Balts

they came from all over the region as well.

So they're Ukrainians, Belarusians, Balts, Finns, Romanians, Slovakians, Kazakhs, Georgians, English.

I mean, the list goes on.

The type of people that represent various creeds and nationalities, right? But they all chipped in and they're all in this horrible situation together.

And I think a point to really highlight is something you just said, which is this force is beginning to morph into the land-based Jeff.

The joint expeditionary force that the Brits organized with the Nordics and the Balts and others is more on the sea.

It's more of a naval thing.

At least that's how it certainly started.

Fatsia Navo.

Diluted today, still found sporadically in Russians, Balts, Rhodopians, Kurds, Gilani, Alawis, Samaritans, Druze, quite the Gog and Magog combination here.

But glad we're back up to the 4,000 average.

Let's get these last three, 5Ks only.

This episode is a little different.

We're going to talk about history, death, ancient Baltic beliefs, and why we have a rather complicated relationship with Halloween or church stealing our traditions.

Or more precisely, why we find its modern commercial version to be an extraordinary pile of plastic bullshit.

But this isn't simply an opportunity for us to complain, although naturally we will.

It's about understanding why we are the way we are at Nekros, why spirits appear throughout our stories, why Baltic and Lithuanian folklore matters to us, why we speak about death so openly and why we believe that some traditions deserve to be remembered rather than replaced by whatever happens to be fashionable this October.

And along the way, we'll explore a little science, a little mythology, and some rather uncomfortable facts about what happens when death becomes an industry.

So whether you're here because you love our fragrances, you're curious about the strange world we've built around them, or you simply enjoy questioning things everybody else accepts without thinking, welcome.

Today we are going somewhere rather different.

really, for Scandinavian kings to start crusading in earnest against their neighbours.

And this is brilliant because they've been fighting the Slavs and the Balts in the Baltic since time immemorial.

They love doing that.

That's one of their favourite things.

So if she thinks it'll be cheaper to defend France with a Ukraine under Russian occupation, well, good luck to her, because that is what Europe would face if the rest of Europe stop- stops defending Ukraine.

Without France, I agree, Ukraine will still be able to count on the help of the Poles, of the Balts, of the Germans, of the Brits, and of all the other countries who understand the threat.

But I think that, that is all...

Th- this is, again, this is rhetoric.

They were there in the First Crusade.

They were major participants in all four of the major ones in the Holy Land, and they were almost exclusively responsible for later Crusades in Baltic parts of Europe that converted the last pagans to Christianity in the 1300s.

Today's episode, I'm speaking to Thomas Williams, former curator at the British Museum, and author of God's Hammer: A History of the Viking Crusades.

We discuss how Scandinavians went from being Christianity's most terrifying enemies to some of its most enthusiastic holy warriors within two months, how Norse King Harald Hardrada, who tried to conquer England on the eve of the Norman invasion in 1066, also served as a Byzantine mercenary across the Mediterranean and may have policed the pilgrimage routes to Jerusalem 60 years before the First Crusade, and why Vladimir of Kiev, who in 988 had his choice of religions to convert to, he could have become Muslim or Catholic or Orthodox, chose Byzantine Christianity over Islam because he said, "Drinking is the joy of the Russes." We see how Norwegian King Sigurd fought his way through the Mediterranean six years after the First Crusade to help capture the major port city of Sidon and receive a splinter of the True Cross, and how it could have only been the Viking Christians to be able to conquer the Baltic north of Europe and convert them to Christianity.

We see that crusading gave the violence that had always defined Norse culture a new legitimacy and a new set of enemies, and they found a way to be Vikings and Christians at the same time.

Hope you enjoy this discussion with Thomas Williams.

I mean, this gets to the heart of what we really mean when we, when we use the term Viking.

It's thrown around a lot, and it, it is very notoriously difficult to define in any easy way.