by Neil Price;
The central ‘living room’ of domestic buildings—whether the spacious chamber of a hall or the more cramped environs of a smaller hut or urban house—was poorly lit even in daytime. Illumination would come in via the door, in very rare cases through a small window covered in skin or shuttered, or as a shaft of light from a smoke hole. Oil lamps of clay, stone, or metal might be used, resting on a flat surface or pinned into the walls, their wicks giving a soft light. The main source of illumination, and heat, was the central hearth, banked up around stones and enclosed in a sturdy frame to prevent loose sparks straying—fire being a major hazard for all wooden buildings.
In the evenings, the fireplace was the community focus. This was the main cooking space where all meals were prepared, either in clay vessels laid directly in the embers, grilled and fried in iron pans, or suspended over the hearth in cauldrons on chains or tripods. Most of the pottery was very basic, but some used better-quality Slavic black wares. A wealthier home might have one or two ceramic vessels from the Continent, especially from Germany, that had come overland via the Danish border. These included glazed jugs, bowls, a kind of sieve, and even a type of Rhineland pottery decorated with silvery foil that would have glittered, especially when wet.
Meals were consumed around the comforting flames. When it comes to Viking food culture, somehow we still seem stuck with the tavern scenes of medieval movies, where everybody is roaring drunk or laughing heartily, tearing at hunks of meat with their teeth while a fight breaks out in the background. The reality was very different and included a varied and sophisticated cuisine.
Table manners were respected. Everybody in the Viking world carried a pocket knife—a small utilitarian item for everyday needs and especially for eating. Utterly ubiquitous, they are found in almost every burial, some richer examples embellished with decoration but all with the same practical purpose. As important as a knife was a hone to sharpen it on. These too have been recovered by the thousands, small rectangles of stone, often pierced with a loop for suspension. Many were merely practical, but others were made of banded, multicoloured slate chosen for its functional beauty. Regardless of appearance, whetstones remained an essential part of the everyday toolkit.
Large, pronged meat forks were used to serve from cauldrons and other big cooking vessels, but table forks for individuals were not known. Spoons and ladles were made of wood or horn, often decorated, and much of the food would be at least semi-liquid in the form of thick broths and stews, porridge, and gruel.
In simple households, food was served in wooden bowls or on platters. The better-quality tableware was turned on a lathe, resulting in a smooth surface with a pleasing grain; markets did a roaring trade in such products, which were produced by specialists with equipment to match. A more basic alternative was the hand-carved or hollowed-out wooden bowl, crude but effective, and perhaps with its own charm. Wooden plates and cutting surfaces would have been the norm even in higher-status households, although perhaps with carved decoration. A very few might have had metal dishes. For some meals, bread could be used effectively as a plate, soaking up the food placed on it before being eaten.
A whole doctoral thesis has been written just on Viking bread, and it is in the details of daily life like this that the vividness of their world really emerges. From graves and settlement contexts all over central Sweden, but especially from the Birka burials, at least nine distinctive types of bread are known. There were rectangular loaves baked in a form; round loaves threaded on a thin wire; oval buns; thin, soft, and foldable flatbreads made on a circular griddle pan—rather like a sort of Nordic tortilla to be stuffed with food; thin, circular wheels of dry, crisp flatbread with a central hole so they could be hung up for storage (you can still buy these all over Scandinavia today); at least two different kinds of biscuits; little balls of fried dough; and crunchy figure-of-eight-shaped snacks that resemble pretzels or, more particularly, the Swedish nibbles still called kringlor. They made their bread with hulled barley and oats, sometimes wheat for the thinner forms, and very occasionally rye.
The bread was made in familiar ways, all of which can be traced in the material culture of baking. The corn was ground into flour between rotary quern stones; dough was kneaded in wooden troughs, rolled and flattened, formed with the hands and in moulds. Some of it had pricked patterns on the surface (the iron dockers to make them have been found). Dough could be poached in boiling water, fried on long-handled griddle pans, or baked in clay ovens. One can even see how many times different loaves and cakes were turned, and whether they liked them with rounded sides, soft and chewy, or dry and crisp. At least some bread seems to have been flavoured with herbs, or with seeds sprinkled on top for decoration and flavour. But we do not yet know how typical this was: was Birka baking famed far and wide, could you get much the same anywhere, or did each region have its own traditions?
