Speaker 1: You. I am now listening to soft core History. Ladies
and gentlemen, Welcome back to self core History. I'm your
host for the week, Damna Jester, joined as always by
Robert Fox. What's going on? And we have a very
special guest this week, our good pal Alex Buscemi Boush.
What's up, guys, Welcome to the couch.
Speaker 2: And you know he's a good friend because he won't
hesitate to portray a pedophile.
Speaker 1: Oh on your social media ca? Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 3: When Rob asked me, he was like, hey, uh, Boush,
would you do this sketch with us? I was like sure.
He's like, by the way, you're playing a pedophile And
I was like, what made you think of me for
this role?
Speaker 1: Rob?
Speaker 3: I don't know whether to be flattered or offended.
Speaker 1: I just knew you'd nail it, just need you nail it.
You did, And thanks to you and our other power
and friends. Yep, we've picked up some perhaps new listeners.
So welcome into the show. Welcome to sophocore History. We're
happy to have you, happy to welcome. Today we're going
to talk about Harold Sigurdson.
Speaker 2: I still just want to call him sig in honor
of Kurt Signetty, I just called Sig for the rest
of the episode.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, Well, he was born in ten fifteen to
a wealthy chieftain family in the uplands of the northern
forest of Oslo, Norway.
Speaker 2: That sounds almost like an oxymorn, like he's he was
born to a wealthy mud people family. Like he's a chief,
not a king, not a noble, no, just a chieftain.
Speaker 1: Well thankfully though his older brother Olaf through his mother,
so his half brother. But they shared a mother, so
that's kind of weird, a little bizarre. Who knows, I don't.
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell you the breeding habits of those people.
Speaker 1: From that time. He was the king of Norway when
Harold popped out. Okay, so royalty technically to an extent. Okay.
Olof is also a saint in the Catholic Church. Love him,
love him already. He was converted and baptized just a
year earlier in ten fourteen in Normandy, before coming back
and reuniting a divided Norway.
Speaker 2: So he brought Catholicism to Norway.
Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, we're gonna get to that a bit.
Speaker 2: That'll get it, that'll get you a say, hood that
pencils you rite in like everyone that brings Catholicism anywhere
immediately like check it. Saint like he did do it
by like cutting off a thousand heads. Saint doesn't matter. Yeah, saint,
And yeah he was pretty ruthless, wasn't it. We did
one on Olga, right, Saint Olga.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of a long time ago. That was I think
during the COVID times. Yeah, you're gonna do it via
zoom because we all had COVID we did. Yeah, also
a saint.
Speaker 2: Also just crushing skulls in the name of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: That's what Jesus would do.
Speaker 1: I mean, if he came back now, he'd have to.
I like to picture my Jesus flying in on a
black Hawk. Here's Jesus, Here's Jesus.
Speaker 2: Today is like me with my my children, which is
I will gentle parent to a point.
Speaker 1: It'll be like three or four. Hey, buddy, can you
stop doing that? Hey?
Speaker 2: I know you want to do that, but you can't
do that. Hey, you need to stop doing that. I'm
letting you know it's not good that you're doing that.
You know, please stop doing that. Don't listen, don't listen,
don't listen, and then it's like that is just Rory.
Stop now go to your room one, two three, go
go like just and I'm even pulling punches because I
don't want to blame.
Speaker 1: Jesus right now would actually be an influencer for Lockheed Martin.
Speaker 3: You ever hear the Bill Hicks bit about why Jesus
has never returned because he poked one head out of
the the cave. He sees all these statues of him
nailed you across. He's like, holy shit, these people want
to kill me all over again. I'm getting out of here.
Speaker 1: Bill Hicks. Now Alex Jones, Alex Jones. Yeah, that's Bill Hicks, right,
Bill Hicks died and Alex Jones was born? Is the
conspiracy that Bill Hicks Conspiracylex Jones?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Oh man, No, Bill Hicks was way too intelligent
to become Alex Jones. Maybe dying and coming back you
not all your brain cells come back with you. Yeah,
that's fair. You only he's kind of zombie fied.
Speaker 1: You only retain a certain amount. Yeah. I can't believe
you've been on the internet and you've never heard that theory.
Speaker 2: I never heard that. Yeah, but that is more up
his alley.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's no. I don't go on that corner
of the internet.
Speaker 1: I've met the man several times. Produced a couple of
shows for Alex Alex Jones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is he? What's he like? What's Alex Jones?
Speaker 1: Like? He was nice. He bought his hamburgers fuck yeah
from Petterry. Dude.
Speaker 3: I would drink with Alex Jones.
Speaker 1: Rob was there at the time. I was there for
one of them, okay, and he was just crazy. Yeah,
it was like crazy himself, like not mean, didn't seem
like an not like violent or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Just crazy, like couldn't finish a sentence. Crazy like thought
could not be completed before other thought began.
Speaker 1: ADHD brain for sure.
Speaker 2: Like he was just like it got to point like
listening to a talk a person where I was like, who,
I don't understand how he even listens to this guy,
Like he doesn't finish a sentence.
Speaker 3: Well, he doesn't have ADHD brain. He has straight on
brain damage.
Speaker 1: Like he was I think he said so. Yeah, there
was like.
Speaker 3: A thing about him getting hit in the head. He
was on Rogan. It was on Rogan. He told Joe
about how he got mercilessly beat in a bathroom in
high school, and his brain was never the same.
Speaker 1: It's never the same. He's a handsome fellow.
Speaker 2: That's really funny that he was bullied in high school,
because I would have guessed I would have guessed the opposite.
Speaker 3: I don't know if he was a bully or if
he was an aggressor and then turned to another aggressor,
and that's fair.
Speaker 1: So oh off. He helped Danish king Cannute take England
and get his biggest opposition out of the way in Norway.
So he's like, if I give this dude free reign
in England, I can roll.
Speaker 2: They're gonna fuck off me because England's better Land.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, there's a reason all the Vikings wanted England
right right right, Like we're tired of trying to farm
when it's negative thirty. Yeah, I liked it.
Speaker 2: The water stays water here, doesn't turn to ice for
fucking nine months out of that.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of it.
Speaker 2: It won't stop raining, but at least it's fucking water.
Speaker 1: His brother Harold, though, would go on to have a
much more chaotic, adventurous and interest in life than even
Big Bro that he looked up to, and we have
a few stories about his youth cool and these are
all legend of courses, is right, you know the ten hundreds, right,
take it with a grain of song.
Speaker 2: Not only the ten hundreds, but like Edge of the
World ten hundreds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these are all sagas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it didn't It didn't happen in Venice where
there were like it happened.
Speaker 3: It happened somewhere that England was such good weather that
they wanted to conquer, right, right, that's that's how distant
this place, I will say.
