It is no coincidence that keys have been found in numerous Viking Age children’s graves in Sweden, something archaeologists believe is connected to passing into other realms. Symbolically, keys have also been associated with the power of prediction, and this is certainly how researchers have interpreted some of the keys found in the graves of women and children – with the key as a way of unlocking other worlds and looking into the future to see what changes that will bring. Viewed in this way, women who carried keys were not simply housewives, but carriers of knowledge, itself an important form of power.

Keys could also function as cultic or religious icons, a link which is made clear in the poem þrymskviða, where the key is connected to the female goddess Freyja, wife of Odr. In the poem, Thor dresses up as a bride instead of Freyja in order to trick the giant Thrymr. Assuming her clothing, Thor importantly ties Freyja’s ‘housewife’s keys’ around his waist. The deception works, no doubt thanks to Thor’s careful attention to detail.

Through its association with Freyja, the key is much more than a physical means of access to the household; it represents the role of Viking women as leaders, child-bearers and in the afterlife. Freyja appears in Norse mythology as ruler in the hall of Sessrúmnir in the meadow of Fólkvangr, where half of those who die in battle go. As the key-bearer, she is therefore a keeper of the dead in the afterlife. She is also a goddess of fertility, and figures in Norse mythology as a helper of women in labour. In the realm of childbirth, the key was viewed as a device to unlock women’s loins, and it was also a pre-Christian symbol of female fertility and motherhood.

Importantly, it was not just Viking women who owned keys: they also appear among the grave goods of men, as well as in settlement and urban sites where they are discovered as single finds. The surviving keys and their accompanying locks are enormously varied in design, but they are typically made of iron and copper alloys and would have required significant artistic and technical skill to produce.

A comparison of keys found at the sites of Gotland and Birka suggest that there may have been differences in the design and uses of men’s and women’s keys. Archaeologists have argued that keys buried with women tend to be much simpler and more functional, while men’s keys on the whole have more ornate handles – some of which depict images of powerful birds – and more intricate tines or teeth. It is believed that, while women’s keys tended to open doors – and so are connected with space and the home – men’s were used for padlocks or chests, to secure weapons and valuables.

One of the finest examples of a locked Viking chest containing valuables comes from the Cuerdale Hoard. Discovered in the spring of 1840 on the banks of the River Ribble in Lancashire, the lead-lined chest contained some 7,500 silver coins and great quantities of other silver jewellery and scrap (or ‘hack’) silver. Around forty kilograms of silver in all, it is the largest-known Viking hoard in the West, and worldwide it is only surpassed by a handful of discoveries along the ancient Arabic silver route into Russia. The hoard, which dates from c.904, contains coins and jewellery from all over the Viking world: Scandinavia, Francia, Italy, Ireland, Pictland (now part of Scotland) and England. It is believed to be the loot of a Viking army, and its location in the north-west of Britain has led historians to link it to the expulsion of the Vikings from Dublin in 902, as some of them settled in what is now Lancashire.

We know from archaeological and literary sources that there was indeed significant contact between Scandinavia and Byzantium from the ninth century onwards. Northerners (widely referred to as ‘Varangians’) made their way to the lafter’s capital city of Constantinople through the mediation of the Kievan Rus, and stayed to fight in the Byzantine army in their many wars against the Emirate of Crete and the Arabs in Syria. And they came in large numbers – in 988, Prince Vladimir of Kiev sent no fewer than 6,000 Vikings as military muscle to fight for the Byzantine emperor, Basil II. This force later formed the core of the Varangian Guard, a fearsome band of troops whose role was to defend the emperor.