Viking helmet is one of the most misunderstood phrases in this catalogue. Exactly one complete Norse helmet has been excavated, the Gjermundbu find, and it has a rounded iron dome with a spectacle guard over the eyes and no horns anywhere on it. Everything else is reconstructed from fragments and from contemporary carvings. This archive follows those shapes, with two deliberate exceptions.
The shapes and how they are made
Steel is mild steel at 16 or 18 gauge, riveted rather than pressed. The spectacle helmets are the closest to the archaeology: three of them, with riveted eye guards, brass brow bands, Elder Futhark runes on one and a padded leather liner or liner ring in each. The nasal helms cover a rounded skull with a knotwork brow band and a riveted nasal bar, a pointed conical skull with brass rivets and a valknut engraving, and one with a riveted dome, an Elder Futhark brow band and a padded liner. The spangenhelms are built from panels: a four panel dome that ships on a runed walnut display stand, one with a riveted brow band, leather liner and chin strap, and one with an engraved brass browband and a suede liner. A Sutton Hoo style helmet gives you the full face mask with brass crest eyebrows and embossed panels, which is Anglo Saxon rather than Norse but sits in the same century. A visored medieval helmet with a perforated bevor rounds out the group. The two exceptions are horned helmets, one with real horns and a knotwork browband, one blackened with a runed brow band. Prices run from 249 dollars to 429 dollars.
The horns question
Nobody dug up a horned Norse helmet. The image comes from nineteenth century opera costume and stuck, and the horned helmet myth tells that story properly. If you want the archaeology instead, what Viking helmets actually looked like covers the finds and the reconstructions. The full range is in Viking helmets, and the mail and body pieces that go under and around them are in Viking armour.
Ransack Viking is a US company based in Chicago, Illinois. These pieces are handmade in the Czech Republic, then imported, inspected and shipped from Chicago.
Free US shipping
On most pieces. Heavier and oversized ones carry a flat charge.
Hand Forged
Heated, hammered and ground by hand.
Engraving available
Names, dates or Norse runes on most pieces.
