The Vikings and Celts DID NOT have DREADLOCKS : Viking hair history myths and Burning Man

I cannot count the number of (white) Burners who've told me that their Burning Man festival hair plans involve dreadlocks, and that Viking dreadlocks were a thing so it's okay. As a professional hairstylist and fashion historian, I can confidently tell you that this is a historical myth. Everything we know about the history of Viking hair contradicts it. Did the Vikings have dreadlocks (or the Celts)? The answer is a resounding NO. Did dreadlocks come from Vikings? Definitely no. Did Ragnar Lothbrok have dreadlocks, as shown in the Vikings TV show? All the historical facts say no. Dreadlocks are not a Viking hairstyle. If you're wondering how to do Viking hair, dreadlocks are not the answer.

We don't know as much as we'd like to about the history of Viking hair in the early middle ages, but we do know some about their historical hair techniques! Vikings hair routines involved daily combing, which is an important part of medieval hair care, and isn't how you care for locs. Hairstyles and grooming seemed very important to Viking age Norse history. So what hairstyles did the Vikings have? There were some very interesting Viking haircuts including the "reverse mullet", and probably some braids as well. The only reference we have to a Viking wearing matted hair is in a Saga that just emphasizes how important daily combing was to Norse culture! This is one of many Viking history myths that has been perpetuated in the modern day for unjust reasons.

So, if you're wondering how to do Viking dreadlocks . . . the answer is "don't". Just don't. Viking dreads did not exist. Choose a different Viking haricut or hairstyle, it will be far more historically accurate and not based in racism and cultural appropriation. Look for Viking hairstyle tutorials that don't rip off African braiding techniques, and show respect for Black people by understanding the harm that this myth does today.

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Some further reading/watching!

Chapters :
0:00 Ugh, white people with "dreads".
1:06 Understanding what "locs" are
2:38 Some myths about locs
4:55 The Celts did not have "hair like snakes"
5:50 Ancient Celtic hairstyles
6:38 Renaissance Irish hair
8:09 A great Viking history course!
9:27 Actual Viking hairstyles
10:34 The historical evidence goes directly against Viking dreadlocks.
12:30 The Polish plait
13:41 This myth is pure cultural appropriation
15:06 The modern day impact matters more than history
16:05 Some better hairstyle options

Attributions :

[SnappyDragon]

Pinned comment with important info, links, and further reading!
Follow me on IG for more stitchy business : @missSnappyDragon
For business inquiries, send an e-mail to : SnappyDragon at TBHonestSocial dot Com
I do not take personal costume/sewing or research commissions.

Want to send me letters? Send mail to PO Box 3884, Berkeley CA, 94703! Letters and cards only please 💚

Some further reading/watching!

[rudetuesday]

Thanks, V.! I'm a Black person with dreadlocks. I've been called into work meetings about my hair, encouraged to wear a wig by strangers, and otherwise insulted. I would not care nearly so much about non-Black people wearing dreadlocks if the cost weren't so high for us.


*The cost is the disrespect towards our heritage of hairstyles and how much our hair means to us. We lose history this way. The names of our braid styles are changed when they end up fashion runways and on non-Black celebrities. Remember "boxer braids" trending high? Those are cornrows or canerows, depending on one's people. I've heard Yoruba people refer certain braided styles as "Didi", which would have been lovely to know as I was growing up.

[ThatgeekNolan]

Just a heads’ up from a classics scholar: the word barbarian was actually borrowed into Latin from the Ancient Greek “bárbaros” which described the sounds of other languages. Because they couldn’t understand them, they used “bar bar” as the modern equivalent of “blah blah.”

[historicalsimscraft]

Former archaeology student here with a focus on Iron Age and Roman Gaul! Your explanation of the science behind the lime-spiked hairstyle was excellent. I want to add more though, because one of my historical pet peeves is how the archaeological evidence for Gallic hairstyles and what people think they wore is so... completely mismatched. People imagine men and women with long flowing hair, men putting their hair up in Suebian knots, and women braiding their hair in elaborate plaits. But the archaeology says otherwise.

