VIKING MEDICINE

T he n in th -c e n tu ry
g ra v e m a rk e r fo u n d a t
Lindisfarne, k n o w n as th e
V ik in g D o m esday stone.

Magic, medicine and

the Viking way o f war
Viking sagas tell of conflict and heroic voyages but are prone to fantasy and
exaggeration. How accurate are their scant accounts of the treatment of those
injured in battle? Brian Burfield examines the elusive practice of Viking medicine.

HE BURNING AND THE SMOKE, the crush of
men, the clash of shields, the cruelty of the blade
and the screams of terror: the Viking battlefield
must have been a terrifying sight, made all the
more horrendous by the inevitable presence of wounded
and dying warriors. The shouts and moans of the suffering
would slowly replace the noise of battle. Soon, those men
and women with ‘the softest hands’, who practised the
healing arts, would be tasked with treating those who were
still alive. The injuries could be varied and gruesome, from
teeth smashed out of heads, arrow punctures and axe and
sword cuts to more serious wounds, such as the loss of
limbs and brains spilling out of broken skulls.
While we know it must have happened, how the Vikings
treated such injuries and cared for their wounded is hard to
establish with any certainty. Understanding the medicine
and medical procedures used by the Vikings, both on and
off the battlefield, requires the scrutiny of a combination
of often elaborately fictionalised sources in order to try to
catch a glimpse of the reality. Viking poetry and sagas, while
full of useful information, habitually include elements of
fantasy and exaggeration and were often written long after
the events they discuss and describe. Archaeology can help
partially to complete the picture, but when wounds and ►
APRIL 2017 H IS T O R Y T O D A Y 19
VIKING MEDICINE

The sagas and poems are scattered with names

like Thorir Wooden-leg and Egil One-hand. Yet,
though these warriors suffered ‘limb-lopping’, as it
is so vividly described, they survived