Meat was a popular part of the diet, judging from bone debris with characteristic butchery marks, found in middens and pits. Vikings ate mutton, goat, beef, and seem to have especially liked pork. Arab travellers in the East remarked how much the Scandinavians enjoyed this meat; not least, it was what was served to the dead heroes in Valhöll. Chickens were kept for both eggs and their flesh, while ducks, geese, and other waterfowl were hunted. Finds of narrow meat spits show that a kind of kebab was on offer at the supper table, and there were bigger versions resembling a sort of meat-spear for holding really large joints to roast over the fire. Elk and reindeer provided lots of tasty protein, and boar meat was prized. Sea mammals, including both seals and whales, could provide a nourishing supplement. Many kinds of freshwater fish were caught, and even deep-sea species were known. Herbs were grown in cottage gardens and used for flavouring food of all kinds. Bees were kept for honey. Milk products from cows, sheep, and goats included cheeses, whey, and soured dairy run-offs that could also be used as an alternative to salt for storing meat over the winter. They ate the delicious cultured dairy product called skyr, still popular in Iceland today as a sort of thick yogurt-like snack, sour but with a slight edge of sweetness (try it, if you can find some). Berries were widely available to pick in the woods (put them in your skyr!), along with mushrooms and tubers.
Unfortunately, only a little is known of what exactly the Vikings did with all this bounty. There are no runic recipes, but the sheer variety of food on offer suggests that the Scandinavians were no less creative in the kitchen than they were anywhere else. Given the influx of foreign traders and other influences from abroad, which intensified during the Viking Age, there is no reason to assume this did not include food customs. At least in the market centres, and maybe brought back to the countryside if people fancied a change, there were probably ‘ethnic’ dishes available. One also imagines that a foreign servant on the farm might make an innovative contribution around the cooking pit, perhaps longing for a taste of home.
All this was accompanied by ale, and mead made with honey. Both were drunk from horns, or tankards made of leather or wood. Custom sometimes dictated that these were emptied in one go, but there are also many textual references to a horn being passed around. Perhaps in irritated response to seeing the Christian blessing, in the late Viking Age there are descriptions of people making a hammer sign to Thor over their cup before drinking.
Milk was a weaker alternative, and perhaps stream water if available. On special occasions, beor may have been drunk, not really beer as the name implies, but apparently a kind of sweet concoction like a fruity wine, consumed from small cups. Some beverages were certainly very strong. Travellers from the Caliphate saw them drinking something that was rendered in Arabic as nabīdh, clearly alcoholic but of uncertain nature. People began to reel after a cup or two. At the funeral of a leader, which may have been an exceptional occasion in many ways, one such visitor saw people drinking solidly for ten days and noted that they sometimes died like this, with a beaker in their hands. He does not seem to have been exaggerating.
Wine was certainly known among
the elites, as it had been from Roman times, although as an imported commodity it was both expensive and rare. In the richest graves there are delicate glasses brought in (or looted) from Frankia and elsewhere on the Continent. Sometimes they have been painstakingly repaired with metal clips, indicating how valued they were, not only in themselves but as status symbols for people who could afford to drink wine and acquire the paraphernalia that went with it. These vessels were often conical in shape and so could not be set down on a table. This has sometimes been taken to mean that even wine was drunk in one draught like ale, but more likely the glasses were either held constantly (and ostentatiously?) in the hand or else supported on some kind of wooden stand—another little window on etiquette. They held slightly less than a regular wine-glass today, in contrast to some bracing examples from the Migration Period that held more than half a modern bottle.
