The last Viking leader, Harold Hadratta [hard-ruler], is number five in the first list. The most impressive aspect of these men is that one Rolo could live with himself after losing to a king named “The Fat.”

Rollo, sensing his death was near, seemed to regret his conversion to Christianity, went berserk and murdered 100 Christians in the name of the old gods!

Really, you have to hand it to the Vikings for one thing—they found—in medieval Europe no less—peaceful Christians!

Below are a number of Viking documentaries. My favorite is Ancient Black Ops: The Varangian Guard, ‘the Emperor’s Wineskins’ in which the Byzantine Emperor invests in foreign mercenaries to deal with the Deep State threats of the time. What the Byzantine Emperor did, in hiring the Varangian Guard, was the equivalent of hiring the Hells Angels as secret service agents. At 18:25 the Shield Wall and the Boar’s Snout are discussed. The Boar’s Snout is essentially what Promachus of Pellene did against the Corinthians, a big linebacker smashing through your line and flanking your strongest linemen, stomping twerps in your backfield. The bird gambit from 36:00 was used by Genghis Khan against his Chinese enemies, only he used cats as fire vectors, not birds. Finally, in 1204, when the French Christians decided to slaughter their Greek Orthodox allies rather than fight in Egypt, the Varangains would fight to the last man.

Shep, if I could go back in time and recruit riot police for the coming age of faɡɡot-crushing protest fights, I’d seek the Varangian Guard.

Literary Impressions of the Prose and Verse of Robert E. Howard