When Gustav Vasa died on september 29 1560, the crown passed to his eldest son, Erik. To inherit the throne was something new in Sweden, where the king traditionally had been elected. To cement his…
In my last post I wrote about the archaeological evidence of women Viking warriors, so called shield maidens. Around 30 graves containing women buried as warriors have been found in Scandinavia, so – even though…
“There were once women in Denmark who dressed themselves to look like men and spent almost every minute cultivating soldier’s skills; They put toughness before allure, aimed at conflicts instead of kisses, tasted blood, not…
Two of the most important military means of power for chieftains and kings during the Viking Age were the hird and the leidang. The hird consisted of a group of warriors very loyal to their…
Although I’ve been trying to make a point that the Viking Age people were not the bloody berserks they have been portrayed as – there is no denying that they DID do a lot of…
Research on women during Viking times has long been neglected. When the concept of the Viking Age and Vikings was coined in the 19th century, women were completely ignored, relegated to the home. The story…
When queen Margareta Leijonhufvud died the king, Gustav Vasa, was 55 years old. He had a chronic inflammation in one leg and the few teeth he had left were inflamed. He must have been in…
There has been a sort of romanticized myth that the Viking society was an egalitarian one, where free farmers decided things together on the local Ting. Written records, rune stones and archaeological evidence point to…
Only a year after the death of his first wife, Gustav Vasa remarried. Not to a foreign princess this time, but to a young woman from a prominent noble family – Margareta Leijonhufvud. Margareta was…
Scandinavia holds a rich tradition of storytelling, from the Norse mythology and Icelandic Sagas to the Folklore and tales that for thousands of years have been integral to people’s belief systems and integrated in their…