Personal hygiene, hair, beard and dress of the vikings

A steaming heat hits the four men as the oak door is opened. The heat in the sauna is a welcome change from the dreary haze outside, and the men sigh with relief as they sink into the tubs of hot water. Calm soon falls over the bathhouse,
while the men scrub the skin, comb the hair and carefully clean both nails and ears. This is roughly how it may have gone when the Scandinavians of the Viking Age bathed every Saturday. The word “Lørdag” comes from the Norse “laugardagr”, which simply means washing day. The term is one of many examples that the Vikings were far ahead of their time when it came to taking an interest in personal hygiene and personal appearance.Viking washing hands

At this time, washing with soap and water was an extravagant luxury very few Europeans enjoyed. They used perfume, yes lots of perfume to drown out the worst smell of sweat instead of washing, which was also very common even among clergy, royalty and nobles. Popular culture’s notion of dirty, inhuman Viking warriors with bad body odor, appearance and behavior like an old bull does not hold up. Compared to people in the rest of Europe, the Vikings were fashion-conscious, beautiful guys with charm, confidence and great hair. The Scandinavians were quite simply Europe’s cleanest.

Tried to look good at all times

The Vikings tried to look good at all times. Even the month-long raids they went on were no obstacle. For example, in 907 Swedish Vikings concluded a peace treaty with the Byzantine Empire after decades of bloody skirmishes. The agreement meant, among other things, that the Vikings were given unlimited access to all bathing facilities when their longships docked in the empire’s port cities.

Nevertheless – 14 years later, the Arab envoy Ibn Fadlan met a group of Viking merchants on the Volga River. The Arab noticed that a slave girl fetched a barrel of water every morning. She gave it to her master, who “both washed himself and his hair, and combed his hair into the tub. He then blew his nose and spat into it”. When the man finished, the slave carried on
passed the wash basin around to the rest of the men, who did the same. Ibn Fadlan looked down upon the washing ritual, calling the Nordic men “the dirtiest of all Allah’s creatures”. As a Muslim, he was used to washing himself in clean water five times a day before the daily prayers. But actually the Vikings’ daily washing was very unusual compared to the Europeans of the time, who often only took a bath once or twice a year.

Sorrow and laws

Dirt also meant sorrow. If a Viking did not put soap and water in his hair, it was a sign of grief. When the God Balder was killed, his brother Vale, according to Viking myths, neglected to wash his hair and hands until he had avenged the murder. This may also have had a great influence on the Vikings.

The Vikings’ obsession with adornment almost bordered on obsession in the eyes of their contemporaries – and the Scandinavians actually went so far as to pass laws protecting personal hygiene.
According to the medieval Icelandic law collection Grågås, it was a criminal offense to throw dirt at another to mock him. The same applied if a man shoved a Viking into “water, urine, food or mud”, whatever reason he had for humiliating his opponent.

A few hundred years after the heyday of the Vikings, however, cleanliness went out of fashion again in Scandinavia. And around the year 1500, European doctors began to spread the idea that water could cause plague. The performance lasted for nearly 300 years. But the legacy of the clean and well-dressed Vikings did not die completely: the upper classes of society were still diligent users of great hairstyles, beauty remedies and fashionable clothes.

Christian monks created a false picture of the vikings

The first written accounts of the Vikings, apart from the Vikings’ own sagas, were written by Christian monks in England at the end of the seventh century. The monks were often attacked by the Vikings because they did not try to protect themselves or their property like men, but ran away or waited to be killed. The harsh behavior of the Scandinavians therefore got the monks to create an image of them as bloodthirsty, unkempt and dirty barbarians – and who wouldn’t write the same if someone came and stole all your goods and gold.

Today, however, historians know that most Vikings were well-groomed and lived peacefully side by side with the English. And although the Vikings went on brutal raids, they had a sophisticated culture around poetry and storytelling. Something else that probably also contributed to the writers giving the Vikings a bad reputation is the jealousy of other European men because their women loved the Vikings.

