The days of the Vikings may be long gone, but Vikings are still remembered and romanticized in history today.
Many of us know about the pillage and plundering and gods like Thor and Odin, but Viking society was full of rich culture and rituals, including Viking wedding traditions.
As with many societies, including some still around today, marriage was less about love and more about business. Marriage matches were made as a way to form contracts between two families.
The groom or his father would make the marriage proposal to the bride’s father, and if the terms were agreeable, they would agree on a wedding date and shake hands in front of witnesses.
14 Viking Wedding Traditions and Rituals
1. Payment Was Required From Both Sides
As part of the wedding contract, both the groom and the bride’s parents had to contribute. Viking courtship and proposals could involve many gifts, but typically there were three specific types of offerings included in traditional weddings: the mundr, the morgengifu, and the heimanfylgia.
2. The Mundr
The mundr was the “bride price.” This price is what the groom paid to the bride’s father. In Norway, the minimum mundr was twelve pieces of silver, while in Iceland, the minimum was eight.
3. The Morgengifu
The morgengifu was the “morning gift.” This is a gift that the groom would give his new bride the morning after the two had consummated their marriage. The morgengifu could be many things, but they were often expensive: jewelry made from precious stones and metals, land, or livestock. This gift was the bride’s to keep, even if the marriage were to end in divorce.
4. The Heimanfylgia
The heimanfylgia was the dowry paid by the bride’s family. While the dowry was meant as a way for the bride’s family to participate in the establishment of the new household, the dowry remained the bride’s property in the case of divorce or death of the groom.
5. Pre-Wedding Traditions
Vikings had many pre-ceremony traditions. The belief was that if these traditions and rituals were followed, the couple would be blessed with a happy and prosperous marriage.
6. Ceremonial Preparations for Women
Close married female family and friends supported the bride during her pre-wedding rituals. Two significant ceremonies included the removal of the kransen and a cleansing.
The kransen was a circle that Scandinavian girls wore in their hair to symbolize their virginity. For the wedding, the kransen was replaced by a bridal crown, often a family heirloom. While the crowns were often elaborate, made of silver and crystals, the bride and her “maids” would adorn the crown with things like flowers. Before the wedding, the bride would also visit a bathhouse to cleanse herself of her maidenhood.
7. Ceremonial Preparations for Men
Throughout history, men have always been a little preoccupied with their swords, and Viking men are no exception as part of their pre-wedding festivities. The groom would break into an ancestor’s grave and steal his sword. This act represented the “death” of his boyhood and his emergence into the world as a man. How’s that for a bachelor party?
Like the women, the men would also take part in cleansing to wash away their bachelorhood and purify themselves for the wedding.
8. The Ideal Wedding Date Was a Fall Friday
Western weddings are often on Saturdays, but the Vikings preferred fall Fridays. This preference was partly due to logistics and partly to do with religion.
“Friday” comes from the old English “day of Frigg.” Vikings hailed Frigga as the goddess of marriage and motherhood. Thus, Friday weddings were considered a tribute to Frigga and chosen in the hopes of gaining her favor so the bride and groom may have a household full of tiny Vikings.
Fall was often chosen for logistical reasons. Winters and parts of spring in Scandinavia could be harsh, making travel difficult. Fall was harvest time, and by planning a wedding after the harvest, there was sure to be enough food and drink for a proper Viking celebration.
In addition, Vikings weren’t single-night or even weekend-long events like typical western weddings today. Weddings were week-long affairs full of feasting and drinking, so having enough food and drink to last was a tall task.
9. Bridal Fashion Was All About the Accessories
In modern western culture, the wedding gown is one of the most significant pieces of the wedding day puzzle. Dresses ranged from simple to elaborate, sometimes costing an amount that could be used as a down payment on a house.
Viking culture was a little different. First, white weddings weren’t a thing until Queen Victoria wore a white wedding gown to marry Prince Albert in 1840. Red was a popular clothing color at the time, as were shades of blue, green, and yellow.
The Vikings didn’t make a big deal over the bride and groom’s clothes. Instead, it was the accessories that stole the show.
For women, hair was the focus. Hair was a symbol of sexuality for Viking women. They would often keep their hair long, and for the wedding, the bride’s hair would be decorated, and she would wear the heirloom crown.
Remember how the groom grave-robbed his ancestor and stole a sword? It wasn’t for nothing; the groom wore the sword for the ceremony. Sometimes the groom would also carry symbols of Thor, like axes and hammers.
10. Animals Were Harmed in the Making of These Weddings
Animal sacrifice played a big part in wedding ceremonies. Sacrifices to certain gods were often performed during the wedding to bring fertility to the couple. Different gods had their own sacrifices, like sows for Frigga and a goat for Thor.
Of course, a week-long celebration requires a lot of food, and the Vikings weren’t known for being vegetarians. A festival like a wedding would require many animals to be sacrificed not just to the gods but to the banquet table as well.
11. Couples Exchanged Vows, Rings, and…Swords
Modern weddings usually involve an exchange of vows, maybe some prayers if the couple is religious. Viking weddings involved vows too, but also an exchange of swords.
If you’ve been following along, the groom previously stole a sword from his ancestor’s grave and is now wearing it at the wedding. But we’re not done! Now he presents the said sword to his bride, and she’ll keep the sword to pass on to their future children, and by future children, I mean sons.
But we can’t have the groom walking around swordless. The bride gives the groom one of her family’s ancestral swords. It was meant to be a symbol of the protection of the bride passing from her father to her groom, much in the same way that the father “gives away the bride” in western weddings.
Now that the bride and groom each have a sword, they exchange rings. To do this, they place the rings on the tip of the swords and offer them to each other.
12. Fun and Games
In traditional western weddings, the “cocktail hour” is the time between the wedding and reception. It often includes drinks, appetizers, and things like lawn games to keep guests entertained.
The Vikings played games between their ceremony and celebration as well, but unsurprisingly, they did things a little differently. Vikings had a game called the bruðhlaup, or “bride running.” After the ceremony, the bride and groom’s side would race to the celebration site, and the losers would be forced to serve mead to the winners for the rest of the event.
13. Post-Ceremony Was All About Fertility
The reception and honeymoon also involved many ceremonial rituals, and pretty much all of those rituals involved fertility.
Once everyone arrived at the feast, the groom would thrust his sword into the ceiling. The depth he was able to achieve would symbolize the endurance of the marriage.
After the wedding, the couple was accompanied to their bridal suite by six witnesses. Family and friends would provide the couple with enough honey mead for a month. The term honeymoon came from where the couple would drink the mead for one moon’s cycle following their nuptials.
14. Divorce Was an Option
For a large part of the world, even today, divorce is taboo. Henry VIII split England from the Catholic church in 1533 over their refusal to grant him an annulment to Catharine of Aragon. But the Norse pagans weren’t beholden to the Catholic church and were granted divorces in certain circumstances.
Occasionally, divorces were granted for unhappy marriages, as an incompatible couple couldn’t run their farm as efficiently as a compatible couple. However, a few other things were grounds for divorce, and women were just as allowed to request a divorce as men were. Divorces could be granted to couples in the case of:
- If the husband has settled in a different land and has not shared a bed with his wife in three years
- If a husband struck his wife three times, as, despite the violence of the Vikings, domestic violence was not condoned
- If the husband or his family fell into poverty
Women could also find love after loss. Unlike in many cultures, a widow choosing to remarry was widely accepted.
