Few objects sum up the popular image of a Norse feast like the drinking horn. Its history, though, starts long before the Vikings: a Celtic chieftain was buried around 530 BC with nine horns, Anglo-Saxon kings had aurochs horns fitted with gilded silver, and in tenth-century Birka two silver-mounted horns went into a grave. People in the North also drank from wooden bowls, glass and pottery. This article sorts out the finds, checks what the sagas and the Edda say about bragafull, minni and sumbel, follows Thor to the drinking contest he could not win, and closes with a sober look at what to keep in mind when using a horn as a drinking vessel today.
A drinking horn is, first of all, the horn of a cow, an aurochs or a goat, hollowed out, cleaned and often fitted with a metal rim. Horn is made of keratin, the protein of hair and nails, and in the living animal it sheathes a bony core; remove the core and a hollow, curved tube remains.
That shape has a consequence that runs through almost every description of feasting: a full horn cannot be set down. You hold it, pass it on or drain it. Later horns were therefore given stands or metal feet. A horn that travels from hand to hand turns drinking into something done together.
Horn usually decays in the ground, so archaeologists mostly recover metal parts: rim mounts, terminals at the tip, often shaped like an animal head, and small decorative plates. National Museums Scotland puts it plainly: from early medieval drinking horns, the mounts are nearly all that survive. A plain horn without fittings often leaves no trace, so any estimate of how common horns were rests on thin ground.
The most splendid horns came from the aurochs, the wild ancestor of domestic cattle, which became rare in central Europe during the Middle Ages and died out in Poland in 1627. Its horns were far larger than those of domestic cattle and made prestige vessels. Julius Caesar already describes them in his Gallic War (book 6, chapter 28). The Germanic peoples, he writes, eagerly collect the horns of the urus: "Haec studiose conquisita ab labris argento circumcludunt atque in amplissimis epulis pro poculis utuntur" – they rim them with silver and use them as cups at their grandest feasts. Caesar knew the lands east of the Rhine only from brief campaigns and reports, yet his note fits the later finds well.
For the Viking Age, many scholars assume that most horns came from domestic cattle and were correspondingly smaller; English-language overviews suggest that many held less than half a litre. Goat horns are attested too. According to eighth-century Irish law tracts, large aurochs horns had to be imported into Britain and Ireland – the big horn was a trade good and a status symbol.
The oldest group in this survey belongs to the late Hallstatt period, the early Iron Age of central Europe. In 1978–79 archaeologists opened the unrobbed burial chamber of a man laid to rest around 530 BC beneath a mound at Hochdorf an der Enz, north-west of Stuttgart. Among the grave goods were an imported bronze cauldron with residues of mead and a four-wheeled wagon. Comparable burials are covered in our article on Celtic princely graves.
The Landesmuseum Württemberg describes the horns as follows: the chamber held nine drinking horns. Eight were made from aurochs horn and decorated with gold sheet; the ninth and largest is made of iron, measures 123 centimetres and held 5.5 litres. It hung directly above the dead man's head. The museum reads it as the lord's own horn, displaying his rank at the feast in death as in life.
Nine horns imply a circle of drinkers; the larger iron horn marks the host. Whether they were ever used at real feasts or made for the grave is uncertain.
Scandinavia's most famous horns are also its least typical. At Gallehus in southern Jutland two horns of gold and electrum were found in 1639 and 1734, each weighing several kilograms, decorated with figural rings, the shorter one carrying a runic inscription. They are dated to around AD 400. In 1802 the goldsmith Niels Heidenreich stole both from the royal Kunstkammer in Copenhagen and melted them down; today they are known only from drawings and descriptions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Whether the golden horns were meant for drinking is an open question. The first horn was converted into a drinking horn after its discovery, which proves nothing about its original use. Some scholars think of blowing horns or votive offerings. Gallehus above all shows how highly the horn shape was valued as a symbol. Their full story is told in our article on the Gallehus golden horns.
