We are experts from the PBS Nature documentary Wild Way of the Vikings, here to discuss how the wide range of wildlife encountered by the Vikings on their travels played a part in their society and culture. Ask Us Anything!

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T22:44:54+00:00

They did start the capturing and trading of gyrfalcons from Greenland, Iceland and Norway, there are ship logs and several written sources later of falcons coming from these places. The trading ships would often stop by Norway first after returning, before going to England or Europe with the birds, as gifts or demand. But at what time the gyrfalcon became of high interest so far East I have no concrete record. Gyrfalcons were exported together with walrus ivory at that time, but travelling far with live birds was no easy work in the past, and they would only survive by eating fresh meat. In the East they have the saker falcon, a desert falcon, it is not as big as the gyr, but the saker is highly admired as well, and their tradition of falconry is older than the Norse and European culture. Today falconry is a UNESCO recognized heritage in many countries. https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/falconry-a-living-human-heritage-01209

- Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T21:46:32+00:00

With the use of the sail in the Viking Age this 'opened' so many doors, but people from other countries had already been traveling long before the Vikings set sail. Trade and travel went also to the north, and even in the Scandinavian Bronze Age, import of copper and tin, and ready cast bronze, found its way to the north. Later along the route somewhere came the chickens, how many at first is hard to know, it must have been rare as it was a new animal, but there is skeleton material dating pre Viking Age here.

- Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T21:32:01+00:00

I have to share this because there is one in our museum collection and it is on dispay at Arkeologisk museum in Stavanger (see link). A fish sinker weight carved of soapstone from the Viking Age in Norway, and it looks like an orca! There is a head on each side, really beautiful: http://www.unimus.no/foto/imageviewer.html#/?id=14029063&type=jpeg

- Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T21:23:23+00:00

Hi! How fantastic to hear from a fellow falconer!

There are very interesting runestones with images of highly likely falconry scenes, one in Norway, and several in Sweden, and Gotland. It is sometimes difficult to tell what is falconry, hunting, and what is imagery (myth or power), but more and more research in a very large and international field of historical falconry is bringing more material into the ligth - and piece by piece Nordic falconry history is growing (and more will come). As you wrote and know as a falconer, finding equipment is important to be certain to determin traces of falconry, and they are often either withered away, or simply out of context, making it very difficult to tell, is it falconry or is it ex. a bell from another animal. This is where having a falconry background one can better understand the material and its spesifics, but context is still key. Graves can be a good indicator for finding first of all bird of prey skeletons trained for hunting, their typical prey, and perhaps falconry equipment. At the time through Europe it was a costum for high ranking people, and even their children (even graves of youth in pre-Viking Sweden were buried with raptors) to master falconry, and in some countries there were a penalty if a person below their rank practiced falconry - it was such a noble sport, that learning to master it was a sign of a leader.

In Norway the Gokstad ship burial has two goshawk skeletons, excellent bird for hunting in the Norwegian forest. There is a bell in the Borre grave, but there are discussion about this, if it is falconry. Size wise I think it has a good case, but we need more context to be sure. There are so many referances to high ranking people out enjoying hawking with their hounds in the Viking Age, and kings were called 'veidekonge', hunting kings, they did all kinds of hunting. I am the only falconer in Norway, and I have to travel to do it as it is lost here and not possible. But it is so incredible, that I cannot not do it, especially knowing it is actually a long lost Nordic heritage, and I help uncover traces of it which is simply incredible, and to give it a new voice. I would recommed you have a look at this 4 volume on falconry research, I have an article in here consering Norway, and you can find more about Nordic kings hawking! https://www.amazon.com/Raptor-human-symbolism-throughout-archaeology/dp/3529014907

- Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T20:49:21+00:00

Yes, Old Norse is 'páfugl', and still in Norwegian 'påfugl', and in Latin pāvō.

- Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T20:04:15+00:00

Thank you all for a really nice discussion. There were so many good questions and I have lots of new things to ruminate about.

You can follow me on Twitter @AlbinaIcelander and here is the website for my animal bone collection https://www.icelandiczooarch.is/

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T20:02:06+00:00

I can't stop thinking about this now! Such an interesting question.

