Viking Traditions in Christmas Present

The short answer: the Vikings did not celebrate Christmas until they became Christian, but they did keep Yule, a midwinter feast. Its name and a few of its customs live on in Viking Christmas traditions today, while most of the rest came later.

Plenty of Christmas traditions are credited to the Vikings. Some of those claims hold up, many are later European folklore, and a few are pure 20th-century invention. Here is what the evidence actually says. The clearest link is the name itself: Scandinavians still call Christmas “jul,” after the Norse midwinter feast, and King Haakon the Good moved that feast to line up with Christmas in the 900s. (The Norse year’s other feasts are in Months of the Norse Calendar.)

Viking Christmas Traditions at a Glance

• The name “jul” – Norse. Yule was the Viking midwinter feast.
• The Christmas tree – later. First recorded in the 15th and 16th centuries.
• The Wild Hunt – Scandinavian folklore, recorded long after the Viking age.
• Odin as Santa Claus – a popular theory. No medieval source supports it.
• The Yule log – early modern. No Viking-age evidence.
• The Christmas ham – uncertain, though pork at midwinter made sense on a farm.
• Kissing under the mistletoe – English, from the 1700s. The Baldur myth behind it is real, but its happy ending is not.

Oh, Christmas Tree

Trees mattered in Norse belief: the great ash Yggdrasil binds the nine worlds together, and Adam of Bremen describes a sacred tree and grove at the temple of Uppsala. But the decorated Christmas tree is first recorded in the German-speaking and Baltic lands in the 15th and 16th centuries, and there is no good evidence that Vikings decorated trees with runes and carvings at Yule. The connection is a lovely idea, not a documented custom.

The Wild Hunt and Viking Christmas Traditions

Scandinavian folklore tells of a ghostly “Wild Hunt” (in Norway, the Oskoreia) that thundered across the winter sky, and in some regions it was led by Odin. People believed it was safest to stay indoors on those dark midwinter nights. These tales are recorded centuries after the Viking age, so we can’t be sure how old they are.

Some Scandinavian families still avoid hanging laundry outside over the holidays, a folk belief sometimes explained by the riders of the Hunt getting tangled in the lines.

Was Odin the First Santa Claus in Viking Christmas Traditions?

Some writers argue that Odin, the gray-bearded wanderer in a wide hat, riding the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, is an ancestor of Santa Claus. It is a fun theory with a lot of popular appeal, but no medieval source links Odin to gift-giving at Yule. Santa’s direct ancestor is the Christian St. Nicholas. (We weigh the whole case in Odin to Santa Claus: What’s the Connection?)

Is the Yule Log One of the Viking Christmas Traditions?

The Yule log as a Christmas custom is first clearly recorded in early modern Europe; in England, in the 1600s. Some writers link it to Norse midwinter fires, which is plausible, since the season demanded light and warmth, but there is no Viking-age evidence of rune-carved logs or of sparks foretelling calves and piglets.

The Christmas Ham

Everyone loves a feast, and the Norse more than most. In the Prose Edda, the warriors of Valhalla dine every night on the boar Sæhrímnir, which the cook Andhrímnir boils in a great cauldron. The boar is whole again by evening, and there is always enough. Whether that myth lies behind the Scandinavian Christmas ham is uncertain, but pork at midwinter certainly made sense on a farm, since the animals were slaughtered before the winter feed ran out. (Iceland’s midwinter table is a different story: see Thorrablót.)

Mistletoe Kisses

In the Prose Edda, the god Baldur dreams of his own death. His mother Frigg makes everything on earth swear an oath not to harm him, and the gods make a game of throwing things at him that bounce harmlessly off. Loki, disguised as a woman, learns from Frigg that she skipped one small plant, the mistletoe, because it seemed too young to swear. Loki pulls it up, puts it in the hand of Baldur’s blind brother Hod, and guides his throw. Baldur falls dead.

And he stays dead. Hel agrees to release Baldur only if every creature weeps for him. Everything weeps except one giantess, Thokk, who is probably Loki in disguise, and Baldur remains in the underworld until the world is remade after Ragnarök. The happy ending, with tears turning the berries white and Frigg blessing kisses, appears in no Norse source; it was invented much later. Kissing under the mistletoe is an English custom first recorded in the 1700s.

Keep reading about Viking Christmas traditions: Christmas: Converting Vikings to Christianity and Vetrnætr – Vikings Welcome Winter.

Building a Legend

Every legend starts somewhere, and you can help start a new one. Asgard Alaska is working toward a living museum of everyday Norse life. If you have Viking-era (or other) skills to share, introduce yourself.