139 Items Tagged

Vikings

Saint Olaf's Church of England

The timber roof beams in England's smallest active parish church are rumoured to have come from Viking longships.

Luss Hogback Stone

An 11th-century Viking gravestone in a Victorian parish church graveyard.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Leif Erikson Plaque

An engraved granite slab claims to mark the location where Leif Erikson built his house in the year 1000.

Skógar, Iceland

Skógar Museum

A museum celebrating Icelandic history and technology.

Aarhus, Denmark

Viking Traffic Lights

At these downtown crossings, pedestrian lights show axe-wielding Vikings instead of the usual walking figures.

Dublin, Ireland

Dalkey Island

A tiny island off the coast of Dublin was once a pilgrimage site for the sick and the suffering.

Andover, England

Viking Longboat

This former floral display recalls Andover’s crucial role in Viking history in England.

Birka Viking Burial Mounds

Sweden's first Viking city is also the site of thousands of burial mounds.

A glorious night sky seen through Owachomo Bridge in Utah's Natural Bridges National Monument, which was named the world's first International Dark Sky Park in 2007.

Archaeologists Explore Life After Dark in the Ancient Night

Studying our ancestors' nocturnal lives reveals the value of reclaiming darkness.

Nancy Gonlin and April Nowell October 7, 2024

This 1882 engraving of Ragnarok, the Viking doomsday, shows Odin mounted on a horse and fighting the wolf Fenrir.

7 Stories That Show Just How Metal the Nordics Are

From Viking werewolves to snacking on pickled ram's testicles, Europe's northernmost countries are badass.

Roxanne Hoorn September 27, 2024

Dragon Stones

A modern mini-Stonehenge is hidden in a public reserve, not far from a former Viking stronghold.

The snow-laden, misty entrance of Iceland's Rauðfeldsgjá Gorge resembles the entrance to Helheim, the realm of the dead who did not make it into Valhalla.

Viking Hell Is Just as Metal as You'd Expect

Judged unworthy of Valhalla? Welcome to Helheim.

Nicky Nielsen August 8, 2024

Copenhagen, Denmark

Viksø Helmets

Discovered in a peat bog, these horned helms come from a thousand years before the Viking Age.

The Viking Women With Intentionally Reshaped Skulls

Scientists posit how and why the ladies achieved the cone-head look.

Meg St-Esprit April 15, 2024

Hugin Longship

Cliffsend, England

Hugin Longship

This longship was a gift to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the Anglo-Saxons arrival in England.

Gudrid the Far-Traveled even walked to Rome.

The First Viking Woman to Sail to America Was a Legendary Traveler

Back when the Icelanders called a part of Canada the “land of grapes.”

Frank Jacobs February 9, 2024

Maldon, England

Statue of Byrhtnoth

This statue commemorates one of medieval England’s most courageous heroes.

The Yule Cat (or Jólakötturinn) serves as a warning for children to not misbehave, much like the threat of coal for naughty children on Christmas.

Beware the Yule Cat, Iceland’s Child-Eating Christmas Monster

But if you’re wearing new clothes, you have nothing to fear from Jólakötturinn.

Suzie Dundas December 22, 2023