In England two burials mark the high point of the prestige horn. The barrow at Taplow in Buckinghamshire, excavated in 1883 and usually dated to around 600 or the early seventh century, contained a pair of aurochs drinking horns with gilded silver mounts. The British Museum gives a length of 44.5 centimetres and dates the mounts to the sixth century; the terminals end in bird heads. The mounts of a still larger Taplow horn now sit on a modern plaster reconstruction. Taplow also produced four glass claw beakers: vessels whose walls carry hollow, trunk-like loops of glass.
In the ship burial of Sutton Hoo, Mound 1, excavated in 1939 and usually associated with King Rædwald of East Anglia (died around 624), there was likewise a pair of aurochs horns with gilt rim mounts. Beside them stood maplewood cups with matching rim mounts – a whole drinking service. More on the grave is in our article on Sutton Hoo.
Then there is the glass horn. Late Roman glassblowers made horns of glass, and Germanic workshops of the Migration Period imitated them. The British Museum holds a fifth-century olive-green Merovingian glass horn from Bingerbrück on the Rhine and a blue one from Lombard Italy. The horn shape was so desirable that it was copied in glass.
From the Viking Age, roughly 790 to 1066, no complete prestige horns of the Taplow kind survive. The evidence consists of mounts, and these are spread over a wide area. A catalogue of silver openwork horn rims ranges from Denmark (Mammen, Tjele) via Thumby-Bienebek and Ralswiek in northern Germany to the lands of the Rus, mostly tenth century.
One of the clearest examples comes from Birka, the trading town on Lake Mälaren. Chamber grave Bj 523, which belongs to the later Birka phase after 900, held two horns with silver mounts. Holger Arbman published it in the Birka catalogue of 1940. As at Taplow and Sutton Hoo, the horns come as a pair; whether that means host and guest remains interpretation.
Just as important is what else stood in such graves. Birka has yielded many glass vessels, including Rhenish beakers with applied threads and pointed funnel beakers that, like a horn, cannot stand and were probably drained at feasts. Add wooden bowls, jugs and pottery. Simple wooden or clay cups, which decay quickly, were surely more common than the finds suggest. A tenth-century feast used mixed tableware, and the horn was probably the vessel for special moments. What went into these vessels is covered in our articles on mead, Viking beer and the Viking diet.
In Viking Age art the horn appears strikingly often in one particular scene: a woman in a long, trailing gown, her hair tied in a knot, holds out a horn to someone arriving. On the Gotland picture stones she greets a rider; on the Tjängvide I stone the rider sits on an eight-legged horse that most scholars read as Odin's Sleipnir. The scene is often read as a dead warrior arriving in Valhalla; alternative readings include Sigurd on his horse Grani or a living man welcomed home.
The same female figure appears on small pendants of silver or bronze found in some numbers across Scandinavia, among other places on Björkö, the island of Birka, and on Öland. They are usually called valkyries, the shield-maidens who, according to tradition, choose the slain and serve them drink in Valhalla. The British Museum sees in these images a confirmation of the literary valkyrie as hostess. Whether each one shows a valkyrie, a goddess, the lady of a household or a heroine such as Brynhild cannot be settled piece by piece.
A counter-example sharpens the picture. The figure from Hårby on Funen, found in 2012, a 3.4-centimetre three-dimensional figure of gilded silver, carries no horn but an upright sword and a round shield. It too is usually read as a valkyrie; alternatives include a shield-maiden or Freyja. The horn, then, is no reliable marker of a valkyrie.
The Poetic Edda offers a matching scene. In the poem Sigrdrífumál, Sigurd wakes a sleeping valkyrie, Sigrdrífa, often identified with Brynhild. According to the prose, she hands him a horn full of mead as a memory drink and then teaches him runes. Horn, woman and remembrance appear together. More in our articles on Sigurd and Brynhild.
