A thirteenth I know: if the new-born son
of a warrior I sprinkle with water,
that youth will not fail when he fares to war,
never slain show he bow before sword.

Håvamål 157
The Song of Spells

"I counsel thee, Stray-Singer, accept my counsels,
they will be thy boon if thou obey'st them,
they will work thy weal if thou win'st them:
should thou long to fare over fell and firth
provide thee well with food."

Håvamål 115
The Counseling of the Stray-Singer

Viking Related Links and Resources

Comprehensive sites

Smithsonian Institute - Bibliography : Vikings and Norse bibliography for teachers and students.
BBC - Walk Through Time - Viking House : Fun, interactive activity from BBC let's you explore a Viking House through a "time tunnel". One of five interactive time tunnel explorations from Roman times till the 1950's.
The Viking Network : A Norwegian site about vikings. Much of the material is especially directed at teachers and school children.
Elementary Themes - The Vikings : Huge site with content and lists of links to all kinds of Viking related information. Created by Jim Cornish, a primary school teacher in Newfoundland, Canada. As a bonus, this site covers an lot more than just Vikings - and I mean a LOT more. This is a terrific resource for teachers and students alike.
The Vikings : Viking information and links especially suited for 7-8 year olds, but contains links suitable for other visitors as well.
Vikings Online : A gem of a page from The National Maritime Museum in the UK is a collection of downloadable PDF documents especially for teachers. The documents include teachers' notes, classroom activities and illustrations to support children studying the Vikings as raiders, traders and settlers.
Arild Hauge's Rune Pages : Well researched material about runes and Vikings in general. Overall, the English language material is not as comprehensive as the material in Norwegian.
The Viking Answer Lady : A large and well researched collection of links and material about the Vikings.
Vikings - The North American Saga : The Smithsonian Institute's presentation of information about the Vikings in North America.
Ravensgard Viking Age Homepage : A very comprehensive site with general research links and specific interest items.
Regia Anglorum : Anglo-Saxon, Viking, Norman and British history.
The Viking Heritage - Viking server & database : Collection of links to books, CDs, replicas of artifacts and an online quiz about Vikings. Shows a lot of pictures about Viking artifacts.
The Viking Age : A Swedish site with a great collection of information about Vikings. Provides overview of history, trade, daily life, rites and rituals, runes, art and more.
The World of the Vikings : A large UK site about vikings.
The Viking Reserve at Foteviken : A Viking village at the Foteviken Museum. Many pictures and information about a recreated Viking village and all that goes on there.
Viking Denmark : Despite the somewhat annoying and confusing user interface of this site, you'll find many interesting pictures of historical sites, Viking houses and Viking Ships.
Rosala Viking Centre : Home of the Rosala Viking Centre in Finland. Interesting site because material about Vikings in Finland is comparatively rare.

Runes - the Old Norse alphabet

Pronunciation of Runes and Icelandic characters : Quick, one page introduction on how to pronounce Runes and Icelandic characters. A good start for most of us.
Arild Hauge's Rune Pages : Huge, well researched collection of rune material with lots of detailed material. Great resource for anyone interested in learning more about runes.
News from the Runic Archives : Rune information from the University of Oslo, Norway.
Rune project at the University of Bergen : Public information from the Rune Project at the University of Bergen, Norway.
Searchable Norwegian Rune database : Database of rune inscriptions and where they were found.
Old runic inscriptions : A Swedish site about runes.
The Runic Journey : A wonderful resource on runes, their history and how they were used - including magic.
Runes. Alphabet of Mystery : Rune information covering the history of runes and a range of other topics including magic and other fun stuff.
Wikipedia Rune Pages : All about Runes as presented by Wikipedia.
PBS and NOVA on Runes : The Rune page from NOVA, the popular science show on PBS TV.
Omniglot's Rune Page : The Rune page at Omniglot, a site on writing systems and languages of the world.
Rune Fonts Page : Listing of various Rune fonts available on the web. Useful resource if you want to reproduce runes in documents, illustrations or graphics in general without having to hand draw everything.
Online Course in Runes and the Viking Language : Introductory course in Rune writing of the Vikings of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland.
Kalle the Rune Carver : A contemporary carver of rune stones in the Old Norse tradition. Site has a lot of pictures of rune stones.
Runes from the Eastern Viking : Page with information about runes found along the Eastern Viking routes.

Stories and historical accounts

Canute (Knud) The Great : Account of the Scandinavian King who ruled England and a good portion of Northern Europe.
Nordic Explorers - Norse Expansion into North America : Account of the Norse expansion to the west from Iceland into Greenland. From the Newfoundland & Labrador Heritage site of the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada.
The Viking Age : Viking history from Luleå University in Sweden.
The Viking Age in Ireland : Material on the Vikings in Ireland from the Viking Network Ireland.
Viking Expeditions From Central Sweden (700-1000) : An undergraduate Honor's thesis posted on the web by the author, Lars Noodén.
The Vikings: They Got Here First, But Why Didn't They Stay? : Library and Archives Canada's collection of material about the Vikings in Canada. From Passageways: True tales of adventure for young explorers.
Viking Pilgrimages to the Holy Land : Historical essay published by the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia.

