Viking Tankards and Mugs: The Art of Drinking Like a Norse Warrior

Are you looking for something to drink from rather than an explanation? Our tankards are gathered in the Viking Tankard section, while drinking horns and mugs can be found in the drinking horns and mugs section.

The tradition of drinking: the symbel and the shared cup

For Scandinavians of the Viking Age, drinking was not a private act. It was a codified social act, at the center of which was the symbel — the ceremonial banquet where alliances were sealed, oaths were sworn, and tributes were paid to the dead.

The procedure is known through poetry and sagas. The lady of the house would present the cup, starting with the master of the house, then in an order that indicated everyone's rank in the hall. Serving drinks was therefore not a subaltern task: it was performing a function of social regulation, and the poem Beowulf, among the neighboring Anglo-Saxons, describes the same scene with the same formalities.

Two drinks shared the table, and they did not have the same status. Beer — öl — was the everyday drink: brewed on the farm, often by women, from barley, it accompanied everyone's meals, including children's, as water was not always safe. Mead — mjöðr — was reserved for special occasions: honey was harvested in small quantities at these latitudes, and its fermentation took time. It was the drink of feasts and great events.

Wine, finally, was an imported product from Francia and the south, reserved for the wealthiest. Its presence in a tomb signals high rank, just as much as an ornate sword.

This hierarchy is reflected in mythology. Mead is the substance of poetic inspiration: the Skáldskaparmál recounts how the beverage was made from the blood of Kvasir, the wisest being in the world, and then stolen by Odin in the form of an eagle. Drinking mead, in this context, is participating in something that goes beyond conviviality.

The Hávamál, meanwhile, tempers the enthusiasm with remarkable frankness. Several stanzas warn against excess: beer is not as good as they say for the sons of men, because the more one drinks, the less one knows one's own mind; and the heron of forgetfulness hovers over banquets, stealing the reason of men. A culture that celebrates feasts and writes this is not a culture of binge drinking — it is a culture that knows what drinking costs.

Finally, archaeology confirms the material importance of the service. The Oseberg ship has yielded buckets, vats, ladles, and a brewing vat; rich graves contain metal horn fittings, strainers, and spoons. People were buried with what they needed to host in the afterlife.

Barrel tankards: what coopery really owes to the Vikings

The stave-built wooden tankard is the most requested item in our department, and it is worth being honest about what it owes to history and what it owes to us.

What is solidly attested is the technique. Coopery — the assembly of wooden staves held together by hoops — was perfectly mastered in Scandinavia. The Mästermyr tool chest in Gotland contains the necessary tools, and urban excavations in Hedeby, Birka, and York regularly yield buckets, tubs, and vessels built according to this principle. The wood used is most often yew, juniper, or pine, chosen for their resistance to moisture.

The Oseberg ship even preserved entire buckets, including a famous one with brass mounts. The shape is not that of a modern tankard, but the logic of construction is exactly the same.

What is instead a matter of contemporary adaptation is the tankard with a handle as we know it, with its potential lid and its standardized size of 500 or 600 milliliters. This shape owes more to the brewing tradition of Central Europe than to the Scandinavian tables of the 9th century. We prefer to state this rather than maintain ambiguity.

Practically speaking, the barrel tankard has real qualities. Wood is a natural insulator: a cold beer stays cold much longer in one than in a glass, and the hand does not get cold. Contact with the wood slightly modifies the perception of aromas, which enthusiasts appreciate or not depending on their sensitivity.

All our barrel tankards receive an inner 304 stainless steel cup, of food-grade quality. This choice is not cosmetic: it ensures long-lasting leak-proofing, prevents the transfer of tastes from one drink to another, and allows for simple cleaning. A tankard entirely made of wood without an insert requires demanding maintenance and eventually develops odors.

Two rules of use result from this, and they suffer no exception: no dishwasher, no microwave. Prolonged heat and moisture cause the wood to work, the hoops to loosen, and the staves to split. A rinse with lukewarm water, air drying, and the piece lasts for years.

The Wood Collection

• The Jarl's Banquet — Dark wood and premium finish. The Viking chief's tankard, carved for presiding over the high table.
• Shadow of the North — Burnt wood with a raw and authentic look. Fire treatment strengthens the wood and gives it unique shades.
• The Builder's Chalice — Light wood for those who prefer the natural brightness of the material.
• The Authentic — The model most faithful to historical barrels. Unstained natural wood, traditional metal hooping.

