Say "Viking" and most people picture a sword – yet the majority of warriors in the Viking Age never owned one. Spear and axe were the everyday weapons; the sword was the costly badge of the elite. This overview walks through the whole arsenal of the Norse fighter, places each weapon in its archaeological and written context, and draws a clean line between what is proven and what the sagas and the cinema simply tell us.
In the Viking Age a person's armament was not purely military but deeply social. Weapons cost money, and what someone could muster revealed their standing. A free man typically carried a spear, a shield and a knife or seax; the better-off added an axe; and the truly wealthy owned a sword. A complete elite set of sword, spear, axe, shield, mail and helmet was so rare that it almost never appears together in the grave record.
Burial finds across Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the colonies bear this out plainly: spearheads and axes turn up in great numbers, swords far less often, mail shirts and helmets almost never. That does not mean everyone else fought unprotected – it means that high-grade iron and steel were precious, and most of it was reused or handed down rather than buried.
It is also important that "the Viking" was no professional soldier. Most men who went raiding were farmers, fishermen and craftsmen who set out in summer to trade or plunder and returned in autumn for the harvest. They had to provide their own gear. Only late in the Viking Age did standing retinues, paid by king or jarl, arise, whose warriors were more uniformly and heavily armed. To understand the weapon landscape of the North one must therefore always hold two pictures in mind: the average free fighter with spear and shield – and the narrow upper class that displayed its wealth in the sword, the broad axe and the armour.
The spear was the most widespread weapon of the Viking Age – cheap to make, because only the iron head had to be forged while the long shaft was of ash or other wood. It served both as a thrusting weapon and as a throwing missile. Archaeologically, spearheads are by far the most frequent weapon find; the typologies distinguish many forms, from slender throwing heads to broad, winged thrusting spears whose sockets were sometimes richly inlaid with silver.
The spear also stood at the heart of war as a religious act. Odin's weapon was the spear Gungnir, and tradition tells us that before a battle a spear was thrown over the enemy host to dedicate it to Odin. That the Germanic bond between free man and spear reaches far back is already shown by the Roman historian Tacitus in his "Germania".
"They also carry iron spears – framea in their own tongue – with a narrow and short head, yet so sharp and handy in use that with the same weapon they fight, as the situation demands, at close quarters or at a distance."Tacitus, Germania 6 (own translation)
Although Tacitus writes some eight centuries before the Viking Age, he describes the same basic idea: the one versatile pole-weapon of the ordinary warrior. Shaft lengths varied greatly – short throwing spears about the height of a man stood alongside long thrusting spears with which one could strike from the second rank of the shield wall over the heads of those in front. Some heads bear small wings or lugs below the blade; they kept the weapon from driving in too deep and could be used to parry and hook. Thus the spear was at once the cheapest and the tactically most flexible weapon of the North. Readers who want the religious dimension will find more in our piece on Germanic warfare.
After the spear, the axe was the second most common weapon – and at the same time an indispensable tool on every farm. The range runs from the simple hatchet to the heavy war-axe. The light bearded axe, with its downward-drawn "beard" of the edge, was versatile and could even be used to hook. The large, thin-bladed broad axe of the late Viking Age, by contrast, was a pure war-weapon: wielded in both hands, it could split shields and drive through mail.
The axe was the common man's weapon because it was present on every farm anyway and tied up little costly iron. Only the edge was of hardened steel, the rest of the head of softer iron – which made the weapon tough and cheap at once. Some showpieces, such as the famous Mammen axe from a Danish grave of the 10th century, were richly decorated with fine silver inlay and served as status symbols; its ornament even gave its name to a whole art style, the Mammen style. The long, slender haft of the broad axe gave the two-handed blow enormous force, but cost the fighter the cover of his shield – one reason the heavy axe belonged rather to the equipment of disciplined retinue warriors. More on forms, typology and finds in our own article on the Viking axe.
The sword was the most expensive and prestigious weapon of the Viking Age. A good sword tied up an enormous amount of iron and the highest craftsmanship; it was handed down over generations, was given a name, and marked rank and wealth. Typical Viking swords were double-edged cutting weapons with a broad, fullered blade and distinctive pommels, whose forms archaeology has arranged into detailed typologies.
Many of the best blades were not forged in the North but in the Frankish realm, even though Charlemagne explicitly forbade exporting weapons to the Northmen. Famous are the blades inlaid with "+VLFBERH+T" of high-grade, carbon-rich steel – a kind of brand so coveted that it was also counterfeited. The older idea that every blade was elaborately "damascened" must be qualified: pattern-welding (the artful welding of different iron grades into a visible pattern) was common in the early Viking Age but gave way increasingly to more homogeneous steel blades.
The hilt was as much a statement as the blade. Pommels and guards were inlaid with silver, copper and brass wire, laid in plait patterns or covered with animal-style ornament. Such a sword was heirloom, legal title and gift in one: kings rewarded loyal followers with costly blades, and in the tradition named swords change hands with the standing of their bearers. The sword was carried on a baldric over the shoulder or at the belt, in a wood-lined, leather-covered scabbard that protected the blade from rust. More in our articles on the Viking sword and the Ulfberht sword.
