Is your pet part of the family? That’s nothing new. Archeological evidence exists to suggest that the vikings held their own animals in high – even intimate – regard, taking them with them on voyages. Earlier this year, scientific evidence found for the first time that – as early as the ninth century – vikings brought horses, dogs and other animals with them across the North Sea.
The prevailing assumption had been that enterprising viking armies had simply acquired horses (along with other items of plunder) in their raids on the British Isles. But these findings suggest that the depth of the relationships viking-age people had with animals have been dramatically underrepresented.
But why? After all, the vast majority of people – Scandinavian or otherwise – living through the viking age relied on farming to survive. Why has it taken so long for researchers to realise that these humans and animals sustained deep, complex, emotional and mutually enriching relationships?
