Viking Home Decor

What this collection is for

Most people arrive here having already bought a blade. A sword in a box is not doing anything, and a hand forged axe left flat on a shelf gets knocked, marked and eventually forgotten. This collection exists to solve that, and then it widens out into the pieces that make a room read Norse without a blade being involved at all.

Three groups cover it. Things that go on a wall. Things that stand on a table, a mantel or a floor. And things that come out and get used, which is the games, the rune sets and the drinking horns on stands.

Wall mounted pieces

Sword wall mounts and hooks

Two patterns. The walnut bracket pair runs about 9 inches per bracket, four solid brass scroll hooks in total, each cradle lined with dense grey wool felt so a scabbard or a bare blade rests on cloth rather than metal. Each bracket carries a cut Elder Futhark rune line and a routed keyhole slot at either end, and screws and wall anchors are supplied. The oak pattern is a matched pair of small plaques with cast steel hooks, each hook with an upturned lip so a blade cannot roll off, engraved with a standing raven and drilled for two countersunk screws each.

Axe wall plaques

An axe head and haft mounted on a carved board, sold complete. One is a bearded head on a solid oak board with shaped shoulders, plugged dowels at the corners and a carved knotwork band, held in four steel brackets lined in black leather. The other is a bearded head with a roughly 5 inch cutting edge on a 14 inch ash haft, mounted on a shield profile black walnut plaque about 12 by 10 inches carved with a standing raven, on two solid brass cradle brackets. Both have keyhole hanging points and fixings on the reverse.

Shields and banners

The heater shield is a sheet steel body 30 inches tall by 22 inches wide, slightly dished along the vertical axis, painted deep blue over a sealed ground with a polished steel border folded over the rim and set with domed rivets. It carries a cut knotwork band across the widest point and weighs about 9 lb, which is a real fixing load, so put it into a stud. The canvas banner is 12 ounce undyed cotton, about 16 inches wide by 22 inches deep excluding the fringe and about 40 inches overall including the turned ash staff, with a Vegvisir applied in ochre ink and eight hand tied tassels.

Table and floor pieces

Sword stands

The oak stand is a three tier design in solid oak throughout, one sword or hafted piece per tier, joined with a through tenon stretcher passing across both uprights and carved with a running knotwork band. Cradles are cut and rounded oak notches, and the two curved feet are set wide so the stand does not tip when the top tier is loaded. There is also a two tier walnut version. Both suit a table top, a shelf, a mantel or a cabinet.

Candle holders

Forged from solid steel bar, twisted hot along the stem. The tripod pattern stands roughly 12 inches from foot to the lip of the dish with a 5 inch base spread, weighs roughly 1.5 to 2 pounds and is weighted low, with a shallow drip dish about 3 inches across on a central pricket spike that takes pillar candles of roughly 2 to 3 inches. The three branch pattern carries a pricket and a dished drip pan on each branch, the centre standing taller than the outer two, on three scrolled feet forged and curled by hand.

Storage chests

Two builds. The oak chest is solid boards with through dovetailed corners and a pegged lid frame, two carved interlaced knotwork panels on the front board, three long steel strap hinges, steel corner brackets and a keyed hasp lock with the key on a leather fob. The stained chest has a domed and braced lid, studded brass straps over lid and body, brass corner angles, cast brass swing handles at both ends and squared block feet lifting the base clear of the floor.

Rune stones, slate and sets

Three formats. A standing slate rune stone about 8 inches tall by 4 inches wide with an arched top, engraved with the Elder Futhark row inside an interlaced knotwork arch, seated in a slotted solid oak base and standing about 10 inches complete at roughly 2 lb 4 oz. A wall or shelf plaque in riven slate about 10 by 7 inches and 8 to 12 mm thick, with a knotwork Mjolnir inside a full ring of 24 runes, on a grooved black walnut base. And a casting set of 24 engraved slate tiles about 1.2 by 0.9 inches in a leather drawstring pouch, roughly 12 oz complete with a folded guide card.

