Are you looking for a strong Norse name for your baby boy? Are you having a little Viking? Below is a list of Norse names from the Viking sagas and Norse mythology with their meanings and connections to surviving people and stories. Don’t forget that Viking men had the habit of taking the name of…
Looking for the perfect new Viking tattoo for you? The Vikings relied heavily on symbols to communicate their faith and beliefs. They wore them as amulets, carved them into buildings and on stones as marks of protection, and added them to images to create additional layers of meaning. They even believed some of their symbols…
Gjallarhorn, meaning “hollering horn,” is in some way one of the best-known mystical objects from Norse mythology. We are told in the story of Ragnarok that Heimdall, the guardian of the Rainbow Bifrost Bridge and the gates of Asgard, will sound Gjallarhorn when he sees the giant hoard approaching Asgard, and it will be heard…
Galdrastafir are magical runic staves found in Icelandic grimoires from the post-Viking age. They include symbols of protection, wayfinding, and revenge. Discover the meaning of some of these important symbols, where they come from, and how they were used. The Vikings believed that the runes were not a created alphabet, but rather a fundamental part…
Ravens and other birds of prey were common symbols in Vendel Era jewelry. This was the pre-Viking era, between roughly 550 and 800 CE, when the Norsemen were already thriving in Scandinavia and were just beginning to raid areas such as the Balkans. Several different styles of bird pendants, buckles, and ornaments have been found,…
The people of Europe called the Norsemen “Heathens,” meaning non-Christian, or “Vikings,” meaning pirates. For three centuries, the Vikings terrorized their neighbors in countries such as England and France, attacking communities, looting churches, and kidnapping people to sell on the slave market. While their victims may have considered the Vikings “godless,” they worshiped a complex…
If you browse the VKNG shop over the coming months, you will see that we are increasingly offering our designs in bronze, alongside our long-established gold and silver offerings. These are designed to be more affordable options, while still representing quality and authenticity. Authenticity? Bronze was used extensively in the Viking world for the same…
Some of the most interesting characters in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore are not the powerful gods, but rather the creatures who appear to challenge the gods or terrorize men. Read on to meet 15 of the most fascinating or fear-inducing monsters from Norse myth (or check it out on our YouTube channel). Draugr Undead…
When restoration work was underway at Pitney Church in Somerset, England, in 1853, excavators found a fine gold-gilded bronze brooch that appeared to date to the Saxon era. It was quickly named the Pitney Brooch. Examination at the British Museum revealed that while the brooch dated to the Saxon era in England, specifically the second…
Eight interesting-looking mounds were excavated near the village of L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada, starting in 1960. They were soon identified as the remains of Norse-style buildings and presented as evidence that the Vikings reached the New World around the year 1000 CE, a good five centuries before Columbus. The excavation leaders, a Norwegian…
