From an answer to the question how did people cut their finger- and toenails before the invention of the nail clipper. Another commenter insists that the ship was made of the untrimmed nails of the dead. And that sounds right:
In Norse mythology, Naglfar or Naglfari (Old Norse "nail ship") is a boat made entirely from the fingernails and toenails of the dead. During the events of Ragnarök, Naglfar is foretold to sail to Vígríðr, ferrying hordes that will do battle with the gods... The boat itself has been connected by scholars with a larger pattern of ritual hair and nail disposal among Indo-Europeans, stemming from Proto-Indo-European custom....
In the Poetic Edda... the enthroned figure of High... describes the composition of Naglfar as that of the untrimmed nails of the dead, and warns about burying the dead with untrimmed nails, stating that "the ship is made of dead people's nails, and it is worth taking care lest anyone die with untrimmed nails, since such a person contributes much material to the ship Naglfar which gods and men wish would take a long time to finish".
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I always hated the sensation of a nail file. I turned to biting off my fingernails, before a spouse shamed me into using a nail clipper.
Plus no groups of east asian women had made it to Scandinavia at that time.
Vikings believed that one should not cut one's nails, as nail clippings would add to the ship made of the fingernails of the dead which plays a role in Ragnarok
This claim is hard to square with other Norse sources (the use of Vikings to stand in for the medieval Norse is a give-away of non-rigorousness, btw).
For example when the sons of Ragnar Hairy-Breeks learned of his death at the hands of Aella, King of Mercia, one of them, Einar, was paring his fingernails with a knife. He was so shocked by the details (Ragnar was thrown into a pit of starving wolves) that he cut the tip of his finger off. (If the story sounds familiar it's because it inspired a Kirk Douglas movie.)
David, I'm laughing.
(I'm also wondering how Althouse go to this particular topic)
Early man used his fingernails as a tool, so they were probably worn down from use. Following that period, once man had tools at his disposal (even those made of stone) he would have bitten his nails or possibly filed them on a rough stone or pumice.
https://www.quora.com/What-did-people-do-about-their-nails-before-nail-clippers-existed
Toenails are the real challenge. Anyone can bite off a fingernail, but it takes real dexterity and focus to bite off a toenail.......Did the Vikings use hallucogenic drugs. The whole concept of ships made from the nail clippings of the dead is not a thought that occurs to sober men. Did they use ear wax to make votive candles?
They probably just pealed them off as I do. Clippers Bah.
It's little things like nail clippers that make life livable. The things we take for granted such as soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes, nail clippers and toilet paper. When doing without them we are back to a feral state. It's the little things that make civilization.
The nail fetish makes a lot more sense than body Tattoos do
Wikipedia claims that scissors were invented circa 1500 BCE, and it is certainly true that Vikings had scissors since scissors have been recovered by archeologists from Viking midden heaps in York (Jorvik, to the Vikings). Scissors can be used in lieu of nail clippers to trim nails.
"(I'm also wondering how Althouse go to this particular topic)"
I got onto a Reddit page of frequently asked question about history and that question jumped out at me and I found the mythology about the ship very interesting.
I was at the Reddit page because I was thinking about the question "How did it come about that men wear pants and women wear skirts?"
I got onto that topic as I was looking for something related to "'I will make you proud of your party and our movement. That's what it is, a movement.'/Insert obvious joke." That's in the post about Trump's speech.
I remember seeing, at Urban Dictionary, for "movement": "2. The brown stuff that goes down the drain after you pull the handle and hear that "flush" sound./Sarah Palin: We had quite a movement in Nashville, can you smell it? Give me $100,000 and I'll jot some notes on my Redneck Teleprompter and tell you all about the movement."
I can't explain my thought processes from there to the skirts-and-pants question. That, I've forgotten.
Okay?
The things we take for granted such as soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes, nail clippers and toilet paper. When doing without them we are back to a feral state. It's the little things that make civilization.
