Did Vikings Blow War Horns? What the Sagas and Finds Say
Yes. Sagas written in the 1200s have Norse kings order a herblástr, a war-blast on a horn or a wooden trumpet, to open a battle or gather a fleet. The curved bronze "lurs" seen in films are nearly two thousand years older than the Vikings; the best Viking-Age survivor is a plain wooden tube.
The war horn is one of the strongest images of the Viking Age: a long, low note rolling across a fjord before the ships close in. Part of that picture comes straight from the sources. Part of it came from Bronze Age instruments that nineteenth-century archaeologists named after a saga word, and part of it came from film soundtracks.
Horn and lúðr
Old Norse had two main words for a blown instrument. A horn was just that, a cattle horn, used for signals and for drinking. A lúðr was a trumpet, usually understood as a long wooden one; its players were called lúðrsveinar, literally "trumpet lads", that is, trumpeters, and the din of trumpets was lúðragangr. Oddly, the same word lúðr could also mean the wooden bin of a hand-mill, which is how it appears in some of the Eddic poems. The stock phrase for a battle signal was blása herblástr, "to blow the war-blast".
What the sagas say about horns in battle
The sagas are full of signals. In Snorri Sturluson's saga of Harald Hardrada, written around 1230, Harald "had the war-blast blown and urged on his army hard" before the Battle of Fulford in 1066, and in Sicily his Varangians "blew all their trumpets" in a war-blast during a trick at a town gate. In the same author's sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf the Saint, kings have a signal blown to bring the men ashore, to put out to sea, or to lash the ships together for battle, and Olaf the Saint leaves harbour for the sea battle at Nesjar in 1016 to a war-blast. Usually the text does not name the instrument; it only says the signal was blown. Egil's saga has the war-blast blown "on the king's trumpet" when King Harald surrounds a hall at night, and a raiding party in Courland called back to the shore by a blast at the end of the day.
These passages were written down long after the events, about 165 years later in Harald Hardrada's case and closer to 300 for Hákon the Good, by authors who knew the royal trumpets of their own day; King Sverre's trumpet in the late 1100s even had a name, Andvaka, "Sleepless", in his saga. And the horn in them is a tool for command. It closes up a scattered fleet, sends men ashore or back to the ships, and marks the start of a fight. On the morning of Stamford Bridge, Harald's last battle, Snorri has the signal blown for the men to go ashore; in the fighting itself he records no horn, only the war cry his men raised after Harald fell.
How the Norse called men out
When a Norwegian district had to be raised for war, the law does not mention horns at all. The Gulathing law has a summons token carried from farm to farm, arrows cut and sent round to call an assembly after a killing, and beacons watched whenever raiders were expected and lit when five ships or more came in sight. The war-arrow, herör, turns up in the sagas, cut and sent round to raise a district. Snorri reports it was said that in Hákon the Good's time a warning passed from the southernmost beacon to the northernmost district of Hålogaland in seven nights.
Towns were different. The old town law of Nidaros, the Bjarkøy law, has the town meeting called by horn, holds it even at night if fire breaks out or an army lands, and expects a man who hears the horn to come or prove he had a lawful excuse.
Gjallarhorn: the horn at the end of the world
The most famous horn in Norse myth is Heimdall's. Heimdall, the watchman of the gods, owns Gjallarhorn, whose blast is heard in all the worlds; in Gylfaginning Snorri even calls it a lúðr, a trumpet. In the poem Völuspá, "loud blows Heimdall, the horn is aloft" as Ragnarök begins, and Snorri adds that the blast wakes the gods so that they can hold their council. It is a call to assembly, the same job a town horn did. In another passage Snorri gives the name Gjallarhorn to the horn from which the wise Mímir drinks at his well.
The bronze lur is not Viking
The long curved horns heard in so many Viking films are modelled on the Scandinavian bronze lurs. They are real, but they belong to the Late Bronze Age, around 1000 BC. According to the National Museum of Denmark, 39 have been found in Denmark, usually in pairs and always in bogs. The first turned up in 1797, and the museum states plainly that the Viking Age knew nothing of the bronze lur. Archaeologists gave these instruments the name "lur" in the early 1800s, borrowing it from the sagas. In 1901 Lurpak registered its butter mark with two intertwined lurs, and a bronze pair of lur-blowers by Siegfried Wagner, made between 1911 and 1914, stands on a column in Copenhagen's City Hall Square.
What Viking-Age horns survive
Very few. The best candidate is a long wooden tube from the Oseberg ship burial of 834, made of two hollowed halves once held together by five rings; most scholars now read it as a wooden lur, straight and plain. From Sweden, a cattle horn with four finger holes found in a bog near Hedemora in Dalarna is recorded in the museum's register as tenth-century. Little else has turned up: no curved war horns with silver mounts, no bronze. Drinking horns, by contrast, left many metal rims and tips in graves. Modern "war horns" are usually made the same way as drinking horns, from polished cattle horn, only with the tip cut open to make a mouthpiece.
What did a Viking horn sound like?
A horn or a wooden lur is blown like a bugle: the lips buzz against the narrow end and the instrument can only sound its natural notes. A plain cattle horn usually gives one or two rough, carrying notes, which is all a signal needs. A longer wooden trumpet gives a few more notes and more volume. Add finger holes, as on the Hedemora horn, and you get a small scale, good for a herder calling cattle. None of it sounds like the deep, swelling drone of a film soundtrack, which is often a modern brass instrument or a synthesiser. The Swedish music archaeologist Cajsa Lund recorded reconstructed Norse instruments, including the Oseberg lur and a cow horn with finger holes, on her album Fornnordiska klanger (The Sounds of Prehistoric Scandinavia).
So, did the Vikings blow war horns?
They blew horns and trumpets to command men at war, if the sagas are right about the generations just after them, and there is no reason to doubt the basic practice. What the evidence does not show is warriors marching into battle behind curved bronze horns, or every man carrying a horn of his own. The signal came from the leader or from a watchman.
Horns at the Norse table left far more physical traces than horns on the battlefield. If that is the kind you want to hold, see our Viking drinking horns in real ox horn, and read what the Vikings drank out of for how horns were used at feasts.
Viking War Horn FAQ
Did Vikings use war horns?
The sagas, written in the 1200s, say that Norse kings had a war-blast blown on a horn or a wooden trumpet to start a battle or gather a fleet. In the sagas the signal is blown on a leader's order or by watchmen; nothing suggests every warrior carried a horn.
What is a Viking war horn called?
In Old Norse a horn was simply a horn, and a trumpet was a lúðr. The battle signal itself was the herblástr, the war-blast.
Is the lur a Viking instrument?
The curved bronze lur is not. It dates from the Bronze Age, around 1000 BC. The Vikings did have a straight wooden trumpet, also called a lúðr, and one probably survives from the Oseberg ship burial.
What did a Viking horn sound like?
Like a bugle rather than a film soundtrack: one or a few fixed notes, rough and loud, made to carry across water or a battlefield. A horn with finger holes could play a short tune.
What horn does Heimdall blow at Ragnarök?
Gjallarhorn. In Völuspá Heimdall blows it loudly as Ragnarök begins, and Snorri says the blast wakes the gods so that they can meet in council.
Can you drink from a war horn?
No. A blowing horn is open at both ends, so it cannot hold a drink. A drinking horn is the same cattle horn with the tip left closed, and the Norse used horn for both jobs.