Pre-Roman Gallic hairstyles for men seem to have included that spiky shaggy cut (appears on lots of Greek and Roman depictions), the reverse mullet look (the Mšecké Žehrovice head sculpture and Tarasque de Noves), and other short to medium-short styles, worn loose or combed back (seen on, for example, the Entremont heads and many Celtic coins). Curly Greek-style hairstyles show up on coins a lot, so these may have been popular for aristocratic men. For women, despite the stereotype being long flowing hair... most sculptures I've seen of women have very practical shoulder-length hair? The Dying Gaul and His Wife is a good example of this. If someone knows a pre-Roman depiction of longer hair on Gallic women please leave a comment!

Romanized Gallic and British hairstyles are similar to pre-Roman ones with some slight differences. Search "Gallo-Roman bust" or "Gallo-Roman statue" or "Romano-British bust" and you will find dozens of depictions of men with a Beatles-style bowl cut. It seems like it was just really popular among Romanized Celtic men. For women, I think the best place to look is depictions of Epona. Epona has a lot of statues, which gives a wide variety of hairstyles. Almost all the ones I've seen have that pre-Roman shoulder-length sillhouette. Sometimes it's actually shoulder-length. Sometimes it's long but pinned up to have the same shape. Kind of like a Gallo-Roman version of how longhaired women in the 20's and 30's pinned their hair to look short!

There is one counter-example I can think of that shows a Gaul with wild, long hair. This is Julius Caesar's triumphal coin depicting Vercingetorix on one side. Presumably it depicts Vercingetorix as he was when he was executed... after years of imprisonment. The depiction of a wild, longhaired man is at completely at odds with Vercingetorix's own minted coins. The Gallic coins show a cleanshaven man with short curly hair that may have been modeled (according to my books on Gallic coins) after Greek patterns. What Caesar's coin is not at odds with, however, is the Roman stereotype of Gauls as wild, longhaired, foreign barbarians.

People's myths about historical hair are interesting. I think they say a lot about how we relate ourselves to history.

[FBK]

Irish did have braid and roped style hair. Expand your sources and visit some places in Ireland outside of Dublin. There is plenty of actual evidence of Irish celts and what they wore.

[frostflaggermus]

As a Norwegian, thank you so much for this video. I'm SO TIRED of people constantly misrepresenting my ancestors through bad costume design and highly unlikely and culturally appropriating hairstyles. Yes, Vikings tv show, I'm glaring at you.

[kstar]

I would actually like to learn about actual historical European hairstyles. That would be fun to learn interesting things to do with my hair, and just general knowledge

[SIC]

Thank you! I am a Dane and Iron Age and Viking Age interpreter at museums of almost 20 years. For the last 6-8-ish years people's ideas of how Vikings looked, lived and thought - incl. the tattoo myth - has gotten so far from the truth.
To the point where I have chosen to step mostly down from interpreting, because droves of new interpreters are basically all people, who just want to reenact the Vikings series. And us teachers are thought of as weird nerds doing boring things.
That. Is. Not. History. Or proper teaching and history. It is live roleplay.

[legenderry]

as a black person I dont give a shit about what hair anybody wants to wear... you shouldnt either..

[thepupil]

Greetings, interesting video. I'm a black South African living in South Africa and I think a lot of people need to chill. Come to Africa, we'll give you our food, our clothes, a full experience of our culture. We have white people here in South Africa who live like traditional Zulu People, we celebrate them! They are having fun, enjoying with us the things we love. This happens all over Africa, I believe other continents too. This whole issue of appropriation is something I believe started in America and has infected the entire would. Grow your locs brothers and sisters. We are all one. Culture is a way of life, a value system, and a tool for expression and documenting history. Adopt it and leave it as you please, you're creating a new heritage for your family and its diverse influences will tell of the life you lived, that's the point of culture!