The Viking view of drinking reached its ultimate expression in the afterlife, as seen in the description of Valhöll, Odin’s hall of immortal warriors. In the Eddic poem Grímnir’s Sayings, the einherjar, as the dead men are called, are served ale from horns carried to them at the benches by the Valkyries. But the host himself, presiding over the nightly banquet of the slain, never even has to eat: “On wine alone does weapon-glorious Odin live”. In the table manners of the ruler of the gods, we find the Vikings’ ultimate fantasy of high-end luxury.
The consumption of food and drink was in due course followed by other needs (except perhaps in Valhöll). In the countryside, nature provided its own open-air lavatories, but on settlements, latrines were usually dug as deep pits in the vicinity of the dwelling structures. In urban settings, they were in the backyards. Often lined with wickerwork for stability, they sometimes had a stick or—the grand option—even a holed plank over the top to sit on. When almost full, the pits were simply filled in and sealed, and a new one was dug nearby. They are among the most unpleasant elements of early medieval life to excavate, especially if the ground is waterlogged, thus preserving everything inside the latrines in pristine condition, still moist and with its original bouquet; I once spent a nasty week trying to hold my breath while digging to the base of one in York. Inside are the clumps of moss used as toilet paper, the scraps of cloth that were the Viking equivalent of sanitary towels, and, occasionally, all manner of other objects that people had dropped while otherwise engaged but sensibly decided not to retrieve. Latrines are also an environmental archaeologist’s dream: coprolites (preserved faeces) can be tested for intestinal parasites, reconstructing Viking-Age gut flora and health; remains of seeds, proteins, and other food detritus give clues to diet.
Around the meal, while some people discreetly went outside, others used the light of the hearth to carry on household tasks that did not require close vision, and, of course, they talked. There were also board games to play, such as hnefatafl, in which the aim was to take the king in strategic manoeuvres with pieces made of bone, antler, or glass. The hearth was also the arena of stories—in humble farmers’ homes just as in the skaldic theatre of the halls. Musical instruments have been occasionally found, including the simplest wooden whistles and pan pipes, sometimes the bridge of a stringed lyre—these kinds of tones would have accompanied poetic recitals.
Children ran about and played, as they always have, and toys have been found on a number of sites: miniature wooden horses, one of them on wheels; wooden boats (several of these, so they must have been popular); balls made of rags; also some monster masks of cloth and leather, although they may have instead served some ritual purpose. There are even small swords and other weapons, made of wood and scaled down for tiny hands but following the same typologies of design as the contemporary adult versions; in other words, children wanted swords that looked like the ones that faðir—or, just possibly, móðir—had. From eleventh-century deposits in Lund, southern Sweden, archaeologists have even found fragments of a toddler-sized chair made of beech, with a wooden dowel that could be fixed in place across the front to prevent a little Viking from getting out. It is the earliest children’s furniture to have survived in Europe.
These rooms were also very smoky. We know this not least from saga descriptions, which were probably based on medieval halls with essentially the same internal conditions. In the Saga of Hrólf kraki, for example, a woman has to leave the room urgently, and a friend excuses her behaviour by saying that she had become sickened by the smoke from the hearth; nobody is surprised to hear this. Clearly, fresh air was a necessity for everyone at some point in the evening.
When it was time for bed, the outer door was bolted or locked for security. In modest houses people just slept communally on the benches, or curled up by the hearth tucked in blankets. In the larger halls, privacy could be found behind interior screens, and there were even beds. These were quite short by modern standards, although Viking-Age people were of average stature in comparison with today’s Europeans. Their beds were probably more to sit up in, bolstered by pillows and coverlets. In the sleeping alcoves of the later Icelandic longhouses, people clearly slept seated or on their sides with their legs drawn up. In the burials of the rich, we find cushions and duvets stuffed with down, providing luxurious winter warmth. In these contexts, feathers from chickens and crows have been found, and in the bedding of the highest elites, even from eagle-owls. In a high-status tenth-century grave from Mammen in Denmark, there was a special pillow that dipped in the centre but had extra stuffing either side; it could have been folded around the neck and shoulders for comfort.