Viking iron axes and

lances found near
London Bridge, 1920s.
disease are not bone deep, it can reveal little. The leech-
books (a ‘leech’ being a doctor) and medical treatises of
those societies, such as the Anglo-Saxons, who came into
frequent contact with the Vikings can be useful resources.
There are also interesting compendiums, such as An Old Ice­
landic Medical Miscellany, a collection of northern medieval
medical information written and compiled during the 15th
century, which contains many cures and treatments taken
from earlier works.
COUPLE OF short passages from the Saga of
A OlafHaraldson, found in Snorri Sturluson’s
epic history of Norwegian kings, Heimskringla
(0 2 3 0 ), give some idea as to what constituted
a Viking battlefield ‘hospital’: ‘The wounded were taken
home to the farms, so that every house was full of them;
and tents were erected over some.’ This is typical: trans­
portation of the wounded to a settlement near the fighting
was common across medieval Europe. In a later chapter, the
saga describes what occurred inside those houses and tents:
‘There were many wounded men and with them a woman
binding their wounds. There was a fire upon the floor, at
which she warmed water to wash and clean their wounds.’
A sense of care and kindness for the wounded permeates
these descriptions, although the medical details are scant.
It is clear that men and women with special medical
skills and knowledge were a necessary part of travelling
Viking armies. An excerpt from the Saga of Magnus the Good
focuses on the importance of such medical support:
After the battle, the king ordered the wounds of his men to be
bound; but there were not so many doctors in the army as were
necessary, so the king himself went round, andfelt the hands
of those he thought best suitedfor the business; and when he
had thus stroked their palms, he named twelve men, who,
he thought, had the softest hands, and told them to bind the
wounds of the people; and although none of them had ever tried
it before, they all became afterwards the best of doctors. There
were two Iceland men among them; the one was Thorkil, a son
ofGeireJrom Lyngar; the other was Atle,father of Bard Svarte
ofSelardal,from whom many good doctors are descended.
While some of this may just be good storytelling, it also
must contain a great deal of truth. Certainly, indigenous
Viking healers would have been bolstered in both knowl­
edge and manpower by those men and women who were
captured from other cultures and who would, willingly or
otherwise, share their expertise.
The axe, which was so grimly suited to separating a
warrior from his limbs, was the most common hand-to-
hand weapon used in Viking combat. The poetry of the age
gave the axe such names as ‘the witch of battle’ and ‘the
fiend of the shield’. Men like Onund Tree-leg lost limbs
to the axe. The sagas and poems are scattered with other
names like Thorir Wooden-leg and Egil One-hand. Yet,
though these warriors suffered ‘limb-lopping’, as it is so
vividly described, they survived.
According to Grettir’s saga, Onund Tree-leg lost his lower
leg to an axe during the Battle of Helgea in 1026. Without
prompt intervention and treatment such an injury could
still prove fatal today and would have been far more prob­
lematic during the Viking era. The injury raises the question
of how close those responsible for the medical treatment
of the warriors were to the action. The Viga-Glums saga
includes a passage in which a female character, Halldora,
assists a wounded warrior:
When she came up, Thorarinn was just struck down by Man,
his shoulder was cut away in suchfashion that the lungs were
exposed. But Halldora bound up his wound, and kept watch
over him till thefight was over.
While the scene only describes a skirmish, it highlights the
need for those with medical knowledge to be close to the
fighting, ready to provide assistance and protection at short
notice. Warriors who suffered these types of acute injuries
would only survive if they received immediate attention.
The loss of a limb would also result from severe soft
tissue injuries and with wounds such as acute compound
fracture, as gangrene and other infections set in. Both
would require amputation. Evidence of this was discovered
in a grave at Lund in southern Sweden. A warrior, who lived
towards the very end of the Viking age, had both hands,
parts of his forearms and his left foot amputated. The
amputations appear to have followed serious battle injuries.
Amazingly, his remains show that the surgery was success­
ful and that he survived.
EN LIKE Onund Tree-leg and the warrior from
M Lund must have received tried and tested
medical attention and aftercare. Their treat­
ments must have been effective, but the precise
methods employed by the Vikings to successfully treat
warriors like these are not known. Clues may be found,
however, in the earliest of the surviving Anglo-Saxon
medical treatises, Bald’s Leechbook. Written around 950, its
contents would have been familiar across northern Europe.
It may be a copy of a document originating 50 years earlier
in the time of Alfred the Great, showing the longevity
of such remedies. The Leechbook contains, among other
things, instructions for dealing with the types of limb loss
discussed above. They are worth examining, if only for
the sheer hopelessness of some of their treatments. One
chapter refers to limbs already lost, advising that:
If a limb be smitten off a man, afinger, or afoot, or a hand, if
the marrow be out take sodden sheep marrow, lay it on the
other marrow, bind it up wellfo r a night.
It goes on to recommend a salve made from hazel lichen,
holly, butter and other ingredients. Another notorious
excerpt from the Leechbook is often referred to when limb
loss from this period is explored:
If thou must carve off or cut off an unhealthy limbfrom a
healthy body, then carve thou not it on the limit o f the healthy
body; but much more cut or carve in on the hole and quick
body; so thou shalt better and readier cure it. When thou settest
fire on a man, then take thou leaves o f tender leek and grated
salt, overlay the places, then shall be by the more readily the
heat o f thefire drawn away.
These few lines appear to be dealing with gangrenous
tissue, conceivably similar to that suffered by the warrior
from Lund who required the multiple amputations. In both
cases there is a lot of important information missing from
the Leechbook’s instructions. If these procedures were ever
performed, it is unlikely they were effective. This makes
the fact that the Vikings had successful amputation proce­
dures all the more enticing. The Leechbook’s remedies fail, ►
APRIL 2017 HISTORY TODAY 21
VIKING MEDICINE