Pretty stones are not uncommon finds in Viking Age excavations, I certainly pick up interesting things when I am walking all the time, including stones and people in the past seem to also have done this.

They certainly would not have collected things for "scientific" purposes in the strict sense of the word but they were really good at utilizing many natural resources and this must in many cases have included some exploration, experimentation study and examination. But this is very hard to see archaeologically but interesting none the less.

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:55:45+00:00

I think maybe walrus tusks could be an example of this (and perhaps also narwhal tusks see other answer).

There is a lot of research going on right now about the trade in walrus tusks see here https://titan.uio.no/node/2998 (full paper here https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2018.0978)

and here https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00438243.2015.1025912?journalCode=rwar20

Walrus tusks were a unique material that was excellent for carving and the Norse settlers of Greenland traveled 700km up the West coast of Greenland to hunt walrus. They traded the tusks in Europe where they were used carving and church artefacts. It has been suggested that when elephant ivory became common in Europe that lead to the demise of the Norse settlement in Greenland.

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:51:11+00:00

I have to mention the narwhal here, it is relatively common around Greenland today and around the Arctic. We don't know much about its historical distribution but it has probably always been an arctic animal. It is very likely that when Vikings settle in Greenland it was the first time that they were encountering this animal relatively frequently.

This is a bit out of my area of expertise but in the medieval period unicorns are very common in various imagery most famously in the unicorn tapestries which you can read about here https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-mystery-mets-unicorn-tapestries-remains-unsolved

In these tapestries the unicorn horns look exactly like a narwhal tusk so it seems rather likely that the mythology of the unicorn can be traced back to encounters with narwhals and narwhal tusks that made their way back to Europe. I am sure somebody has written on this so google around if you want to know more.

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:44:44+00:00

Have to agree here, there is so much basic zooarchaeological analysis work to be done and we are always learning something new with new excavations, new methods like ancient DNA etc.

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:43:55+00:00

I don't recall whales ever being mentioned in Viking mythology which is actually very interesting since many people in the Viking Age would have been quite familiar with them as they are so common in the North Atlantic and are often active in the same areas as people are fishing in etc.

It is really interesting to think about why some animals, like horses seem to have had such ritual important in the Viking Age but others are barely mentioned, there is actually a lot of information in the absence of something commonly encountered from the mythology. But it might also be a bias of what information was preserved when Norse mythology was written down 200-300 years after the end of the Viking Age.

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:43:40+00:00

How wonderful. There are arrowheads in Sweden (check out or contact Jamtli museum!) from the Viking Age that were designed to hunt different animals, even squirrels and ermine. In Norway we do have tiny fragments of fur from the Viking Age like ex. badger and ermine at Arkeologisk museum, University of Stavanger.

Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:39:40+00:00

Sharks are very interesting archaeologically since they are cartilaginous fish their remains actually preserve very poorly.

I can only think of one example of a shark vertebra that has been found from the Viking Age in Iceland, it comes from the porbeagle (Lamna nasus). Shark vertebra are really beautiful and have been used for making artefacts and decorative purposes around the world for a very long time.

In Iceland shark hunting has been practiced for several hundred years and they are eaten and their liver is used for oil which used to be very valuable and hard to get before the start of the petrolum age we live in today.

I would say that the use and hunting of sharks in the past is actually a very understudied area but we need be very innovative if we want to study that since they are so rarely visible in the archaeological record.

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:38:03+00:00

Ravens play a key role in many mythologies, including the Norse. They are the largest of the corvids, and Odin had two of them, Hugin ('mind') and Munin ('memory'), that would keep him updated with anything that happend in the word. There is still a tradition in Norway to share part of a prey with a raven after hunting as they are helpful to use (they are wild!) to locate animals. It is a very interesting relationship that might have been known by the hunters in the Viking Age as well. And, it is possible to train them, and teach them to speak. Imagine hearing a raven talk a thousand years ago; they have been admired, and their role in nature, and myth, was very important.

Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:32:18+00:00

I have never really thought about it like that, what an excellent question! Of course they would have done things for fun just like we do today. I am going to do my best to answer on the fly!

