Lofotr Viking Festival 3–7 August 2022

13 July 2022

On 3–7 August 2022, the annual Viking Festival is finally held at the Lofotr Viking Museum again. This year’s theme is trade and cultural exchange, and there are Vikings from many countries coming to Borg in Lofoten.

There will be live storytelling through play and activities for young and old, five days to the end when 150 Vikings and the public meet. Find out what corpus technique and needle binding are, watch berserkers down together in battle shows – maybe you dare send your children to battle school to become bloodthirsty vikings?

Festival for the whole family

Lofotr Viking Festival is a festival for the whole family, and we focus especially on children’s activities. Vedrar is man-strong for a fight show. They show different combat techniques and strategies, and conclude by inviting the children watching to attack them! We hope they survive to have more than one show. There will also be a combat school for children with the shield maiden Tonje Lysfjord Sommerli and the warrior Magnus Vorland if the children want to practice before they go into battle with our Berserkers!

Ole and Magnus will share their narrative joy in interactive theatre. Magnus is known as Kosinus himself – the math dragon on NRK Super. Ole and Magnus will be found high and low in the festival grounds all day, and if we know them right, they will come up with a lot of pranks to watch and listen to!

Viking band Gjaldulei

Gjaldulei is a Viking band from Denmark that comes north to enchant the audience with music inspired by the Viking Age. They compose with roots in musical archaeology and cultural history. The texts are a deep dive into Icelandic saga texts, supported by galdr and instruments from which archaeological material is found from the Iron Age. Hear more here: https://youtu.be/hAO__CCweTA

This year’s new event – let the children have a go as archaeologists!

On Saturday there is an opportunity to try your best as an archaeologist! The museum’s conservator and archaeology students have created an archaeological box with cultural layers to dig through. We will also sift through the filler left over from the real excavation at Borg! Who knows what the earth is hiding? Maybe we’ll find something exciting!

Workshops and courses

There will be a number of activities, courses and workshops throughout the festival. Our courses are open to everyone. There will be plant coloring and shoe seam, daily workshop with Sami and Norse braiding techniques, spinning lessons to create your own yarn, forge where the children can forge their own sword pendant, seam of Viking clothes and more. We will convey brow-browing, fish yarn tasting, corpus technique and pearlmaking – Christel Meyer will create a pearl forge and recreate some of the gems the museum has on display!

There will be lectures on lyren’s use in saga text and viking age. Åsa Elstad will give a lecture on the Skjoldehamn suit found in Vesterålen. The Skjoldehamn suit is exceptionally well preserved and Norway’s oldest clothing. It is unclear whether the suit is Sami, Norse or whether it belonged to a mixed culture.

Last but not least, Rod Hughes returns to Lofotr for a course in form casting. Before and during the festival, he will also work with the museum’s blacksmiths to create a replica of a 9th-century sword! The museum’s forge has been refurbished for the occasion, and this is the first time we have embarked on such experimental archaeology.

Volunteers

We’re still searching for volunteers who want to be behind the scenes. There is free entry, good food and a lifetime experience for those who sign up!

We welcome you back to five days filled with market, concerts, theatre, courses, play and lots of fun for everyone.

Programme and mention of activities at the festival: https://www.lofotr.no/nb/aktuelt-fra-lofotr/program-vikingefestival-2022

Welcome!