Originally I started up this Historical Haircare series because I have an interest in the Viking Age - ever since my childhood, really. I grew up learning about the history, legends, and mythology in school. My parents would read the legends and mythology as bedtime stories. As I grew up, I developed an interest in how different people see the world differently - both in other cultures and other historical ages. As I forayed into haircare, and found lots of interesting things about contemporary haircare in different culture (e.g. Afro haircare, Ayurveda, etc.), I started wondering about those Vikings. What did they do? I googled around and found this excellent page, the Viking Answer Lady Webpage, and she has a whole article on haircare! The article goes over both male and female hairstyles, and washing. I'm going to outline particularly female hairstyles, such as the one above, but as an aside-note - it seems Vikings were pretty clean, compared to most other people around that Age!
Onto hairstyling! Coronet type head bands called "fillets"" were not uncommon all over Europe. Head dressings, and hoods, with the hair knotted at the neck seem to have been more common in the Christianised areas. But above all, the knotted hairstyle above seems to be the most prevalent hairstyle depicted for Viking Age women where it's not immediately obvious if they wore a head cover or not. It shows up in many figurines and the like. It's not clear if it's just long hair twisted into a knot with a ponytail, a similarly knotted braid, or perhaps a scarf around the head that is knotted at the nape of the neck and the tail left hanging loose.
There are a few variations of the hair knot around, such as this one. It could be interpreted as a knotted head cover, or maybe a coronet, braids across the scalp, and a knot at the neck. It's difficult to know for sure.
Double hair knot
This lady could be wearing her hair in double "sailor moon"-type knotted buns, or as mentioned frequently, a double knotted head covering. Personally, I'm wondering if the stripes could represent hair, or perhaps several braids.
Very detailed hair knot with a tail
Photo: Jan Hein
This little figurine is the reason I'm convinced at least some wore their hair knotted, not just a head covering. If you look at the first and middle pictures, you can see that she has a middle part! Now, if the striped look of the hair is representative of hair strands or small braids is another issue, but according to the Viking Lady Answer Webpage article linked before, women seemed to wear their hair both loose and in braids sometimes, so either is possible I suppose.
Modern adaptations
Despite not having clear cut answers to just how Viking women wore their hair, this only peaks my interest and creativity. Sure, it would be cool to know just exactly what they looked like - but we don't. I find myself enjoying creating various hairstyles inspired by these depictions instead! Now, I'm most certainly not the first one to do that, but I still want to document my process.
Comet bun
After having a looksie around LHC and not finding what I was looking for, I posted a newbie question and got a great response from user enting that set me on the right track. A knotted bun with a tail is called a "comet bun"! I'd never heard of that before, but it was just what I was looking for. I googled around a bit and found a few tutorials. My favourite is probably the one by happy hair days. She, in turn, referenced Torrinpaige's video on YouTube "Knot Bun", which I also found helpful. Basically, you just take all your hair and do a single knot. You can either leave the tail hanging, or wrap it around the bun similarly to how you wrap your ends around a cinnabun. My hair is über-slippy so I would secure the bun with mini-hairclaws around the perimeter. I suppose your could use hair pins, spin pins, or whatever you prefer as well. I don't know what ladies used in the "Days of Yore" but I'm not too fussed either way. This method would give you the look of how I imagine the first two pictures, and the last, would have look liked in real life. You could also use this method to create the "Viking sailor moon"-look in the third picture, but with smaller buns high on your head.
Comet cinnabun
Unfortunately, my hair is too short still to do a proper knot bun at all - with or without a tail. So, until my hair grows, I'll just have to make do with a cinnabun. Here, I take the majority of my hair and clip it forward out of the way. I leave a little bit at the center of my neck hanging, enough to french braid it two or three turns before braiding it to the ends. I then take the rest of my hair and cinnabun it on top of the beginning of the little french braid. This way, it looks like the braid starts in the bun.
Protective scarf
Personally, I'm not one for head coverings. It's not part of my religion or culture, and sometimes I just find it difficult to incorporate methods from different cultures without being appropriative. What is and isn't appropriative is often unclear to me, so I tend to stay away until I know more. That's my personal choice, and I don't expect the same from anyone else.
Still, I do sort of wear head coverings at home, sometimes. When I deep condition, I slather my hair with oil, deep conditioner, mayo, whathaveyou, put a shower cap on, and in the summer I tie a scarf around it. This makes it look nicer, and helps the body head to stay trapped in the hair. Of course, the shower cap does that quite well on it's own, I just like having a scarf over it anyway. (During winter I may put a wool cap over the shower cap instead, but that's a bit too warm during the summer months.) Often I tie the scarf in a knot at the nape of my neck simply because that's the easiest way of securing it. I tie it off first with an elastic, and then I knot the scarf around the elastic for aesthetic reasons. Coincidentally, it looks just like the Viking figurines above...
I hope this was interesting! I just focused on the parts that I personally find the most interesting and worth my while, but I've mentioned the other topics and linked all sources so I can return to them in case I want to read up more.
~ Siv
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