DIY Small Simple Viking Longhall on Budget

⚒️ Overview of the project
A simple longhall inspired by Viking design:
- Size: modest — e.g. ~16 feet x 10 feet (5m x 3m), enough for gatherings, feasts, or rituals.
- Structure: timber frame with post & beam (no complex joinery needed), using logs or squared timbers.
- Walls: vertical plank, wattle & daub, or log walls.
- Roof: simple gable with locally sourced poles + thatch, turf, or wooden shingles.
🌲 Preparing your wood
Since you’re sourcing from your own land:
- Use straight young trees for posts & beams (oak, ash, hickory, pine).
- Select green wood, easier to shape. Avoid rotted or insect-damaged logs.
- Debark them to avoid insects & help drying.
Basic shapes:
- Posts: ~6-8″ diameter (15-20 cm), stripped logs
- Beams & rafters: ~4-6″ (10-15 cm)
- Planks or split boards: for walls or roof
🪓 Tools you’ll need
- Axe (for felling & rough shaping)
- Drawknife or spoke shave (for debarking & smoothing)
- Saw (chainsaw or handsaw)
- Auger or drill
- Hammer & nails (or wood pegs if you want to go traditional)
- Optional: adze or hatchet for shaping flat surfaces
🏗️ How to build it
1. Lay out your ground plan
- Stake out a rectangle, e.g. 16’ x 10’.
- Set corner stakes, use cord to make sure it’s square.
2. Dig post holes
- About 3 feet deep for corner posts + center posts if needed (depending on snow load & soil).
- Place vertical posts, backfill with stones & soil, tamp down firmly.
3. Add horizontal beams (wall plates)
- Lay beams across tops of posts, secure with lap joints or simply with heavy screws / wooden pegs.
- Lash with strong cord or use steel brackets if traditional pegs are too tricky.
4. Roof framing
- Run a ridge pole along the center line on top of posts.
- Set rafters leaning from wall beams up to ridge pole.
- Lash or nail rafters.
5. Roof covering
Options:
- Thatch: bundle reeds, straw, or grasses and tie them to horizontal battens.
- Wood shingles: split from logs with a froe & mallet, nail on overlapping.
- Turf: layer birch bark over boards, then cut sod on top.
6. Wall infill
Three simple Viking-appropriate methods:
- Plank walls: nail vertical planks to horizontal sills & beams.
- Wattle & daub: weave small branches between stakes, smear clay+straw mix.
- Log walls: stack small logs with notches or simply spike them together.
7. Floor
- Leave dirt floor, or tamp gravel.
- Could add simple wood planks if desired.
8. Finishing touches
- Carve or burn runes on lintels.
- Hang shields, weapons, or ritual objects.
- Build a central fire pit (with vent hole in roof or smoke hole).
💡 Tips for keeping costs minimal
✅ Harvest all wood yourself.
✅ Use clay or cob from your own land for daub.
✅ Use stone from your property for post packing or hearth.
✅ Scavenge old nails / metal from barns or pallets.
✅ Learn simple lashings with natural rope (hemp or jute).
🐺 Viking soul — modern tools
- Even though Vikings used axes & adzes, you can use a chainsaw for quicker cuts.
- Use battery drills to drive big screws or lag bolts instead of traditional wooden pegs if that’s more practical.
🌿 In short
- Simple post-in-ground structure.
- Natural wood + basic joinery or lashings.
- Walls of planks or wattle & daub.
- Roof of local thatch, turf, or split shingles.
This creates a humble yet powerful Viking longhall, alive with the spirit of your own land. 🌙
Did the Vikings Use Incense As Bug Repellent?

