# Vikings In Chariots? Well...maybe. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 7, 2004, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532 "2004-12-07T13:32:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/1 "2004-12-07T13:32:59Z")
In [THIS charming Mailbag Missive](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhornedhelmet.html), it was implied that Viking use of chariots was an anachronism, created by poor scholarship. What about Thor? the Norse Storm God supposedly was transported across the sky in a chariot drawn by two goats. Ah…goats & the SDMB…a fine old tradition! From launching them into orbit via home-made cannons, to ah, “other applications” in newbie initiations… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/2 "2004-12-07T14:23:44Z")
> [@Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor](#): > > In [THIS charming Mailbag Missive](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhornedhelmet.html), it was implied that Viking use of chariots was an anachronism, created by poor scholarship. > > What about Thor? the Norse Storm God supposedly was transported across the sky in a chariot drawn by two goats. Dangit, **Bosda** , you beat me. More to the point, Snorri Sturluson specifically refers for Thor’s chariots and goats in one of the quest myths from the Prose Edda. Naturally, like most of my cites, my copies of the (translated) Eddas are packed away in storage. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/3 "2004-12-07T14:52:06Z")
Doesn’t Beowulf come riding into a town in a chariot in a rage and the women of the town are forced to expose themselves to him to get him to calm down? ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/4 "2004-12-07T15:07:01Z")
Well, okay. I knew about Thor’s goats, but I had half forgotten. Nevertheless, I expect real Vikings would no sooner drive a chariot than they would sip tea with their pinkies sticking up in the air. Snorri’s story about Thor and Utgard-Loki, which features the goats and chariot, begins “Þat er upphaf þessa máls.” If my Old Norse isn’t too rusty means something like “It was at the beginning of time”. It’s one thing for a god to fly through the air on a magic chariot drawn by magic goats at the beginning of time. It’s quite another for a self-respecting Viking warrior to try slogging through real woods and real swamps in a real chariot drawn by real animals. Thor’s mileage may vary. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/5 "2004-12-07T15:11:35Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > Well, okay. I knew about Thor’s goats, but I had half forgotten. Nevertheless, I expect real Vikings would no sooner drive a chariot than they would sip tea with their pinkies sticking up in the air. Snorri’s story about Thor and Utgard-Loki, which features the goats and chariot, begins “Þat er upphaf þessa máls.” If my Old Norse isn’t too rusty means something like “It was at the beginning of time”. It’s one thing for a god to fly through the air on a magic chariot drawn by magic goats at the beginning of time. It’s quite another for a self-respecting Viking warrior to try slogging through real woods and real swamps in a real chariot drawn by real animals. Thor’s mileage may vary. :dubious: Chariots, as well as other cultural artifacts, do not appear out of thin air. If Thor had a chariot, then in all likelyhood, there _were_ chariots. And the idea that there were _fewer_ roads after “the beginning of time” seems unlikely. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/6 "2004-12-07T15:17:47Z")
Damn, I may have to rethink this. I got this chariots-don’t-belong-in-Viking-art idea from “Romanticism and Revival” a chapter by Jöran Mjöberg in the book _The Northern World_, edited by David M. Wilson (1980). Now that I look, I can find references to “chariots” or two-wheeled carts being discovered in several Viking burials, including the [Oseberg cart](http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents/cart.html). The purpose of these carts appears to be in dispute. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/7 "2004-12-07T15:19:55Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > Damn, I may have to rethink this. I got this chariots-don’t-belong-in-Viking-art idea from “Romanticism and Revival” a chapter by Jöran Mjöberg in the book _The Northern World_, edited by David M. Wilson (1980). Now that I look, I can find references to “chariots” or two-wheeled carts being discovered in several Viking burials, including the [Oseberg cart](http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents/cart.html). The purpose of these carts appears to be in dispute. Ahem. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2004, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/8 "2004-12-07T18:42:04Z")
Be careful. The meaning of the word “chariot” varies between “a cart with two large wheels, carrying one or two standing passangers, drawn by horses, used in the ancient mediterranean world for warfare and for racing” to “a speedy horse-drawn vehicle”. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/9 "2004-12-08T01:56:44Z")
> [@Maus Magill](#): > > Dangit, **Bosda** , you beat me. More to the point, Snorri Sturluson specifically refers for Thor’s chariots and goats in one of the quest myths from the Prose Edda. Naturally, like most of my cites, my copies of the (translated) Eddas are packed away in storage. ☹ [heimkringla on line](http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Heimskringla/) this make you feel better? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@Tom\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_P)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/10 "2004-12-08T07:38:47Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > Damn, I may have to rethink this. I got this chariots-don’t-belong-in-Viking-art idea from “Romanticism and Revival” a chapter by Jöran Mjöberg in the book _The Northern World_, edited by David M. Wilson (1980). Now that I look, I can find references to “chariots” or two-wheeled carts being discovered in several Viking burials, including the [Oseberg cart](http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents/cart.html). The purpose of these carts appears to be in dispute. The Oseberg cart is a four-wheeled chariot, there is an image on [The Viking Ship Museum’s webpage](http://www.khm.uio.no/english/collections/Viking_ships/oseberg.shtml). The Oseberg ship itself was used as a burial ship for two women, most probably a queen and her servant. I believe the consensus it that the cart is not a chariot for use in battle, but rather the queen’s method of transportation. (You don’t expect a queen to _walk_? :p) The ship itself was “in all probability intended to be used as a royal pleasure vessel for sailing along the coast.” ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/11 "2004-12-08T12:38:23Z")