for example, to address vital issues such as controlling

blood flow. Modern estimates suggest that 60 per cent
loss of blood volume is the point of no return for a
wounded person. For an injured warrior a thousand years
ago, that threshold was much lower. It is therefore surpris­
ing that the Leechbook does not include any instruction
for something as simple as a tourniquet. Perhaps we can
assume this was such common knowledge it did not need
writing down.
While the works of ancient doctors and writers were
known to the Anglo-Saxons, their methods were not always
implemented. Indeed, the Leechbook’s advice seems lacking
when compared with, for example, the work of the Roman
medical writer Celsus. Writing in the first century ad ,
Celsus understood the potential for haemorrhaging and rec­
ommends applying pressure to the vessels, wound packing,
ligatures around the major vessels and cauterisation.
The risk of the wounded warrior going into shock would
also have been a pressing matter, which is again beyond
‘If the brain be the work of Bald. While he does suggest the stump be
cauterised in the second extract (‘when thou settest fire on
exposed, take the a man’), he does not address the flap of skin that is needed
to be folded over the end of the stump, nor the effort
yolk of an egg and required to stitch it all up. Pain control is another signifi­
cant problem. While Bald recommends the use o f‘leaves of

mix a little with tender leek and grated salt’ as a source of relief, nothing is
mentioned about pain management throughout the proce­
dure. Perhaps, as in later centuries, nothing was used.
honey and swathe
N THE ISSUE OF PAIN there is a strange and
it up with tow
[flax], and so let it
alone; and again
O interesting passage in the Saga ofEgil and
Asmund. While the story is pure fantasy, part of
it appears to address pain management. Having
lost a hand in a fight, Egil meets a hag who says that she
can put it back on for him. She begins by dislocating his
shoulder to deaden the arm so that Egil does not feel any

after about three pain while she trims the stump where his hand used to be. A
dislocated shoulder will certainly cause the arm and hand to

days syringe the become numb to varying degrees. The same holds true for
a dislocated knee, which will deaden the pain in the lower
leg and foot. This procedure would require some skill and
wound, and if knowledge of anatomy. The matter-of-fact way in which
it is brought into the tale suggests the knowledge was, to
the hale sound some degree, commonplace.
Prosthetics assisted those who had undergone ampu­
part will have a tations in returning to a more normal life. They also often
provided inspiration for new aliases like ‘Tree-leg’ and
red ring about ‘Wooden leg’. In the case of a lower leg, for instance, any
portion that was left would be flexed at a right angle at the

