08/31/2026
When we picture the Viking Age, children usually disappear somewhere behind the longships, warriors, and shield walls, but archaeology gives us some surprisingly familiar glimpses of childhood.
Viking-Age children had toys, games, and all sorts of entertainment as they grew up!
Archaeologists have found miniature wooden boats, horses, swords, animal figures, spinning tops, rattles, and possible dolls across the Norse world. At Kvívík in the Faroe Islands, excavators found a little carved wooden horse, along with another wooden horse, and toy boats in a Viking-Age settlement. In Dublin, archaeologists have uncovered similar ships and toys, and even child-sized bone skates. At Birka in Sweden, small bronze bells were found in children's graves and may have served as rattles or possibly amulets for the children.
Their toys mirrored the adult world around them. Tiny boats resembled real ships from their region. Wooden swords copied their true weapon counterparts. Miniature quern stones imitated the equipment used to grind grain. Play was fun, but it was probably also one of the ways children learned how their world worked. And toys weren't their only form of entertainment.
• Swimming was valued.
• Children learned tafl, the family of Norse strategy board games.
• Children in historic sagas were featured playing competitive ball games.
• Wrestling, running, throwing, riding, and other physical contests were also important parts of Norse recreation.
One later Old Norse poem, Rígsþula, describes high-status boys learning games, swimming, board games, horsemanship, archery, shields, and spear-work as they grew up. Egils saga even describes young boys forming their own separate teams at a large ball game. Things go spectacularly badly because this is Egils saga, but the ordinary detail of children organizing a game of their own is fascinating.
Children also began participating in household life relatively early. Rather than attending any sort of concentrated school, most learned through watching, helping, practicing, and imitating their adults. Depending on where and how they lived, that could eventually mean tending animals, helping with food production, textile work, farming, craftwork, sailing skills, or learning the social and martial skills expected of their family.
A great example of how children were seen at the time comes from Víga-Glúms saga: Two little boys, about four and six, are playing together when one gives the younger child his little brass horse, saying he's getting too old for it. Apparently, “You can have my toy; I'm a big kid now” is at least a thousand years old.
What would you be excited to do first as a viking child?
A quick source note: the Icelandic sagas and Rígsþula were written down after the Viking Age, so they aren't eyewitness transcripts of ninth-century childhood. Historians use them cautiously alongside archaeology rather than taking every story literally.
Photo: A picture of a wooden ship toy
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