Viking Battle Helmets: Why Did They Choose to Wear Horns?

In the late 19th century, the horned helmet was a feature of the iconic Viking identity and remains so today — and yet not one of the Viking helmets that have been found to have any horns! Folk stories in Sweden contributed to this popular image. It was notably a Swedish academic club for Norse literary studies that mixed the Viking age with earlier Bronze-Age ceremonial Scandinavian helmets that do have horns, to misconstrue the image.



The popular image of the Viking in a horned helmet was spurred too by the costume designs of Richard Wagner’s operas in the mid 1800s based on Teutonic (early Germanic) mythology.
Viking fairs are popular entertainment as well as informative demonstrations of traditions such as leather work, ceramics, weaving, jewelry and cooking. But Viking-themed festivals are anything but recent.



A popular festival on the Shetland Isles, with its spectacular fires and torch lit parades, and its connections to the pagan Viking Yule celebrations of the sun’s return after the winter solstice, was started after the Napoleonic wars. The celebrations became more elaborate over the 19th century. In the late 1800’s the element of disguise and the torchlight parade were introduced. In the 1880s the Viking longship burning appeared and from 1914 the squad of Vikings Jarls (earls) led the procession. Romantic ideas of Viking tradition remain a feature of the event, enjoyed by a 12,000-strong crowd today.



For more information on how you can get a hold of popular Viking collectibles, learn more about Viking History or The Dark Ages, visit The Historical Weapons Store.com