Speaker 1: Though the source material is at least close ish to
when it actually happened. It's like one hundred, one hundred
forty years. No, they get it. Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 2: They just actually they could they confirm something, you know, herodotus.
Obviously people are always like he makes everything up right,
just for shits and gigs and make people sound crazy.
So one of the things that they thought he had
made up for the longest time was that the Scython
Scythians used human skin, I think to be like the Scytheon. Yeah,
I think so Scythian is Scythian site whatever might be Scythian.
Speaker 1: Either way, who's the pokemon you can only catch in
the Sari zone Skyther Cyther Cyther. That makes sense.
Speaker 2: But Heroditus said that the Scythians used human skin as.
Speaker 1: Like the lid on their quiver for arrows and stuff
like that, and.
Speaker 2: Everyone was like, oh, there goes Herodotus again, just making
shit up about barbarians.
Speaker 1: And then very recently are they found an.
Speaker 2: Archaeological site human skin quiver covers And that's like he
did it. He wrote that like four hundred years later
or something like that. But yeah, Herodotus, uh vindicated.
Speaker 1: A little bit, yeah, a little bit, a little bit
talking about the Gates of Babylon and never went yeah yeah, yeah,
like I just heard it from a dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But if he was right about that, what else
was he not lying about?
Speaker 1: That's what I'm playing.
Speaker 3: That's like it we're talking ship at Alex Jones. He
was one of the first to be like, yo, there's
a pedophile island and all the rich and famous people
are diddling kids there and we were like, no way, dude,
you sound crazy. And then guess what, Alex Jones.
Speaker 1: Was right, And that's the thing about.
Speaker 3: You Herodotus was the you know, the ancient Alex Jones,
and maybe he's right about a lot of shit.
Speaker 1: The conspiracy theorists only have to be right once. That's
that's our joke.
Speaker 3: If a broken clock is right twice a day, if a.
Speaker 2: Journalist, if a journalist is wrong, ones, their discre careers over.
And if a conspiracy theorist is right once, they're credited forever.
Speaker 3: Yes, so just be a conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Theorist, right y be a journalist.
Speaker 3: It doesn't because they believe in like civilization.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the stories around
the time, when he was three, all Off was putting
together a succession plan with no kids of his own yet,
and at the time he had three younger half brothers.
He wanted to see how they would react if he's
surprised and scared them at a party. Harold, being the youngest,
Gutham and half Dan flinched and whimpered when Oloff ambushed them,
but Harold, at just three, allegedly was unfazed. Not a
good metric, bad metric.
Speaker 3: Yeah what if he's just stupid?
Speaker 2: Hey, what if he's just a fucking idiot and be
like a three You don't know how a three year
old's gonna react to anything, Like I could take my
three year olds like, like I could pick up a
lego that he plays somewhere else this week.
Speaker 1: He's not even playing with it a time.
Speaker 2: I could pick it up that he plays somewhere else
and be like and put it away, and he will
lose his fucking mind. And then I could like stick
a rattlesnake in his face and he wouldn't fucking react
like it does. There's no rhyme or reason to a
child's reactions to anything, and it drives me fucking insane.
Speaker 3: How did he How did he ambush them?
Speaker 1: Did he just come up and be like, boo, yeah,
I mean he's just jump scare, all right, just a
little jump scare action. I just wanted to see how
they would handle it. And but this guy's like basically
an adult. Yeah, at he's a king.
Speaker 3: It's funny to imagine a big burly Viking dude like
sneaking up on a three year old and then.
Speaker 2: Boo, well, I was just gonna say they were closer
in age, like, but Harold was young. Uh, you know,
the too closer in age would be used to that
guy like beating the shit out of them, whereas the
baby is not getting the same experience.
Speaker 1: It's the oldest brother.
Speaker 3: He's not afraid.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. The other brothers are like, every
time you do this, yeah, I leave with bruises. Yeah yeah.
Olof went to grab his toddler brother's hair and the
little thunderbolt grabbed him by the mustache back. He would
not back down.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, that sounds like a three year old.
Speaker 1: Apparently this is all you had to do in Viking
culture to be first in line for the throun. He's
a great man.
Speaker 2: They put him on a boat the next day, actually
for battle.
Speaker 1: He's ready, at least until Oloff had an air of
his own magnus In ten twenty four. There's another story
where the king asked his brothers, what would you most
like to have? This is a little later down the line, okay,
just very open ended question. Guthrum answered that he wanted
ten farms with fertile lands that would grow grain every summer.
Half Dan wanted his ten farm lands, but with cows
so stock standard answer for a Viking.
Speaker 3: Now, what's up with the whole? Like Dan? Half Dan like,
is that's like if you had a son. Would you
name him half Dan or.
Speaker 1: He's only half of me? I feel like that's set
him up for failure.
Speaker 3: Exactly, that would be. So that's so mean. Like I'm Bjorn,
this is my son half Bjorn.
Speaker 1: We should do that junior and thirds and fourth like
Robs a third, he should just be we should cut
it in half every time, third Rob, third Rob. Half,
you'd be quarter Rob. No, No, Rory's quarter Rob. No, No,
that's not how this works. It's a half every time,
so you take half of half, So that's a quarter. Wow.
So Rory's.
Speaker 3: Eighth Rob.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one to eighth. Damn.
Speaker 3: I didn't think I'd be doing fractions today, I know,
but here we are eighth Rob, then sixteenth Rob.
Speaker 1: Finally, Harold proclaimed that he wonted loyal warriors so many
that they would eat up all of his brother half
Dan's cows in a single meal.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, nothing gets you a farm or ten
farms faster than warriors that will take them from the
dumb asshole who only wanted cows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's not a ton about his childhood, but
those are stories that kind of give us a vibe
of who this guy was from the jump okay. In
ten twenty four, after years of converting many Norwegian tribes
from Norse gods to Christianity, usually by the sword, Oloff
named it the official faith of the region. This pissed
off a lot of nobles and chieftains, and his old
boy Canute down in England took advantage of his mistakes
to usurp him from the Norwegian throne. Canute always saw
Oloff as a placeholder and a lesser ruler under his
larger kingdom.
Speaker 2: I mean, he does have the better kingdom at this point.
Speaker 1: England, in Denmark, yeah, those are way better than Norway.
Way better.
Speaker 2: I don't even know why you want Norway at that point,
it seems like a waste of time.
Speaker 1: Go take parts of France. What do you even care about?
This guy can't do anything. I don't think you want
to fuck with Normandy.
Speaker 2: No, you don't want to fuck with the Normans. And
I was thinking in other parts of France, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Norman people don't.
Speaker 2: People don't remember that the Normans had like the greatest
one hundred and fifty year run in just about I mean,
like that one hundred and fifty years. It's like taking
like a ballplayer's like prime five years, like maybe they
got injured or something afterwards, but like that prime, fo
that prime is as good as anyone's prime. They took Sicily,
they took England. They were fucking around in like North
Africa and shit like me.
