Belegarth

I have been fighting for about 3 years and I am in search of a garb change. Vikings have always been an interest to me and I have been doing some research into how vikings dressed and armored themselves. My main concern and the root of the question is how do I marry viking clothing and armoring with practical cost and Belegarth armoring and garb standards. For armor, should I be looking at a gambeson and mail or just a tunic and mail. Furthermore, does anyone have a pattern or can point me in the right direction for viking leg wrappings?

I am sure that I might have some more questions for you all. I will post them to this thread when they come to mind. Also, I offer a firm thank you in advance for your help and feedback.

Luckily for you, viking clothing from throughout the portions of the middle ages and all over the parts of Europe in which vikings were active is well researched and documented and used pretty heavily in foamfighting.

The basis of all good viking garb is a pair of relatively tight pants, leg wrappings, and a long tunic. Everything else is pointing you towards either a specific group (the wider pants of certain Danish groups, certain middle eastern features of the Varangians, Rus influences) or is just getting better at viking garb: an overtunic to go over your linen undertunic, viking-style coats, a 6-panel hat, woven cloth belts, that sort of thing.

As far as armor goes, it's sort of up to you; I believe I've heard rumors that there is no evidence of gambesons being worn by viking-types (seems they would just wear a couple of thick wool tunics and call it good enough). Maille was certainly the most common body armor; a (relatively simple) helmet would have been even more common. There are some reenactors or varying grades of authenticity that wear lamellar klibanions or cuirasses of different sorts, as well.

Good viking garb in period fabrics fits Belegarth's garb requirements beautifully and fights extremely well.

Hopefully this thread will attract some of the real experts on viking stuff around here: Brenna, or the Ilsa/Alric team seems to know their stuff, too.

An article on viking men's clothing:
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/mensgarb.html

A great tutorial on a simple design of kyrtle or tunic from slightly later in time, but which looks great for viking personas: http://www.dagorhir.com/gear/content/ga ... _tunic.php Make one out of linen and one of wool and you're in great shape. (Oh, and: The armpit gussets should be more like 5" square, not 10" square.)
Here's a way to finish the neckline that is sort of classically viking in the popular mind: http://www.dagorhir.com/gear/content/ga ... facing.pdf



Tailored Tunics, Ilsa's garb company, myself, and several others make viking-style garb for sale, as well, either custom or off-the-rack.



Oh, and, winingas (the leg wraps): http://www.rosieandglenn.co.uk/TheLibra ... ndings.htm
I typically just wrap once around my leg just below the knee, then spiral down to my ankle quickly (one wrap, basically), then spiral up my calf just barely overlapping the wrap and hook it to itself at the top just below my knee. Ilsa at Tailored Tunics sells 'em, Historic Enterprises sells 'em, Googling "winingas wrappings" gets you a few more suppliers. They're mostly just 4"-wide 9 yd long strips of herringbone wool, partially fulled and zig-zagged on the edges to keep them from raveling.

RE Cost: Linen and wool can be got for reasonable prices nowadays, especially if you wait for sales on the fabrics at sites like fabricmartfabrics.com or http://www.fabrics-store.com/ and they're way more comfortable when sweating than polyester, poly-cotton, or even plain cotton. You only need between 2 and 3 yards of ~58" wide fabric for any given tunic and a bit less for most pants patterns. 3-4 yards gets you a coat and 4 is typically plenty for any given viking-era cloak. A good six-panel hat can be made from 1/3 yd or less or fulled coating wool bought as a remnant from Jo-Ann's or as leftovers from an overtunic, washed and dried on hot several times to full it up some more.

Armor is gonna be where you run into your cost and practicality problems. Good riveted maille is expensive and butted maille is even heavier than riveted, though cheaper and less accurate.

Good luck!

The Osprey Warrior Series is like “how to do a persona for dummies” check em out:
http://www.amazon.com/Anglo-Saxon-Thegn-AD-449-1066-Warrior/dp/1855323494/ref=pd_sim_b_1

And go here for cool Viking bling: https://www.quietpress.com/

This thread from the Archive may also interest you: http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=43165

Thank you for the help in transforming myself into a viking. I look forward to gathering and making new garb over the coming months. All of the help has been great and I look forward to reading all of the information provided.

A GREAT resource from a Saxon Dag player, Alric

http://www.dagorhir.com/forums/index.php?topic=17205.0

Hurstwic is also an authority on many things Norse.

Well, I got myself some cost effective authentic(at least what I believe is authentic looking) looking viking garb for relatively cheap. http://i.imgur.com/V4dGCH2.jpg . I had to spread my feet apart or else my pants made it look like I was wearing a kilt, and I am planning on getting a longer tunic. feedback always welcome

Not bad, not bad at all! You've got that "I'm a viking" look! Nice shoes, too.

If you want to go further, it's time to decide where and when you to look like you're from with this outfit. For example, if you wanted to be from Greenland, ~1500, there are a lot of good resources on how to look like that (there were some really nice archaeological finds of clothing from there/then!) and you'd end up going to tighter pants or hosen and adding a longer overtunic and a hood or hat. If instead you wanted to be from the Danelaw in England ~870, you'd dress differently than that, and if you were from 10th C. Novgorod, you'd dress differently still!

The only other sort of "generic" viking things you could do without trying to go in a particular direction would be to tighten up your pant legs just a bit (the really blousey kind are either kind of wrong or just looser than they should be for almost every viking character), add a second tunic over your first, probably in a fine worsted wool (like, tropical-weight wool suiting), probably with embroidery or tablet woven bands on it (here's a good guide to "viking tunics"), and, uh... I guess that's it? Maybe a rectangular cloak? Oh, or a tablet-woven cloth belt. Those always look fancy.

Good work so far!

Arrakis wrote:Not bad, not bad at all! You've got that "I'm a viking" look! Nice shoes, too.

If you want to go further, it's time to decide where and when you to look like you're from with this outfit. For example, if you wanted to be from Greenland, ~1500, there are a lot of good resources on how to look like that (there were some really nice archaeological finds of clothing from there/then!) and you'd end up going to tighter pants or hosen and adding a longer overtunic and a hood or hat. If instead you wanted to be from the Danelaw in England ~870, you'd dress differently than that, and if you were from 10th C. Novgorod, you'd dress differently still!

The only other sort of "generic" viking things you could do without trying to go in a particular direction would be to tighten up your pant legs just a bit (the really blousey kind are either kind of wrong or just looser than they should be for almost every viking character), add a second tunic over your first, probably in a fine worsted wool (like, tropical-weight wool suiting), probably with embroidery or tablet woven bands on it (here's a good guide to "viking tunics"), and, uh... I guess that's it? Maybe a rectangular cloak? Oh, or a tablet-woven cloth belt. Those always look fancy.

Good work so far!

Thanks. I have just started negotiations with Tailored Tunics to get a thin wool overtunic that is longer. My plan is really just trader/viking so I don't have too much of a specific area. I would probably lean towards more of a Norway area viking since that is where my heritage comes from but I really am not too specific. I just want to look like a normal man of The Great Heathan Army or someone who fought for Ragnar Lodbrok (the real one no the history channel one). I will get the hood and stuff later after I get the cloak and belt that everyone tells me to get because I do not have too much money atm. Thank you for the help though.