Alcohol was very important to Viking culture, and it was not uncommon for some people to drink every day. Here, Zack Ward tells us what alcohol the Vikings drank, the uses and prevalence of alcohol, and references in Norse Mythology and Sagas.
A Faroe Islands stamp depicting life in Viking times.
Most of the alcohol consumed by the people of Scandinavia in the Middle Ages consisted of ale, mead, and wine, with ale being the most common of the three. Beekeeping was not brought into the mainstream until the later part of the Viking Age, meaning for much of the period, mead would have mostly been enjoyed by the rich and ruling peoples. Ale at the time was made from barley, which was one of the staple crops. Barley could be eaten, as well as fermented, making it a very useful crop for the majority of people living in Scandinavia. Making ale from barley only requires yeast, gruit (a herb mixture used for flavoring beer) or hops, water, and malt, and the entire process only takes about a week.
Uses of Alcohol
Alcohol was a necessary component of feasts and various religious gatherings and sacrifices. During “entrepreneurial feasts” an abundance of alcohol and food was used to build and maintain friendships between groups as well as raise spirits during hard times. “Patron-role” feasts were a way for chieftains to show off their wealth and solidify loyalty from their followers. Large cult feasts took place in Uppsala in Sweden as well. Nearly every person in Sweden would attend these events every nine years which culminated in the sacrifice of nine of all kinds of living males, including humans, to the gods.
Alcohol was often used as an offering to the gods. Ibn Fadlan (a member of an embassy sent to the Volga River area by the caliph of Baghdad) detailed his encounter with a group of Rus (Vikings that had settled roughly in the Slavic territories) merchants. He wrote that immediately after arriving at the trading station, they gave an offering of bread, meat, onions, milk, and alcohol to a type of totem that symbolized Odin, and several smaller figurines that were likely images of the other gods. This was done in the hope that they would have their god’s help in selling merchandise.
Alcohol also played an important role in burial ceremonies before the mass conversion to Christianity in the area. Fadlan noted that when a rich man dies, his belongings were split into thirds, one-third for his family, one for his funeral garments, and one for the purchase of alcohol to drink on the day he was cremated. During the ceremony, he was placed in his ship with alcohol, food, several animal sacrifices, and his slave girls before they were all burned. The slave girl spent days preparing for the ceremony drinking, singing, having fun, and being waited on by two other slave girls. Before being killed, she would chant over two separate cups of alcohol, and then drink them both, which was only one step in a fairly complex funeral procession that mostly focused on her, and the tidings she would bring to her master upon their reunion.
Prevalence of Alcohol
Drinking was a daily activity for most of the people living in Scandinavia before the conversion to Christianity. The practice was so widespread that Fadlan went so far as to say that every Rus he met was addicted to alcohol. This statement carries inherent bias, being from a different culture, but it also means that their collective drinking habit was enough to leave an impression on a foreigner; an impression strong enough that he felt compelled to write it down and preserve it in his manuscripts.
References in Norse Mythology and Sagas
The Viking Sagas and Mythology are ripe with references to alcohol and provide insight into their attitude surrounding it. In the Volsung Saga, Borghild attempts to kill Sigmund by poisoning his ale. Sigmund’s father keeps taking the drinks because he is suspicious of Borghild’s intent, but after having his manhood insulted over and over for not drinking, Sigmund takes the ale and is killed. This shows that it was considered abnormal, or even shameful to deny alcohol at a feast.
Snorri’s Prose Edda gives several insights into the Norse people’s reverence for alcohol. In the story, The Fooling of Gylfe a giant named Utgard-Loke challenges Thor and his companions to prove their worth, and Thor chooses a drinking competition. He is handed a drinking horn and after three draughts he fails to empty it. Later it is revealed that the horn was connected to the oceans and that Thor had emptied so much that it created the tides. The Norse were seafaring people and had respect for the ebb and flow of the ocean. Thor was the everyman’s god and his hammer was one of the most widely used symbols of protection in their society. The connection between his love of drinking and the tides of the ocean speaks volumes about their feeling surrounding alcohol consumption.
The same story contains a description of Valhalla. It reveals that Odin does not require food. He gives his share of the daily feasts to his two wolves and instead lives entirely on wine. In this story, Ganglere asks Har if the people in Valhalla are drinking water and Har finds this laughable. He then explains that there is a she-goat that eats the leaves from the world tree Yggdrasill and that because of this she produces so much mead from her teat that every warrior in Odin’s great hall can drink as much as they want. This shows that the Norse believed a great man, one worthy of Valhalla, should be rewarded with as much food and mead as he wants. Not only are they promised alcohol, but mead in particular, which was a luxury item at the time, and a large step up from the ale that was consumed regularly.
What do you think of alcohol in Viking culture? Let us know below.
References
The Saga of the Volsungs. Translated by Jesse L. Byock. 1st ed. California: University of California Press, 2012.
Trans. Montgomery, James. “Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyya.” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies. 3 (2000): 1-25.
Roesdahl, Else. The Vikings. Translated by Susan M. Margeson, and Kirsten Williams. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Books, 2016.
Serra, Daniel & Tunberg, Hannah. An Early Meal: A Viking Age Cookbook & Culinary Odyssey. Chronocopia Publishing AB, 2013.
Somerville, Angus, and McDonald, Andrew The Viking Age: A Reader. 2nd ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.
Sturluson, Snorri. The Prose Edda. Translated by Rasmus B. Anderson. Project Gutenberg, 2006.
Zori Davide, Byock Jesse, Erlendsson Egill, Martin Steve, Wake Thomas & Edwards, Kevin. “Feasting in Viking Age Iceland.” Antiquity Publications 87. (2013): 150-165.
