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Arts and Poetry
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Viking art is best seen today in jewellery or carved stone. Some wood carvings have also survived, but wood and textiles, such as tapestries, usually rotted. Viking designs were lively and creative, but they were abstract, not realistic. They were based mainly on long, ribbonlike forms and strange animal heads, and even experts sometimes find them difficult to understand. Poetry was always popular among kings and nobles. Court poets were called skalds. Their poems were about heroes and battles and were learned by heart because there were no books until late in the Viking age. The Vikings had a form of writing, called runes, that was carved with a knife into wood or stone. To make them easier to cut, runes were made up of upright or slanting strokes.
(A) ENGRAVING
The engraved picture-stones of the Baltic island of Gotland show ships and warriors, and scenes from mythology.
(B) RUNES
Not everyone understood runes and they were sometimes thought of as magic signs. But they were normally used for ordinary purposes, such as keeping records.
(C) STONE MEMORIALS
Most runic inscriptions that have survived today are cut in stone, but other materials, such as wood or bone, were also used.
(D) STORYTELLER
Stories, or sagas, about famous heroes were told in early Viking times but not written down until centuries later.
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Previous:
Back
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Book:
The Vikings
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Section:
The Vikings
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Chapter:
Arts and Poetry
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