Viking Helmets - History and Mystery
Although horned helmets are in popular culture often associated with Vikings, there is scarce physical evidence that Viking Age Scandinavians found them popular as actual headgear. The attribution probably arose in 19th century Swedish Romanticism. The image was so widespread by the mid-20th century that the helmet logo of the present day Minnesota Vikings football team is a horn on each side of the helmet. However, there is some evidence that they are featured in Norse mythology: Odin's chosen warriors, the Einherjar, reputedly wore helmets "horned like bulls" and "beaked like eagles".

A Migration period (5th century) metal die from Öland, Sweden, depicts a warrior with a helmet adorned with two dragons or serpents, arranged in a fashion similar to horns. A decorative plate decorating the famous Sutton Hoo helmet (ca. 600 AD) shows a depiction of a similar helmet. This strange headgear, of which only depictions have survived, seems to have fallen out of use with the end of the Migration period. There is a single depiction on a Viking Age amulet found in Uppland, Sweden that shows a figure with two snakes or dragons on its head. Another instance of a possible depiction of a Viking Age horned helmet, is found on a dubious tapestry illustration uncovered in the Viking age Oseberg ship burial which was found in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold county, Norway.

Overall, there have been so few discoveries of horned helmets that it appears unlikely that Vikings wore such cumbersome horned helms to battle. Many believe that depictions of warriors could represent their use in ritual war dances rather than actual combat. A most likely explanation is that this horned helmet type originated in Celtic religion, possibly related to Cernunnos, and that it was then adapted for various religious purposes changing the horns into snakes, by Germanic tribes during the Migration age, and continued to play a role in religious ritual up to the 9th century or so.