The fullest description of a pagan sacrificial feast with a drinking ritual comes from Hákonar saga góða, the saga of Hákon the Good in Snorri Sturluson's Heimskringla, written around 1230, some three centuries after the events. Snorri describes how the cups were carried across the fire and the host blessed the drink. The first "full" (a solemnly dedicated cup or draught) was for Odin, for victory and power to the king; then came the cups for Njörðr and Freyr, "til árs ok friðar", for a good year and peace. Many then drank the bragafull, and finally toasts to dead kinsmen called "minni", memory. In Samuel Laing's English translation this is chapter 16, "About Sacrifices"; numbering differs between editions.
Snorri speaks of the "full", not explicitly of a horn; the vessel may have been a horn or a cup. At the following feast at Hlaðir near Trondheim, King Hákon, raised a Christian, is pressed to take part. Earl Sigurd of Hlaðir drinks the Odin cup to him, Hákon makes the sign of the cross over it, and when the farmers grumble, Sigurd explains that the king has made the sign of Thor's hammer. The scene is a literary construction, but it clearly ties drinking to loyalty. More on this source in blót and sumbel today.
According to the sagas, the bragafull or bragarfull was the cup over which vows were made. In Ynglinga saga (chapter 36 in the usual numbering) Snorri describes the funeral ale, Old Norse "erfi": the heir sat on the step before his dead father's high seat until the bragafull was brought in, then stood, made a vow, drained the cup and only then took the high seat. Whether the name comes from the god Bragi or from "bragr", "the best", is disputed; see Bragi.
The minni toasts survived the conversion. In Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar in Heimskringla, the Danish king Svein holds the funeral ale for his father Harald. The Jomsvikings are handed the largest horns with the strongest drink; after the heir's cup to the father, the company drinks to Christ and then to the memory of Saint Michael. In German lands it lived on as "Minnetrinken", notably the Johannisminne, wine blessed on 27 December.
The Old Norse word "sumbl", Old English "symbel", means a formal drinking feast. It is a feast in the hall, where rank, hospitality and words matter. In Beowulf, Queen Wealhtheow carries the cup through the hall: first to King Hrothgar, then to the retainers, finally to the foreign hero. In the Edda, Lokasenna describes such a feast going wrong: Loki disrupts the gathering at Ægir's hall and insults the gods one by one. Sif offers him mead in a crystal cup to make peace, not in a horn. The poems know both kinds of vessel. More in our article on Ægir's feast.
The sumbel in fixed rounds practised today goes back to modern interpretations, above all to Paul Bauschatz (1970s/80s). The medieval texts know toasts, vows and quarrels over the cup, but no uniform liturgy.
Alongside stands a warning. Hávamál, the wisdom verses of the Poetic Edda spoken by Odin, urge moderation: ale is not as good for people as they say, for the more a man drinks, the less he knows of his own mind. One stanza advises not to cling to the vessel but to pass it on and drink mead in measure – a hint that the drink went round the company. A selection of such stanzas is collected in our article on sayings from Hávamál.
The sagas of Icelanders, written down in the thirteenth century, like to make the horn a place of danger. In Egils saga, the host Bárðr serves young Egill Skallagrímsson poisoned drink; Egill carves runes into the horn, reddens them with his blood, and the horn bursts. This is literature, not a record of runic practice, but trust and betrayal hang on the same vessel.
The best-known horn scene in Norse mythology is told by Snorri Sturluson in Gylfaginning, the first part of his Prose Edda, around 1220. Thor travels with Loki and the servant Þjálfi to Útgarðr, the stronghold of the giant king Útgarða-Loki. Each guest must show a skill, and Thor chooses drinking. The giant has the horn brought from which his retainers usually drink. Karl Simrock's German translation of the nineteenth century, which is in the public domain, renders the passage like this:
„Bald darauf kam der Mundschenk mit dem Horn und gab es dem Thor in die Hand. Da sprach Utgardloki: Aus diesem Horn scheint uns wohl getrunken, wenn es auf Einen Trunk leer wird; Einige trinken es auf den zweiten aus, aber Keiner ist ein so schlechter Trinker, der es nicht in dreien leerte. Thor sah sich das Horn an: es schien ihm nicht zu groß, obwohl ziemlich lang; er war aber auch sehr durstig.“ (Soon the cup-bearer came with the horn and put it in Thor's hand. Then Utgardloki said: We think this horn well drained if it is emptied in one draught; some drain it in two, but no one is so poor a drinker that he cannot empty it in three. Thor looked at the horn: it did not seem too big to him, though rather long; and he was very thirsty.)
Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning 46, German translation by Karl Simrock, Die Edda (19th century), public domain; English rendering of Simrock's wording by the author
Thor drinks three times with all his strength, and afterwards the horn is barely emptier. Only the next morning, in section 47, does Útgarða-Loki reveal the trick: the other end of the horn lay in the sea, which Thor could not see, and when he reaches the shore he will see how far it has sunk – "that is now called the ebb". That is how Snorri explains the tides. The other opponents were disguised forces too: Logi (fire), Hugi (thought) and Elli (old age). The whole story is told in our article on Utgard-Loki.
The scene assumes that at court a horn is drained in a few draughts rather than set down. Whether Snorri had real horns in mind cannot be proven, but the joke needs an audience that knew long horns.
Nineteenth-century paintings, operas and novels shaped the image of the Viking with a horn in his fist. Horns were used; their share in daily life is another matter.
Horn is a natural material that absorbs water, can warp in heat and varies from piece to piece. The following notes are general and do not replace the maker's instructions; only the maker can say how a particular horn was treated.
Legal framework. In the European Union, all articles that come into contact with food fall under Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004. Its Article 3 requires that, under normal or foreseeable use, they do not transfer constituents to food in quantities that endanger health, unacceptably change its composition or impair its taste or smell. I know of no specific EU measure for horn, as there is for plastics or ceramics; the general rules apply. Many drinking horns are lined on the inside. When buying one, ask with what, and whether the maker intends it for food contact.
Lining and temperature. Some makers line horns with beeswax, others with a resin coating declared food-safe. According to the consumer advice centre of North Rhine-Westphalia, beeswax melts at around 62 °C. A wax-lined horn is therefore unsuitable for hot drinks and cannot be washed hot. One maker using a resin lining considers warm drinks unproblematic but advises against near-boiling ones, because the horn can warp. For mulled wine or hot mead, a cup of clay, stoneware or glass is the simpler choice; our workshop in Alsdorf engraves Norse motifs on clay mugs made for exactly that.
Cleaning. The care instructions I have read agree: wash by hand with lukewarm water, mild washing-up liquid and a soft brush, do not soak the horn, and never put it in the dishwasher. Dry it completely, opening down. Untreated horn absorbs moisture and can start to smell; a horn with mould inside should no longer be used for drinking.
Storage. Keep it dry, out of direct sun and away from radiators. Do not leave drinks standing in the horn for hours; rinse it after use. A purely decorative horn should not be pressed into service as a drinking vessel later.
How old are drinking horns? In central Europe they are securely attested from the Iron Age, for example in the Hochdorf grave around 530 BC. Caesar describes silver-rimmed urus horns among the Germanic peoples in the first century BC.
Which animals did the horns come from? The great prestige horns from Hochdorf, Taplow and Sutton Hoo are aurochs horns. In the Viking Age, on current evidence, most horns came from domestic cattle, with goat horns as well.
What is a bragafull? A ceremonial cup over which vows were made at funeral ales, sacrificial feasts or Yule, as Snorri Sturluson describes in Heimskringla in the thirteenth century.
What does minni mean? "Memory". That was the name for the toasts to dead kinsmen. After the conversion people drank the minni to Christ and the saints; in the German lands the custom of "Minnetrinken" survived, for example as the Johannisminne.
Can you drink hot drinks from a drinking horn? That depends on the lining and the maker. Beeswax melts at around 62 °C, and even without wax, horn can warp in strong heat. For hot drinks, clay, stoneware or glass is less trouble.
Mead – the drink of gods · The Valkyries · The Golden Horns of Gallehus · Sutton Hoo – the Grave of a King · How do heathens celebrate today?.
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