🌿 Evidence from ancient cultures generally
Many ancient societies across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas used smoke from burning herbs, woods, and resins to drive away insects. This served multiple functions: ritual purification, offerings to gods or spirits, pleasant scenting of spaces, and practical repelling of biting insects.
Examples include:
- Ancient Egyptians burned frankincense and myrrh, which also helped keep away flies and mosquitoes.
- In India, burning neem leaves or other pungent herbs was traditional to repel insects.
- Indigenous groups across Africa and the Americas burned local plants specifically because the smoke drove off mosquitoes and flies.
🪵 Viking & broader Norse practices
For the Vikings and their ancestors in the Germanic world, direct references to using incense specifically as bug repellent are scarce in written sources, largely because most of their literature (like sagas or Eddic poetry) wasn’t interested in such domestic details.
However, archaeological and ethnobotanical studies, plus later Scandinavian folk practices (often thought to preserve older traditions), suggest:
- Juniper (Juniperus communis) was frequently burned. It was used ritually for purification, but the smoke also naturally drives away insects and was used to fumigate dwellings and barns.
- Mugwort, yarrow, and angelica were sometimes burned or hung in homes and on doorways. These herbs have insect-repelling properties.
- In the Viking Age, longhouses had central hearths burning constantly. This smoke would naturally deter mosquitoes and other insects.
Even if they did not burn herbs solely for insect control, the practice of fumigating spaces with aromatic herbs for blessing or cleansing often had the secondary effect of driving out pests.
🔥 Broader idea of “incense”
For the Vikings, “incense” as understood in the Roman or later Christian sense (fine imported resins burned in censers) wasn’t typical. However, they did burn local herbs, wood chips, and even resins from conifers (like pine and spruce) on hearths and fires, both inside and in ritual contexts outside. This fits the broader concept of incense: aromatic smoke for spiritual and sometimes practical purposes.
✅ Conclusion
So while we don’t have a saga quote like:
“And so did Bjorn burn mugwort in the longhouse to chase away the biting flies…”
—we do have:
- Archaeological evidence of burned herbs and resinous woods.
- Ethnobotanical records showing continuity into later Scandinavian traditions of burning juniper and herbs to cleanse and drive off pests.
- A general human pattern across ancient cultures of burning plants that happen to repel insects.
Thus, it’s highly likely the Vikings and other ancient Northern Europeans benefited from the insect-repelling side effects of burning aromatic plants—whether or not that was always their main intent.
🌿 Herbs, woods, and plants used in Viking Age or broader Norse / Germanic lands
🔥 Juniper (Juniperus communis)
- 🔸 How used: Bundles or branches thrown into hearth fires, or smoldered in braziers.
- 🔸 Insects repelled: Flies, mosquitoes, fleas, lice.
- 🔸 Notes: Still burned in Scandinavian farmhouses to “smoke out” pests & purify air.
🔥 Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)
- 🔸 How used: Burned as smudge sticks or strewn on coals.
- 🔸 Insects repelled: Moths, fleas, mosquitoes.
- 🔸 Notes: Also used magically to protect against evil spirits.
🔥 Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
- 🔸 How used: Smoldered on coals or hung in bunches by doors & beds.
- 🔸 Insects repelled: General flying insects.
- 🔸 Notes: Valued for both wound-healing and as a pest deterrent.
🔥 Angelica (Angelica archangelica)
- 🔸 How used: Leaves or seeds burned on hearths.
- 🔸 Insects repelled: Flies, gnats.
- 🔸 Notes: Sacred plant in Norse tradition, linked to protection.
🔥 Birch (Betula spp.)
- 🔸 How used: Birch wood was common fuel. The aromatic smoke helped keep insects away.
- 🔸 Insects repelled: Flies, mosquitoes.
- 🔸 Notes: Birch tar itself is insecticidal and antiseptic.
🔥 Pine & Spruce resins
- 🔸 How used: Resin (pitch) tossed onto fires to produce fragrant smoke.
- 🔸 Insects repelled: Mosquitoes, midges.
- 🔸 Notes: Also used to waterproof ships, showing the resin was widely collected.
🔥 Bog myrtle / Sweet gale (Myrica gale)
- 🔸 How used: Sometimes burned, also stuffed into bedding.
- 🔸 Insects repelled: Fleas, lice.
- 🔸 Notes: Used in brewing as well — an herb for ale before hops.
🪶 Types of insects typically targeted
- 🦟 Mosquitoes & midges: Common in Scandinavian summers near fjords & wetlands.
- 🪰 Flies: A major nuisance in longhouses where livestock shared living spaces.
- 🪳 Fleas & lice: Burning fumigants helped cleanse bedding and clothing.
- 🐛 Moths: Protected stored woolens & furs.
🌬️ Practical & mystical crossover
In Norse culture there was often no hard line between “practical fumigation” and ritual. Burning juniper or mugwort could be a spiritual cleansing that also chased away fleas — a perfectly pragmatic kind of magic.
📝 Little pro tip if you want a modern Viking-style bug repellent
Try bundling dried juniper, mugwort, and a little pine resin, tie it with natural twine, and burn it in a safe outdoor fire pit. The smell is ancient and haunting — and it still works remarkably well on flies and mosquitoes.
Did the Vikings Use Wooden shingles?

✅ Yes, Vikings did use wooden shingles, especially in areas rich in timber like Norway and Sweden.
They were not the only roofing method (thatch was more common for ordinary farms), but shingles were indeed used for more durable or prestigious buildings.
How did the Vikings make and use shingles?
➤ Materials
- They used pine or spruce, common in Scandinavia, which splits well along the grain.
- The wood was usually air dried, sometimes lightly seasoned by storage.
➤ Shaping
- Vikings split shingles (rived them) using axes or froes, rather than sawing.
- Splitting follows the wood’s natural grain, making shingles stronger and less prone to warping.
- Shingles were typically thin, tapered, and around 30-60 cm (1-2 feet) long, depending on the building.
➤ Installation
- They were laid in overlapping rows, each course covering the top of the one below it to shed rain and snow.
- Vikings would fix them with wooden pegs or iron nails.
- Roofs were built steep to help snow slide off, which worked well with shingle construction.
Where do we see evidence of this?
- Archaeology: Traces of wooden shingle roofs have been found at Norse sites in Norway and Sweden. Some post-Viking stave churches (12th century onward) still use nearly identical techniques that evolved directly from Viking-age practices.
- Saga & law texts: While most Viking-era writings don’t give explicit blueprints, later medieval Scandinavian laws do mention shingle roofs, implying a long tradition.
- Living tradition: In parts of Norway, wooden shingle craftsmanship is still practiced in much the same way, with strong links back to Viking wood-working culture.
Summary
So yes: the Vikings used wooden shingles.
They made them by splitting timber along the grain, shaping them into thin tapered tiles, and laying them in overlapping rows on steep roofs, secured with wooden pegs or nails. While thatch was more common for everyday farmsteads, wooden shingles were a respected choice for halls, wealthier homesteads, and later for churches — a direct continuation of Viking building traditions.



