battle. They had a never-ending supply of mead and meat and could

train every day, they could get wounded or die but they would be alive to enjoy the

night’s feast.

In modern English the word Valhalla means “a heavenly place where the

deserving dead find eternal happiness, or an esteemed burial place on earth.”

In these two passages we can notice the image of a Viking hero as symbolized by

the author:

“[… ] Is that they are always wanting you to be this great Hero and Leader. What’s wrong with being NORMAL, for Thor’s sake? What’s wrong with just

being SO-SO and stuff? They are just totally unrealistic” (pg. 55)

“I was born a hero and a hero I will die,Let me join the Heroes who are living in the sky,

You can take away my bright red blood, but a hero I remain,

Just let my world be free again, and I’ll not have died in vain…” (pg. 74)

We all have an idea of the Vikings, who depart to Valhalla after dead. However,

these (exclusively) men only do so by dying in battle. Even though this idea was

brought later on by Christian dogmas, Woden’s palace could be considered “paradise”,

where only male Viking warriors deserved to go. In the first passage we can see

Hiccup’s annoyance about what’s expected from a Viking while he praises the name of

Thor. The idea that everyone needs to be a hero, a warrior, which is pretty much what

the image of a Viking, as taught to us, conveys, is despised by him.

Subsequently, in the second passage, we can read a song sung by an unknown

hero-to-be Viking on the verge of dying from the dragons’ rage. It is easily noticeable

that he refers to Woden’s palace.

Concerning the the speech in which Hiccup says “For Thor's sake” we can discuss

the heathenism present in the Viking society and reinforced in the book. This

exclamation is very commonly used nowadays, however, with a different god, the

Christian God. The author purposefully substituted God by Thor to illustrate their

paganism.

Hero with a Broken Horn

One of the main stereotypes concerning the Vikings is the idea that they wore

horned helmets. Well, they didn’t. They did wear helmets in battle and for ornamental

purposes but there were no horns on them. It’s believed that the Vikings were

represented this way to relate them to the image of the devil; possibly done but their

victims, mainly monks. The most similar object to horns was Woden’s hat wings.

Which might have been stuck in people’s imaginary and evolved to horns.

Cressida Cowell must have made a great deal of research before writing her

books, so she undoubtedly knows about this fact. However, she decided to ornament

(male) Vikings with horns for the sake of the story, representing their barbarianism and,

excusing the neologism, Vikingnism. Considering that, let’s compare some characters’

representations:

Detail of the broken horns of Hiccup on the book cover and page 75

Flashburn’s, Stoick the Vast’s and Snotface Snotlout’s double horns

As can be seen, Hiccup, the main character, is represented as a poor old, feeble

freckled red-headed boy. Therefore, the author, also the illustrator, portrayed him with

cracked or broken horns, as a symbol of his weakness.

On the other hand, the great heroes have got not only two normal horns, but they

twist around themselves, creating an effect of being double, which symbolically mean

they are more, using the author’s words, of the “stuff heroes are made of”. All the

warriors above are known for being brave and heroic. In opposition to Hiccup and his

close friends, we could conclude that Cressida Cowell made use of this image to

reinforce the Viking stereotype, using the horns as a symbol of bravery, swordfighting

skills and even virility. In contrast, Hiccup, as antihero, has his great Viking symbol

cracked or broken.

The Traditional Viking Mould

As mentioned before, Vikings were known for their size and ferocity. Something

we found worth pointing out is how Cowell describes a Viking combatant, in this case,

Hiccup’s father:

“Stoick the Vast, Hiccup’s father, as built in the traditional Viking mould, with muscles like footballs, a beard like a thunderstorm, and about as many brain cells as would fit into a tiny teaspoon”

(pg. 46)

Stoick the Vast is the Chief of the Hooligans, hence, the strongest and braver of

all. As shown above, he does physically fit the description exposed by the author. As

regarding the brain cells, she reinforces the stereotype that Vikings were creatures that

were not made for thinking, but merely for fighting.

Bearing that in mind, it is significant to point out how a Viking woman is depicted

by Cowell in the piece and compare her to the male description:

“[…]growled Bertha, Chief of the Bob-Burglars and Camicazi’s mother, a great thunder-thighed mountain of a woman, whose singed plaits were still smoking slightly” (pg. 92; our highlight)

When comparing the characters above, we can imagine some resemblance

between them even though their genders differ, since both can be pictured as being tall

and muscular. Bertha is also referred to be “Big-Boobied Bertha”, which contributes to

the image of a stereotypical Viking, portrayed by the British author.

Closure

The word stereotype comes from Greek, meaning stereos, solid + typos, type. And

it describes an unfounded concept about a determined social group, attributing to all

members of this group a characteristic, frequently depreciative. Throughout History,

many prejudices and generalisations are formed and we can do nothing but fight them.

If a person is asked about what they know about the Vikings they usually say:

“Vikings were men (then they remember there were women too) who lived from market

and raids. They had characteristic boats and sailed through the oceans. They had strange

clothes; men wore skirts and helmets with weird, different shapes. They were extremely

violent and beheaded their enemies. They were also big and monstrous.”

This same person, when hears that Vikings didn’t actually wear skirts, didn’t

wear horned helmets, were actually mostly farmers, weren’t bigger or stronger than any

people in Europe and were not more violent than the Roman armies, for instance, tends

to think: are we talking about the same people? Asterix and Obelix?

Selected References

WINROTH, Anders. The Age of the Vikings. Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2014

DALY, Kathleen N. Norse Mythology A – Z. New York: Facts on File, 2004

SCHOFIELD, Tracey Ann. Vikings. Carthage: Teaching and Learning Company,

2002

COWELL, Cressida. How to train your dragon, How to steal a dragon’s sword.

Great Britain: Hodder Children’s Books, 2011.

DedicationThis paper is dedicated to the lovely and special person that is my girlfriend, who

helped and inspired me to focus on my work. It is also devoted to my dear colleagues

from the History course at UFMA and my family, mainly my mother, who strongly

influenced me to be what I am today.