The Metal Collection

• The Steel Tankard — For those who want maximum robustness. Stainless steel with sculpted resin details.
• The Golden Chain — Resin barrel with decorative golden chain. A Viking treasure look.

The Artisan Collection

• The Blacksmith's Steel — Working metal handle reminiscent of the tools of the Viking blacksmith.
• The Runic Builder — Adorned with glowing blue runes, it evokes Nordic magic with every sip.
• The Iron Horn Handle — The horn-shaped handle adds a wild touch and a natural grip.

Mjölnir: a thousand amulets found, and a modern tankard

Thor's hammer is the most reproduced Nordic symbol in the world, and it is also one of the best documented — which is not always the case.

Archaeologists have unearthed about a thousand hammer-shaped amulets across Scandinavia, Iceland, Russia, and the British Isles. They are made of silver, bronze, iron, or amber, worn around the neck, and their spread intensified significantly in the 10th century. This chronology is telling: the hammer spread at the moment Christianity was advancing, as a sign of claimed belonging in the face of the cross.

One object alone summarizes this period: the Trendgården mold, in Denmark, which allows a cross and a hammer to be cast in the same operation. The artisan worked for both clienteles, without qualms, and people sometimes wore both together.

The very name of the object, Mjölnir, is generally associated with roots meaning "crusher" or "grinder." The Skáldskaparmál recounts its creation by the dwarves Brokkr and Eitri, and explains its short handle by a forging defect — Loki, having turned into a fly, had stung the blacksmith during the work. It is one of the few divine weapons whose mythology admits imperfection.

The hammer-tankard that we offer is an object of our time, and we do not claim otherwise. No Scandinavian ever drank from a Mjölnir. What we adopt is the silhouette and its symbolic charge, adapted for modern use.

Two models coexist in the department. The hammer-decorated tankard, where the motif is integrated into the body or the handle, and the hammer-bottle opener, where the function meets the form in quite a happy way. The latter is made of steel or zamak depending on the model, and stores as well as it displays.

A word on manufacturing quality, since that is what distinguishes an object you keep from an object you throw away. Weight is the best indicator: a hollow and light piece reveals a low-grade alloy and a finish that will flake off. Ours are announced with their dimensions and mass on each product page — check them, with us as elsewhere.

• Thor's Hammer Mug — 600 ml, with Mjölnir forming the handle. The bottle opener under the base is an unexpected bonus that impresses with every use.
• The Treasure of Asgard — Premium golden version. The gold of the Nordic gods for your morning coffee.

Drinking horns: the only object in the department truly attested

Of all the objects in this department, the drinking horn is the one with the strongest historical grounding. It is not a reconstruction: it is the object itself, in a barely modernized form.

Scandinavian graves regularly yield metal horn fittings — tips, rim bands, supports — in bronze, silver, sometimes gilded. The horn itself, made of keratin, has most often disappeared, but its fittings remain, and their position in the burial allows for their size to be reconstructed. Rich graves in Birka have yielded several sets.

The most spectacular examples come from the neighboring Germanic world: the horns from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial in England, mounted on aurochs and decorated with stamped silver plates, give an idea of what a prestige piece was in the 7th century. The tradition continued until the Viking Age.

Representations confirm the usage. On the Gotland picture stones, the welcoming scene—a rider received by a woman offering him a horn—appears so often that it has become iconic. On small silver figurines, the horn is the attribute par excellence.

A practical detail explains everything else: a horn cannot stand on its own. It must be emptied or handed to one's neighbor, and that is precisely the point. The object compels one to drink together, in one go, in a collective movement. Conviviality is not an extra—it is inscribed in the form.

Our horns are made of natural bovine horn, which implies two consequences that must be accepted in advance. Each piece is unique: the color, veining, and curvature vary from one specimen to the next, and the photo never shows exactly what you will receive. And the material retains a slight odor at first, which fades with use.

For hygiene, we provide either a removable stainless steel cup or a food-safe treated horn. Maintenance is the same as for wood: lukewarm water, no dishwasher, air drying, and above all, no liquid left at the bottom. A well-treated horn lasts for decades; a horn forgotten while full for a night will scratch and tarnish.