the wound know knee and kept in place with a heavy bandage. The bandage
acted as padding, softening the contact with the wood.
The top of the prosthetic was carved out to form a tray
thou then that into which the leg would sit and the rest of the prosthetic
resembled a stilt. A wooden crutch would be required for
thou mayest not balance, leaving the other hand free.
If such injuries were common, what preventative
heal it’ methods against their occurrence was taken? Viking
armour has been a contentious subject. The idea of Vikings
wearing helmets with horns is a long-debunked myth, but
(From Bald’s Leechbook) the assumption that Viking warriors wore metal helmets of
any sort may also be erroneous. Indeed, a significant ques­
tion exists as to whether Viking warriors generally wore
any type of effective head protection at all. Popular images
22 HISTORY TODAY A P R IL 2 0 1 7
Left: Viking swords, stirrup and spearhead, eighth century. Right: Silver Thor's hammer amulet.
of the Viking warrior usually include some variety of metal
helmet. With the exception of one such helmet, discovered
in Norway during the 1940s, and a few other scarce finds,
little proof of metal headgear exists. Thousands of warrior
graves have been excavated throughout the Viking world
over the past decades and, while iron weapons and all
manner of items related to war have been discovered, there
are almost no helmets among them.
It has been suggested that, instead, leather helmets were
worn. This would have been an affordable option, although
it would have provided minimal protection to the wearer.
Any leather headgear that did exist would have disintegrat­
ed by now and on this subject the sagas and stories only
serve to confuse things. Excerpts from the Hervarar saga
claim that ‘many a thick helmet was cleft’ and describe
how one warrior ‘hit his helmet and cut off the part he hit’.
Both seem to suggest leather helmets, but they could well
be metal. Yet there are other passages throughout the sagas
and poems that clearly point to metal helmets. However, at
the Fishergate Cemetery in York, injuries to the skulls of 16
of the 30 Vikings buried there show severe damage to the
back and top of the skull, which may support the notion
that these men were not wearing useful head protection.
Lack of metal helmets, or indeed effective head
protection of any kind, would have resulted in numerous
fatalities. However, some head wounds could be treated.
Trepanning, the practice of drilling a hole into the skull to
provide healing or to relieve pressure on the brain because
of injury or disease, has been practised for millennia across
many cultures with varying degrees of success. There is,
however, little evidence of this practice from Viking burials.
The few examples that do exist are difficult to attribute
to battlefield injury. It appears that trepanning may not
have been an option for the Viking soldier. Bald’s Leechbook
discusses the treatm ent of a head wound that includes
exposure of the brain:
If the brain be exposed, take the yolk o f an egg and mix a little
with honey and swathe it up with tow [flax], and so let it
alone; and again after about three days syringe the wound,
and if the hale sound part will have a red ring about the wound
know thou then that thou mayest not heal it. For the same,
take woodruff and woodmarche [celery] and hove and boil in
butter and strain through a coloured cloth, apply it to the head
then the bones come out.
The Leechbook also recommends the following remedy for
broken bones in the head:
If a man be wounded in the upper quarter, in his head, and
some bone be broken; takesolwherf [marigold] and white
cloverplants and woodruff; put into good butter, strain through
a cloth and so treat the patient. I f there be broken bone in the
head and it will not come away, pound green betony and lay
it on the woundfrequently, till the bone comes away and the
wound is mended.
Surprisingly, both these remedies reveal genuine insights
into healing. Honey, for instance, has antiseptic and cura­
tive properties and relieving pressure on the brain by re­
moving the bone fragments is extremely important. While
many of the treatments in the Leechbook may seem odd, an
experiment at the University of Nottingham in 2015 vindi­
cates some of their suggestions. The investigation focused
on a remedy for an eye infection. Researchers accurately
identified the specified ingredients and followed the ►
APRIL 2017 HISTORY TODAY 23
VIKING MEDICINE
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exact instructions found in the Leechbook. They found that,
in this case at least, the Leechbook’s medicine is in fact as
effective as - if not more than - modern day antibiotics at
killing the harmful bacteria that cause infection.
OME WOUNDS WERE, however, beyond treatment.
S Receiving a puncture wound to the midsection from
an arrow, spear or axe was almost certainly a death
sentence. There was no means of repairing wounds
to the intestines, stomach or other vital organs in that area
of the body. The Saga o f OlafHaraldson describes a method
used to determine whether the stomach and intestines had
been punctured:
In a stone pot she had stirred together leeks and other herbs,
and boiled them, and gave the wounded men o f it to eat, by
which she discovered if the wounds had penetrated into the
belly;for if the wound had gone so deep, it would smell o f leek.
This may have been a triage method to determine which
warriors among the wounded had the potential to be
treated and saved. In this instance, the smell of the leeks
and herbs in the area of the stomach would quickly show
that nothing could be done. Damage further down the
digestive system would take longer to establish as the
pungent mixture began to be digested. Those who had
punctures in the stomach and intestines could do nothing
but await death as the liquid leaked into their bodies.
Along with the serious injuries that would have been
part of every battle and skirmish, there must have been
many more slash and gash wounds that would require -
24 HISTORYTODAY APRIL 2017
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and respond to - medical attention without the need for
amputation. These types of wounds were commonplace:
an entire section of the Leechbook is devoted to different
wound treatments and the act of binding and bandaging
wounds is repeated over and over again in the poems and
sagas. While honey had long been a known antiseptic treat­
ment in the healing of injuries, various medical treatises list
a number of other salves and ointments. An Old Icelandic
Medical Miscellany lists a few things for wound care, stating
that 'Wormwood is good for new wounds if crushed and
applied’ and ‘Cabbage cures new wounds and old’. It also in­
cludes something known as ‘Canto romana’, a herb which,
when mixed with warm wine or water, cures both new and
old wounds. It was to be crushed, mixed and then applied
twice a day.
The danger of death did not end with the wound itself,
however. The risk of infection - and the lack of medical
knowledge about how infection spread - presented a
significant threat and sometimes the antiseptic remedies
were not enough. Dirty weapons, soiled bandages, filthy
water and unclean hands could all contaminate a wound. An
amputation or a small sword slash were both highly suscep­
tible to infection. Grettir's Saga describes a leg wound that
has begun to rot under the bandages. Such infections, even
from minor wounds, were often lethal, as in the case of the
nobleman Earl Sigurd who appears in the Orkneying Saga.
His story provides one of the strangest accounts of wounds
and eventual deaths in all of the Viking sagas:
In this invasion Earl Sigurd killed Maelbrigd the buck-toothed,

