The myth

Vikings wore hats with horns on.

The "truth"

They didn't. Eddie Grundy, from The Archers, does own a horned hat, but the Vikings never did. The foremost academic expert on the non-existent lids, Dr Roberta Frank of Yale University, author of The Invention of the Viking Horned Helmet (2000), speaking on BBC Radio 4 in 2005, was unequivocal: the Vikings never, ever got near such a thing. Indeed, it's hard to imagine why anyone would wear headgear with handles on when going into a hand-to-hand battle. It's generally thought that Viking warriors wore, if anything, simple leather helmets. Dr Frank blames the horns' popularity on Carl Emil Doepler, costume designer for the original 1876 production of Wagner's Ring. Instructed by Wagner to scour Danish and Swedish museums for inspiration, Doepler seems to have been a little casual with his historical precision; he might have been confused by the horned (but non-Viking) fi gure that appears on the Gundestrup Cauldron.

Sources

The Viking Way, BBC Radio 4, 2 Nov 2005;
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/viking_way/viking_way_20051102.shtml; Sunday Telegraph, 6 Nov 2005.

Disclaimer
Some evidence for ancient horned helmets does exist, but it's believed they were only used ceremonially and had gone out of fashion before the Viking age. But if you can give the Viking horns a pre-Wagnerian origin, please yell.