There are so many strange details in some Viking stories that sound too unbelievable to be real, but as it turns out, archaeologists have found pieces of evidence proving that they really happened.
Vikings reached North America centuries before Columbus
It sounded convenient. The story says that Norse sailors left Greenland and headed west to somehow find a strange new land across the Atlantic. They called it Vinland, but today, we call it North America. A lot of people thought it was just a legend, but actually, it was based on truth.
Archaeologists found L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, and the buildings were Norse. The ironworking remains and other objects were Norse, too. Scientists actually dated wood cut at the site to A.D. 1021, meaning that, yes, the Vikings arrived in America before Columbus did. 471 years before he did.
The legendary Viking warrior woman has a real counterpart
There’s a grave at Birka in Sweden known as Bj 581. The person buried there had a sword and axe, along with a spear, arrows, shields, two horses, and gaming pieces often linked with military planning. People assumed the person buried there was a man.
But later on, bone analysis suggested that these were female remains, and DNA testing later confirmed it. Viking legends talk about fearsome female warriors, known as saga-style shield-maidens or skjaldmær. It’s unclear whether Bj 581 was one of those women, but still, it’s clear that she was a woman buried with an unusually complete set of warrior gear.Â
Viking women really did accompany expeditions to North America
That’s not all for women. The stories about Vinland claim that it wasn’t just bearded men who went across the Atlantic, but actually, women went too. One of the most famous examples was Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir. Yet so many people seemed to think it was all a fantasy, and that there was no way women would’ve gone with the men. Not at first, at least.
But then archaeologists at L’Anse aux Meadows found objects including a spindle whorl and a bone needle. These were both connected with textile work that Norse women usually did. There was no gold helmet, sure, but it seems that the Newfoundland settlement likely included women. It wasn’t the all-male camp some people suggest.
Viking human sacrifice wasn’t simply Christian propaganda
One of the darker legends that ended up being true involves human sacrifice. Medieval Christian writers claimed pagan Scandinavians sacrificed humans, although those claims sounded a little suspicious. These Christian writers didn’t exactly like pagan religions, after all.
Archeologists discovered there was some truth to it, however, as they found human and animal remains inside ritual sites at Trelleborg in Denmark. These bones were placed inside old wells at a ritual site, and there were five people discovered there. Four of them were children. It’s likely that some medieval accounts exaggerated things, but human sacrifice itself did exist.
The terrifying berserkers probably weren’t completely fictional
It’s true, the berserkers do seem kind of ridiculous in later stories. They were a supposed group of Norse warriors who got so involved in fighting that they almost fell into a trance, where they’d ignore their own injuries. They seemed more like supernatural monsters than actual soldiers.
Turns out, there is some truth to the stories. A poem called Haraldskvæði, usually connected with Harald Fairhair and dated to around A.D. 900, talks about the berserkir and also úlfheðnar, or wolf-coated warriors. That’s not to say they became magically invincible or anything, no way. It’s just that these were real men and there were some real traditions behind their actions.
Viking funerals involved enormous ships buried with the dead
Viking funerals are one of those things that seem too grand to be real. It’s not like there are many people willing to bury a perfectly good ship, and especially not the Vikings. But it’s true. They actually dragged the Oseberg ship onto land in Norway and used it to bury two women in A.D. 834.Â
The ship itself is around 70 feet long and includes a burial chamber on the vessel. There’s also the Gokstad, another ship used to house the dead. Both of these ships were full-size vessels, and both of these ships were part of elite Norse death rituals.
Dead leaders really could take sacrificed animals into their graves
There’s more to the Oseberg burial. There were myths that Viking warriors would kill their animals so they could be buried with them when they died. Not just the ones used in battle like horses, but also dogs and cattle.
That’s exactly what archeologists found across Oseberg and Gokstad. They found 27 sacrificed horses that seem to be connected with the burials. Vikings took their love for animals pretty seriously.
The legendary royal capital of Lejre was actually there
Old Danish traditions claimed Lejre was a place for legendary kings, including Hrólf Kraki and the Skjöldungs. Lejre supposedly included gigantic halls for them to live in. So gigantic, in fact, that they couldn’t quite possibly be true.
Except they were. Excavations near Old Lejre have found a major elite settlement dating from around the sixth century into the Viking period, with enormous halls and workshops. They also included fenced compounds. The legendary royal city was based on something real.
The ‘Fimbulwinter’ had a real-world parallel
Fimbulwinter wasn’t your normal kind of winter in Norse mythology. No, it was the kind of winter that never leaves, with brutal cold and failed summers. It involved utter disaster before Ragnarök, the supposed end of the world. It really did happen, although not the end-of-the-world part.
The endless winter did occur, though, as geological evidence suggests there were huge volcanic eruptions beginning in A.D. 536. Another one came around 540 and threw material into the atmosphere. This caused sharp cooling across much of the Northern Hemisphere, and Scandinavia was hit pretty hard. It forced people to abandon their farms, it was that bad.
The dead man thrown down Sverre’s well really was there
The story in Sverris Saga says that, in 1197, attackers at Sverresborg Castle dumped a dead man into the well. They then threw stones in after him. It’s a weird tale, that’s for sure, and it’s also one that may have had some truth to it.
Excavators did actually find a skeleton down there in the well, and carbon dating puts the remains in the right period. DNA work also suggests the man was around 30 to 40 and probably came from southern Norway. It’s all a bit too similar to the story to be a coincidence.
The Norse broke into burial mounds looking for treasure
The idea of breaking into an ancient grave to find treasure is a weird one. It seems like something a saga writer would throw in when they needed a bit more action in their story, but the truth is, it did actually happen.
Oseberg and Gokstad are two of the most famous Viking ship graves. Both were deliberately broken into centuries before archaeologists excavated them properly, and both were robbed. It’s likely the grave robbers were looking for treasure, although they could’ve been looking for other stuff, too.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