First I want to apologize if the sarcasm in my first post offended anyone. Let us reason together, because I ain’t doing so well on my own. In Snorri’s prose edda, the Norse noun translated “chariot” is _reið_ (related to English “ride”). Normally that means something like “the act of riding” [on horseback], but that doesn’t make any sense in context. How certain the “chariot” translation is, I don’t know, but it does seem to refer to some type of vehicle. (It’s analagous to calling your car “my ride” I guess). Freyja was supposed to drive a cat-drawn chariot, but I’m not sure if the same Norse word is used. I can’t find any Norse texts that use the word _reið_ in the sense of a vehicle outside of a mythological context. It’s times like this I wish I had access to a really good Norse dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2004, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/12 "2004-12-08T12:51:54Z")
Why is the theme from Mr. Ed running through my noggin? “A Norse Is A Norse, Of Course, Of Course…” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![FreyaCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@FreyaCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FreyaCat)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/13 "2013-03-11T03:10:51Z")
It was witnessed by the Romans that a cart was used to haul around symbols, or idols of Nerthus. I believe the cart was pulled by oxen, or maybe the slaves that tended it- (who were later drowned). It seems that maybe the chariot was sort of a “cart” of honour, used by important people or religious figures, not necessarily an every-day-use kind of thing. Apparently only gods and rich folk enjoyed the pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/14 "2013-03-11T03:58:34Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > If Thor had a chariot, then in all likelyhood, there _were_ chariots. And the idea that there were _fewer_ roads after “the beginning of time” seems unlikely. Well, by then, they were driving Volvos, of course. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/15 "2013-03-11T13:35:19Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] Chariots, as well as other cultural artifacts, do not appear out of thin air. If Thor had a chariot, then in all likelyhood, there were chariots. And the idea that there were fewer roads after “the beginning of time” seems unlikely. [/QUOTE] Certainly there were…and the Norse would have known about them. After all, the Romans used the things, if for nothing else for victory parades for their emperors…which seems a good rough analogy to Thor with his goats (even a bit of irony considering the goat part, though no idea if there is a connection). Are you saying that because of sagas with Thor riding a chariot that means the Norse or Vikings used them as well? I know that pre-Norse folks in Britain used chariots, so I suppose it’s possible, but to me it’s more likely that they simply knew about the things, and perhaps associated them with power and prestige, so had Thor riding about in them (weren’t the goats magical, so that he could eat them every night yet they were always back with him pulling his cart the next day, or am I mixing my myths?) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/16 "2013-03-11T13:51:46Z")
A revived zombie thread, but the topic itself hasn’t been time-critical for the last 1200 years, so I’ll carry on: Wouldn’t we logically expect more-or-less _every_ major Eurasian Iron Age culture to have had chariots at some point in its distant background, since chariot conquerors swept up effectively all of the desirable lands – dominating, killing or marginalizing pretty much everyone else for 500 years? Certainly the Vikings did not use chariots during the heyday of their raids on England, but it doesn’t seem implausible they’d have a long racial memory associating chariots with rulership, either their own or that of their oppressors. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/17 "2013-03-11T13:56:08Z")
MOD NOTE: Just to alert people, this was a thead from 2004, until it was revived yesterday (10-Mar-2013) by **FreyaCat** in post #13. That’s OK, we don’t mind resurrected threads in this forum, but I do want people posting to be aware that it’s an old, old thread. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/18 "2013-03-11T15:33:32Z")
How much has ancient Norwegian chariot scholarship advanced in 10 years? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/19 "2013-03-11T18:59:04Z")
European or African Norwegian chariot scholarship? ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532/20 "2013-03-11T20:40:34Z")
The Celts used chariots extensively both in battle and for just getting around. The Celts for the most part predated the Vikings, of course, but not by so much that the Viking’s ancestors (that is, their North Germanic ancestors, before they migrated North) wouldn’t have known about them. Chariots also play a role in Irish mythology, as well as Norse, which the Vikings would have known when they occupied Dublin, if not from other sources. There’s a rather famous bronze chariot figure depicting the Sun Chariot, from around 1400 bc, that was found in a Denmark bog, but very little is known about it definitively. It might be some sort of proto-Norse idea, or possibly Celtic (the Celtic sky god, Taranis, also used a chariot and threw lightning bolts). Basically, sun chariots are a common Indo-European idea. > **[Trundholm sun chariot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trundholm_sun_chariot)** > > The Trundholm sun chariot (Danish: Solvognen) is a Nordic Bronze Age artifact discovered in Denmark. It is a representation of the sun chariot, a bronze statue of a horse and a large bronze disk, which are placed on a device with spoked wheels. > The sculpture was discovered with no accompanying objects in 1902 in a peat bog on the Trundholm moor in Odsherred in the northwestern part of Zealand, (approximately .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec... Anyway, Vikings would certainly have heard about chariots, but as sea raiders, cavalry wasn’t their focus. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vikings-in-chariots-well-maybe/278532.md?page=2)