Think Vikings were just ruthless raiders? Think again! Beyond the Hollywood hype of fierce warriors lies a world rich with unexpected wonders.

From the shores of Normandy to the mysteries of Byzantium, the Viking saga unfolds with thrilling tales of exploration, intricate art, and even diplomatic prowess.

These ancient Norsemen weren't just about battles and boats; they were poets, farmers, and believers in a magical world teeming with mythical beings.

Ready for a wild ride into the real Viking life? Join us as we unveil 10 astonishing Viking secrets that'll change everything you thought you knew about these legendary explorers!

#1 – Raids and Monasteries

The Vikings first broke onto the scene in Britain with the devastating raid of the Lindisfarne monastery in 793CE. Unprepared for attack, the monks at Lindisfarne were unable to put up a fight. The Vikings took some as slaves, but killed many, and soon had free reign to pinch all of the gold, silver, and artefacts stored on the Holy Island.

This first raid effectively launched the Viking Age, shocking the Christian West, establishing a pattern which would soon fell St. Columba’s monastery on Iona and St. Patrick’s in Armagh.

But why monasteries?

Well, the Vikings were pagans, and monasteries were undefended because Christians previously had no reason to fear attacks on holy places by other Christians.

What’s more, monasteries acted like Mediaeval banks, their vaults practically brimming with treasure, and their fields overflowing with livestock.

In short, monasteries were uber-wealthy and uber-easy targets. What more could a Viking want?

#2 – Human Sacrifices

Human sacrifice has played an integral role in the mythologies and religions of human beings since the dawn of time, that’s a simple fact.

Yet the question remains: did the Vikings sacrifice people, too?

By combining both the archaeological record and eye-witness accounts, the answer is: Yes, unequivocally yes.

Our principal written sources for this claim come from Islamic writer Ahmad ibn Fadlan, and Christian monks Adam of Bremen, Anskar ‘the Apostle of the North’, and Adémar de Chabannes, among various Viking sagas, which tell of human sacrifices (some willing, some not) made in honour of the dead, and as offerings to the gods.

These written accounts tell of sacrifices made at temples in Uppsala, Sweden, and Lejre, Zealand (Denmark), where 9 men and 9 male animals of every kind are killed and hung from sacred trees as part of a religious festival held every 9 years.

These claims are supported by the archaeological discovery of many burials in which thralls (slaves), young women, and spouses have been found dead with evident signs of trauma, contrasting the peaceful deaths of those they are buried alongside.

#3 – Viking Zombies: The Draugr

Did you think zombies were a modern invention? Not so. The Vikings seem to have been absolutely terrified that their dead relatives would return to stalk the earth as horrid, giant, smelly, corpse-black zombies with superhuman strength and a thirst for blood!

They believed whole-heartedly in the reality of zombies, or draugr, as they called them. A term which suggests a reanimated corpse, come to protect their tomb and haunt the living.

Vikings even believed that the draugr could visit you in your sleep and leave tangible gifts behind as evidence of their being real.

In order to prevent the draugr coming back from the dead, Vikings would often spin coffins around en route to the cairn, brick up tomb entrances, break the dead’s feet (turning them to face backwards!) or mutilate them in some other way.

Some corpses have even been found intentionally crushed beneath massive boulders!

#4 – A Trip to the Dentist

Usually we only go to the dentist when we really have to, right? When we have toothache, or need our bi-annual check-up. But what about going to a Viking Age dentist, and getting… teeth tattoos?

Yup! That’s right. Beginning in the 1990s, archaeologists started unearthing scores of adult male skulls whose teeth had been filed with neat parallel grooves running (usually) horizontally and (usually) across the upper-front teeth.

A massive 2005 study by osteologist Caroline Arcini found that these distinctive teeth markings didn’t seem to belong to any one class or age group of Viking males. She also hypothesised that the grooves were probably ‘painted’ with charcoal or dye to make them stand out even more.

We still don’t know exactly why Vikings endured this painful procedure, but it’s likely they did so for the same reason we get tattoos: as a symbol of individuality, coming of age, belonging, strength and resilience.

#5 – Take Good Care of the Nisse!

In the everyday Viking’s mind, there was no distinction between what we would today consider ‘real’ and ‘fantastical’. As such, there were thousands of magical creatures and accompanying traditions which punctuated a Viking’s day, and the nisse (or tomte) were one of them.

Nisse are best thought of as a sort of gnome, very small (about 15cms tall), with grey beards and pointy red hats.

Each nisse was the protector of its own farmhouse, and it was customary to keep yourself firmly in the good books of your personal farm nisse.

Nisses didn’t like change (they were perhaps the souls of the first farmholder), and they required regular gifts to keep them sweet (like a bowl of porridge on Yule eve).

Nisse which were well looked-after would ensure healthy livestock and bountiful harvests. Mistreated nisse, on the other hand, would play pranks, kill your livestock, and sometimes even beat you in your sleep.

#6 – Merry Christma… Yule?

We're terribly sorry to break it to you, but Christmas was kind of stolen from the Vikings.

In the darkest corner of winter, from 21st December until 9th of January, the Vikings would celebrate a festival called Yule (or jólablót in Old Norse).