• Authentic Natural Yak Horn — Each horn is unique, carved from a genuine yak horn. Polished on the inside for food use, it comes with its wooden stand.
• Natural Viking Horn — Mug format with a flat base, allowing the horn to stand up. The trick the Vikings didn't have!

Dragons, gods, and runes: what the decorations represent

Some pieces in this department are less about daily use than display, and they raise the question of what their motifs actually represent.

Dragon chalices and mugs adorned with intertwined beasts draw from an authentic decorative repertoire. Scandinavian art from the Viking Age is classified into successive styles—Borre, Jelling, Mammen, Ringerike, Urnes—and all are based on animal interlace: elongated bodies, limbs that become ribbons, maws biting their own tails. The Urnes style, the last one, carries this art to extreme refinement on the portals of the stave church that gives it its name.

Conversely, the winged and scaly dragon in the Western style does not belong to this repertoire. Fáfnir, the most famous dragon in the Nordic corpus, is a man transformed by greed, and the texts designate him with the word ormr—serpent. The carved stones of Ramsund, in Sweden, which tell his story, show him as a long reptile without wings or legs. The winged dragon pieces in our department are therefore beautiful contemporary pieces, not reconstructions.

Mugs with divine effigies—Odin, Thor, Freyja—deserve the same clarification. Scandinavians did represent their gods, but in forms very different from our modern statuettes: small schematic figurines like the one from Eyrarland in Iceland, amulets, narrative scenes on stone. The detailed bearded face that adorns a modern mug owes everything to the 19th century and contemporary illustration.

As for the runes engraved on our pieces, they use the Elder or Younger Futhark depending on the model. A point of honesty: runic alphabets were used for writing, not for composing standardized magic formulas. Authentic inscriptions generally say prosaic things—a name, a dedication, an owner. Our product sheets specify, when possible, what the engraving actually means.

Our position on these objects is constant: they are inspired by a Nordic imaginary, they are beautiful, and we do not sell them as archaeological replicas. The difference is important, and it makes the choice more interesting, not less.

• Odin's Chalice — The All-Father adorns this exceptional resin and steel mug. His one-eyed face watches you with every sip.
• Barrel Mug, The Master of Runes — The Futhark runes run all around the barrel and glow with a blue light in the dark.
• The Conqueror — The handle is shaped like a battle axe. To drink as one fights: with panache.

How to choose your mug: five criteria

There remains the practical question. Here is how we would reason in your place, criterion by criterion.

Start with the drink. For beer and mead served cold, the wooden barrel mug is the best choice: insulating, generous, and that is the use it is made for. For wine or cocktails, prefer a chalice or a horn glass, whose flared opening allows aromas to express themselves. For a hot drink—tea, coffee, mulled wine—turn to double-walled steel: neither wood nor horn can withstand prolonged heat.

Then choose the capacity. Our barrel mugs are most often 600 ml, which corresponds to a generous beer or two standard servings. Horns vary from 300 to 500 ml depending on the piece, each being unique. Below 350 ml, it is a tasting or decorative object; above 700, it is a banquet piece that is rarely filled to the brim.

Check food safety. This is the point on which one must never compromise. All our pieces intended for drinking receive a food-grade 304 stainless steel cup, or an appropriate treatment for the horns. Be wary, from any seller, of a resin or wooden mug announced without precision regarding its inner coating: decorative resin is not designed for prolonged contact with a liquid.

Anticipate maintenance. Wood, horn, and resin share the same rule: no dishwasher, no microwave, rinse with lukewarm water, air dry, never leave liquid at the bottom. Double-walled steel, however, tolerates the dishwasher. If you know in advance that hand washing will not happen, choose steel—a beautiful object poorly maintained is worth less than a simple object well treated.

Finally, think about the actual use. A ceremonial piece that will remain on a shelf can afford a fragile finish and a busy decoration. A mug that will be used every Friday night must be robust, stable, and easy to wash. These are two different purchases, and confusing them is the first source of disappointment.

One last piece of advice, valid for this whole department: read the dimensions and weight before ordering. A mug always looks bigger in a photo than in the hand. We indicate these values on each sheet, and it is the most useful information on the entire page.