Within contemporary depictions of the Vikings, Scandinavia - which includes Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland - is portrayed as the sole focus on Viking life. In turn, this is often a denotation of homogenity in regards to what Vikings and Viking life looked like. Via Viking scholar Judith Jesch's understanding of the "Viking Diaspora (i.e "all locations where Vikings settled outside Scandinavia in a certain period of time," in addition to shared language and cultural elements), the Viking world also includes modern day Great Britain, Finland, Greenland, the Ukraine, Byzantium, Russia, the Iberian Penninsula, and more (Nordeide and Edwards 7-8).

Fabric and textiles were vital to the Vikings' ways of life. As scholar Ben Cartwright notes, "From sails, to sacking, cloth was a tradable asset, and the clothes that allowed individuals to go out into land and seascapes, textiles were central to a specific way of being in the world" (160). Cartwright further analyzes how fabric and textiles were essential not only to have sails for a boat or socks to keep you warm, but serve as a way to build relationships (i.e. there was no fast fashion back during the 9-11th centuries) and identity.

Charlotte Rimstad (one of the archaeologists who helped create/reconstruct the Beaver Fur Caftan amongst other clothing items) also mentions how critical clothing was to dividing and creating hierarchies amongst people along lines of occupation and class. As you choose from the images below, think about who would have worn these articles of clothing? What would their life have looked like? How much time, money to make this piece?

It is also critical to think about what survives here - and what does not. Textiles rarely survive from the Viking Age, and those that do are mostly found in small fragments. All of the images below are reconstructions of small parts of fabric that have been found in graves (or even just the assumed way the person would have dressed). It is critical here to think about the gap between what we can confidently know and how the below clothes are designed for us to view the Viking Age as.

Although today a bracelet just means a bracelet and necklace is just a necklace, it is important to note that during the Viking Age many accessories had more than just the purpose to look good. A pendant may represent a god (as the silver pendant down below may represent) and supernatural elements. Additionally, per 10th century scholar Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, brooches and other ornamentation were utilized to demonstrate social class (i.e. the bigger the better, the more the better). One must also remember who would have access to metals such as gold and silver, how many people would not have had such ornamentation.

While you now you get to pick a career of your choosing, there was typically no such luck during the Viking Age. For those who lived during the Viking Age in Scandinavia and/or the Viking Diaspora, "the majority. ..lived and worked as farmers, fishermen and craftspeople in small-scale societies that depended on self-sufficiency" (Rimstad 2021). While we may think of Vikings today as rugged indvidualists, these doesn't truly and fully reflect the lived experience (although obviously there was no singular way of life in the past).

Once again, there is no monolithic answer for what a Viking Age diet looked like. With "Vikings" living in modern day Spain to Greenland (and beyond), there no one way to eat like a Viking. Nevertheless, per the National Museum of Denmark, common dishes/courses one could find sometime during a Viking lifetime include apples, nuts, fish, sheep, goat, porridge, mead, beer and more. It is important to think of socioeconomic status in regards to what people could eat (i.e. your poor peasant probably isn't eating tertiary meat alot) and the person living miles away from fish may be sticking to eating other protein sources.

Would a Viking really say any of these over a meal? Maybe not. Some of these stories were either written by Christians (i.e not the Vikings) or written hundreds of years after these stories were told for the first time and in an overall more Christian society. However, this does give us the context that there was an oral history of storytelling - we just don't know the full extent.

Although there is plenty of structured time doing activities during the Viking Age, there are also personal chores and fun things to when times slow down. The various items below all come from various contexts, time periods, activities, and more. Yet, they all existed within this Viking Age framework.

Although a bit macabre, grave goods have been a vital source of information on the Viking Age. Burial goods can reveal trade patterns, objects of possible ceremonial/symbolic significance, reveal isotopic levels in bone (thus what people were eating over long period of time as well as immigration patterns), and more. While it is critical to remember that graves are just one moment in time for one individual, they nevertheless provide vastly important research data for archaeologists.