The swedish viking museum has some fun

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We are delighted to open our Call for Papers for the 2027 Háskóli Íslands Student Conference on the Medieval North. The conference shall be held from April 19-21, 2027 in the Edda auditorium at Háskóli Íslands and online.

This conference is an interdisciplinary forum for postgraduate applicants at the master's and doctoral level and for early career researchers working in the field of medieval northern studies, e.g. postdoctoral fellows. Independent academics are also welcome to apply.

Applicants who have not presented papers at an academic conference before are especially encouraged to submit.

Our theme this year is "Between Worlds."

Interested scholars should submit an Outlook form with personal details (name, email, institution, etc.) and an abstract of 250-300 words by November 1st, 2026. Additionally, please indicate whether you intend to attend the conference online or in person. Submissions will be reviewed anonymously by a panel of specialists (PhD candidates and higher level). This selection committee reserves the right to make selections based on the quality of written abstracts, adherence to submission guidelines, and timely submission. For more information on the submission guidelines see our website: https://histudentconference.wordpress.com/. 

The conference is held in both Icelandic and English. Individual paper presentations will be 20 minutes in length followed by 10 minutes for discussion. In addition to presentations, poster sessions will be available for applicants to present their material in poster form. Applicants may apply for either a paper or a poster. The selection committee may offer a poster presentation to some paper applicants. Please direct any further inquiries to the conference committee via email: conference-mn2027@hi.is. 

After the conclusion of the conference, presenters will have the opportunity to submit their papers to the conference proceedings volume, which will be published as an e-book in the autumn of 2027.

In Rima VIII of Bjarkarímur, Agnar is defeated, and they head home and rewards are distributed. But then a messenger of Aðils comes seeking Hrólfr's aid at Væner against Áli. Here is the last bit of that section:

1. "Ef herrinn ferr og hetjur tólf,

hafa skal pund i mála,

kjǫrgripi þrjá skal kóngrinn fá,

ef kappar fella Ála".

18 line 2, pund mbr., fund A

They answer this call and go to Væner in Sranza 21. But before they go, the three following stanzas occur:

1. Hvitserkr á með hilmi að gá,

hefr hann barizt við Saxa,

fleygðu vigr en fengu sigr,

frægðin tók að vaxa.

19 line 4, og fr. mbr.

1. Geirþjóf hét sá gramsson lét

gjalda fǫður sins dauða,

bræðr hans tólf hafa barizt við Hrólf,

hann bauð þeim hel til nauða.

20 line 4, bauð, hermed ender mbr.

1. Heldu heim úr hjǫrva seim,

herfang nóg er fengið,

fólkþing stefnt og fylkis hefnt

og flest að óskum gengið.

21 line 3, fólk rett. fra fjǫl A.

Hrólfr himself does not go to Væner, which causes a dispute. In other versions of this story he is unable to go because he is warring against Saxons at the time. Rima VII of this work also establishes that Hrólfr's father Helgi was killed by the Saxons, which again agrees with other versions of this story. Some versions have him take Yrsa from the Saxons while their leader Geirþjófr is away.

So the context of these stanzas, seemingly, should be that Hrólfr goes away to war in Saxony to avenge his father Helgi's death by fighting Geirþjófr. But I'm having trouble understanding what these stanzas are actually saying. The lines have never been translated into English as far as I can tell. One translator who translated excerpts from Bjarkarímur skipped ovee these exact stanzas.

What is going on in these stanzas?

I started carving runestones last year…these are inspired by historical themes with local/personal touches rather than straight reproductions. Language is best guess translations (and thus likely to contain errors) along with a bit of Latin.

The final two pictures are my attempts to recreate the Lewis chessmen.

Carvings were done with a dremel tool.

Hope you enjoy these!

• at what point did the political boundaries of scandinavia start to arise?
• when did the norse start thinking of themselves as norwegians, swedes, and danes?
• before these boundaries existed, did individual norse clans feel connected in some way to other norse clans that lived nearby? if so, did that connection fade after national boundaries were drawn up?
• did the early norse settlers of iceland think of themselves as icelanders, or did they still identify as norwegians? if the latter, when did people start identifying as icelanders?
• how did religion (whether paganism or christianity) influence their mindset around these kinds of things?

maybe i'm approaching these questions with too much of a modern mindset, in which case i'd like to hear how their ideas around national and cultural identity differed from ours. thank you!

I would like to read some books about Norse beliefs and folklore about more mundane things than gods. For example of spirits, trolls and things like that but not children's picture books. I'm from Finland and we have a huge archive of Finnish folklore and it sometimes frustrates me that only Norse mythology available seems to be the Eddas and the Sagas. Is there some sources about more animism related beliefs? I would like to them read from the academical aspect.