Speaker 1: They are everywhere I think England. Now, if you go
through their history glass and everything, it all starts with
William the Conqueror.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of when they become England.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Everything else is just like we don't really talk.
Speaker 2: I got a lot of history lessons on the Normans
from the Commons, on the one on the sketch that
went viral.
Speaker 3: If you go back far enough on my family tree
on my mom's side, it starts at Charlemagne, like the
tippy top of the family tree, says Charlemagne. So does
that mean that doesn't mean like we probably came from him,
but it probably was just like a bunch of serfs
that lived under him, just to just said that that
was there. Maybe you're Sicilian, right I am, Well, my
mom's my dad's side Sicilian. Mom's side is English Scottish.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, if you're Sicilian. The Normans ruled Sicily for
a little while, so.
Speaker 1: That my dad.
Speaker 3: That's not that's not my dad's side though, Okay, I'm
talking about my mom's side.
Speaker 1: Charlemagne. There's a revolt in ten twenty eight financed by Canut,
and Olaf is forced into exile in Sweden and then Russia,
where he stays until ten thirty when he discovers the
new Yar of Norway. That can newt installed drowned at
sea sounds like a bad Viking.
Speaker 2: That's the lamest possible way for a Viking to die.
Speaker 1: You don't reach Valhalla if you drowned at sea, you don't.
You don't. You just go to the bottom of the ocean.
So all off Jesus is an opportunity to take back
the throne. Harold's only fifteen at the time, but he
rallies six hundred men from the Uplands to join his
half brother and join with his ironically mostly heathen army
from Sweden. Well, got take any swordy cap? Yeah, it's
just that, just is what it is. At Sticklstad, which
is one of the biggest battles in Norwegian history. It's
a very funny name though, Sticklestat.
Speaker 2: It's also just funny because it's one of those battles
where like I like to talk about all die but
it's just like, yeah, I'm dying it.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm fighting at this battle.
Speaker 2: Oh it's like the biggest battle in history. And if
I die, this is a glorious battle to die. And
we're like the Sticklestat like somebody got fucking gutted.
Speaker 1: Dog. It certainly wasn't one of the biggest battles ever.
This ain't China.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't mean like numbers wise, but I mean
like people go into a lot of these battles being
like this is for everything.
Speaker 1: I like, where like in the Grands game, you don't
realize it's a tiny skirmish, thinks whatever, No one thinks
about it at all.
Speaker 3: Did the Vikings own all of England at this point?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Or just the northern tip everyone?
Speaker 1: No, I mean it's broken up in a different kingdoms,
like yeah, Viking run, there's English.
Speaker 2: Runs, Saxon's all types of stuff.
Speaker 1: So that William the conquer is the one that like
unites everything.
Speaker 2: England, England, not the UK England, yes, okay, right, yeah,
so like not Wales, not Scotland obviously not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not even talking about Wales in that shop
I'm talking about like Lynn itself at this time was
super divided. Yes, okay, So they meet a Sticklestad. They're
surprised by Canutes goons calf Arnison and thor Hund, who
had an army twice their size. Oll Off falls in
battle and dies bleeding out, leaning against a large rock.
Seeing his men get butchered, calf Arninson allegedly even finished
the job and slid his throat against the rock. Harold
himself is wounded severely, but was able to escape with
his life bleeding out. He stumbled upon a home tucked
away in the wilderness, where a peasant family took him in,
and the injured fifteen year old Harold was able to
heal under their roof.
Speaker 2: Oh how nice of them, Like, who are you? I
think I assume he just like was like, I'll give
you lots of money.
Speaker 1: I'm very I'm very rich. It's also a team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, also just fighting fuck bloody wars at fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, that's not even that's not that crazy. Then
it's not that crazy. There were tweens at the fucking
Battle of Bunker Hill. Yeah, we had twelve year olds
in the World War Two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know that they sneak in there, but but
I thought, well, this is later, I guess.
Speaker 1: So we had younger soldiers in World War Two. Think
of all the kids that died in Berlin. Yeah, but
that was you know, they had they Jojo Rabbit. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But even like so like the American Revolution, like minute men. Yeah,
but they're kids in that.
Speaker 3: But uh, like I know knighthood like to be a
knight in the medieval times, they had to be. They
were twenty one, and I'm sure younger people fought.
Speaker 2: You might get you might get a little fast tracked.
If you're royal, you get the fast pass.
Speaker 1: Once healed, Harold wandered through the mountains, avoiding main roads,
and made his way to Sweden, where he spent a
winter with fellow survivors of Sticklestad. He then went to Keevan,
russ which today is Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, where he
met the man who gave his older brother oh Off
sanctuary during z exile. You'roslav. The whys in Kiev, it's
you say Kiev Keev. I don't know how to pronounce
these cities.
Speaker 2: I think they say Kiev because that's the Ukrainian way
and Kiev's like the Russian way.
Speaker 1: To say it. Am I saying it right though?
Speaker 2: Keevan Russ, Keevan Rus Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: And look it up. Yeah yeah. People you need things
and you don't really hear them. You don't.
Speaker 2: Often people forget that Russia was not that I endorseed
the you know, Ukraine me independent, but Russia was actually
founded in Ukraine. Basically, like Kiev was the heart and
the founding area of the Russian whatever.
Speaker 3: Well that's why they went it back. It's like their
cultural heritage. It's like Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: To them, if we like lost Virginia.
Speaker 2: It's like but it's like a weird mix too. It's
like part it's like it's like it's like their Northeast
and also their California at the same time, beautiful beaches,
like it's it's crazy, like it's it's just Ukraine's like
this like great weather. It was literally Ukraine was the
best part of Russia throughout all of Russia's history and
then they lost it and they're like, god damn it.
Speaker 1: Also in Kiev or Kayev, whatever the fuck you wanna
call it. Kiev. Kiev was Olaf's mistress. Ambassadard child Magnus.
Harold was granted the same safety and became a sword
for hire for the Prince Poland is really where Harold
cut his teeth and became a fierce warrior, slaughtering the
enemies of Yuroslav. At eighteen, Harold proposed to Yuroslav's daughter,
but the prince refused. He appreciated the brute force Harold
brought to the battlefields, but with no crown or lands
to speak of his own, and no money, he's not
a political advantage for Yuroslav to marry off one of
his daughters.
Speaker 2: You're not wasting a daughter on that, certainly not. Is
it the oldest daughter. You're certainly not wasting the oldest.
Speaker 1: He already had a couple daughters that were married off
to other Okay.
Speaker 2: But even still, yeah, you need to you need that
those daughters are real.
Speaker 1: Capital ten thirty four. Calf Arnisson, the man who cut
down his brother Olof at Sticklestad, came to Keevan, Russ.
