| Model of Birka, Sweden, town and ramparts. |
My friend
Caroline Hatton, a children’s writer and frequent contributor to this blog,
took the photos in this post in June and July 2025.
Lofotr
(L), Norway (N). Birka (B), Stockholm (St), Sweden (S), Denmark (D).
My husband
and I visited Scandinavia in 2025. Targeting natural wonders and the Viking Age
of over a thousand years ago led us to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. We spent a
month seeing and doing what we wanted most, to make the most out of our
roundtrip flights overseas, because I try to minimize non-essential flying and
its eco-damage.
I wrote
earlier posts about the natural wonders we saw. About the Vikings, this post,
Part 1, is about visiting two former Viking sites, Lofotr in Norway and Birka
in Sweden. Part 2 will appear next week.
In
Scandinavia, like in any land where earlier cultures once thrived, layers of
dirt are layers of history. Modern farmers working in their fields have literally
struck gold—in buried Viking treasures. In museums that display such artifacts,
every single staff guide we met was a young, passionate archeologist.
LOFOTR, NORWAY
As described in an earlier blog post about Norway’s far north Lofoten
Islands, the Lofotr Viking Museum is the archeological site where the longest
Viking longhouse ever found once stood. A replica of it, a museum, and the
historic harbor site form the Lofotr Viking Museum.
Our costumed guide for a tour of the longhouse said that such a big farmstead
would have been the seat of power of a mighty chieftain. His name might have
been Ulv, also referred to as Olaf in different texts. Ulv and Olaf do sound
similar to me, especially if I imagine speaking with my mouth full of hearty Viking
porridge.
More importantly, I learned that he might have been the same man as in
the Icelandic saga that begins with, “There was a man named Ulv…” No way! I had
just read this saga, Egil’s Saga, in which Ulv was Egil’s grandfather. Was
I standing where he once did, where the story started? Something shifted in the
reality around me. Ulv, and therefore his son, and grandson Egil, were part
Sami, the local native people. Ulv’s son left Norway for Iceland, where Egil
was born.
 |
| Longhouse, diagram and model. |
The above diagram of the enormous 83-meter (~270-feet) longhouse stone
foundation and post holes shows five main rooms: from left to right, the living
area, entrance room with the front door at the bottom and the back door at the
top, banquet hall, storage room, and livestock barn. In the above model, the
doors and cows give an idea of the scale.
 |
| The barn space in the longhouse replica. |
In the above photo of the barn portion of the replica, the emergency
exit door, added to meet modern safety requirements, helps to picture how imposingly
tall the longhouse was. In the banquet room, costumed staff cooked stew on the
central hearth fire and served it with mead to wash it down. In the living
area, craftspersons made period shoes and wove cloth.
The inside of
a longhouse might have smelled like food, such as simmering herbs and meat, and
hearth fire smoke mixed with the body odor of numerous people and the scents
emanating from horses, cows, and sheep.
 |
| Chieftain and wife. |
In the museum building, mannequins were dressed like the chieftain and
his wife might have been. Also on display were artifacts found in the excavation
of the former longhouse foundation, its refuse heap outside the back wall, and nearby
graves and other sites: for example, tools and weapons, glass and pottery
shards, and jewelry, locally made or imported. Powerful, wealthy Vikings were
buried with their possessions.
When done indoors, we started walking downhill toward the harbor to
see Viking ship replicas and get a feel for the former farm. But we gave up
because even though the hours-long lashing rain has stopped, the wind was so
cold it felt like it was slicing my eyeballs, and so strong it nearly knocked
me off my feet. Would a Viking woman have toughed it out?
BIRKA,
SWEDEN
From a boat
dock in Stockholm, a 2-hour boat ride into vast Lake Mälaren took us to Birka,
the site of Sweden’s “first city” or town. Founded on a small island during the
750s, within 100 years it had become the most important Swedish Viking trading
post for northern Europe and a base for raids to the east.
During our
boat ride, a costumed archeologist told Viking history tales as we sailed past
their setting.
With only
three and a half hours on the island before boarding the boat back, we decided
to catch the earliest guided, outdoor walking tour.
 |
| Reconstructed villagers' boat. |
This gave us
time before the tour to stroll through the reconstructed Viking village that
existed at the same time as the town of Birka, chat with resident goats and
chickens, and watch docents lead kids craft activities.
On the
hour-long guided tour in steady, light rain, we walked through some of the
1,600+ Viking Age burial mounds, past an ancient fortress and adjacent garrison
site, and in sight of Black Earth, the black soil from the former town fireplaces.
Over 1,000
people lived in Birka, many of them craftspersons and traders, either freemen
or slaves. The craftsmen—bronze casters, weavers, comb and shoe makers…—lived with
their family in houses near the docks. Many were immigrants from other parts of
Europe, based on the materials and designs they used. The traders got rich, importing
Arabic silver, beads from India, Yemen, Byzantium, and the Caucasus, ceramics,
silk, spices, glass… in exchange for iron, horns, fur, skins, cloth, birds of
prey, and slaves.
 |
| Comb. |
The above comb is intact, which is rare. It was made from different
antlers.
 |
| Smoothing stone and board. |
To “iron”
their clothes, the Vikings rubbed the above green glass “smoothing stone” over
fabric laid on the whalebone “smoothing board.” The resulting heat would make
the fabric shiny and smooth. The above stone, board, and comb, found at Birka,
are now displayed in the Viking World exhibition in Stockholm.
In the Birka
museum rooms, we saw portraits in images and words of two men and two women who
were buried at Birka in the 8th, 9th and 10th
century, some artifacts found during grave or Black Earth excavations, and some
replicas.
Birka was
part of a northern European trade network. Traveling was easier on water than
land, so people, goods, and ideas came together in harbors. Many different
languages would have been spoken on the docks. Different cultures and religions
were represented in Birka, a cosmopolitan Viking town.
Note: Part 2 of On the Viking Trail will post next week.
