Vikings-farming?

Question

vikings were farmers...wat did they grow and caa u tell me any more facts bout them being farmers?

Answer 1

They raised cattle and grain as important crops. Most of the Vikings were Danes as well as there were ones from Norway.

You might enjoy these pages. she gets into their livestock quite nicely.

http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/vik_pets...

The one thing different about Viking agriculture was that it was freehold farmers. You were not considered to be able to vote in the councils if you did not have your own land.

Answer 2

This article pretty much explains it all. There are great pictures illustrating the whole on the first website listed below.

Also, depending on how in-depth you want to go- there is this scholarly journal:

Interpretation of faunal remains from Norse sites in Greenland

Brian A. Salmons

ANT4103 “Archaeological Science”

Dr. Robert Tykot

Spring 2000

The vast majority of Norse people lived on small farms. However, the nature of these settlements varied widely from one region to another. In prosperous regions, farms tended to cluster into small villages or hamlets. In less prosperous areas, individual farms were well separated.

Typical farm settlements took the form of a central cluster of buildings enclosed by fences. Outside the fenced areas were the fields used for cultivation or grazing. Each homestead typically consisted of a longhouse and multiple out-buildings.

In the earlier part of the Norse period, it appears that everything was contained in the longhouse: animals, people, tools, food storage, work shop. Later, all but the people were moved to out buildings. For example, the early longhouse recently excavated under the streets of Reykjavík had animal stalls in the living quarters. The floor plan to the left shows the animal stalls located opposite to the front door. While this arrangement was common in early longhouses found in Norway, this is the first example found in Iceland.

The main farming activity throughout the Norse region was animal husbandry, and cattle were the most important of the livestock. That importance is reflected in the language: the word for cattle and the word for money are identical: fé. Cattle were the only farm animals covered by the insurance provided by the hreppur, described later in this article.

Cattle were raised for many purposes. Milk cows provided diary products, which were consumed fresh, but more importantly, they were turned into foods such as cheese, butter, and skyr, which could be stored over the winter months when cows stopped producing fresh milk. Beef from the cattle was a regular part of the diet. Oxen were used as draft animals, to pull a sleigh, a sledge, or an arðr , an early form of plow. Additionally, bulls were used as offerings to the gods in pagan era sacrifices.

The large, wealthy farm at Stöng in Iceland had a barn with stalls for 18 head of cattle when the farm was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in the year 1104. The ruins of the cow shed are shown to the left, as it appears today. Stone slabs that divided the stalls are still visible.

Njál's farm at Bergþórshvoll had stalls for 30 head of cattle, a very large Viking age farm.



In the summer, cattle were driven to pastures in the highlands. Barren cattle might be grazed outdoors year round, but generally milk cows were brought in under cover during the winter and fed from the stored stocks of hay. During especially harsh winters, it is likely that livestock left outdoors starved to death.

Second in importance to Viking age farmers were sheep. Sheep were raised for their fleece, their milk, and their meat. Wethers were allowed to graze, but ewes were penned and the lambs weaned from them. Smaller numbers of ewes than wethers were kept, which suggests that the milk from sheep was of lesser importance than it came to be after the end of the Viking age. Like the cattle, the sheep were driven to higher pastures in summer, where they were allowed to roam free. In the fall, all the farmers in a region worked together to round up the sheep and sort them by owner. This practice is still followed in Iceland; the sorting pen shown to the right differs little from those used in medieval times. In winter, some sheep may have been sheltered in barns or simple barrows (fjárborgir).

Horses were raised, not only for their utility for travel and transport, but also because their meat was prized. It was a common, inexpensive part of the diet. In addition, horses were sacrificed to the pagan gods, and the meat consumed as part of the feasting ceremonies. When Christianity was adopted, the consumption of horseflesh was banned.

There appears to have been special interest in breeding horses in Iceland, perhaps the only farm animal to be systematically bred. Large breeding stocks were kept, with the goal of producing horses that were especially good for the popular sport of horse fights.

Other livestock raised on Viking age farms included goats and pigs. Goats grazed year round in areas of brushwood. Home field pigs (túnsvín) were kept close to home and slaughtered for home consumption.

The growing of hay was essential to maintain the farm animals over the winter in Norse lands. Hay was required for the animals that were sheltered under cover over the winter, and hay may have been provided to livestock in pasture lands for animals that were out of doors through the winter.

