Just wondered if we have any period sources or just speculation how the Vikings protected their weapons and armour when

seawater / seaspray would be a very real problem in any open boat in rough or even not so rough seas.

Frequent and immediate cleaning after any fight on the water I would imagine and maybe storage in oiled skins or seachest.

Probably a problem for any warrior of the period, but made worse by being in very salty air.

So would even a fairly new sword look like one of our antiquing projects after a repolish ?

Could lots of grease or oil been a option?

"- Grease me up woman, I´m going in...." (Famous Scottish reenactment battlecry or so I´ve been told anyway.)

I don´t know what they used but I grew up in the same enviroment as thy did, at the coast of the baltic sea. The way folks did it in my grandpas time was canvas and grease. And lots of pollishing. And as far as I know sailing and warfare is alot of time doing little and then bursts of action. I belive polishing was probally a main task. Oiling is important too at my latitude. In the winter we have the trechourus(sp?) snow and Ice that cling to the steel and don´t do anything until you get indoors and put your blade away, just to find it full of small brown-red spots the day after. This I know from experience after training outdoors in the winter.

Seal skin and oil. Whale oil. In our era we don't think about these types of things as whales and seals are generally off limits for hunting. I'd imagine weapons were heavily oiled and stored when combat was not close at hand. Mail armor at sea would be a nightmare to maintain for any length of time. I've the impression that Scandinavians as well as other north seas cultures wore special garments for long voyages. Seal skin, when treated correctly is highly water resistant and would make fine foul weather gear and would have been readily available for the era. Obviously there is no surviving physical evidence for such that I know of....

I second mr. Starks oppinion.

About the maille I´ve heared somewhere about the old sand in a barrel trick, you put the maille in a barrel filled one third with sand and let roll for a while. On a ship this may have been done using the natural movement of the hull out on the waves. Something else I´ve found out is that if you have the maille in a bag of canvas and carry it around and let it bounce and move it pollish itself to some degree. The rings turn and clean themself against eachother.

Another thought is did they have the intention to keep the blades and armour shiny glittering and bright? Many tools left to us from the earlier generations are burned in oil and black and only have the edge left "naked". A black oiledburned maille still serve and have the additional perk that it give you away a little bit fast visually.

Just my thoughts though, no real backing on this but anyway...

Martin

Hmmmmmmmm ........ maybe painted helms ? Although that wouldn't work with maille very well.

Maille in storage with lots of oil soaked into a canvas bag might be safe as long as it was in storage.

A coat of whale or seal oil sounds plausible. How about a coat of olive oil or linseed oil in more southern climates.

Wonder what the maintenance of sword and plate at sea from the 16th to 19th centuries, the methods used then might be similar and their might be records of regulations of the 18th century British Navy still available to consult.

I live in a cold climate also in the winter and it's the condensation on cold metal when coming indoors combined with road salt that we notice here: Car bodies just don't last very long up here unless treated with antirust compounds.

I once came across an article mentioning a Vinking sword having a layer of lineseed oil on the fuller. The edges did not, which probably because it was removed during sharpening of the blade. A coat of lineseed oil should provide a good protection I'd guess.

I've just found the article again: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Historic-HornAntlerBone/message/556

On longships, equipment was stored in wooden chests, that doubled as seats . Arms and armour generally wasn't brought out before battle was imminent.
The sagas make little mention of such lowly activities as weapon maintenance, however.
Later, larger longships had decks. The ones found are generally quite small; Of the large longships with 25 pairs of oars, we only have descriptions, and a few pieces that where recycled as building materials...

Sorry to ressurect an old topic like this but I haven't seen lanolin mentioned.

Lanolin is the grease from raw wool. Medieval Scandinavians left it on the wool when spinning and weaving to make cloth (vadmal) for warm waterproof clothing. See Woven Into The Earth by Else Ostegard for more information.

Lanolin is an extremely 'sticky' grease that adheres well to metal. It's pretty messy, but very effective. I imagine a woolen bag woven from heavy vadmal cloth spun and woven "in the fat" would make for a pretty good storage bag for metal items shipboard.

In modern contexts it can be found in a product called lanocote.

Lanolin was mentioned at the end of the 3rd post ..... ;)

So presumeably they would use the valked wool to cover thier iron belongings. The valked wool would also then be the same as their sailcloth and serve the additional purpose of being a replacement. Thanks for the info, I too had to follow several different googles to find the answers but it was certainly worth the effort.