He had turned on Canute and was in open rebellion
against the Danish king. He came to collect not Harold
but young Magnus to put on the Norwegian throne. And
he did just that in ten thirty five a year later.
Speaker 2: So he revolted and was like, I'm putting the kid
on fuck this guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, but I'm gonna be like Advisor one.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm running.
Speaker 2: How old was Magnus at this point, super young? That's
an ideal situation for someone who could never be king.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you have a shield to a child shield, yeah,
but a shield nonetheless to take you know, if she
hits the fan to take the spear to the gut.
Speaker 2: Well, a five year old is shield sized, yes, so
it's perfect. You just pick him up by shirt shield.
Speaker 1: Because that's how Vikings fought. It was just like all right,
you go, I go. Is it rock and socckem.
Speaker 2: Robot sounds like a Pokemon battle? Actually, yeah, you do.
It's like ohl Off deploys cut, its ven deploys cut.
Speaker 1: It's only cut. They only have cut, but it's all cut.
It's all cut.
Speaker 3: And then he's got block and he in the little
graphic shows him hold up a child.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's just got.
Speaker 1: Little Harold, with no real claim at this point or
desire to take the throne, gathered a few hundred men
and sailed south, far south and ended up take a guess,
sailed south, I don't know, Jerusalem from Russia. Okay, Turkey, Yeah,
cut Constantinople to get some hair plugs, get goes to
the Eastern Roman Empire. Yeah, hell yeah, where he enlisted
in the Varangian Guard, which was a bunch of Norse
mercenaries and acted as bodyguards and an elite military group
for the Byzantine Empire. Yeah. Probably worth doing a whole
episode on them.
Speaker 2: In fact, I think people have asked, but yeah, it
was essentially just like Viking Delta Force or Viking Actually,
a better way to put might be Viking Pertorian Guard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that essentially giants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the Pretorian Guard?
Speaker 2: So those were like the elite sort of emperor protectors,
which is an ironic way to put it in Rome
because they.
Speaker 1: Killed the emperors.
Speaker 2: But they were like the dudes in Rome, the military
unit in Rome, and they were kind of close to
the emperor, and they had a lot of political power,
and if the emperor pissed them off or they thought
they could get a better deal, like sometimes just better
pay from an emperor a different emperor, they'd be like, sorry, buddy,
and then so.
Speaker 1: This is the Byzantine Empire's version of that essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they weren't as big a dix as the
actual Preetorian guard.
Speaker 1: Yeah. These are just more guns for hire. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Harold was welcomed with open arms to protect Emperor Michael
the Fourth, who was a low born who ascended the
throne by marrying a woman thirty years older than him,
Empress Zoey Smart after the death of her husband, Romanos
the third.
Speaker 2: So she was empress too, and that guy was the
emperor and then she just married some fucking bum her
side dick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he became emperor. Kind of No, this
is a rag's the richest story. Helly, good for him.
He his way to the top.
Speaker 3: He makes me feel like a young woman again.
Speaker 1: Well, it is widely speculated that they orchestrated the murder
of Romanos as she married Michael the same day she
became a widow. Ah, yeah, that sounds accurate. But she
was so beloved by the people in the Byzantine Empire
that they let it go. They're like, ah, that's fine,
like Zoe, let her, let her have this. Come on,
we love Zoe. There's a girl so Michael took in
all the protection he could get. At the same time,
the Islamic Fatamid dynasty was bucking and starting to terrorize
Byzantine Lanfe and Harold was sent to confront Islamic pirates
in the Mediterranean and unleash hell and fury with Greek
fire and a horde of Viking merks. I feel bad.
That's the most terrifying image I can think of, what
a Viking with a flame dower Greek fire in Viking marks. Yeah,
Vikings with flametars.
Speaker 2: I feel bad for the Greeks because we like to
make fun of them a lot.
Speaker 1: Bouche seems a little confused. Greek fire was essentially Game
of Thrones wildfire. Wildfire, Oh sick. They actually lost the
recipe for it. They don't know how to make it. Damn.
It was like fire that you just couldn't put out
on the water and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they used it. They had it on the walls like.
That's why Constantinople was so untakeable for a long time,
is because if you tried to sell your ships a.
Speaker 1: The walls on the land were insane.
Speaker 2: They literally had to invent cannons before they could get
into it and b if you tried to bring your
ships up on the seaside, boom, flametars everywhere.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But I feel bad for the Greeks just because like
we kind of shot on them, like.
Speaker 1: Man, they're mean.
Speaker 2: Shoot since like the Battle of Marathon, like yeah, they're
invent democracy and then didn't do anything. But really, the
Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantines, they're just.
Speaker 1: Greeks, and they.
Speaker 2: They kept the Caliphates from rolling over Europe for a
thousand years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like there's no world.
Speaker 2: In which the Eastern Roman Empire doesn't exist, where Europe
isn't just Muslim. They could have taken over the world
everything if the Eastern Roman Empire isn't standing in their way,
it is done.
Speaker 1: Also, Vlad Daddy late late later Yeah, yeah, yeah, because
they eventually did get through constant Nople obviously, but it
took It's not called Constantinople anymore, net Baghdad.
Speaker 2: But no, no, what are they called constant its Timbol?
Speaker 1: Oh is timbul? You got it right earlier with Turkey.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I don't know where we are?
Speaker 1: What what what are we talking about? They annihilated the
Pirates and pushed forward to join the Byzantine Land campaign
to push into Muslim territory. By ten thirty five, the
Byzantines had pushed the Arabs out of Asia Minor to
the east southeast. Was he at Mansukret He took part
of the campaign that went as far east as the
Tigris and Euphrates River. So in Iraq, yeah, he went
pretty deep. He participated in the capture of eighty Arab
strongholds before going to Jerusalem and forcing the Caliphate to
broke her peace with the Byzantines.
Speaker 3: So the Vikings just kind of teamed up with the
Greeks to fight with.
Speaker 2: The Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is late stage Roman Empire.
Speaker 2: Okay, second stage Roman Empire.
Speaker 3: Okay, they teamed up with the Romans, Yeah, were they?
Speaker 1: I guess the evolution technically.
Speaker 2: No, I mean he's not, but it is. It's the
Eastern Roman Empire. We call it the Byzantines, but it's
the Eastern Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire lasted until fourteen,
what fifty three?
Speaker 1: I think it's then a much longer run than the
original Roman Empire.
Speaker 2: Well, if you count the fact that they were part
of the original one. Yeah, they went like two thousand
years now, granted they kind of stopped being I think
it was the Battle of Mansucurt, which I looked up
Quick was ten seventy one, so he probably had been
a little too old for that. He might have been alive,
but he wasn't. He would have been old at that point.
That Battle of Manskart was kind of the I think
the turning point where they were never the same after that.
But from for whenever the West fell for twenty whatever
to the fall of Constantinople is essentially the run of
the Eastern Roman Empire. So they did another thousand years
after the full Roman Empire.
