We don’t know whether it was dropped by a Viking raider or was used by the locals on the island to imitate the raiders’ game after they’d left. The trench where it was found has been dated to the 8 th or 9 th century. Photo: Jeff Veitch / Digventure / Durham University This board game piece from Lindisfarne is believed to be from the early Viking raids. The small glass piece, about the size of a coin, is made from swirled blue and white glass with a ring of white glass droplets to represent a crown. Recently, archaeologists working on the island, trying to find the exact location of the original wooden monastery, uncovered a number of Viking items including tools, coins and a very rare game piece. You might remember that the brutal raid on Lindisfarne pretty much started the whole Viking thing. Thankfully there’s evidence from both sources that the Vikings loved a good board game. So, what we know about the Vikings generally comes either from sagas written long after the fact or from the things we dig up from the ground. Writing using runes and runestones was used more for tributes and keeping track of trades.

Histories, traditions and cultures were passed down through the generations orally. Gaming in the Viking AgeĪs we’ve mentioned a few times before, the Vikings didn’t really bother to write their traditions down. Let’s take a deep dive into the games of Viking history, then and now. It might surprise you to learn that, like us, one way they did that was to sit down and play board games! When they weren’t swashbuckling their way across the seas to find new lands to conquer, the Vikings had plenty of time to fill. We take a look at historic games played by the Vikings, along with modern video games inspired by the era. The sagas of the northmen make the perfect subject for games.

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