As a result, it was necessary to put up sufficient hay each autumn to maintain the livestock until spring. At the beginning of the winter, the number of livestock was compared to the amount of hay in storage. If the farmer thought that insufficient hay was available, the weakest animals were slaughtered before the winter started, so that the available fodder would last the winter. Over two tonnes (2 tons) of hay was needed for each cow to last the Icelandic winter. A large farm in Viking age Iceland had around 20 to 40 milk cows, so harvesting and storing sufficient hay to last the winter was an arduous but important task. Sheep and goats, being hardier, could survive the winter, but might be brought under cover at the height of a storm.

While hay was grown on uncultivated land, the best hay was grown in the tún, the home field near the farm. This hay was carefully cultivated, with animals (and people) excluded so that the grass remained untrampled and uneaten while it grew during the summer.

Hay was harvested using scythes, and then raked and stacked against a wall for drying. Scythes needed frequent resharpening in order to keep the edge sufficiently sharp. Whetstones, imported from Norway, were used to keep the edge sharp. In addition, the ropes (ljábönd) which attached the blade to the wooden handle worked loose as the work progressed, requiring a pause to retighten.

The tún at Bjarg, the farm where Grettir the Strong was raised, is shown to the left as it looks today. When the photograph was taken, the haying operation was in full swing, using modern farm machinery.

In order to keep out animals, walls were built of sod and stone. The walls both enclosed and protected the hayfields, and also marked boundaries. A turf wall is shown to the right, which was under construction when the photograph was taken.

All available manure was spread on the home field to fertilize the soil and to maximize the crop. There is some evidence that some fields were irrigated, for example the laws about irrigation that appear in Grágás (K 191), the medieval Icelandic law book. However, if irrigation happened at all, it must have been on a small scale, due to the difficulty of digging extensive irrigation ditches with the tools available in the Viking age.

Hay was so important to Viking age farms that growing sufficient hay was written into the law, which required that tenant farmers hire enough farm hands that all hay meadows could be worked. The law prohibited land from becoming waste through lack of attention.

In the summer months, livestock was driven to pastures at higher elevations. Here, raw milk from the animals was collected and processed in a shed (sel) on site.

The sel ruin shown to the left was discovered only in 2004 and is probably a sel for one of the farms in Hrafnkelsdalur in east Iceland. (Perhaps it is one of the sels that Einar rode to in search of the lost sheep, as described in chapter 5 of Hrafnkels saga.) The site was studied in 2006, but little conclusive was found. As I write this in 2007, the site is flooded by Hálslón, the lake behind the new dam at Kárahnjúkur.

Milk collected at the sel was turned into butter, cheese, and skyr on-site. Skyr (right) is usually translated as curds, which for most English speakers, fails to convey the pleasures of this yummy dairy treat.

The dairy products were brought down to the farms in skin sacks. Products such as skyr were stored in partially buried vats (left), which kept the skyr cool, helping to preserve it. During the winter months, when cows stopped producing milk, the skyr in storage became the main source of dairy food. In addition, sour milk was used as a preservative for other foodstuffs.

Typical crops included grains such as barley (a staple crop throughout the Norse lands), rye, and oats. In the most southerly regions, wheat could be grown, a luxury crop. Depending on the local climate and soil conditions, vegetables such as beans, peas, cabbage, and onions could be grown. Thus, it was possible for a Norse farm family to have a varied diet. In addition, utility crops (such as flax for linen) were grown.

In Iceland, grain cultivation must have been difficult even in the best of times. The best chances for success were in the warmer parts of the country, in the south and southeast. Njáls saga, set in the south, contains a number of references to the growing of grain. Chapter 111 tells that Höskuldr Hvítanesagoði went out one morning with his seed bag in one hand and his sword in the other to sow grain in his field (right, as it appears today). The sons of Njál were waiting behind the fence, and they ambushed Höskuldr and killed him.



Regardless, grain cultivation was clearly attempted by the early Icelandic settlers. Both oat and barley pollen and barley grains have been found in the earliest settlement layers in Iceland. Substantial quantities of grain were found in the excavation of a Viking age granary in Reykjavik, suggesting that at least for this early Viking age farm, gra

Answer 3

Most Vikings were farmers. Those who lived near the sea were fishermen too. In Scandinavia the winters are cold and dark and the land is poor. The people depended on cattle and sheep.

Every family grew oats or rye to give them flour for bread.

Women milked the cows and goats and made butter and cheese.

Children helped to look after the poultry and the pigs.

http://www.arild-hauge.com/elife.htm