[seraphinasullivan]

Also, re: traditional cultural hairstyles

The Inupiat women living on the Bering Strait (i've only seen it in photos of women from King Island and Cape Prince of Wales) wore their hair in two side braids that would merge into one at the centerfront to form a Y-shaped braid. This seems more common among married women as girls seem to have had the more universal style of side braids tied into loops near the ears. If I had to guess, the Y-shaped braid was intended to keep as much hair as possible out of a baby's reach since babies were carried on their moms' backs and under all their clothes

Inupiat men typically wore their hair in a tonsure-like style, with the crest shaved and the rest kept uniformly short. Likely this had to due with reducing irritation from a heavy hood (our hair is famously coarse and has a lot of lift and tying hair back was considered womanly thing; men kept their hair in place with headbands). Sometimes, men allowed certain locks of hair to grow longer, typically by the ears or at the back and especially if it had a bit of a curl, and i've found an old photo of a Yup'ik (neighboring nations to ours with similar cultures) man with a full-blown mullet.

[BartonFamilyChannel]

My grandmother is Scottish born and raised and her people did in fact have locs. The celts and highlanders all had versions of locs. My great, great, great grandmother wore locs for many years.

[Mister_Beard]

you might wanna read up on actual history regarding the cleanliness of the scandinavians during the viking age. medieval europeans is an extremely wide net to cast to describe Europe. A man woman from muslim spain, a man or woman from the european side of the Uralmountains, a man or a woman in Konstantinopel or a man or a woman from Trondheim in Norway all had very different ideas of cleanliness.

[mikaylaeager]

As someone who works in the desert without regular access to showers (botanist), I was really looking forward to seeing some cool European based heat/damage resistant hairstyles! That ended felt like a cliffhanger for a part two…

[ryanmorse]

Now im a black person with locs. I love my hair and see it more important than almost anything. Now, personally I think that if anyone wants to wear locs and they have the hair to they should. As for cultural appropriation, black culture, and all that I don’t think that I am oppressed and I am not offended simply by a non black person having them. As for ancient non black people wearing locs if they did cool if they didn’t cool. Honestly I don’t think that cultural appropriation is as much of a problem that we think it is. It’s not that deep it’s just hair of you want locs and ur not black you have my blessing.

[Siijiska]

Thanks!
As a Swede, it's rather interesting to see the discussion about elaborate "Viking hair" and dreads parallell with how lots of Swedish people talk about their hair in general. Having "typically Nordic hair" is something people tend to complain about. This kind of hair is often naturally blonde up into adulthood, which is otherwise quite uncommon, but also very thin, very straight, and often really hard to make into any kind of lasting braids or buns. So the big thick lusciously braided blonde Viking hairstyles seems like such an obvious fantasy thing to me.

Lumps and tangles resembling the Polish plait you showed, absolutely, thin fine straight hair does those (which would explain the viking habit of combing it through daily). I've had many as a child. But those are certainly not locs.

[Axe_Slinger]

In particular, there is
evidence of early cultures that practiced a form of hair braiding in the Scandinavian region, but whether those traditions survived to the Viking Age is unknown.

Viking Era Graves have been discovered with "tightly braided hair" as well as it has been written in their historical records. The likely reason for it was they grew their hair long and needed to keep the hair out of their eyes during battle!

[deehappy]

I would love some more knowledge on European based protective styles.

[plumreid]

Thank you for explaining that locks (and braids) are washed. The belief that Black people don't wash their hair is strange and harmful. Your definition of cultural appropriation was extremely accurate and detailed. I also appreciate you mentioning that Black people have had issues being accepted and hired due to their hair. I grew up in the 70's and 80's. My hair was chemically relaxed since 4th grade. I've worn it natural for the past 3 years, which involved growing out and cutting off all the relaxed parts. In my profession, I wouldn't have been able to wear my hair like this 10 years ago. Normalizing natural hair and protections like the Crown Act have been wonderful and freeing. Thank you for your kind, well researched, and accurate words! Also, you're correct, non-coily hair does not lock. It's doing something entirely different.

[Minnehotness]

Hi, black woman with natural hair who has had locs twice here. I came here curious to learn how Vikings and Celts wore their hair from a white woman and thoroughly appreciate that you sent viewers to learn about black hair from *gasp* black people. More of this please! I do find historical hairstyles fascinating and thank you for clearing up a few things in the video, my first of yours. <3