The carved beast heads seen on the prow of the viking longships were there to scare the spirits of hostile lands. Vikings were more than willing to fight the people but did not want to suffer at the hands of hostile spirits, nor did they want the spirits aiding their enemies. Although not shown in this series, they were not always dragons - they could be wolves/ravens etc. They were also removable and would have been taken off when approaching home so as not to scare the friendly spirits as this could bring ill health, a bad harvest or other such bad luck. A more modern equivalent would be a battle flag carried at times of war but not of peace - if you saw a longship approaching with beast head in place, you knew their intentions were hostile.
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05-03-2025 alle ore 08:16
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