Writing this, the Viking festival season is just over and I already miss it. I will probably go to York and stay there at the Viking festival in February, and until then my Viking crafts projects will keep me busy. But still, those autumn months always feel so long here in Norway …
When it comes to the Viking Age, most of the discussion and controversy seem to concern how they dressed, how their houses and ships looked like and so on. But how did it sound? What did life in the Viking Age sound like?
I rate parenting as the sixth most important Viking skill, although I am tempted to say it should have been number 1 — it’s that essential.
I’m sure most people know that feeling of losing all hope, that horrible sensation of watching your life fall apart while knowing there is nothing you can do about it. In this blogpost I will tell you how I found a way to turn things around. And it all started with a blanket.
What did the Vikings look like? Or, more importantly, what’s the difference between a present day “Viking” and the Vikings back in the good, old days?
So you want to look like a Viking – continued
Peace seems to be something everybody wants. It is one of the most common ways of saying to someone that we want him/her to be well: «Go with peace.» «May peace be with you.» «Peace, my friend.» We’ve all heard those phrases and maybe used them ourselves. And even though I understand it is a very nice thing to say, I am never comfortable when people wish me peace.
The Scandinavian summer is the time of the Viking festivals. During a few, hectic months, Viking reenactors and craftsmen come together at various places to trade, exchange stories and sit around the campfire.
Imagine being a child in Viking Age Scandinavia. Have you wondered what it would have been like? I often do. In fact, in order to understand a culture and a society, I find that studying those childhood years makes me able to understand the whole culture far better. After all, we all start out as children.
The Norse civilization was much more spiritual than most seem to think. And while many still see the Norsemen as savage brutes, no longer is there any discussion among historians and archeologists about the fact that they were mindful about their connection to nature and the “spirit world”, which to them was basicly the same thing.
BJØRN ANDREAS BULL-HANSEN 
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