The Vikings Used Human Skulls as Mugs
The Vikings were renowned for their daring coastal raids across Europe, terrifying communities, and intimidating Europeans into paying them money to stop additional incursions. They conducted numerous raiding operations, capturing slaves and valuables before returning to their native country with their hard-earned booty. Though they were renowned as powerful and vicious warriors in battle, the most terrifying rumor about them was how they were said to consume alcohol. One of the most fearsome tribes to ever plunder anything, the stories claim that the Viking warriors were so metal that they would drink their beer from the skulls of their beaten foes.
It turns out, though, that the whole "drinking from skulls" thing was probably just a translation error. In reality, the Vikings drank out of drinking cups constructed of animal horns. When a professor was translating an ancient Viking funeral song, he mistook the phrase "the bent tree of skulls," thinking it referred to genuine human skulls rather than animal horns. Because so few people could understand the original material that was being translated, the mistake went unnoticed for a very long time and entered the public consciousness. Sadly, despite how fantastic it might seem, there is no proof in the archeological record that any Vikings drank from their enemies' skulls.
