Of horns and helmets

I’ve just read this passage concerning the Vikings in MJ Trow’s Cnut: Emperor of the North, a history of the Danish/English king better known as Canute.

"The fanatical rantings of their berserker warriors and their indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children persuaded defenceless priests that the legions of Hell had risen against them and they ascribed non-existent diabolical horns to their helmets. (My bolding)

Non-existent? My illusions are shattered. The Vikings never actually had horns on their helmets?

Say it ain’t so, Joe!

Nope. Horsehair crests, but no horns.

Nope. I first heard it from L. Sprague de Camp, then from others.
A lot of our cherished images that made it into popular depictions never were, it turns out. Those prehistoric villages in Switzeerland and elsewhere, which were depicted as being built on stilts out in a lake (and which I suspect inspired Lake-Towm in Tolkien’s The Hobbit) are now believed to be land-bound palisaded villages.

An old thread on the subject and bibliophage’s Staff Report about it, as promised therein.