Slate is riven rather than sawn, so edges and thickness vary across a slab. That is the material behaving normally rather than a fault.

Games for the table and the lawn

Hnefatafl is the Norse board game, an asymmetric siege played on an odd numbered grid where a king tries to reach a corner and the attackers try to surround him. The oak board here is about 16 inches square with an eleven by eleven grid engraved rather than printed, 37 turned hardwood pieces as 24 pale attackers, 12 dark defenders and a king, a pyrography burned knotwork border on all four edges, finished with a food safe hardwax oil and supplied with a canvas drawstring pouch and a printed rule sheet. There is also a walnut and maple version.

Kubb is the outdoor game, played by throwing batons at blocks. Sets come in solid beech or hard maple with ten kubbs about 6 inches tall at a 2.75 inch square section, a king about 12 inches with a turned crown, six turned batons about 12 inches long and four corner stakes, 21 pieces in all with a carry bag and rules. The maple set is left unsealed for outdoor use, which is the right choice for something that lives on grass.

Sizes and materials across the range

Every figure below is taken from the specification panel of a piece on this page. These are hand made goods in natural materials, so read the numbers as what to expect rather than as a guarantee to the millimetre.

Weight is the figure to read before you drill. A 9 lb steel shield and a loaded three tier stand are both real loads, and the fixings supplied with a bracket assume you are going into something solid.

Hanging a blade without damaging it or the wall

Find a stud and fix into it, or use an anchor rated well above the weight of the piece. Plasterboard on its own will not hold a mounted axe or a loaded sword bracket for long, and the failure happens quietly over months as the fixing works loose.

Rest a blade on felt or leather rather than bare metal. Every mount here is either felt lined, leather lined or cut from timber for that reason. Bare steel hooks mark a polished blade and can wear a line into a scabbard over a year.

Keep the piece out of direct sunlight and away from a radiator or a wood burner. Heat dries out timber hafts, shrinks horn and bone, and cracks leather. Sunlight fades dyed leather and pales oiled oak unevenly, so a sword that hangs in a window ends up two colours.

Looking after wood, steel, slate and horn

Oiled oak and walnut want a fresh coat of hardwax oil every year or two if the piece is handled often, and a dry cloth the rest of the time. Do not use a silicone furniture spray on an oiled finish, because it sits on the surface and makes recoating patchy.

Forged steel here is brushed, waxed or clear sealed rather than lacquered, so a wipe with an oiled cloth after handling is enough. Any carbon steel axe head mounted on a plaque follows the same rule as a blade, which is dry it, oil it lightly and do not leave it damp. Slate needs nothing beyond a dry cloth, and horn wants to stay out of dry heat.

Engraving and gifting

Many pieces here can be engraved after they arrive in the United States, and most already carry a cut or burned design from the maker. Names and dates go onto the face of a plaque, the stretcher of a stand, the bracket face or the cheek of a mounted axe head. Elder Futhark is a phonetic alphabet rather than a cipher, so a name is transliterated by sound, and there is no rune for the letter C.

Engraving is permanent and an engraved piece cannot be returned, so send the exact spelling and read it twice before you order.

Where these pieces are made

Everything on this page is made by hand in the Czech Republic. Finished pieces are imported to the United States, inspected by Ransack Viking in Memphis, Tennessee, and shipped from there, with engraving added after arrival. Because slate is riven, horn is a natural cone and timber has its own figure, two pieces carrying the same name will differ in colour, grain and exact size.

Browse related categories

• Sword stands and wall displays
• Rune stones and Elder Futhark casting sets
• Hnefatafl boards and Norse lawn games
• Drinking horns with brass and steel rims
• Viking shields for wall and stand display
• Viking banners, belts and buckles
• Accessories, the wider collection of non blade pieces
• Engraved and personalised pieces across the site

Guides worth reading first

• How to display swords and axes safely on a wall
• The hnefatafl board: rules, history and how to play
• Runestones explained: what the raised stones actually say
• Elder Futhark runes: the alphabet and how names transliterate
• Choosing a shield for display: size, weight and fixing