Weapons were very much a part of everyday life in the Viking age. Virtually every free man owned and carried a weapon and was familiar with its use. The right to carry and use weapons was one of the fundamental traditional rights of free men in Viking society.

Viking poems of advice warn that a man should be prepared to fight at any moment, day or night. Hávamál (verse 38) says you should never step more than one pace away from your weapon because you don't know for certain when you might need it. Verse 41 says that friends should exchange weapons as gifts. Weapons were given names. Grettir carried the sax Kársnautr, Bolli carried the sword Fótbítr, and Gísli borrowed the sword Grásíða for a duel. Weapons were an integral part of the society.

Weapons were limited to free men. Both women and the unfree (such as slaves) were prohibited from carrying weapons. There are examples in the stories of both slaves and women owning weapons, but the stories and the lawbooks make it clear that their carrying or using those weapons was not permitted. With few exceptions, women's graves do not contain weapons, in the way that men's graves commonly do. Weapons were not a part of the lives of women.

The prohibition against women carrying weapons carried with it some level of protection against violence. It was considered shameful in the extreme to harm a woman, even accidentally, in a fight. That is not to say that such attacks never occurred, but when they did occur, honorable men condemned them. Men banded together to hunt down and kill the guilty party immediately for his shameful deed. Even playful violence was objectionable. In Droplaugarsona saga (chapter 10), Helgi chided his men for playfully throwing a snowball at a woman. "Only an idiot attacks a woman."

There are a few examples in the stories where women use weapons. Typically, they do so when their husbands act in a cowardly or shameful manner. In such cases, women may take matters into their own hands, as is told in chapter 37 of Gísla saga. After the cowardly Eyjólfr had killed Gísli at Geirþjófsfjörðr, he went to the farm at Helgafell (right) to visit Börkr, and his wife Þórdís, who was Gísli's sister. Börkr welcomed Eyjólfr and asked him to tell the story of the deed. Þórdís wanted to offer only meager hospitality to her brother's killer, but Börkr gave him a warm welcome.

As a result, a typical man was armed with nothing more than a shield and a axe, or perhaps a shield and spear. A poor man might simply use the wood axe from the farm, if he had nothing else available.

A more wealthy man might own a sword, which in the Viking age, was worth a dozen or more milk cows. Since having just one more milk cow might mean the difference between starving to death and surviving over the winter in the Viking age, a sword was a valuable possession indeed.

A man with more wealth, perhaps someone who returned from successful Viking raids, might replace his ordinary sword and shield with ornate, prestige weapons. Perhaps he might add a second weapon, such as a sax (short sword), to his set of arms.

Only the extremely wealthy, those at the top of the social hierarchy could afford to own the full panoply of weapons and defenses shown here: axe, spear, mail, helmet, along with sword and shield. Such displays of wealth must have been rare in the Viking age.

The photo shows the difference between a historical excavated sax (below) and a modern reproduction (above) based on the original. The differences in appearance are striking. Since historical bladesmithing techniques were used on the modern reproduction, it is quite possible that the historical weapon looked something like the modern one when it was made more than one thousand years ago.

One way that the modern replicas fail to match the historical artifacts is in the level of detail of the decorations. Vikings loved decorations. Viking age artifacts seem to be decorated on every available surface, even on everyday, mundane items, and even on the hidden surfaces of these items. This level of decoration is rarely applied to modern reproductions

The photos show details of a reproduction writing tablet (left) and belt buckle (right). The back of the tablet is never seen when in use, but it is decorated with ornate carvings. Once the belt is fastened in place, the buckle plate isn't visible, yet the craftsman took the time to stamp decorations into its surface.