Pupletts in Sweden: Fotovikens Viking Market (3-July)

So after spending three weeks exploring the USA and then returning tired and jet lagged, what should you do? Rest, sleep, unpack and wash? Nope, not even close - go to a viking festival!

So we strapped on our best viking beards, oiled our battle-axes and leather jockstraps and headed out to Fotevikens Viking Museum.

Fotevikens is a reconstructed Viking Village that is a living museum. It is a historically correct village with people who live as vikings (without the raping and pillaging - at least that we witnessed).

When we went the village was hosting a viking market so it was pretty busy and there were lots of stalls selling handcrafts, weapons and demonstrations.

Welcome to Fotevikens

House

Looking into the market - the fort is visible in the distance and the tents to the left are stalls.

Fur and armour stalls

We alternated between exploring the village and taking in the buildings and viking setup and visiting the markets.

Buildings

Buildings and the tower

The view out over the Baltic was pretty awesome too:

We could see the Øresund Bridge also:

After a brief rest, we continued to look around:

One of the houses

Tomas had a turn at melting tin in a crucible and molding it into Mjölnir - Thor's hammer.

Melting the tin

Melting it and pouring it into the mold:

Tomas with the finished product

As seems to happen wherever we go (for some reason), the kids ended up in the stocks - we didn't try to jam the lock - honest....

Cameron in the stocks

We also watched a demonstration of axe throwing, until the lady in this picture used too much muscle and broke the axe (the head came off the handle). It was interesting that there were no ropes and people were walking over the hills behind the target and between the throwers and target...

Launching the axe

The competition

After watching the axes for a bit, we climbed up the hill at the rear of the park (not the axe throwing hill) and found a stone circle:

Stone circle

and a nice view:

View from the hill

There were a couple of signposts showing historic details of the area:

Signpost 6 and Cameron's helpful face

Signpost 5

After looking around on the hill, we headed back down and watched another competition - shield throwing. The competitors had to throw their shields and land them as close to the post as possible without hitting it:

Throwing the shield

The final event of the day was a viking battle. This was a mock battle between two viking groups. In order to avoid injury it was obviously very faked, but it was a bit of fun.