Between knife and sword stood the seax – a single-edged short sword or long fighting knife that is said to have given the "Saxons" their name across the entire Germanic world. The seax was markedly cheaper than a double-edged sword and therefore more widespread; it ranged from short, knife-like forms to long, sword-like blades. As a robust, straight cutting and thrusting weapon for the tight press of close combat, it rounded out the arsenal of the free warrior who could not afford a full sword.
The bow was far more than a hunting tool. In sea battles and open field battles the fight was often opened with arrow fire before it came to hand-to-hand combat. On the water especially, where ships were lashed together into floating fighting platforms, arrow fire often decided the first phase. Long wooden bows were used, above all of yew, together with iron arrowheads in great variety of form – slender, hardened points to punch through armour alongside broad cutting heads for unprotected targets. Archers enjoyed real standing in the tradition: a good shot could help decide a battle, and the sagas name individual bowmen. That the bow is underrepresented in today's image of the "Viking" owes more to the modern iconography of axe and sword than to its actual importance.
The round shield was the universal protective weapon. It usually consisted of thin, glued boards – often of lime wood or other light timber – with a central iron shield boss protecting the hand, and a rim frequently covered in leather or rawhide. Contrary to the heavy Hollywood cliché, the Viking shield was light and mobile; the famous finds from the Gokstad ship show thin boards and simple construction.
The shield was not merely cover but a weapon in its own right: one punched with the boss, hooked away enemy weapons, and in close order pressed shield against shield. This formation, the shield wall, was the backbone of Norse field battle. Shields were frequently painted – red, black, yellow and white fields are attested – which helped tell friend from foe in the press. A shield was consumable: the thin boards splintered in combat, and a warrior had to reckon on going through more than one in the course of a battle. We treat construction and finds in detail in our article on the Viking shield and the tactics in the text on the shield wall.
Armour was a luxury. A mail shirt, the brynja, consisted of tens of thousands of individually made and riveted iron rings – an effort that made it the equipment of the elite. Complete mail shirts are extremely rare archaeologically; the best-known piece comes from the grave at Gjermundbu in Norway. Anyone without a brynja wore at most a padded textile layer, or relied entirely on the shield.
With the helmet the evidence is thinner still. The only largely preserved helmet of the actual Viking Age is the Gjermundbu helmet – a plain rounded iron cap with a spectacle- or mask-like eye guard. It has no horns. More on it, and on the famous misinterpretation, in our article on the Gjermundbu helmet.
Behind every blade, every spearhead and every shield boss stood the work of the smiths. Iron was won in bloomery furnaces from ore or bog iron and laboriously cleaned of slag. Good weapons were created by deliberately combining softer and harder iron grades – a tough core, a hard edge. Pattern-welding demanded the utmost control over temperature and folding. To forge a sword was weeks of work and affordable only for the few, which further explains the status value of the weapon. More on furnaces, techniques and tools in our article on the smithing craft of the Vikings.
In Norse society bearing arms was not merely permitted but expected. Free men carried weapons to the thing, the assembly, and assent was at times expressed by the clash of arms. Anyone without weapons was usually unfree – slaves were denied the carrying of arms. In the later law codes of the North the duty to keep certain weapons ready is even tied to the organisation of defence: for the naval levy, the leiðangr, every able-bodied man had to provide a basic kit, often spear, shield and a set number of arrows. The weapon was thus less a tool of war than a token of personal freedom and legal standing. Whoever lost it – through outlawry or unfreedom – lost their place in the community at the same time. In this light it becomes clear why a well-made weapon in the North was crafted, decorated and passed on with such care: it was the most visible sign of who and what a person was.
In the North weapons were more than gear – they carried meaning. Some were deliberately rendered useless before being laid in a grave or a bog: bent swords and broken spears from votive finds show that the weapon was "given" to the dead or the deity and withdrawn from worldly use. In the heroic sagas the greatest bear named blades whose origins reach back to dwarves or ancient kings. These tales are no historical weapon catalogue, but they reveal the rank a good blade held in people's minds: it was a bearer of honour, fate and family history. In mythology too the gods are defined by their weapons – Odin's spear Gungnir, Thor's hammer Mjölnir, Freyr's sword that fights of its own accord. Anyone who engraved or named a weapon placed themselves squarely in this tradition.
Well attested: Spear and axe were the most common weapons and can be documented in great numbers from graves; swords are rarer and appear above all in wealthier burials. The Gjermundbu find provides the only largely preserved Viking helmet and a rare mail shirt. Frankish blades, including the Ulfberht group, are materially proven; the Carolingian ban on weapon export is recorded in writing. Tacitus attests the framea as the basic Germanic weapon.
Myth check: Not every Viking swung a sword – most fought with the cheaper spear or axe, and the sword was the status weapon of the elite. Horned helmets demonstrably never existed; they come from the art and opera of the 19th century. The term "Dane axe" for the large broad axe is a later outside label, not a contemporary word. And the famous named wonder-swords of the sagas – Skofnung, Tyrfing and others – are saga literature: named swords existed, but magical blades with a will of their own belong to the realm of the tale.
The Viking Sword · The Viking Axe · The Viking Shield · The shield wall · The Ulfberht sword · Warfare.
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