Sixteen members of the Viking battle association Rimmugýgur suffered great financial setbacks when a group of actresses, playing valkyries, poured red paint, symbolizing blood, over the group’s members while they were enacting a fight on June 17.
The actresses, who joined the fight on behalf of Hitt Húsid, a cultural center for young people, had meant for the fight to seem more realistic by pouring paint over the Vikings. The fight was part of the Icelandic National Day celebrations.
“These costumes are very expensive and in many cases they have priceless sentimental value,” the Vikings’ representative Helgi Ingason told Fréttabladid. They have requested compensation for the costumes, which are worth hundreds of thousands of ISK (ISK 100,000 = USD 1,600, EUR 1,200).
“We will pay the Vikings compensation if it turns out that their costumes were damaged,” said director of Hitt Húsid Markús H. Gudmundsson, adding: “We will pay our debts according to the Viking tradition.”