Speaker 1: Now in command of the Vrangians in his twenties, in
ten thirty eight, he joined the campaign in Islamics Sicily
and captured four towns, including one where he tunneled under
city walls during a siege and then just slaughtered the garrison.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, in fact, by the way, real fun fact,
just quick on the Roman Empire. I believe he's either
still alive or the last one died because when the
Turks took Constantinople, the sultan or whatever who ran the Ottomans.
He added Caesar to his title because it was the
Eastern Roman Empire, so he came, among other things, Caesar.
And obviously the Automan Empire fell after World War One,
but the family that was running the Ottoman Empire still existed,
and either the last one is alive or just recently
died in New York City. So the last Roman emperor,
it's either still alive and very old or just died.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. Did Musolini do that? No, he tried.
Speaker 2: He stole Valor the same way like the Russians were like, oh,
we're the new Rome now.
Speaker 1: Right, But I imagined he was going to use that title.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, one hundred percent, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, you know, people called him Caesar, right,
he definitely forced, but multiple countries did that.
Speaker 2: The Russian Zarmie and Caesar Kaiser met Caesar stupid, but
the Ottoman guy was technically because they overtook the actual
Roman Empire and then added Caesar the same way like
Dinares Targarian is like breaker of Chain's mother, blah blah blah.
They added Caesar to their fucking list of shit, and
so technically the last Caesar has was alive in our
lifetimes for sure, if he is not still alive.
Speaker 1: In ten forty one, when the Byzantine expedition to Sicily
was over, a Lombard Norman revolt erupted in southern Italy,
and Harold led the guard in multiple battles before facing
defeat and retreating back to Constantinople. Harry was then sent
to Bulgaria to crush a rebellion in late ten forty
one and claimed just a little more glory for Michael four,
who had fallen incredibly ill. So he's like one last
ride for Michael four. Harold returned to a parade in
his honor, right next to the dying emperor, who would
soon pass After that sounds like a nightmare. Good work.
Speaker 2: It's probably like something very communical too, like hero, you've
done well, Like oh my god, gure's a party after this,
get away from me, like Jesus going.
Speaker 3: To get me sick.
Speaker 1: His nephew, Michael five took the throne. Michael five sucked. Yeah,
Michael five was not cool. He's very paranoid about everything.
Oh really, as soon as he took the throne, incredibly paranoid.
Speaker 2: It's not like his dad took the throne in any
weird way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fucked his way at the top and then murdered
the guy on the throne. I wonder why this guy'd
be paranoid. Also not his kid, also that it's his nephew. Yeah,
so he doesn't really have.
Speaker 3: I would be paranoid too. I would be constantly paranoid.
Is that even paranoia at this point where just sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you become like Roman emperor or to some
extent East Roman Emperor. It's like that dude we did
who was the the Ottoman leader a couple of weeks ago,
who became the leader after like his brother died and
his brother had murdered all his other brothers. Like you
get that job, and you're just like, oh god, fuck, oh,
I just.
Speaker 1: Wanted to make any corner you turn, somebody could be
there your last because think about what your life was
like before.
Speaker 2: Not the guy, not the Ottoman guy who was like
in Jail's whole life, but think about what your life
was before that.
Speaker 1: You're just a prince. Yeah, the best is to be
a prince that is not in line. You're just rich
being like third or fourth. I'm like, all right, I'm good.
I don't I don't want any of the responsibilities.
Speaker 3: You get to bang your concmbines.
Speaker 2: No, and and you're like, I don't even want pat
You're what's his name from Blue Blueback?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're just Moran. Yeah, yeah, you're Alex More. You
just like I don't want get trickle down pussy. Yeah,
it's fine, it's fine. I'm fucking good dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he probably has it's not even it's not
like sloppy seconds. He probably has his own set of coccubines.
They're not as hot as the main prince is.
Speaker 1: It's good, you know, they're not. It's not as the
as the Yeah, but you look at anyone you want,
except anybody your brother wants. But as long as you
just don't piss him off, you're good.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean you any look at just if you
have an iota of common sense, you look at your
brother concubines and you think, damn, they're hot.
Speaker 1: Not getting stabbed in the throat hot, but hot.
Speaker 2: Yeah you know what I mean, Like yeah, like, yeah,
they're pretty odd, just not like getting violently murdered.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure his coccubines are, Like I mean,
you get to a certain level hotness. You know, there's
there's enough tends to go around at this point, right,
and like, well he's getting tends to that.
Speaker 2: Prince was Honestly, if you're living with eights and you're
not getting stabbed, to give me the aightes, give.
Speaker 3: Me the eights because eights and the the intact throat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the lack of sword in your throat is plus two.
They're tens now.
Speaker 1: Uh. But like the other it's just funny too.
Speaker 2: You're like, what, but Alexandrios, don't you want to be
a footnote in history and maybe be stabbed with your
name would be in a book no one reads. No, No,
I want to fucking die anonymously. Good lord, I'm so
rich right now. Why would I care?
Speaker 1: You will be a footnote if you just avoid it. Yeah, like,
oh yeah, that's his brother. He had a he was
a sweet thing. He was sweet. That's a footnote. Yeah,
you don't want to know most of these guys are footnote.
You don't know who these people are. Yeah, but they
at least have like a paragraph or a chapter. Being
a footnote is just like yeah, yeah, I was around.
Speaker 3: I mean this guy we're talking about We've got a
whole podcast on this guy. Yeah, you got a whole
podcast we got.
Speaker 1: He's not dying in Coco universe. Ye, yeah, he's got
to be still around.
Speaker 2: That's actually that's the only way you could make me,
uh move up to the maybe be stabbed in the throats.
Like the important thing is Coco is one hundred percent
based on fact, and you will live forever if.
Speaker 3: You do well.
Speaker 1: The thing is too the only people we know throughout
history are nine violent. Yeah, an aggressor in some capacity,
almost all all of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no ca I mean like there's no king
without innocent bodies.
Speaker 1: Like, oh yeah, he was just a really cool guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the king that presided over peacetime doesn't make history books.
Speaker 2: No, sure, Well, even the king that presids of a
peace time probably kills like a couple thousand innocent people
just on accident.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even Baldwin had to kill people, right right.
Speaker 2: Right, It's like a president like everyone's like you know, like,
oh I like Obama, I hate Trump.
Speaker 1: Or they all have blood on their hands or reversed.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter. They all have killed like definitely innocent people.
Speaker 1: Like for sure.
Speaker 3: Obama did drum strikes all the time. He just didn't
talk about it. Trump will tweet him blowing up a boat, right,
and then Obama was just like, look at my jump shot,
look at my look at not just and then he
made it and then he'd be like, Okay, go go
drum strike this fucking area.
