Since they were so strict about gendered clothing, to the point of specifically making laws to prohibit it, for the author to ‘guess’ that vikings may have accepted the wholly modern idea of transgenderism is fictional hubris. There is no question these laws existed they were written about and this record is accepted by all other scholars. A man could be fined or divorced if he wore clothes that were too effeminate. If you want a good picture into the culture as well as the history, this book is immersive.īut at one point it raised a huge red flag, in that it does contradict most other scholars on some key points and most notably…it contradicts some of what the Vikings had to say about themselves in their eddas and laws.įor example, we know that Viking laws prohibited the wearing of clothing of the opposite sex.

Tries to gain insight into the causes that contributed to their culture. And added even to this are rugs, tents, a variety of other clothing (including a change of clothes for wet conditions), plus ropes, cordage, and the like.Wonderful read, full of insights into Viking life that not only bring their culture to life, but are more in-depth than I’ve seen before. Using the same ten-hour-day production pace as for the sails, it would have taken perhaps twenty-four person-years to fit out the crew. The Ladby ship had a crew of thirty-two, judging by the oar positions. As far as we can tell, these were multi-layered assemblies of coarse, thickly lined, insulated fabric able to withstand the weather of the open ocean. This was not solo work, of course, but the permutations of time for increasingly large teams of textile workers are easy to calculate. This workload is also something of an ideal figure, so the reality would have been closer to three or even four person-years for one sail.

Based on a sail size of eighty square metres (probably a conservative estimate), it would have taken two person-years of ten-hour days to make just one mainsail weighing about fifty kilos, and nobody would put to sea without reserve sailcloth that might save their lives. “Textile archaeologists have calculated the amount of cloth that would have been required to equip the Ladby ship, a good example of a medium-sized warship found in a burial mound on the island of Fyn in Denmark.

Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price