viking+homework

Viking houses are often called longhouse. This is because they were usually oblong in shape. The main building was up to 30 metres long, but other buildings might be added on. In the Viking homelands there were plenty of trees, so the walls of the houses were built of wood and the roofs were thatched with straw or reeds. Where there were not many trees, however, the walls were built from slabs of turf on a stone base with roofs made from thatch or turf. Sometimes the grass in the turf was allowed to keep on growing on the roof as this helped to keep the house warm. Another method of house-building was wattle and daub. Upright posts were woven together with twigs and then daubed with thick mud to keep out the draughts. In fine weather, the Viking did a lot of work outside their houses. They looked after their vegetable gardens and also did any repairs that were needed on the houses. If they had any clothes, they dried them in the open air. Wood was chopped and stacked ready to burn on the fire in winter. Another everyday job was fetching water from the well or a nearby stream for Vikings also did messy jobs outside. These included tanning animal skins to make them into leather. cut and coped