Speaker 1: Yea, yeah, Obama did.
Speaker 3: So many drum strikes.
Speaker 1: But you have never heard about so many weddings scut
blown out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so many weddings, so many innocent people died. Ye
yeah Trump, Yeah, The only difference is just the rhetoric
around it. Obama basically buried it and so no one
brought it up. Trump tweets it.
Speaker 1: The point.
Speaker 2: The point is is that no leader like ever basically
is without sweet innocent blood all over there.
Speaker 1: So mikey five, super paranoid, sees Harold as a threat.
Of course he does. This giant Viking man. He's not
sent to protect me. He's gonna kill me.
Speaker 2: Who has no ambitions for the Eastern Empire, No, none.
Speaker 1: He's just trying to get some money. He's trying to
get paid, chilling. He's happy, he's alive, back to Norway.
He's just right now. He's simply in grime mode. Don't
know why you would. Seems like this life is better.
It's a pretty good life. Yeah, and he's good at it, right. Yeah,
so he sends a bunch of assassins to kill Harold
and his guard doesn't work out. Yeah, seems like a mistake,
doesn't work out.
Speaker 2: Like imagine imagine getting on the dark web and hiring
a couple assassins to go kill Delta Force, and you
can pretty much picture what this asshole just tried to do.
Speaker 1: Michael also had his adopted mother, Zoe, arrested, cut off
her hair, shame in her as a whore, and sent
her in chains to a remote island to become a nun.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't say the charges don't stick.
Speaker 1: Check it out. They don't, because it turns out the
business teams really love Zoe.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, I'm not saying I'm not arguing
about her popularity. I'm saying she definitely had side Dick
and then had Side Dick murder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, main like the horror charges, she is an old whore. Yeah,
the whole the horr charge is fine, it's sure or legend.
I mean, look, you do you girl, But I'm just
saying she fucked her out. Yeah, I mean a guy
literally ascended the throne because he just laid it down
so good.
Speaker 2: Right, And the thing is actually is that it's all
forgivable if she doesn't murder the her husband for it,
like I don't. I would only I'm only dropping horror
because she murdered a guy for side piece.
Speaker 1: So the Byzantines riot. Michael is forced to bring her
back and try to calm the crowds. This doesn't work,
and the mob storms the palace. They stormed the capital, yep, yep.
They looted gold, tapestries and anything they could get their
hands on, including Michael, who was cowering in the corner. Like, oh,
he was dragged out on his paranoia was well justified. No, no,
he's none of this happens if he doesn't try to
kill Harold and also just really cause a riot by
sending away the loved queen. Yeah, he brought that on
himself that point.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe he was paranoid because he knew that shit
was gonna happen.
Speaker 1: You know, he caused it. It was a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was a cell phone. He was confused.
Let's just go back to Pokemon. I mean he was confused,
and in his confusion he hurt himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, well I was just saying, was he paranoid
before or after? He ordered all that stuff before?
Speaker 1: Okay, so he was, well he ordered these things because
he was paranoid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the man is an idiot.
Speaker 1: So he's dragged out into the streets, into the walls
of Constantinople, where one Harold emerges from the crowd and
does their bidden First, he plucks out Michael's eyes with
a dagger. Good lord. Then in front of the entire crowd,
castrates a man.
Speaker 3: Oh, he cuts his just the dick anballs.
Speaker 1: Dick and balls.
Speaker 2: And by the way, this is like, this is like
the this is TV for.
Speaker 1: Them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: They're like, they don't go this is great.
Speaker 2: They don't They don't get to see sho this every day.
Speaker 1: Also, you might have like made it out with like
a gold plate from the palace. You're eating good that day?
Yeah yeah, you sell that plate. You made a little money.
And then you get to see a guy get his
eyes poked out and then his dick cut off. It's
a good day. I'll be telling this story literally for
the rest of our life. Children, for the rest of
your life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how I got this gold plate?
Speaker 1: Kids? Like the way we're like, yeah, so much so
that it made it all the way to Wikipedia. Yeah,
like the way the way that we're like, Yeah, I
remember Tom Brady's first Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: Boy, I was there king castration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember Michael Jordan's shot against the Jazz Like
it's like, yeah, I was there when they cut his
fucking dick off, this little red So.
Speaker 3: You were there, you were at the game, this little
red splotch of blood and the gold plate that was
from his shaft.
Speaker 1: I'm never washing this plate.
Speaker 2: You think he threw it into the crowd like a
bouquet at a wedding.
Speaker 3: Close their eyes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope.
Speaker 3: So one of imagines the next person who gets that
dick gets married.
Speaker 1: That works. So they send Michael to monastery where he
would die months later from a monastery to do what
to repent? All right, and then he dies anyway because
he's just like, so fucked a couple open wounds, we'll
do that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh he's so he survived that.
Speaker 1: Kill him, Jesus. They just embarrassed him and tortured him.
Speaker 3: Oh god, he probably wishes he had died.
Speaker 1: Zoe was then giving back the throne. So Zoe's sole empress. Now, yeah, okay,
she remarries oh shortly after Yeah, sure went out. You
have to Yeah, gotta get a man. Yeah, he's got
to call the shots. She's controlling everything, but gotta have
at least a a puppet.
Speaker 2: And for that I actually respect her if the reason,
although it sounds like her first or second husband, I
should say, was calling shots himself. Ryeah, he was okay,
So she didn't marry him to make him a puppet necessarily.
Speaker 1: I think she loved him fair enough. Harold became extremely
rich during this time in the East and would routinely
send his wealth back to euroslav the Wise and Kief.
Harold requested to be allowed to return to Norway, but
Zoe she didn't want her best protector to leave. He's
too good. He's too good at his job. Yeah, we
can't lose you. So he has to fucking sneak out
of Constantinople. Damn, he's like going to never want to
be too nice. He's he's an illegal emigrant. Yeah, he
was not allowed to leave the country, and he had.
Speaker 3: A sneak immigrant. This is that you never want to
be the best of your job. They they always turned
to you for all the bullshit. Yeah, he end up
working more hours.
Speaker 1: So he escapes back to Keevan Russ Later in ten
forty two, now with some assets, he was able to
secure marriage with one of Euroslav's daughters, Elizabeth, a younger one.
I think it's the same one. Okay, he's older at
the time. She was young when he first requested it. Yeah,
but he was doing it for power, was like attracted
to her. But I think you know, he goes back,
He's like, oh shit, you've grown up? What up girl?
What old girl? Where's that little nine year old? I
remember you're fourteen? Yeah, grumor still kind of young. You know,
he's in his twenties. Okay, so not tood.
Speaker 3: It's done so much for only being in his twenties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good lord, what a life. I've done nothing talking
about better men than myself, That's all I've done. Yeah.
Speaker 3: How many dicks have you cut off? How many eyeballs
have you godged out?
