THEY came, they saw, they pillaged — and their women wore bras.

Swedish researchers claim Viking women were the first in Western civilisation to look for a little support at home while their menfolk were off in their longboats.

Archaeologist Annika Larsson from the University of Uppsala says a find at Birka near Stockholm proves that the original brassieres were "designed to give lift and shape to the breast but were banned with the arrival of Christianity, which regarded their wearing as a pagan ritual".