Those aromas featured in the aptly named "Norse Power" scent range from the relatively pleasant (fresh pine, seawater, fruits and nuts) to the unabashedly gross (blood and gore, mud, smoke from burning settlements).
The Vikings were among the cleanest and most pleasant smelling people in Europe during the Viking Age, and the women loved it.
1. With all the pillaging and murdering, the common perception is that Vikings were rugged, dirty and smelly, but actually Viking men were surprisingly clean. Not only did they bathe once a week, but tweezers, combs, ear cleaners and razors have been unearthed at Viking sites.
Mead, gore, sweat, animal meat, seawater and smoke were the typical odours of a 10th century warrior.
But what about the smell? Lena Elfvinge Nixon says that the wood fires that everyone used to keep warm would have definitely given people a rather smoky smell, and the close contact with livestock would have added to the odor, plust few people owned many changes of clothes, since cloth was so expensive.
The bras were often made of metal and until now scientists had thought they were used as collar-bone protection. But it is now clear these pads were worn much further down by female Vikings, according to the work in Birka, Sweden's oldest Viking centre.
Vikings were known for their excellent hygiene.
Excavations of Viking sites have turned up tweezers, razors, combs and ear cleaners made from animal bones and antlers. Vikings also bathed at least once a week—much more frequently than other Europeans of their day—and enjoyed dips in natural hot springs.
Genetic research has shown that the Vikings in West Scandinavia, and therefore in Denmark, were mostly red-haired. However, in North Scandinavia, in the area around Stockholm, blonde hair was dominant.
The Vikings throughout Scandinavia used pipes and the herb angelikarot was commonly smoked in Norway. In later years, chalk and iron pipes were mass-produced for sailors in Norway.
And experts say surnames can give you an indication of a possible Viking heritage in your family, with anything ending in 'son' or 'sen' likely to be a sign. Other surnames which could signal a Viking family history include 'Roger/s' and 'Rogerson' and 'Rendall'.
Viking teeth were often subject to a great deal of wear, which is largely attributed to their diet. Study of the skeletal remains of Vikings has also shown evidence that they suffered from periodontal disease and tartar buildup.
A history long unrecorded
The Vikings were, of course, big talkers and long favoured oral traditions over the written word. Their culture, histories, tales and legends have been passed down through the centuries in skaldic poems. Skalds were official poets working in the service of a king, clan chief or jarl.
Many Vikings used picks to clean the gaps between their teeth, and some historian believes they may have also used fibrous hazel twigs and similar tools as a kind of brush. The Viking skeletons discovered over the decades have usually had relatively strong teeth too.
Description: The waterlogged areas of the excavation at Whithorn uncovered preserved 'sheets' of moss, which had been discarded. Closer analysis revealed them to be studded with fragments of hazel nut shells, and blackberry pips.
English sources describe the Vikings as very attractive: Viking men were clean and fragrant because they always took a Saturday bath, combed their hair and wore beautiful clothes. In addition, it must be added that they were tall, blond and well-trained – which certainly also made a strong impression on the ladies.
Vikings had a varied and rich diet of wild and domestic meats, fruits, crops, poultry, fish, and other food they could grow, harvest, or hunt. Therefore, it is not surprising that their diet was much better and more varied than in other parts of medieval Europe.
They were prolific drug users undertaking shamanistic forest rituals (i.e., consuming drugs/herbals) over a lifetime of worship practices. Sources appear to agree that Viking warriors probably ingested one of two mushroom species: Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) or Amanita pantherina (panther cap).
Advertisement. The Viking reputation for being well-groomed comes from Christian accounts condemning such behavior as vain posturing. Vikings were Scandinavians (though not all Scandinavians were Vikings), and their emphasis on being well-groomed and dressed reflected the value of the larger culture.
It quenched the thirst after the salty Viking food had been eaten. The Vikings drank strong beer at festive occasions, together with the popular drink of mead. Mead was a sweet, fermented drink made from honey, water and spices. Wine made from grapes was also known of, but had to be imported, from France, for example.
22, 2020, 8:05 a.m. It turns out most Vikings weren't as fair-haired and blue-eyed as legend and pop culture have led people to believe. According to a new study on the DNA of over 400 Viking remains, most Vikings had dark hair and dark eyes.
"The examination of skeletons from different localities in Scandinavia reveals that the average height of the Vikings was a little less than that of today: men were about 5 ft 7-3/4 in. tall and women 5 ft 2-1/2 in.
The Vikings were more robust and muscular than the average person, and that was for both women and men. One of the reasons for this is, of course, the hard physical work, that was needed to survive in a landscape like Scandinavia in the Viking age.
Skeletons show that arthritis of the back, hands and knees plagued ordinary Viking farmers. Many Vikings also suffered from tooth problems. More than a quarter of the population had holes in their teeth. Finds of crania show that most Vikings had several teeth missing.
Disease-transmitting parasites such as lice, fleas and ticks are reservoirs of pathogens including plague, relapsing fever and epidemic typhus, all of which may have infected the Vikings (Fig. 3).
As it turns out, their food was healthy, fresh, and even a poor Viking ate much better than an English peasant during the Middle Ages.