The Arab merchant Ibn Fadlan met the Vikings in a Bulghar encampment on the Volga, far east of Kiev, around 800A.D.. They were quite compelling people. They all wore some kind of indelible cosmetic, which may have been a tattoo, to draw attention to their eyes: men and women alike. They wanted people to be afraid of their gaze. "I have never seen bodies more perfect than theirs," he wrote. "They were like palm trees." They had no concept of privacy; their camp was an open latrine. The same for sex. Their drinking was appalling.
He describes a Viking funeral and it is incredibly savage, filled with ritualized drunkenness and violent, group rape.
It is Ibn Fadlan's writings that Crichton read before writing Eaters of the Dead which became the semi-wonderful "13th Warrior."
He describes a Viking funeral and it is incredibly savage, filled with ritualized drunkenness and violent, group rape.
It is Ibn Fadlan's writings that Crichton read before writing Eaters of the Dead which became the semi-wonderful "13th Warrior."
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