What is a Viking bracelet?

"Don't mess with those who wear many bracelets"

Bracelets, like necklaces, rings and earrings, are all decorative objects. The ornaments of different periods and cultures can be interpreted to show the level of craftsmanship as well as the literary atmosphere of the time, all linked to art.

The reason for this is still to be found in the unique folkways of the Vikings. Unlike their Celtic, Anglo and Greek contemporaries, the Vikings were a very extreme group. They did not like to write, they loved to fight, and the greatest desire of every Viking from the day they could understand was to be beaten to death; which is why the image of the Vikings today is based on the stories of the peoples they beat up. One of the most interesting is the bracelet.

It is said that once a Viking boy is skilled in the use of weapons and in the handling of a sailing ship, he is old enough to go out to sea and fight (and smash and grab) with other warriors. When he first boarded the ship the patriarch would give him a bracelet, a symbol of the courage of the Norse gods and the key to his soul entering the Hall of the Spirits after he had died in a heroic battle. For every battle the Vikings fought in, they would mark the bracelet with a hard object such as a weapon or ship's spike. There is also a theory that when two Vikings clashed, the winner would kill the loser and take the loser's bracelet for himself, "Don't mess with those who wear many bracelets".

According to archaeological records, the Viking bracelet shape was actually very simple, made of two strips of copper or silver twisted repeatedly, then the ends were gradually thinned with a hammer and finally bent into a ring, a shape that seems to be linked to the earthly python that destroyed everything in Norse mythology. A number of medieval European-themed film and television productions have artistically manipulated the image of the Viking bracelet.