Being a criminal in the modern age really doesn’t have quite the same thrill anymore – you get caught by the police, tried, and then sent to prison for a certain amount of time. The Vikings on the other hand... Well, they knew what to do with a criminal. Viking society didn’t have political or criminal institutions in the same way as we do now – but they did have a complex web of honour and justice that ran throughout their entire society and laid the foundations of their legal system. Taking ownership of your misdeeds and having integrity were fundamental to being a “good” Vikings.

Vikings had a keen understanding of criminality and legality, and they had a set of laws that governed daily life in the Viking period. In fact, the modern English word “law” comes from the old Norse “lag” which meant something laid down, or fixed. Viking law wasn’t written down until much later, so in oral tradition there were “lawmakers” who were responsible for memorising all the laws instead.

Although there were loose laws that would have been the same throughout all of Viking society, the punishments varied from settlement to settlement, and a crime that could have been overlooked in one place might earn you the death penalty in another! Execution was normally reserved for the most serious crimes like murder, kidnapping, magic with ill-intent and theft. Welcome to the Viking Vault.