Speaker 1: Zero? Yeah, you better get on that goose egg getting
shut out? Right? Not great? I'll write that my twenty
twenty six goals your manifests. Yeah, I'll make that happened.
Speaker 2: I could tell when of my kids look at me,
they're like, you haven't cut off anyone's dick.
Speaker 3: I don't really, Staddy, I don't respect you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be like, if it's sending consolation kids, I've
cleaned all Jacob stat.
Speaker 3: At school, Jacob is school. His dad's jeez, Jacob Steady's
dad cut off.
Speaker 2: Three dicks, Like I've cleaned all your dick wounds. If
that helps real quick. Before we keep going, we do
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Speaker 1: So he secures an alliance with Youroslav through this marriage,
and he decides, you know what, fuck Magnus, I'm going
to reclaim my throne in Norway on behalf of ole Off.
All right, good, it's like Magnus is a bastard anyway. Yeah,
it's not Olof's real air.
Speaker 2: And also he never got scared by hole Off like me,
bet because yeah, I didn't get scared when I was three.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I don't know. I don't remember when that happened,
but I heard I was pretty sweet. He also wanted
to get revenge on the guy that literally cut Aloft's
throat that was now just sitting in the court for
Magnets right. Harold began his journey westward in early ten
forty five and met with Sween and the Swedish king
a nun Jacob, to join forces against his nephew, Magnus.
Swhen Estridsen had just been defeated in Denmark and was
kind of, you know, picking up the pieces, so he
still has an axe to grind. You go to him,
You go to the king of Sweden. He joined forces,
and you're like, all right, we're gonna take Norway. Let's
go instead of going to war, though Magnus's advisers recommended
the young king not fight his uncle, and a compromise
was reached in ten forty six in which Harold would
rule Norway, not Denmark, jointly with Magnus, though Magnus would
have final.
Speaker 3: Say, Mmm, he's not gonna like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they agreed to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like he takes the deal. I feel
like it takes the deal. It takes the deal.
Speaker 1: He also agreed that he would share half of his
wealth that he made when he was in Constantinople with Magnus.
Speaker 3: What dude's a pretty agreeable guy. Yeah, good lord for
someone who cuts Dick's off and gouges out of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is still his nephew at the end
of the day. Yeah, I guess it's a kid. Yeah,
it probably feels, you know, like I can't, you know,
slit this preteen's throat. It's not his fault.
Speaker 2: Not that that ever stopped anyone ever in history, but
it's not his fault.
Speaker 1: During their short co rule, Harold and Magnus had separate
courts and kept to themselves for the most part, and
their only recorded meeting nearly ended in a fight less
than a year into their co rule. Though Magnus dies
from a fever without an air before his death, he
decided that when was to inherit Denmark and Harold was
given full control of Norway, so he got what he wanted.
Nothing nefarious. Yeah, kid just dies of a fever. That's
normally a fever. After that's just you just Harold poisoned him.
Speaker 2: You just get a fever. He probably stepped on a
thorn before.
Speaker 1: Harold got sick and just coughed on him. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also that like this will this is fucking me up
pretty bad. But this is gonna kill that boy, and
then you're which is poisoning at that point basically more.
Speaker 1: Or less, yeah, just give him the flu. Harold quickly
gathered the local leaders in Norway and declared himself king
of Norway as well as Denmark. Got a little over
his skis there, why not? He embarked on what would
turn into constant warfare against his former ally Sween from
ten forty eight until ten sixty four. Almost yearly he
would get into conflicts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he declared himself ruler of de Twen's land too.
So I was like, dude, I'm in charge of Denmark.
What are you doing? Like, wasn't Harold so greedy with this?
Why does he want to do Norway?
Speaker 1: What's you get a taste for it?
Speaker 3: And he's just also he could always be starting.
Speaker 2: He lived in at was what was I believe at
the time, probably the best empire, at least in the
Western world. He sees all that gets back to dingy Norway.
You know, I didn't like the facilities, he doesn't like
the doesn't like the money. Imperial Yeah, yeah, he wants
to do some real ship.
Speaker 3: Well, he's been fighting his whole life. He's like, I'm
not gonna just stop fighting now that he's in charge.
Speaker 1: So boring peace no, thank.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what happens during peace, You have to
like talk about taxes and ship ain't talking about that.
Speaker 1: The economy, no, bringing skulls back, dealing with merchants, no
thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, growing a thriving arts scene and focusing on education and.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, we made many new wonderful quilts this year.
You should see some a quilting cultures. Oh my god,
I just want to cut off.
Speaker 1: I want to go. He's not his two brothers that
just wanted a farm. Yeah, he wanted everything. Yep, he wanted.
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't become a great warrior by not
wanting everything.
Speaker 1: He had ambition, Okay, is that is that a crime?
It's a very very frequent precursor to crime.
Speaker 3: Ambition is just uh yeah, ambition is is a very
nice thing to call these people. Bloodthirsty might be a
better term, perhaps tyrannical, especially Harold.
Speaker 1: When he gets power, it gets to his head. Oh
pretty quick. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But when you've wanted a thing for so long and
then you get it, yeah, you go. You're spiking the
football every day.
Speaker 1: Because in history he is now known and we'll get
to it as Harold Hardrata, Yeah, who lost to William
the Conqueror, right, not William the conquer but its to
just like Hard, just like Hard Ruler. So that's his name,
is just Harold Hard Ruler. He's a dickhead, right or no,
didn't he? He lost to get to it. We'll get
to it. Who lost to way? We'll get to it.
We'll get to it.
Speaker 2: I just remember this from Age of Empires too.
Speaker 3: I watched The Last Kingdom, and that's about the Saxon Kingdom,
the last remaining part of England that's not under Viking control. Yeah,
and they hold out for a while.
Speaker 1: While Harold was victorious in most of his engagements, but
he was never successful in occupying Denmark. Fatigue and huge
cost of the indecisive battles eventually led Harold to seek
peace with Sween and the In ten sixty four, the
two kings agreed on an unconditional peace agreement. He's like, man,
this is you know, we've been fighting for like twenty
years now, Like, what are we doing? Let's just wrap
this up. In the Winner of ten sixty five, Harold
traveled through his realm and accused the farmers of withholding
taxes from him. In response, he acted with brutality and
had people maimed and killed as a warning to those
who disobeyed him.
Speaker 2: Well, you can't just cut one dick off.
Speaker 1: So he got the reputation that gave him the nickname
hard Rata. Harold also had to win over the aristocracy
and convince them he was the right person to rule
Norway alone. To establish domestic alliances, he marries another woman
named Tora Torberger's Dadder whatever. It's a silly name.
Speaker 2: It's it's an outrageous language that those people speak. It's
fucking I swear to God, there's like eight normal languages
on Earth.
