Some myths are perpetuated in historical fiction. I'm here to set the record straight and blow out of the water five incorrect beliefs . . .
1. Vikings did NOT wear freaking horns on their heads.
I am wearing my angry eyes for this one. Think about it for a minute. Horns on a helmet would make it super easy for an enemy to grab hold of. Bad idea.
2. Napoleon wasn't a "little person."
The dude was 5'7". I grant you that's not going to get him a gig in the NBA, but that was the average height back in the day.
3. Romans were not bulimic.
They didn't pork out on, uh, pork, and then puke it all up so they could eat some more. Wrong. Wrong. And, oh, by the way, wrong. A vomitorium was the name used to refer to stadium entrances and exits for people.
4. Salem witches weren't human marshmallows.
Everyone knows witches were burned at the stake, right? Yeah, in Europe, but not over here, where we committed more civilized acts like hanging accused witches.
5. Nero was out of town, dude.
You know that whole fiddling while Rome burned story? False-o-rama. Not only was Nero not even in Rome at the time, the fiddle hadn't yet been invented.
There you have it. Kind of makes you wonder what other myths you're believing, eh?
Posts
.png)
3 comments:
Maybe everyone else during Napoleon's time was 6'5"? LOL. That is what frustrates me about history - do I really know if what I'm reading is fact or fiction?? Great list here. :)
Hmmm...very interesting.
I could list a few more, like "Medieval People didn't wash"- er, no- King Henry III had a bath with running taps, and there are plenty of Medieval illustrations of people sitting in bathtubs.
How about the notion that they had terrible manners and threw bones over their shoulders, or wiped their mouths on their clothes after eating- no again- there are etiquette manuals and guides from the Middle Ages, and we know they were hot to table manners. No burping, no elbows on tables, no slurping- and definitely no throwing bones....
Or, "everyone in the Middle Ages was ignorant, thought the earth was flat was was afraid of science". Man. that's the most annoying myth that refuses to die despite being thoroughly knocked on the head by historians over and over....lets just say there are possibly hundreds of Medieval texts that say the earth is round- and that mechanical clocks and spectacles were both invented by Medieval Europeans...
Then of course there's Prima Nocti-- don't even get me started. The Medieval era seems to be subject to more myths than any other.
Post a Comment