It was only when the Christians began converting Vikings to their ways that Yule was slowly and cleverly absorbed into Christianity.

Instead of Yuletide – Christmastide. Instead of celebrating Odin – Jesus was celebrated (His actual birthday was probably in April, not December at all!).

Yule, for the Vikings, was a time of feasting on the last of the harvest stock, as well as of sacrifice to Odin, to be saved from the perils of the Wild Hunt and the draugr.

One contemporary account states that during Yule celebrations livestock were killed, and their blood sprayed all over the temples and men present.

To this day, our Christmas traditions retain Viking aspects like the Yule log, Yule boar (Christmas ham), and Yule singing (carolling).

#7 – I’m a Firestarter, Urine Firestarter

Anyone who enjoys camping knows that quality firestarters are essential to survival. The Vikings, often on the hoof, knew this as well as anyone.

They, like thousands of generations before them, turned to Fomes fomentarius: Tinder Fungus (also known as Touchwood) - a native mushroom which catches light easily.

But the Vikings went one step further. They made char cloth from Touchwood by cutting out its soft core and pounding it down into felt-like strips, before burning it in an oxygenless chamber. Then, they boiled it in their own urine.

Without modern chemistry, Vikings had inadvertently discovered that the sodium nitrate in pee, once dried, would allow them to light their urine-soaked char cloth and have it smoulder (without burning) for days at a time.

This allowed them to take their urine firestarter with them on a raid or hike, and simply blow on it to get a fire going whenever they needed one! Disgusting, but genius!

#8 – The Boar’s Snout

The Vikings became known throughout the mediaeval world for their ferocity in battle, but most modern depictions of raiding parties show them as loosely-organised (if not chaotic) hit-and-runs on unsuspecting locals.

In reality, Vikings were masters of warcraft who knew - and trained hard to be experts in - a variety of different battle formations.

Their most famous formation was the shield wall. Perhaps the most historically prevalent of all military formations, the shield wall was just that: a flat rectangular wall of warriors.

But the Vikings had other tricks up their sleeve, including the Svinfylking, or ‘Boar’s Snout’.

This was a brave and often-risky arrowhead formation starting with just one man - the most ferocious or inspiring of the warriors - at the head.

Each subsequent row would then increase by a constant (3 men, then 5, 7, 9, 11 and so on) until, at the back, stretched a long rectangle of men either side.

This formation was especially useful against cavalry (like Scottish schiltrons at the Battle of Bannockburn), and for breaking enemy lines.

The Boar’s Snout could even be multiplied along the line, creating a zig-zag battle line which was almost impenetrable.

#9 – We’re Going to America!

For a long, long time, we have been taught by school textbooks, popular culture and our parents that the Americas were first “discovered” by Christopher Columbus in 1492.

And yet, this is entirely incorrect. It is a fallacy propagated (to this day) by the Catholic Church, all because Columbus sailed in the name of the Pope, and wasn’t… a pagan.

As truly unbelievable as it may seem, we now know – conclusively – that the first Europeans to set foot on American soil were, in fact, Viking.

About five centuries before Columbus’ time, Viking Icelanders, led by outcast Leif Eriksson attempted to reach the Norse colony of Greenland by boat. Overshooting their mark, they came instead to a place which they named Vinland (ᚠᛁᚾᛚᛅᚾᛏ).

Leif’s mistake sparked several decades, if not centuries, of Viking colonies along the Atlantic north-east coast of America and Canada.

The archaeologically-proven settlement of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland is inarguably Viking, from about 1,000CE. But there is even evidence of Viking presence as far south as Hudson Bay, and as far north as the high Canadian Arctic. Time to rewrite those school textbooks!

#10 – Beware, the Kraken

As sailors of the seven seas (or near enough), the Vikings must have come across some pretty inexplicable things.

From weather patterns and people, to strange shores and monstrous creatures, the boys and girls from Scandinavia saw a lot which no-one back home would have believed existed.

One such beast which comes up time and time again in the sagas and histories of the Vikings (though the first mention was a couple of centuries after the Viking Age, in the 13th century Icelandic Orvar-Oddr), is the Kraken.

Described as a large, tentacled monster with a fearsome toothy-beaked mouth that preyed on ships and seamen alike, it was naturally a thing to be feared. 

Tales of a squid or octopus-like creature so big it could be mistaken for an island, the Kraken soon appeared on maps and in books on zoology.

Perhaps the craziest thing about this mythological, ship-munching, Viking-hunting sea monster, is that the Icelanders who wrote about it might not have been crazy.

Giant squids - creatures only first captured on video in 2012 - can grow up to 45ft in length, which is about half the length of a viking longship!

Conclusion

We’ve made a lot of assumptions about the Vikings over the years, usually quite violent ones. And sure, sometimes the Vikings weren’t exactly peace-loving.

Ritual human sacrifice, teeth filing, monastery raiding, and belief in zombies was rampant in Viking society. Yet, at the same time, these were also the people who first ‘discovered’ America, who gave us Christmas and learned how to start fires with their pee; the same exact people who left out bowls of delicious buttery porridge for tiny red-hat-wearing magic men.

So, perhaps the next time you think you’ve got the Vikings figured out, how about instead you come back here, and read a little more? Skål!