Clothes and Crafts
Viking clothes were very different from what people wear today. The clothes they wore was made of sheep's wool. The rich people had their slaves make them. The poor Vikings made their clothes themselves. Men wore big wooly jackets with a rope tied around to keep it on. Young girls wore woollen dresses over a linen slip. The shoes the Vikings wore were made of leather and very flat. Merchants went around selling silks and leather  shoes. In those days  women wore long long cloaks. When it wasn't very warm  they put on about three woolly cloaks. When they went to bed they wore animal skins. The woolly  skins were made of  goats skin. The clothes they wore were practical  long cloaks . Every morning the cows had to be milked so the clothes would have got very dirty. Cow urine was a good way to clean clothes. Mixed with water it cleaned clothes of all sorts of textures. 

By Joseph Kelly.
 

Viking Crafts

Most things that the Vikings used were homemade. You would be expected to know how to use your hands. All men from the household knew how to fell trees cut up the timber and shape it into gates and fences, tools, carts, sleds and furniture. The farmers had their own smithies where they made and they mended iron tools and vessels. You would need these skills if you lived in a remote area but where farms were reasonsbly close together. You could be visted by a traveling blacksmith. All of the womon were trained in a craft for they were the cloth makers. The wealthiest families girls were taught to spin and weave. Carding, spinning, weaving, dying, cutting and sticking made a never  ending job for women. They produced bedcloths, wall hangings and sails for all the ships as well as cloths for the family, 

By Patrick Delaney 
 

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