Swimming

Viking children would learn to swim when they were very young - about 5 years old - and would sometimes have weights attached to them to strengthen their legs. This was because the Vikings spent a lot of time at sea on their boats, and swimming was an important survival skill. Swimming competitions were very common, and would test speed and strength. Speed swimming (races) were very popular, but distance swimming was far tougher. The competitors would swim out to sea as far as they dared to, then turn around and swim back. The person who turned around farthest from shore was the winner. We think that some of these swims would have been as long as 30km!