Want to learn more about Norse Vikings? We provide information and insight for people interested in Viking Age Scandinavia. The present web site is a dynamic resource that treats on current and past issues related to Norse cultural heritage. The Viking Rune offers unique online features: free Rune Converter and Motto Generator. We are committed to greater access to knowledge about the Vikings, which is the only way to dispel the myth about Norse warriors as cruel and bloodthirsty raiders who did nothing but kill, pillage and rape. The Viking Rune is always up-to-date with the latest developments in North Germanic studies, including hot archeological finds in Scandinavia and elsewhere.

Vikings

Norse Rune Symbols and the Third Reich

July 31, 2009 Runes Meaning

Some of the symbols treated in this article may be interpreted as pointing to Nazi ideology in certain contexts. Their use in the present article has nothing to do with it. Any such connotations are a recent development as compared to the long history of the most of these signs. Below both their original meaning [...]

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Norse Heathen Symbols Are Not Hate Symbols

July 30, 2009 Viking Symbols

What would you feel if you saw a guy with a runic tattoo? Many would probably feel uneasiness, including myself. The question is why. I perfectly know that ancient Germanic peoples used the Elder Futhark not because they were white supremacists. I realize that vikings used the Younger Futhark not because they were racist skinheads. [...]

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Create Life Mottos in Old Norse Online

July 20, 2009 Old Norse

Just added a new feature: the Old Norse motto generator. This allows to create viking mottos or slogans online through a user friendly interface according to five grammatical patterns. The first one is «(noun) and (noun)». Choosing words in drop down menus allows to create such Old Norse phrases as «blood and death», or «sword [...]

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Viking Ship Found in Lake Vänern

May 18, 2009 Viking Ships

Early this month a team of divers discovered a wreck of a 20-metre long Viking ship at the bottom of Lake Vänern, Sweden’s largest lake. Several Viking ships had been unearthed in Sweden before, but all of them on dry land. This is the first find of such type in Swedish waters. One of the [...]

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Top Ten Viking Hoaxes

May 13, 2009 Vikings

1. Vinland Map. The so called Vinland Map is a medieval style map of the old world. It is said to date to the 15th century, when it was purportedly redrawn from a 13th century original. In the western Atlantic it has a large island identified as Vinland, which is the name given to an [...]

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Viking Graffiti in Hagia Sophia

March 30, 2009 Vikings History

Tagma ton Varangion, the Varangian Guard, was first created in the Byzantine Empire under Basil II Bulgaroctonus (Slayer of the Bulgars), one of the outstanding Byzantine emperors. After the death of John I Tzimisces in 976, who governed the empire before Basil, two powerful generals revolted and received military support from Georgia and Baghdad. Basil [...]

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Jelling Rune Stones Remain Outdoors

March 29, 2009 Rune Stones

The Jelling stones are two massive runestones standing in a churchyard in Jelling, Denmark, between two large mounds. Both date to the 10th century. The older and the smaller of the two was erected by Gorm the Old in memory of his wife Thyra. The Larger stone was erected by Harald Bluetooth in memory of [...]

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The Genes of Mice Reveal Viking Secrets

March 19, 2009 Viking DNA

The house mice (mus musculus domesticus) are largely dependent on dense human settlement for food, so they may serve as a good indicator of human migrations and trading links. The study by Professor Jeremy Searle, from York University, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences in October 2008, analyses the genes of [...]

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Vikings Filed Their Teeth

March 18, 2009 Vikings

Caroline Arcini, an anthropologist at the National Heritage Board in Lund, Sweden, analized 557 skeletons from four major Viking burial sites in Sweden. The skeletons date from AD 800 to AD 1050. The results of the study, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology in 2006, revealed that 24 of them (10 per cent [...]

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The Vikings Reloaded

March 15, 2009 Vikings History

Today is the third and the last day of the conference Between the Islands: Interaction with Vikings in Ireland and Britain in the Early Medieval Period hosted by the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic of the Cambridge University. “The rehabilitation of the Vikings is nothing new to academics, but it is surprising how enduring [...]

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Viking Ships Found Over the Last 12 Years

March 13, 2009 Viking Hoards

As far as I was able to find out, at least eight important viking ship finds have been reported over the last twelve years. In July 1997 a joint expedition of the Center for Russian Underwater Archaeology and Archeoclub d’Italia discovered a wreck of a 9th or 10th century Varangian ship in Dalnaja Bay near [...]

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Lewis Chessmen

March 12, 2009 Viking Hoards

The Lewis chessmen were probably made in Norway about AD 1150-1200 by craftsmen in Trondheim, where similar pieces have been found. Some researchers think that the chessmen were lost or hidden during their transportation from Norway to Viking settlements on the east coast of Ireland. They were discovered in 1831 in the vicinity of Uig [...]

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Viking Society in Iceland – Key Concepts

March 10, 2009 Vikings History

Viking society of the 10th century in Iceland was a democracy of free men, böndr (singular: bóndi) who worked on the land that they owned. As it seems, rural community, hreppr, originally united people who first came to Iceland on the same ship. From among chieftains, höfðingjar (singular: höfðingi) a priest, goði (plural: goðar), was [...]

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Vikings in England – A Historical Commentary

March 9, 2009 Vikings History

Comments by Professor Jobling and Dr King quoted in my earlier article on the Viking genetic heritage in northern England may need some explanation. Danelaw, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, is the territory in Britain, where the laws of the Danes for a certain period dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons (see the map). The first [...]

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