I used to have hair just like Hagrid's too. I miss it so much. It's like losing a limb.

I alway's figured that while people wearing armor might have B.O... their armor would be clean, can't mend tear's or gashes if you can't see them for the mud and blood.

One of the funniest thing's I have never seen... is the image of Ponce De Leon and crew marching around Florida's back country in their shiny plate armor.... and the No-see-um's ( midges?...biting fly's you can't see) getting under their armor and biting the living tar out of them...... and the gator's smiling cause they are self tenderizing with every beat of a fist again's iron.... and that's without blood attracting them.

What I'm saying is, I would be the cleanest barbarian their ever was. IDK how they felt about biting fly's, I know how I feel about them... I invest in Deet.

Why'd you cut it? I can relate to that feeling of loss though as a few months ago I let my chin beard grow long and when I decided to cut it off, it felt like I lost my chin itself

My warrior woman isn't wearing metal armor though, she wears only what she hunts and skins herself
(the exception is the circlet but she has to represent her rule ha)

I have experience with midges, those hell sent invisible demons are a nightmare but clean skin doesn't deter them...only stuff like deet does the trick and that didn't exist in ye olden days. I often wonder how the Scots survived in kilts, the Highland midges are rumored to be the worst in the world and the kilts give easy access to sensitive areas

Because my uncle, and my five and seven year old cousins wanted to give me a trim. My uncle cut my locks, and my cousins gave me a ruddy good shave.

It was all matted from where I don't practise personal hygiene. I plan on growing it back.. And brushing it this time.

Hagrid's gonna cut it all off after I win this little bet we made. (STILL HAVEN'T CHANGED THE AVATAR)

I've got three of the contenders in my mind right now.......man, you guys gotta stop making BA characters.

ha it sounds like they had a family intervention, did you come home to find them all sitting in your living room with scissors and razors?

ha good luck with that.

It's funny as I first buzzed my head in high school from losing a bet but I liked it so much that I never let my hair grow out again...maybe Hagrid will learn to love a clean shave

Had to cut it.. It was tangled to oblivion.

Blasphemy! I need hair to cover the ugliness. I will be growing my hair back, you wait. It grows bloody quick.

I've said it a few times on these forums but it can't be said too many times I guess... If one wants to get an idea of Viking society, the 13th warrior isn't the best source around. One might as well use Skyrim as a source. It is just as historically accurate, and in Skyrim they don't speak 4 different languages in the same village.

Oh I know, clean doesn't deter them, but blood ( and sweat) does attract them.... Ouch on the kilt's .

The movie may not be the best source but that sort of washing from the same basin is historically accurate and it's easier to link a movie scene that depicts it instead of describing the disgusting details.

The Nords are similar to the old Norse of our world so a clean and pampered look is unbefitting for a warrior, it would be a luxury that only the wealthy upstanding citizens of civilized cities like Solitude or the Imperial City would maintain.

Here's excerpts from the Arab chronicler who spent time with some of the north men, similar to Antonios character in the movie:

"Every day they must wash their faces and heads and this they do in the dirtiest and filthiest fashion possible: to wit, every morning a girl servant brings a great basin of water; she offers this to her master and he washes his hands and face and his hair -- he washes it and combs it out with a comb in the water; then he blows his nose and spits into the basin. When he has finished, the servant carries the basin to the next person, who does likewise. She carries the basin thus to all the household in turn, and each blows his nose, spits, and washes his face and hair in it"

"They are the filthiest of God's creatures. They have no modesty in defecation and urination, nor do they wash after pollution from orgism, nor do they wash their hands after eating. Thus they are like wild asses."

It's not certain what attracts them to us but it's speculated that it's the CO2 we exhale, same as mosquitoes. I have thoroughly researched this menace ever since I came into contact with the relentless demons and they have invaded my home....there's really no stopping them unless you use the deep woods deet which I can't in my situation.

Yes, the movie is probably inspired from what Ibn Fadlan wrote about the Vikings that he encountered in Russia. Which seems to be the only historical source they have used.

We don't know whether this guy exaggerated some things - he may very well have, to make it a more interesting story or because he was so horrified at their behavior, or wanted to prove a point (like people sometimes do on these forums). But whether they actually did spit in the water or not, we can at least conclude that they almost certainly cared less about hygiene than contemporary Arabs, and would seem filthy from a modern perspective too.

You're right that linking to a movie scene is an efficient way of showing something. I guess it's the historian in me who doesn't like when fiction is used as an example of how people lived in the past, and especially not fiction filled with such glaring errors as the 13th warrior.

ha I agree with your feelings of using fiction to point out facts but a small scene from a movie sometimes speaks louder then paragraphs from a history book.

I also agree about the possibility of Ibn's writings being inaccurate but the same could be said about everything that's in the history books so we tend to take the authors word on it unless proven false.

I was merely trying to point out that warriors in such a setting likely wouldn't be clean, especially if they lived off the land and camped in the wild. Even in a city of Skyrim I wonder how clean the residents really are when they poop in buckets and there's not many leaved trees around....they are most certainly disgusting by todays standards and that's the civilized city folk, so imagine the wild warriors of the land.

Well, the RL vikings were known to keep themselves relatively clean, for the time (I know Celan likes to quote some medieval person complaining over how the Danes came to his country - England I think - and were all CLEAN and tbecause of that they could seduce the women... ). Washing can be done perfectly well without running water, shouldn't you know that, I thought you were all for living in the wilderness and stuff! A creek and a piece of cloth, and you can at least wash critical areas.

The only thing I've done to Uthgerd is installing a texture mod for female faces and bodies. It's probably the most realistic texture mod I've found out there, but it does clean up faces. It also removes the shine on the lips - http://images.uesp.net/d/d6/SR-npc-Uthgerd_the_Unbroken.jpg - so I think it's actually the same color as her original one, but it looks a bit darker because the shine is gone (and frankly, I think the vanilla lips look too much like she's wearing lip gloss! But maybe it's just troll fat. From a troll she's slain herself, of course.).

And the bluest eyes!