Viking-by-fireplaceWhen Danish Vikings at the end of the 8th century conquered and settled in the British Isles, the Anglo-Saxons soon discovered that the tough warriors were very concerned about how they got out. The monk John of Wallingford wrote in his chronicle that the Vikings “were in the habit – according to the customs of their country – to groom their hair every day, bathe every Saturday, change their clothes often, and show themselves off by many such frivolous contrivances”. The vain ones the Scandinavians aroused great resentment and, according to the chronicler, were responsible for “many disputes and wars in the kingdom”.

The vikings was irresistible to anglo-saxon women

Furious Anglo-Saxons even complained to the king about the pure Vikings. Especially because the well-groomed Norsemen were so attractive in the eyes of the Anglo-Saxon noblewomen. Yes, it was perhaps not so strange that English women were happy to leave an untidy and smelly husband and children, in favor of a clean, well-groomed and fragrant Scandinavian who took long baths and had a well-groomed appearance and hairstyle. The monk Wallingford wrote: “They besieged the virtue of married women and persuaded the daughters of even distinguished men to become their courtesans”.

Archaeological findings show that the pursuit of beauty was fairly widespread among Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic Vikings. For example, countless Viking graves across the Nordic region testify that nail cleaners, toothpicks and tweezers were popular grave gifts. The remedies were probably in the possession of every Viking. The hair lay perfectly. One of the most frequent finds from the Viking Age is combs made of bone or wood. The Vikings often kept them in boxes to protect the tags, so they probably had a very high value.

Vikings bleached their hair

The Vikings were also unusually concerned about their hair. Some of them bleached it a few shades with strong soap. And for a period, fashion dictated a kind of reverse “hockey weld”, with long bangs and a short back. The hairstyle is mentioned in an Old English letter, where a man exhorts his dear brother to follow Anglo-Saxon custom, and not indulge in “Danish fashion”.

A self-respecting Viking also had to trim his beard. Decorations on objects in the Oseberg find, a rich grave goods from 834, show, for example, carefully groomed beard growth and hairstyles. On wood shavings from this period, everything from full beards to mustaches and goatees have been found. Common to hair growth is that it is carefully cared for
and combed. A neat hairstyle and a fragrant, freshly washed body were a must of course dress up in clean, beautiful clothes.

For example, a Persian explorer from the 9th century was surprised by the high quality of the Norsemen’s clothing. Also the Arab chronicler Ibn Rustah told around the year 1000 that the Vikings were “clean in their clothes” and wore the finest clothes. Just like today, fashion changed over time and from area to area. For a period, for example, they wore red or blue balloon trousers. In addition, they were very familiar with luxury goods that could spice up any garment – such as decorative silk ribbons and threads of silver and gold. Bracelets, necklaces and amulets could also make a Viking look good – especially if the jewelery was made of real gold or amber.

THE WASHING DAY PREVIOUSLY STARTED IN THE SWEATHUT

The Vikings were originally peaceful trade travelers and often exchanged trade goods, equipment, as well as words and expressions with their trading partners. In this way, the sweat lodge, or what we today, like the Finns, call a sauna, came into use all over Scandinavia – not just in Finland. On larger farms, it was not uncommon to have sweat lodge in a separate building. Sagas and later archaeological excavations even confirm that the sauna accompanied the Vikings and was used at the Viking settlement L’Anse-aux-Meadows, the place where Leiv Eiricsson’s men settled after discovering Vinland or America around the year 1000.

In the Eyrbyggja Saga, it is said that the farmer Styr wanted revenge on two insolent berserkers who had laid after his daughter. He kindly offers the warriors a tour of his sweat lodge, which is dug halfway into the ground and has a hole in the wall so that slaves can pour water on the stove from outside. When the two wild warriors are locked tightly in the cabin, Styr lets them sit in the heat for so long that they are completely dazed when the door opens. As soon as they are out, he cuts them down with his sword.

STRONG SOAP WOULD BLEACH THE BEARD

After their stay in the sweat lodge, the Vikings jumped into a large wooden tub and soaped themselves from head to toe. The water was probably unheated so that you could cool down after the intense heat in the sauna. The whole body was thoroughly scrubbed, while the hair and beard received special attention. The Vikings left the soap on their hair and beards for an extra long time to bleach it, because light hair was particularly sought after.