Speaker 1: By the end of ten sixty five, there was peace
in Norway, as any opposition he had was either killed,
chase into, exiled, or silenced. Excepting he could not conquer Denmark.
Harold then switched his attention to England. His claim was
based on a ten thirty eight agreement between Magnus and
the previous ruler, who died childless in ten forty two.
Harold brought around fifteen thousand men on three hundred long
ships to England in ten sixty six, and they were
hidden up coastal towns with little resistance on his way
to York ten sixty six. Of course, is you know
fantas here? Yeah, yeah, human history.
Speaker 2: Battle of Hastings probably one of the most what top
three most important battles in human history?
Speaker 1: I would say it's up there.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what the Battle of York was about.
Speaker 1: No Battle, not York Hastings. What was that about? Get?
But little did he know another man was coming for England,
and then Harold Godwinson had to deal with this iconic man,
William the Conquer. Yeah. I think these battles were fought
like back to back. Yeah they were.
Speaker 2: And essentially if there had only been one Godwinson might
have been fine, could have been.
Speaker 1: A triple threat match. Yeah really yeah sick. But unfortunately,
you know, early on September twenty fifth, Harold brought only
light armor and not as full army as they were
expecting to just meet with citizens of York, as they
had agreed the day before at Stanford Bridge to decide
on who would manage the town under Harold. They were
caught totally off guard when they encountered King Harold Gobwinson's
forces approaching. Heavily armored and greatly outnumbered Goblin mode Godwin
godwins in Goblin like godwins Goblin on God wins, God wins.
God doesn't win. This time. Harold's army was crushed and
Harold was struck in the throat by an arrow, dying
in what would later be known as the Battle of
Stamford Bridge, or what many considered to be the end
of the Viking Age. So many consider him to be
the last Viking. They call him the last Viking, okay,
because his death here kind of just like creates this
new time frame where the Vikings kind of aren't relevant.
Speaker 2: Yeah they're not really not really after the same cool bullshit,
but they.
Speaker 3: They'd already been beat back from it because the Vikings
at one point conquered most of England different groups.
Speaker 1: Man later, you're also the Vikings fought internally, and like
there's you know, Vikings from Denmark, there's Vikings from Norway,
there's Vikings from Swi. They're all different groups.
Speaker 2: It's almost like the equivalent of just calling any remotely
Middle Eastern person like, oh, they're Muslims, you know what
I mean? Like there's a difference between Persians and era
was the Africans and all which.
Speaker 3: Group of Vikings conquered most of England.
Speaker 1: Danes. I think we're a bunch. I think the Danes were, Yes,
it was the Danes. Less than three weeks later he
comes with the Duke of Normandy. Yeah. Battle of Hastings,
William the conquer defeats Godwinson takes control, unites England.
Speaker 3: Oh that's why Battle of Hastings is so important.
Speaker 2: He unites England, England becomes England.
Speaker 1: England becomes England under the Battle of Hastings.
Speaker 2: And then ironically, what nine hundred years later, the English
invade Normandy and the Americans.
Speaker 1: Poetic And that is the story though, of the last Viking,
the Thunderbolt, Harold Sigurts and hard Grata, Hard Rata.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Would you guys learn today?
Speaker 3: Oh a lot. I never knew about the Vikings teaming
up with the Byzantine Empire to fight you know, the
Arranching Guard. Yeah, not to fight the Muslims. And I
didn't know about, uh, the real life version of wildfire,
the Greek fires, what was you.
Speaker 1: Gonna call it? Greek Creek fire?
Speaker 3: Greek fire, which is just the real life version of
the wildfire from Game of Thrones that just doesn't burn.
And then they lost the formula. That's crazy.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize actually, So I knew who Harold Hargrotta
was kind of just basically through playing Age of Empires too,
but I didn't know his whole backstory at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think he's also probably mentioned throughout English history
if you grew up in the UK. Yeah, probably probably. Yeah,
Like I knew Harold Hargrotta.
Speaker 2: I knew that that the I knew the I forgot
the name, but I knew the Battle of Stanford Bridge,
and there was like a couple weeks before Hastings and
the fact that the English king had to or whatever
you want to call him. I had to just go
back to back like a.
Speaker 1: Yep, like, yeah, we just crushed this, you know, unstoppable force. Yeah,
oh no, oh god, damn it one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I didn't know his whole backstor I didn't
know he was ranging guard. I knew who the ranging
Guard was, I didn't know he was part of it.
Speaker 1: That's really why I wanted to do it, is because
the things he did when he wasn't king was way cool.
Speaker 3: The king stuff is yeah, kind of the worst part. Yeah,
by far, he kind of shipped the bed there.
Speaker 1: Why do you go back to Norway? Totally different life.
He should have just taken his Ukrainian queen back to
the Byzantine Empire, enjoyed a good life. He didn't even
need a queen. He didn't. He could have just been
fucking around. He fucked up. He fucked up. He only
had two One was a Norwegian wife, one was a
Russian wife.
Speaker 3: Okay, so.
Speaker 1: All four alliances. That's what marriage was for then?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean did he was? He married to them
at the same time?
Speaker 1: I guess technically? Yeah, they ain't like divorce. Yeah, he's Christian.
Speaker 2: Different times, different zip codes, you know, different hoes in
different areas or different area codes. I should say zip codes, funny,
you can just cheat on your wife like eight blocks is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, area code is the more important. Who's today's to
keep them separated?
Speaker 2: Today's hitler, I don't know if they're I mean, Hargrotta
sounds like a yeah, he sounds like I think power
power is today Taylor.
Speaker 1: Power ruins a good man.
Speaker 2: Just don't just be happy what you have, especially because
for every man that does truly great things, even if
there is casualties to it. And I think like America
is a great country. But there's been sins, of course.
But uh, for every like great person, there's like forty
one hundred two hundred who try to be great, commit
all the sins that the great guys commit, but don't
end up great.
Speaker 1: So yeah, power power. Yeah. Anyway, that's our episode for today.
Make sure it checks out on Patreon, pageron dot com,
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Speaker 3: These are thick episodes too, right, We're talking hour, hour
and a half episode. Yeah, Yeah, a lot of content.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of content. I got a meat on
them bone, a lot of different stuff.
Speaker 2: It's just you getting a shit ton of Evergreen content.
But you can pick through whatever you want at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some episodes are fifty five minutes though, so I
don't want to overpromise. Yeah, we're going I'll tell you what.
It's between fifty and an hour and a half. Pretty
cool we shoot for yeah, you know, sometimes we get crazy.
Sometimes we'll have Jake on and he'll go it to it.
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, So make sure to check that out.
We love you guys. If you're just joining us, If
you made it this far, thank you. Hope to see
you back and Boosh, thanks for joining us. Man always
a pleasure, appreciate it. Yep. For Alex Buscemi, Rob Fox,
I'm Damnadgester. You just got saucered