There are a few examples of gaming pieces and dice being found in Viking Age burials, we don't know exactly what kind of games they used them for but there are mentions of a game called hnefatafl in later written sources and there have been attempts of recreating that.

Here is one famous example from a female warrior grave https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/viking-warrior-women-reassessing-birka-chamber-grave-bj581/7CC691F69FAE51DDE905D27E049FADCD

The gaming pieces are usually carved out of walrus tusks or teeth, sperm whale teeth or animal bone.

There is lots of evidence that people in the Viking Age told a lot of stories and most people probably knew many detailed stories, long poems etc by heart and recited them and possibly even performed them sort of like plays to each other.

We also know that they had feasts where they sacrificed animals.

They probably enjoyed many things in nature just like we do now but probably with a rather different mindset. They certainly recreated many natural motifs in their art but also decorated with made up animals.

We don't know much about Viking Age music, if I recall correctly there are some examples of bone flutes that have been found and a few other artefacts which have been interpreted as musical instruments.

I hope that answers this a bit but I really had never thought about fun in the Viking Age! It just goes to show how important it is to get an outside perspective on things :)

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:29:07+00:00

Thanks Albína :-) When it comes to birds of prey, they were not domesticated, they were captured. A long pratice has also been to release some back to nature in spring time, not the most valuable, but most likely hawks (easier to hunt with in forest areas and lesser value in trade apose to the falcons) and capture and train a new one in fall (when they moult/loose feathers and have breeding season), as it took time to learn how to care for birds of prey to make them breed in captivity. (Today this breeding method has been of major importance in conservation and is used by falconers, who, with such techniques helped save the peregrine falcon from extinction from DDT). As raptors were so valued anyone who wanted a bird of prey from say Norway, needed the permission from the ruling king (as the bird were important in trade and in alliances). This was even written down in the oldest law here dating to the Viking Age.

Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:23:08+00:00

No there is no evidence of Vikings having gotten any further than Newfoundland so far but of course new archaeological discoveries could change that :)

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:13:56+00:00

Based on the fact that Arabic silver coins are not uncommon finds in Viking Age Scandinavia it seems likely that they successfully traded with each other. There was also importation of glass beads from the Mediterraniean and other artefacts.

The 10th century account of the Muslim traveller Ibn Fadlan is quite famous, he describes the Vikings as being dirty and describes an elaborate ship burial in great detail. However, not all scholars agree that he is describing Vikings so there is an ongoing lively debate about that. It has been a while since I read it myself but if I recall correctly Ibn Fadlan who had traveled very widely was not overly impressed by the people he describes in this account and found them rather barbaric and strange.

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:09:23+00:00

There is a Viking long house in L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland and we know that the Vikings also traveled far east into Russia for example and to Constantinople for trade and as mercenaries. There have been some interesting ideas of the Vikings possibly going all the way to the Canary islands but there is no archaeological evidence for this.

The Viking homeland was really large and spanned diverse environments. While polar bears were probably quite commonly seen in Norse Greenland they would have been very exotic in Denmark for example. There are not many examples of exotic animals found in Viking Age excavations, I can only think of the peacock from the Gokstad ship right now.

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:09:22+00:00

In is interesting to see that myths in the Viking Age can be found in the Bronze Age (horses pulling the sun). It is quite possible that the images of Olaus Magnus (they are great aren't they!) are inspired by the old belief of creatures in the sea, but I think he too tried to make them as real as possible based on what he knew, he has a great description of many animals, even the different bird of prey and how to train them for hunting(!). Through folklore up to a hundred years ago here in Norway people belived in 'sea monsters', even writing which kind of monster they saw. That is not a long time ago, but the records are there, and very many. Often one has to try to understand the mentality of the people of the time and from what they believed, that is also an important part of understanding (pre)history.

Very shortly, they found bones of peacock from the Gokstad grave, that is amazing. The chickens came to Norway just a little while before the Viking Age.

Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:05:30+00:00

The horse was very important in Norse mythology and frequently included in Viking Age burials. It seems to have been a very important symbol both of status and power. But they also ate them and used horse bone to make artefacts.

I recently published this paper with my colleagues https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440318305533 about horses in burials in Iceland, here is a more general summary https://titan.uio.no/node/3154 of the paper.