The Norse sagas actually warn against people who are not fair-haired enough. Skalden Egil Skallagrimsson had dark hair and was seen as gloomy and erratic because he was not blond. The strong unscented soap helped many. In the year 921, the Arab explorer Ibn Fadlan encountered Vikings walking along the Volga River in Russia with saffron-yellow beards after a long period of bleaching.

The Vikings made soap by first making lye. They emptied the ashes of good wood onto a piece of cloth and then poured boiling water over it. They repeated this two or three times to get all the lye out. They then boiled the lye for several days so it thickened. The next step was to add tallow, preferably in a ratio of one to three. Then they stirred everything well before continuing to boil the soap. They liked to stir with a ladle until all the water was gone and only the soap was left. (This is not how we make our Norse Viking Soap now).

Washing hands vikingBATHROOM AND LAUNDRY BELONG TOGETHER

Historians know from Arabic and English sources that the Vikings were also pretty in their clothes. But as most Vikings probably only owned a few items of clothing, the clothes must have been washed regularly – perhaps on bathing days.
While the Viking himself was soaking wet, a slave or the Viking’s wife probably washed his clothes and dried them as best as possible. The underwear was made of wool and took a long time to dry, while the linen lining for the upper body and the linen trousers could be taken down from the drying line more quickly.

THE “TOILET CASES” OF THE VIKINGS

Archaeological finds show that every self-respecting Viking had a “toilet folder” full of special equipment.
The Vikings used tweezers to remove long hair from the ears and to pull bristly hair out of the nose. Many types that he also plucked his eyebrows – moss-like with well-groomed brows at least suggest that the Vikings’ ancestors in the Bronze Age trimmed their eyebrows. To dig out earwax, the Vikings had a small, elaborate spoon made of animal bone, silver, ivory or gold. The archaeologists have found several pieces of jewelery with built-in tweezers and ear spoons that the Viking’s wife wore to show the family’s wealth.
The Viking was a farmer, and although he had slaves to do the hardest work on the land, his hands often got dirty. With a flat metal stick he could scrape away soil and dirt from under his nails.

Archaeologists have found hundreds of chambers made of bone or wood. They are made with such great care that professional comb makers were probably behind them. Some combs have coarse teeth at one end – for tidying up the hair – while the close-fitting teeth at the other end were used to remove lice.

Tough Vikings used make-up

Around the year 1000, the Arab at-Tartuschi visited the Vikings’ large trading center in Hedeby, Denmark, and according to his account, both men and women wore make-up around their eyes. According to at-Tartuschi, it made them look both younger and prettier. According to another Arab traveller, Ibn Fadlan, the Vikings of the Volga River had dark green figures and trees all over their bodies. However, no other sources have been able to confirm his claims that the Vikings tattooed themselves.

HAIR AND BEARD GROWTH

After a long bath, the hair had to be laid. It required a good hand, because the hairstyle was a serious matter in the Viking Age. In addition to numerous archaeological finds of scissors and combs, royal names such as Sverre Tjugeskjegg (mustache that hung down on both sides) and Harald Hårfagre testify to how preoccupied the Vikings were with their hair and beards.
At Randers in Denmark, archaeologists have also excavated the Viking Age’s answer to the modern dressing table: A wooden table with an associated wash basin where a comb, scissors and hand mirror were always within reach.
Most widespread was probably shoulder-length hair that was combed daily. The beard must also not grow wild or appear unkempt. There are many indications that many of the pictures or drawings we see of unkempt and wild Vikings do not quite match the descriptions in the sagas and archaeological
findings.

THERE’S ALWAYS AN EVERYDAY

As Saturday turned into Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday… the Vikings at home probably started to smell more and more. Their houses had an open hearth which caused a constant smell of smoke, in addition to the fact that one end of the house served as a barn for cows, pigs, sheep and chickens at night. The stench from them must have left its mark on the residents’ body odour. But compared to ordinary Europeans who only bathed a couple of times a year, the Vikings were probably very fragrant.