Viking Age Female Hairstyles

Women’s hairstyles seem to have been more limited during the Viking Age than men’s hairstyles, based on the surviving evidence. One scholar suggests that blonde hair was most prized, and the brunette women could bleach their hair, using the same method known to the Celts, in which a strongly basic soap was made and applied to the hair, with the bleaching action provided by the lye resulting in a red or red-gold hair color.

Thrall women, as with their male counterparts, were required to wear their hair cropped short as a sign of their servitude.

Unmarried girls would wear their hair long and loose, or they might confine their hair with a circlet or kransen, especially on formal occasions. At times they may have worn their hair in braids instead.

Married women usually wore their hair gathered up into a knot at the back of the head, or coiled atop their head in some arrangement and often covered their hair with a cap, veil (hustrulinet) or headdress. Several sources indicate that it was mandatory that Norse women who were married wear a headcovering, however the actual archaeology doesn’t seem to support this belief: “Many of the ninth and tenth century women’s burials at Birka reveal no headcoverings at all, let alone graves in some other locations, although finds of headwear are more common in Christianized areas like Dublin and Jorvík”.

There were several types of headwear worn by women during the Viking Age:

Anglo-Viking women apparently wore a variety of hairstyles. Two hogback stones from Lowther, Cumbria depict women with their hair worn in two braids, falling to either side of the head beside the cheeks. It is thought that early Anglo-Viking women probably did not wear a headdress, but by the end of the period were adopting fashions from the neighboring Christian Anglo-Saxon women, for instance, the tenth century silk hood with linen ties recovered at the Coppergate excavation (see Jorvik Hood below, as well as the two illustrations on the left, above, showing the same hood tied under the chin, or tied behind the neck under the hair). A slightly different style of cap or hood was recovered from Lincoln (see the illustration on the right, above)²⁷.

The basic types of headdress worn by Viking women included:

Frankish Brocaded FilletFillet The fillet was a fabric band worn around the head, much like a coronet. This might be worn alone, or with a scarf or veil pinned to it. The fillet was often of metal-brocaded tablet-woven silk. Fillets of this type were worn by women of the Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Alamans, Bavaria, Lombardy, and Visigothic Spain (later 6th and 7th centuries), as well as by Swedish Vikings²⁹.


Example of gold brocaded band using a pattern found at Birka

For additional examples of these brocaded bands, see Metallic Trims for Some Early Period Personae

Woman Wearing Fillet
(after Gail Owen-Crocker)    Scarves Some small textiles have been recovered in the Viking excavations at Dublin which are thought to have been worn as scarves. The extant examples are dyed purple and have fringe.    Jorvik Hood The Jorvik hood was a type of hood formed from a rectangle of cloth with a rounded upper, and which fell in the back to cover the head and neck. Examples of this type of hood have been recovered from the Viking finds at Jorvík (Viking York) This type of headgear was equipped with ties to secure it under the chin. Surviving examples are in silk, with linen ties.   Dublin Hood The Dublin hood was similar to the Jorvik hood, but made of wool, more rectangular, and having a point at the back of the head.

When headcoverings were worn, whether to indicate the married status of a woman, as a decorative costume accent, or for warmth, the details of the headgear varied by place and date throughout the Viking Age, as shown in the table below:

Viking Age Male Hairstyles

Usually people think of vikngs as having long hair, which depending on your definition of “viking” is at least true for a time period.

Anglo-Saxon and Viking people wore their hair long and were often bearded. The Norman fashion, adopted to some extent in England, was to shave the face and back of the neck and head and to wear the remaining hair of the head short. This was the style of 1066, but fifty years later the Normans had taken to the styles of their former adversaries.

Vikings of this time often wore their hair in this manner too.

There is no one “Viking man’s hairstyle”. The Viking Age peoples had a wide variety of hairstyles, just as we do today. Some may have been most common in a particular region, or profession may have dictated hairstyle.

Usually only thralls (slaves) wore very short hair. Probably the average man wore his hair about collar or shoulder length, and his beard as long as was comfortable for him. A professional warrior might make other choices for hairstyle to minimize the hazard of having hair or beard grabbed in combat.

The Arabic observer Ibn Fadlan noted that men of the Rus bleached their beards to a saffron yellow. Some scholars therefore believe that it is likely that they bleached their hair as well. This bleaching was accomplished using a soft, strongly basic soap, where the excess lye in the mixture provided the bleaching action. Pliny the Elder noted this practice among the Germanic tribes, and states that men were more likely to bleach their hair than women:

Prodest et sapo, Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis. Fit ex sebo et cinere, optimus fagino et caprino, duobus modis, spissus ac liquidus, uterque apud Germanos maiore in usu viris quam feminis.

Soap is the invention of the Gauls and this is used to redden the hair. It is made from fat and ashes — the best is beech wood ash and goat fat, the two combined, thick and clear. Many among the Germans use it, the men more than the women.
(Pliny the Elder Historia Naturalis)

 
Carved head from Oseberg Ship Burial, ca. late 9th cent.This carving depicts a man wearing chainmail and a close-fitting helm or coif. His neatly-trimmed beard and mustache are finely detailed.

Gunnar in the Snakepit. Carving on Sledge from the Oseberg Ship Burial, ca. late 9th cent.This carving depicts a man with close-cropped hair almost in a “Norman” or bowl cut. There are also hints of a finely-trimmed beard and mustache, perhaps worn goatee-style. 
Carved Head on .Here is another man wearing a conical Viking helm. The detail in the back may indicate collar-length hair. This Viking’s beard is also well-groomed, and his moustaches seem to be waxed to points in an upward curve. 
Antler Handle 
Carved Head on Sledge, Oseberg Ship Burial, late 9th cent.Here This is perhaps the most naturalistic of the heads from the Oseberg ship find. This carving could almost be a death-mask. It is not possible to get a sense of the length of this figure’s hair, although it is clear that he is wearing bangs. His chin is clean-shaven and he wears a moustache.  Helmet Plate from Torslunda, Öland, ca. 6th cent. AD.Bronze Oðinn FigureThis statuette depicts the god Oðinn wearing a conical helm with nasal. He wears a beard groomed to a point or perhaps a goatee, and his moustaches are full and appear to be waxed to an upwards curve at the ends. 

 
The Vendel-era man shown in this helmet plate appears to have curly hair cut just above the earlobes and the eyebrows. He wears a full moustache, and his chin is clean-shaven. 
Bone Gamepiece from Lund, Sweden 
Ithyphallic Freyr Figure from Rallinge, Södermanland, SwedenThis small bone carving depicts a figure grasping his long, plaited or twisted beard.This bronze figureine depicts the god Freyr wearing a conical helm. He has a long beard shaped to a point, and very full moustaches that are either waxed into an upward curve, or else are combined with sideburns continuing up to just under the ear. 
Bronze Þórr Figure from Akureyri, Iceland, ca. 1000 AD 
Face-On View of Bronze Þórr FigureThis bronze figure depicts the god Þórr wearing a conical helmet and an elaborate beard and moustache. The moustache appears to be divided into two sections, one which curls up, the other which lies in the normal area for a moustache. Either the moustache is truly divided into two portions on each side, with the upper part being waxed and curled upward, or perhaps this represents a moustache and “mutton-chop” side-burns.This is a different view of the same statuette. Here the beard may be clearly seen to be forked into two points (O.N. Tjúguskeggwas used as a nick-name meaning “fork-beard”). In this view, the upper portion of the “moustache” seems definitely to be “mutton-chop” side-burns.