In classical times paper (or more accurately what was used as paper — vellum, parchment, papyrus) was much too expensive to use for ass-wiping. The Romans used a sponge on a stick. Sponges were also expensive, so poor people re-used the same sponge as long as possible. This probably wasn't as nasty as it seems because the Romans lived primarily on whole wheat bread rich in natural fiber, so it's likely their stools were healthy and firm making the post-bm clean-up not so repulsive as ours tend to be. The Romans had an altogether healthier attitude to the body and the blunt facts of mortality in general than we do, at least until the Christ-mongers started to corrupt them. Part of the morning ritual was to stroll down to the neighborhood latrine where one would unload the bowels, greet one's friends, and pass gossip and news. A young senator seeking a quaestorship would spend a lot of time in the public lavatories glad-handing the shitters. Now that's honest politics. (Trump should try it just for shits and giggles.)
Before visiting the latrine the Roman would brush his teeth and rinse his mouth. They had no toothpaste, but they did have pumice in abundance, which they used as dentifrice. For mouthwash the well-groomed Roman would use his own urine. I realize that sounds incredibly disgusting, but keep in mind that piss is merely saline water and urea, which is a very effective antibacterial agent. The remains of the Pompeiian victims of Vesuvius show that even Roman slaves had beautiful teeth. They didn't have soap, either, yet they were personally clean. Even legionaries on Hadrian's Wall had daily access to a bath
It wasn't until the 17th century that paper was made in such quantities that people could afford to use it for that purpose, and even then it was typically done with recycled paper — kinda like the mail order catalogue in the outhouse.
There's an interesting story about how recycled paper was used in the WC. In the 1750's a certain Spanish gentleman, his name escapes me, was walking in the streets of Seville when he was taken short. He dashed into the first open shop and asked to use the lavatory. While in there he noticed a basket of waste paper sheets on offer for the necessary deed which had writing on them, the writing was in a beautifully clear clerical hand of the kind used by the royal court for official business. So he started reading some of them. It wasn't long before he realized the toilet paper was actually original records of the preparations for the 1588 Enterprise of England, i.e. the Armada, some of the sheets even had annotations, corrections, and signatures done by Philip II himself. He asked the shop keeper if there was anymore of that paper, and was told there was hundreds of pounds of it in a barn to the rear of the shop. Looking in that barn the gentleman discovered virtually the entire Escorial archive of the Armada expedition. Much of what we know of it today derives from that chance discovery.
A college freshman on my dorm hall in 1977 came from a family that believed in black magic, or satanism, or wicca, or something that was so odd I never inquired closely. He burned his facial hair and nail clippings in his dorm room, stating that allowing it out of his possession might allow someone to use it against him.
He also never bathed, leading to his roomie asking for another room after 5 or 6 weeks, and getting his request granted.
The unusual freshman did not make it back from Christmas break for second term. Nobody missed him in his less smelly absence.
And in Gargantua and Pantagruel, there is a wonderful chapter on evaluating the best thing to use to wipe one's bum after evacuation of the bowels. I recommend it to anyone interested in humor, or hygiene.
Prof. Althouse: "...I can't explain my thought processes from there to the skirts-and-pants question. That, I've forgotten."
Mercifully.
Quaestor: "...Looking in that barn the gentleman discovered virtually the entire Escorial archive of the Armada expedition. Much of what we know of it today derives from that chance discovery."
That is just amazing! Thanks.
Is there some deep cosmic symmetry there, with the underlying event (Armada) also "going to s***"?
PS: Anybody who wants a good read about the Armada, check out Garrett Mattingly's "The Armada." Wonderful.
To the best of my knowledge, the Viking Age nail scraper was only useful for cleaning nails and cuticles, and lacks any sort of file-like surfacing for scraping them down to length.
Any number of abrasives are available for people who don't wish to cut nails down - like, oh, a rock.
(Also, on Roman hygiene, Roman cities had running water in the outhouses via aqueducts wherever possible - thus the Sponge On A Stick was also, in the big cities, being rinsed between uses, quite thoroughly, as I understand it.)
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