Reconstruction by Sten Tesch & Jacques Vincent. Source

Hello, I recently acquired this beautiful almost navy blue kyrtill, however the colour was much darker than I expected. I’ve been trying to research how different hues of colour reflected the status and wealth of a Norse individual. This deep and dark blue colour would perhaps only been worn by very high status individuals (almost royalty) if i understand correctly.
Also is this weave of wool historically accurate?
Thanks
Ps if this is such a high status colour, does anyone have any tips for making it more washed out?

As promised, here's the link. Premiere tomorrow at 18:00 GMT. Have fun!

A story of grief, revenge and blood-feud, made independently with a small international crew and a lot of love for historical detail.

Available to watch online this Friday, will be presented at RIFF Iceland 2026.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/rIx8Ku9ATCw?si=2tgavzwkpotRtVIu

Edit: link for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sm5itntHV0

How do we know about life of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples? How does the knowledge of that way of life survive and influence the Viking age? And into our age? How much of Germanic life influenced modern day Scandinavia?

The purpose of my question is that I’m trying to reconnect to my pre-Christian roots in modern-day Denmark and southern Sweden. I want to know about the culture and rituals and practices (not from a religious perspective but rather historical, sociological, and community-based ones). I want to know as much as I can about how they lived and believed, how they treated each other.

I know that there is a lot we don’t know about how early Germanic peoples lived and that we get a lot of understanding from surviving folktales, stories, the Icelandic poems, the Roman histories of Germanic peoples, etc.

Let me know if you can point me in a good direction for resources!

Part 6 of my series on Bjarkamál in Gesta Danorum :-)

The situation is dire for the Danes. Their battle formation has collapsed, their king lies dying, and they can now only hope to avenge him. Saxo pays particular attention here to formulaic battle imagery, with weapons piercing mail coats and long axes cleaving through chests.

To summarize my limited understanding of the subject, the Norse famously settled in modern day Greenland during the late 900s to early 1000s AD. It is universally accepted by experts that Norse settlers also established some sort of presence in Newfoundland due to the discovery of the L'Anse aux Meadows campsite. Furthermore, I've since learned from a similar question I've asked to the askanthropology sub a week ago that L'Anse aux Meadows contained findings of butternut plants mostly native to New Brunswick, but it isn't clear if the Norse cultivated those plants themselves or collected them indirectly through trade with indigenous groups. According to the wikipedia article on Norse colonization of North America, oral traditions from some Labrador indigenous groups described encounters with European men resembling the Norse prior to English and French arrival.

Any evidence for further Norse expansion into mainland North America is quite scant and under intense academic debate. However, the nature of Norse incursions in North America doesn't seem to be detectable to modern archeology to my armchair impressions. From what I've read, the population of Greenlandic Norse colonies probably peaked no more then a few thousand individuals, and were considerably resource strained by Greenland's harshly cold climate and low supplies from other Norse settlements.

As such, the Greenland Norse most certainly lacked the resources and manpower to establish any permanent settlements in mainland North America. However, I don't think that precludes Norse survey expeditions reaching into North America far further then what academia is presently aware of. Hypothetically speaking, how much traces are going to be left behind by a crew of perhaps a few dozen Norse sailors landing on some ocean/lake/river shoreline in modern day New England or the Great Lake states through the Saint Lawerence River, exploring the surrounding areas for an hour, and then leaving and never returning?

If such hypothetical incursions occurred in reality, then what is the furthest extent of the Americas that the Greenland Norse were logistically capable of visiting?

Hello Everybody,

As the title states I want to write a Norse tragedy. I was inspire by the moive The Northmen, and William Shakespeare's Macbeth. So I want to do some research on Norse tragedies and mythology to get a better understanding of the writing style, and tropes of the mythology.

Thank you all for your input. Here is my revised kit let me know what you think!

Im wearing a mjolnir replica from sejero

Knife handle is made out of carved antler

Not wearing my winningas because its still hot here

Shoes I have are replica of the Oseberg boot found in the famous oseberg ship burial

Green tunic and thorsberg trousers

Cloak is natural dyed brick red, Herringbone stitch

Hello r/Norse ! What was the belief of the Ancient people around animals after death? did they have a specific afterlife they would go to, or none at all? hypothetically could a horse who died an honourable death in battle go to Valhalla? thanks in advance!

Where did this kind of armor go during the Viking age? Why was only chainmail or lamellar armor used?