Viking Talk

Published 19:59 on 18 Jan 2026

On Friday 16th January, the club welcomed Stephen Harrison, senior lecturer in archaeology at Glasgow University.

Stephen's speciality is Viking burials, and he gave us a fascinating talk on Vikings, their ships and Viking Scotland. He explained that most Vikings were not the raiders and pirates that we tend to assume, but traders and farmers who settled in the new lands they explored.

He described some famous Viking ship burials such as Oseberg and Gokstad in Norway, Westness in Orkney and Kiloran Bay on Colonsay. He went on to talk about Viking boat building techniques and the well-preserved Viking ships which have been found in Norway and the five Skuldelev ships at Roskilde in Denmark.

Stephen is himself a sailor (he sails a GP14 at Largs) and was lucky enough to sail on a replica of one of the Skuldelev ships, the 30m Sea Stallion which sailed from Roskilde to Dublin. Apparently it reached a top speed of 11 knots!

He answered a number of interesting questions about Viking boat-building techniques (they didn't use saws, just adzes), sails (made of wool), navigation (dead reckoning and luck) and of course, the classic Hollywood image of setting a ship on fire and pushing it out to sea (this derives from the Norse saga of Baldur's funeral but is completely impractical.)

The talk was very well attended with many visitors from other clubs. Many thanks to Stephen for making the trek from Glasgow and to Janice and Leonie for organising a very enjoyable evening.