Not your character decides, but your standing: land, silver, followers.
In the films every Norseman carries a sword. The ground tells another story: spear and shield are the norm, the sword stays the exception, and hardly anyone owned a mail shirt. What a person of the Viking Age carried depended less on courage than on land, silver and followers. Answer ten questions about an imagined life around the year 950 and you will get the equipment attested for that standing – with an honest line between find and interpretation.
Ten questions, one result. Not a character quiz but a test of standing: what mattered was what you could afford.
Around 950 your standing would have been …
A weapon was a sign, not only a tool. Anyone who wants to set a sign today can have it engraved in natural slate by us.
To the slate plaquesRead on: Arms and armour · The spear · The shield · The mail shirt · Helmets of the North
To be honest: this tool is a model, not a measurement. It sums up what weapon graves, legal texts such as the Gulathing law and the material finds suggest. Graves also show burial custom, not necessarily everyday equipment.
