What was life like growing up in the Viking world? (education, sports, education

Question: What was life like growing up in the Viking world!? (education, sports, education)!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

None of my books on vikings has much detail about the lives of children, probably because the Vikings do not seem to have written much about them in their runic inscriptions, which are the main written material surviving from the Viking age!.

However, drawing on what we know generally about the lives of people in past times, I think it is reasonable to assume that, as in most societies for most of history, children would be expected to help their parents in their work as soon as they were old enough!. Most Vikings were farmers, and so children would be helping on the farm!. some Viking men were skilled craftsmen, like boatbuilders , weapons makers or goldsmiths, and they would probably teach their craft to their sons!. The sons of the warriors would probably be taught the use of weapons as an important part of their education!. Girls would learn from their mothers the range of skills necessary to manage a household, cooking and preserving food, making cheese and butter, brewing ale and mead, and spinning and weaving and sewing, since women were generally responsible for producing the clothing!.

Learning the long sagas (stories of the heroic deeds of their ancestors) is something that children would probably have been expected to do, listening to the stories and then repeating them!.

Vikings were fond of playing board games, they had many games similar to chess, draughts, and nine-men's morris, and probably children would have played them as well as adults!. Some toys have survived from the Viking age, like wooden weapons and toy boats, wooden animals and spinning tops, so children obviously had time to play!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

It depended on your social status for the most part!. Children were often "fostered out" to other families if they weren't needed for work on their own "steads"!.

If possible, after, or while learning about the family trade, Poetry, fighting, and music were very important to those who could afford the training/teaching!.

Girls were taught the household things like sewing, cooking and actually running the "farm-stead"!. They were usually the boss when it came to the home and farm!. Boys, by necessity were taught war craft and performed the manual labor around the farms unless the family had slaves then the manual labor was less, but not excluded altogether!.Www@QuestionHome@Com