a Scottish maormor [royal steward] ofEoss or Moray; and
having tied his head to his saddle-bow, ‘the tooth’, which was
very prominent, inflicted a wound on his leg, and the wound
inflaming caused the death of the earl.
ERHAPS TO HELP compensate for the apparent
shortcomings in their remedies, help often had to
be sought elsewhere. As with Roman and Greek
healing before it, Viking medicine was a mixture of
science, pseudo-science and superstition. Magic and reality
were intertwined in a way that is difficult to unpick now: it
is fair to say that mystery surrounds Viking medicine. Such
supernatural remedies were important, not least because of
the so-called ‘placebo effect’ they exerted - the belief that,
because one is being treated, one will be healed.
In the poem Sigrdrifumal, Sigrdrifa relates that, if you
want to understand how to “be a leech and investigate
wounds’, then you must ‘cut limb-runes on the bark and
the wood of that tree whose branches bend to the East’. The
poem Havamdl conveys 18 spells known to Odin that would
assist man in everything from safety in battle to relief from
mental suffering. The second spell is particularly tantalis­
ing. Odin says: ‘I know another [spell], that men’s sons
need who wish to live as doctors.’ Unfortunately, the spells
themselves are not provided. We know they involve the use
of runes, but, frustratingly, no information is given beyond
that. The Saga ofCormac the Skald discusses how Cormac’s
enemy, Thorvard, is in poor health because his wounds are
healing slowly. He consults a witch called Thordis, who
suggests that Thorvard should get hold of a bull that has
Viking triangular
axe blade, la te -io th
to m id -n th century,
found near London
Bridge, 1920s.
recently been killed by Cormac. She tells him that the blood
of the bull should be spread on the side of a nearby hill.
This will provide the elves within with a great feast and
subsequently Thorvard will be healed. Later, as Christianity
began to spread across the Viking world, elves and Thor
began to give way to saints and Jesus, but the mix of science
and superstition persisted.
Viking approaches to disease and mental illness,
however, are much more out of reach. The immediacy
of the battlefield and its prominence in literature make
limb-lopping and its leechcraft comparatively accessible.
Yet, with the exception of a few passages and the writings
of other cultures through which we can see glimpses, we
still know very little. Amid the tales of bravery and battles
in the fantastical sagas, poems and other sources, the world
of Viking medicine seems destined to remain elusive.
Brian Burfield is researching medicine and the medieval battlefield.
FURTHER READING
Thomas A. DuBois, N o rd ic R eligions in th e V ik in g A g e
(University o f Pennsylvania Press, 1999).
Rev. Oswald Cockayne, Leechdom s, W o rtc u n n in g a nd
S ta rc ra ft o f E a rly E n g la n d (Cambridge University Press,
2 01 2 ).
Knut Wester, T h e M y s te ry o f th e M is s in g V ik in g H e lm e ts
(University o f Bergen Medical School, 2000).
APRIL 2017 HISTORY TODAY 25
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