Viking Home Life

When people think of the Vikings they normally think of the seafaring warriors that raided the coasts of Europe, which makes sense since they where the people in Europe met with, but the Vikings were a surprisingly small percentage of the Scandinavian population, with the majority of them being farmers, fishermen, and peaceful traders. Life in ancient Scandinavia was surprisingly good and was extremely family focused. All close family (husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters) would all live in the same home with the extended family (uncles, aunts, and grandparents) in the neighbouring homes next to you. This is different from common day living because today families often live in completely different sections of a town or city, and sometimes even several states or countries apart. Another strange thing about the homes of these people is that they were almost entirely one-room affairs. There would often be 2-3 beds in the building with a partially walled off section in the back that would have a cooking pit and a chimney. This would function as the kitchen, and be where the meals are cooked. This is radically different from the modern day houses where there is normally at least one if not two living rooms, a kitchen, two to four personal rooms for each member of the family, and often times a large garage. The last but possibly most disturbing thing about these homes is the fact that they normally slept with their animals. And I don’t just mean dogs and cats, though they were probably in there too, I mean farm animals such as goats, cows, and chickens. This probably meant that it was hard to sleep in old Scandinavia but maybe the Vikings were deep sleepers. Among these animals the Vikings had an extremely diverse diet which included cow, goat, chicken and eggs, sheep, lamb, elk, reindeer, horse, pork, fish, and even bear on a rare day. In addition to this meat they also had carrots, beans, cabbage, apple, and onion. So while they didn’t have nearly the diversity we have today they had the foremost diet in ancient times. And despite what many people believe about these “pagans” women where allowed to divorce their husbands and reach high positions in the culture. Overall I believe the ancient Scandinavians had a wonderful culture that was extremely happy and easygoing. I believe that I would greatly enjoy living in ancient Scandinavia with a few changes, namely sleeping with the goats.