In the morning, most people might wash quickly in one of the many bowls or basins that stood about, and comb their hair—hardly the stuff of unkempt Viking legend. Archaeology indicates a relatively high regard for personal hygiene. Combs, in particular, were a universal possession, made of bone or antler and kept in a special case to protect the finely cut teeth. They came in many shapes and sizes, often richly decorated, and their manufacture was a major industry that fed into long-distance trade in raw materials. One specialist in these objects goes so far as to place their design, crafting, and use at the centre of what he calls a “Viking way of life”. Combs also attracted a rich symbolism, used to signify the individual and her or his presence. Finds of deliberately broken comb cases buried in the postholes of military buildings suggest an oath to remain in place: ‘Here I stand’.
A much-quoted Oxfordshire chronicler, writing around 1220 but working from older sources, recorded that Viking men arriving in England combed their hair every day, washed once a week, regularly changed their clothes, and “drew attention to themselves by many such frivolous whims”—behaviour so astonishing that the English women preferred them to their husbands. Even the rare surviving three-dimensional images of Viking-Age men, such as a famous carved antler portrait from Sigtuna in Sweden, show carefully twirled moustaches and long hair neatly curled at the neck. Other depictions have men with straight-combed hair to their shoulders, and beards both tightly clipped and brushed to a goatee; one example shows dreadlocks and long beards. In the East, a Scandinavian commander in Byzantium was described as having a shaved head except for two long locks beside his ears, his ensemble topped off by a big red carnelian earring.
Women’s hair is often depicted in a standard manner in the art: worn long and knotted behind in a loose ponytail. In some cases, the trailing hair reaches almost to the heels. Occasionally we have imagery that shows women from the front rather than in profile, and it seems the hair is then drawn to both sides in voluminous pigtails. There are other depictions of a centre parting and hair pulled back in a tight bun. What all these hairstyles have in common is that they are both careful and deliberate.
Personal grooming did not stop there. When an Arab soldier-diplomat called Ah.mad ibn Fad.lān encountered Vikings on the Volga in 922, he noted how “each man, from the tip of his toes to his neck, is covered in dark-green lines, pictures and such like”. He must be writing of tattoos, apparently universal (each man) and full-body. This is in an eastern context
, but the group had travelled there from Scandinavia.
Some men also filed their teeth. Research on Viking-Age cemeteries has turned up a remarkable discovery that a consistent 5–10 percent of the males, most of whom died under the age of forty, had dental modification. This took the form of V-profiled grooves cut into the enamel of the front teeth, making horizontal lines and occasionally chevrons. Some men had just one line, others several, sometimes on the same tooth. The grooves were probably coloured in with resin, visible as red lines across the teeth. A Viking grin would have been something to behold.
7. Dental modification. Horizontal grooves filed into the enamel of a Viking-Age man’s front teeth; this example from Vannhög, Sweden. Photo by Staffan Hyll, courtesy of Caroline Ahlström Arcini.
Dental modification seems to have been an exclusively male attribute and, furthermore, was confined to a specific constituency—those associated with ports of trade, stations on the travel networks of the Viking world, and the sea. In other words, the men who filed their teeth belonged to that portion of the Viking-Age community who lived on the move. The practice continued for at least two centuries; men could get their teeth filed in different patterns and on several successive occasions. It was a form of body art to which one added over time. What it meant is another matter about which we can only speculate, but it does seem likely that dental modification was in some way reflective of a particular lifestyle and, perhaps, of achievements within it. One thinks of traditional sailors’ tattoos from more recent times, with variations for the seas a person had sailed, the styles and motifs relating to time spent in particular ports, and so on. Or did the filed grooves indicate something else—a mark of rank, of initiation or group affiliation, or even the number of enemies slain? It is hard to resist the notion that these markings in some way relate to a properly ‘Viking’ life in the exact sense of the term. There is little reason to suppose that tooth-filing always sent the same signals—there may have been many subtle variations of meaning that are opaque to us now, but were once easily intelligible to those in the know.
