Why the Vikings Kept Sheep

One of our Icelandic sheep Oona enjoying a quiet evening in a very green paddock on The Viking Farm.

Archaeology gives us a remarkably detailed picture of how Norse people used sheep. If you were building a farm in the Viking Age, sheep would have been one of the most useful animals you could keep.

A sheep could turn grass and other forage that people couldn't eat into meat, milk, wool, hides, and even bone and horn that could be put to use. Sheep were relatively small, hardy animals, well suited to the northern climate and capable of grazing land that wasn't particularly valuable for growing crops. But perhaps the greatest gift a sheep provided was its wool.

Wool—One of the Most Important Things a Sheep Provided

Wool was the foundation of a tremendous amount of Viking Age textile production. Archaeologists have found spindle whorls, weaving tools, loom weights, needles, combs, and actual fragments of woolen textiles at Norse settlements throughout Scandinavia and the North Atlantic.

These tools aren't occasional curiosities. They are found in substantial numbers, showing that spinning and weaving were ordinary parts of household life. At Löddeköpinge in Sweden, for example, archaeologists have found such a concentration of textile tools that researchers believe wool and cloth production became an important part of the site's economy, producing surplus material for exchange and trade.

The process began with the fleece. Wool could be washed and sorted, then combed or otherwise prepared before being spun. A simple drop spindle and spindle whorl transformed loose fibers into usable yarn. Spindle whorls have been found throughout Viking Age Scandinavia, made from materials including stone, clay, bone, horn, and soapstone.

From there, the yarn could be woven on a warp-weighted loom. Loom weights found at archaeological sites are one of the clearest pieces of evidence for these looms, where weighted bundles of warp threads were suspended from a vertical frame.

The resulting cloth could become everyday clothing, blankets, bags, household textiles, and other necessities. Archaeological textiles from Hedeby, for example, include tabby and several different twill weaves, showing that Viking Age textile production was considerably more sophisticated than simply making rough blankets. Researchers have even compared the fiber characteristics of surviving Hedeby textiles with modern primitive sheep breeds and found similarities to the wool of breeds such as Spelsau.

Some of that wool went to sea! There is evidence for the production of woolen sailcloth, particularly in the North Atlantic. Wool sails were used in Iceland and the Faroes, while archaeological evidence from Norse Greenland preserves tools and remains associated with textile production.

The wool growing on a sheep's back could therefore become something that helped clothe a farmer, warm a family, furnish a house—or even help carry a ship across the North Atlantic.

Sheep Were Also Food

Wool may have been one of the sheep's most valuable contributions, but it certainly wasn't the only one.

Sheep bones are regularly found at Viking Age settlements, providing direct evidence that they were part of the Norse diet. At the Viking Age settlement of Bjørkum in Norway, for example, archaeologists recovered large quantities of sheep and goat bones alongside cattle, pig, and other animal remains. The site also produced tools associated with everyday textile production, including spindle whorls and loom weights.

This helps us understand something important about the Viking farm: livestock didn't necessarily have a single purpose. A flock could provide wool year after year while also producing lambs and, eventually, meat. Ewes could provide milk, particularly during the periods when they were lactating, and that milk could be consumed fresh or made into longer-lasting foods such as cheese and other dairy products.

The same animal could therefore contribute to the household in several different ways throughout its life. In a world without supermarkets, synthetic fibers, or modern feed systems, that versatility mattered enormously.

Milk, Hides, and Everything Else

The useful materials didn't stop with wool, meat, and milk. Sheep hides could be turned into leather, while bones and horns could become raw materials for small household and craft objects.

We should be careful not to suggest that every Viking household routinely made every possible product from every part of every sheep. Archaeology rarely allows us to be that specific. What it does show is a culture in which animal resources were used extensively and practically.

At Viking settlements, we find evidence of leatherworking, bone and horn working, textile production, food preparation, and many other crafts. The Norse world was one in which useful materials were valuable, and there was good reason not to waste them.

The Tools Tell the Story

One of the fascinating things about Viking Age archaeology is that many of the tools have survived even when the materials they were used to work with have not.

A wool fleece might disappear completely after a thousand years. A wooden tool might decay. A piece of wool cloth might survive only under exceptional conditions. But a stone spindle whorl, clay loom weight, iron shears, or bone weaving tool can remain behind as a physical record of the work that happened in Norse households.

At Viking Dublin, for example, archaeologists uncovered carding combs, spindles, spindle whorls, loom weights, weaving tablets, cloth-working tools, and surviving textile remains. This wasn't an exotic craft practiced by a handful of specialists. Textile production was an important part of life in the Viking town.

The connection between sheep and this textile industry becomes even clearer when we look at the countryside. At Ytre Moa in Norway, archaeological evidence includes both tools associated with obtaining fodder for sheep and a substantial collection of textile-production tools. Researchers have interpreted this combination as evidence for the importance of sheep and textile production in the Viking Age landscape.

In other words, we don't have to rely solely on written accounts or assumptions about what people might have done with sheep. The tools themselves are still there.

Sheep at The Viking Farm

This is one of the reasons we love having sheep here at The Viking Farm. We raise both Icelandic and Gotland sheep, two northern breeds with qualities that make a great deal of sense for the kind of farm we are trying to build.

Our sheep aren't here simply because they look the part. They're here because sheep are remarkably practical farm animals. They graze the land, raise lambs, provide food and produce a renewable fiber that we can work with our own hands.

That gives us the opportunity to practice some of the same basic chain of skills that once connected pasture to household: Sheep grow a fleece which is turned into fiber, spun into yarn, and then woven into useful. There is something wonderfully tangible about that process.

You can look at a sheep in the pasture and know that its wool could eventually become a blanket. You can take that wool, prepare it, spin it on a spindle, and weave it into cloth. With relatively simple tools and a great deal of patience, something produced by an animal becomes something useful for your family.

That connection is a big part of what we're interested in preserving here.

The Vikings didn't keep sheep because sheep were fashionable. They kept them because sheep were useful, adaptable, and deeply woven into everyday life.

Here at The Viking Farm, we're happy to carry a small part of that tradition forward.

You can visit our sheep whenever we are offering farm tours, or check out our class schedule to join us for a hands-on class where we teach some of the fiber arts that connected Viking Age sheep to everyday life.