Viking Society

Housing

The majority of the Vikings lived on farms. Their houses were made of wood, stone or blocks of turf with thatched or turf roofs. Usually they would only have one room but some of the richer people often had a small entrance hall, a large main room, a kitchen, a bedroom and a storage room.

During the winter the children, slaves and the elderly would clean up around the house. The lady of the house had all of the keys to the house and wore them around her wrist as a sign of her status. In winter the houses were isolated from each other due to poor weather conditions and were usually cold. As a result a large fire was often placed in the middle of the house and this was where the Vikings would bake bread and cook meat.

The chieftain’s house was the most important building in the village or settlement. This was where the chieftain lived and where everyone gathered to form the villages Viking cult. The entrance would usually enter into the hall with sleeping chambers and other rooms to the left and right.

Food

The Vikings were mostly farmers and would grow corn. They would often have livestock on their farm. The livestock that could often be found were sheep, cows and pigs. They would also harvest wheat rye and barley. The Vikings also owned some geese and chickens which would often waddle around the yard freely.

The Vikings would often sit around a fire eating stew. The stew would normally consist of boiled lamb bones, beans, peas, carrots and turnips while dipping bread in it.

For breakfast the Vikings would have buttermilk, a kind of skim milk, and bread.

For lunch the Vikings meal was basic often just some cottage cheese with bread. They would drink water at lunch.

For their evening meal the Vikings would often have horsemeat kebab. To stop their meat from going of they would soak meat such as mutton and smoke fish over a fire.

The Vikings had three feast nights during the year. Normally they would sacrifice a horse to the gods. When the sacrifice was complete, the Vikings would eat kebabs, fish, lamb or mutton. Instead of having horse kebabs the Vikings who converted to Christianity would dine on roast lamb though the three feasts were still celebrated. For desert they will eat fresh fruit and have some honey on butter bread. They also drank beer and mead, an alcoholic drink made from fermented honey and water.