Viking warriors regularly engaged in a formalized poetic insult contest known as flyting, which was essentially the medieval Norse equivalent of a brutal rap battle.

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Viking warriors regularly engaged in a formalized poetic insult contest known as flyting, which was essentially the medieval Norse equivalent of a brutal rap battle. Competitors would trade highly structured verses filled with devastating personal attacks, accusing each other of cowardice, sexual perversion, and general incompetence in front of a cheering audience in the mead hall. Even their highest deities engaged in this nonsense, with mythological stories detailing the trickster god Loki crashing a divine banquet just to ruthlessly roast every single god in the room until they threatened him with violence. Before they went out to plunder villages and conquer new territories, these terrifying bearded marauders made absolutely sure they could completely destroy their enemies with well-timed, rhyming yo-mama jokes