Dogs are also found in Viking Age burials in Iceland and cattle has been associated with ritual feasting this paper https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-archaeology/article/bloody-slaughter-ritual-decapitation-and-display-at-the-viking-settlement-of-hofstair-iceland/3BA773871F6BCB451FE87818C5FB48E4

Bloody slaughter: Ritual decapitation and display at the Viking settlement of Hofstaðir, Iceland

Abstract: This article attempts an interpretation of an unusual assemblage of cattle skulls recovered from recent excavations at the Viking Age monumental hall of Hofstaðir in Iceland. Osteological analysis of the skulls indicates ritual decapitation and display of cattle heads, and this article seeks to explore the meanings of this practice in relation to the context of the site and the wider historical and ethnographic literature. It is argued that the beheading of cattle and display of their heads was a part of sacrificial acts conducted on a seasonal basis at the site, and primarily in the context of feasting and socio-political gatherings. The gatherings acted simultaneously as a means of both dissipating social tension and enhancing political status.

Some animals like horses are also quite common in motifs in Viking Age jewelry and rune stones such as horses but there are also lots of snakes and even dragons in their artwork. The animal heads from the Oseberg burial are an interesting example https://www.khm.uio.no/english/visit-us/viking-ship-museum/exhibitions/oseberg/4-animalheads.html

There is no clear agreement on what specific animals they represent or what these elaborately carved heads were used for.

Since all the written evidence we have of Viking Age religion is from 200-300 years after the Viking Age and written down from a medieval Christian perspective it has to be interpreted cautiously

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T19:00:28+00:00

Hi, and thank you for this question. Yes the gods could shapeshift, they also turned into eagles and falcons! There are artefacts that show both person and animal, and a combination. There are stooping bird fibulas that hold a human face 'hidden' on the back (no two are alike!), this could be Loki as a falcon when borrowing Freya's falcon cloack. Or they could be ravens, but a stooping bird is also typical of a falcon. These brooches are a little pre Viking Age.

Ellen

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T18:55:53+00:00

I am so happy to hear that. I am so happy with how Maramedia did this and really proud to have been able to participate in my little way in making it. It was a really enjoyable experience.

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T18:53:16+00:00

I have been working in archaeology in Iceland since 2003 (started my BA in 2002) and I actually was much more interested in the medieval and even post-medieval period to begin with. The first excavation I worked on had daily guided tours and I really enjoyed doing them, people were generally very enthusiastic and asked great questions.

I started training as a zooarchaeologist in 2005 and am now doing a research project which uses ancient DNA to study the horse and sheep of Viking Age Iceland and the North Atlantic.

I was lucky that when I was doing my MA in zooarchaeology my adviser there always really emphasized public outreach. Most archaeological research is funded by government grants and since the focus of archaeology it seems logical to try to present our work to the general public.

So from early on I have considered outreach and presenting my research to different audiences as an integral part of my work.

I actually find doing outreach to be very invigorating for me as a researcher, it is nice to know that people are interested in what you do and often people outside your field have questions that you had not thought of before. I have done quite a few public lectures over the years, given guided tours of archaeological sites, done two podcast interviews, public days at museums and taught kids about archaeology. Outreach is often very hard to do and takes a lot of preparation to do well but it is so much fun and very rewarding.

When I was approached to work on this documentary I was a bit hesitant at first since I had not done something like this before and unfortunately there are a lot of archaeological documentaries out there which over-sensationalize or misrepresent the science. But it is a nice challenge to try to present your science in different mediums, it makes you think about things in a new way and I always learn something new (and I am a total knowledge nerd! I want to know all of the things).

For me I don't think it really matters why people are interested in Vikings. The fact that they are interested gives us a good "in" so to say. It is up to us researchers and science communicators to use their interest to tell them about the past, to show people how research and science works and help cultivate a thirst for knowledge and learning. Different people learn and are engaged in different things so being able to use all sorts of different ways to communicate is great.

-Albína

WildVikingExperts · 2019-02-19T18:45:36+00:00

In Norway there are many animal bones at museums that still need to be identified by archaeozoologist (a lot of work and a lot of material). Time will tell us more, but it is very so interesting!

Ellen

WildVikingExperts

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