Viking ships

The Digital Norseman's Viking Ship Links: My own page with over 100 replicas from around the world.
Viking Replica Ships : UK site working on building a "world wide comprehensive list" of Viking Ship replicas. This is a long list of ships and thus a great starting point for those interested in seeing what people have built in recent times.
Wikipedia - Viking ship : The Viking Ship material at Wikipedia.
NOVA - Secrets of Norse Ships : Viking Ship article at PBS.ORG under NOVA, the science TV series material. Part of a larger collection of material on the Vikings.
Lore & Saga - Viking Ships : page on Viking Ships with some great pictures showing crew in period costume and a fully functional Viking Ship replica. Part of a site with more material on Vikings.
BBC - Viking Ships : BBC weighs in with their pages on Vikings and Viking Ships.
Regia Anglorum - Viking Ship Construction : Description of Viking Ship building materials, tools, methods and techniques with drawings illustrating some of the construction details. Good introduction to how we think this was done in the old days.
Replicas of Nordic Ships : Table of information and some pictures about replicas of actual Nordic ships found by marine archeologists. Includes links for those replicas that have their own sites. Part of a site that with a lot of other information about marine archeology.
Wikimedia Commons - Viking Ship Pictures : Viking Ship and other pictures at Wikimedia.
Viking Ships and Norwegian Wooden Boats : Well researched site with detailed and specific information about Viking ships; historical ones as well as replicas. Lots of pictures and further links to the author's original sources.
Vikingskip Huset : The official site of the Viking Ship museum in Oslo. Many pictures of ships and artifacts from the various finds show cased in the museum. Unfortunately, most of the accompanying text is in Norwegian only.
Skuldelev ship pictures. : Great pictures showing the structural details of a Viking ship found in Denmark.
Oseberg ship scale model : Build your own ship model with a kit and never leave the safety of your own bathtub. Shows a nice picture of the model.
Replicas and shipbuilding: Material on replicas and the history of shipbuilding related to Nordic Underwater Archeology.
Handbook in Viking ship construction : A Swedish only text on Viking Ship construction.
Bibliography : Short bibliography of Viking Ship related sources from the The Longship Company.

Viking Artifacts and Replicas

Replicas of Viking age ornaments, jewelry etc.: Great pictures of replicas of Viking age ornaments and jewelry.
Viking Shield : Site offering large collection of replicas of Viking Age objects, jewelry and other artifacts.

Eddas, Sagas and other Old Norse literature

Free Eddas and Sagas on the Internet : Great lists of free texts of Old Norse literature. Links to both original language texts and translations of Eddas, Sagas and more.
OMACL - The Online Medieval & Classical Library : OMACL has online texts and links to other sources of a large number of the Old Norse literature such as Heimskringla and Edda.

Folklore and Mythology

OMACL - Volsunga Saga : The Volsunga Saga - the Story of the Volsungs (the Gods) - is the original text on Norse mythology in the form of an epic. This is the text everyone else cribs from, but it's not necessarily an easy read so other sources usually make the material more accessible to readers, but if you really do want to look at the source material, this is it.
Wikipedia - Norse Mythology Pages : Wikipedia's overview of Norse Mythology with links to specific sub-topics.
Encyclopedia Mythica - Norse Mythology : Online encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and religion covering Norse, Greek, Roman and Celtic mythology. Great resource if you are looking for detail on a specific key word.
Timeless Myths - Norse Mythology : Norse Mythology section of a site that also covers classical, Celtic and Arthurian mythology and legends.
Norse Mythology : Fun Swedish site with an interesting collection of graphics (like old paintings) illustrating the content.
Odin's Names Grouped by Aspect : Odin, the head of the Norse Gods had many roles (or aspects) and was know by many names, partly due to the traditional heavy use of allusions in Norse story telling and poetry. This site provides a cross reference to aspects and names found in the old texts.
University of Pittsburg - Mythlinks : Various pages on Germanic Myths, Legends, and Sagas. Includes links to external sites as well.
Nordic Gods : UK site with material on Norse Gods. Primarily directed at school children, but useful overview for other cyber travelers, as well. Includes Teacher's notes.
Norse Mythology : UK site presenting a quick run down in list form of the Gods, realms, mythical objects and events, animals and monsters, men and women dwarfs and giants found in Norse mythology.
Norse Mythology - Nicole Cherry's old pages : Here's where Nicole Cherry's material seems to have ended up - lot's of sites have a broken link to an old site no longer there. I came across this so thought I'd include it since so many linked to her pages. All this now hosted by an Asatru site in Brazil, no less.