Vikingfest PreHistorischdorp 2025

Last Sunday I went to Vikingfest at preHistorisch Dorp in Eindhoven. It was really nice to see the village full of tents with people selling their wares and showing their crafts. I only came here once before, when we stayed at the farm. Now I would see it in it's full Viking age market glorie. With music, big demonstrations, many wares and much more.

We started our rounds going to the right of the park, were we did not go on the weekend we stayed there. There were lots of tents and buildings filled with wares: hand dyed wool yarns and fabrics, leatherworks, knives and jewelry. We kept on walking and came to an area where they were doing demonstrations. Here we ran into Tim, a friend or ours, and chatted shortly about the oven they made. If I correctly recall for melting iron ore. He also showed me his new and amazingly crafted tunic. It was made from almost shiny linnen, with a uneven herringbone pattern. This made it look like it had stripes. It was really pretty!

A field full of tents and a road full of puddles.

Then I managed to get a crash course for the basics of card weaving. The woman was really skilled and loved to teach. She even let me do a small section on her show and tell piece. I did not do a great job, somehow the pattern emerged on the other side. Luckily she did not mind of course. It was also really fun to talk about the patterns she made herself. We shared the same vision about creative freedom within the tools the Vikings had during that time. With archeologists only finding fragments of belts, who knows if the pattern continued or if there was only a small part of pattern in each belt? She showed me an amazing belt she made and designed herself, with two types of small boats and tiny fish. It was lovely. But it would not ''count'' as historical cause it was not found like that. But we both agreed about the, if we can do it with their tools, so could they have done it! I was really happy she helped me get a feeling of the craft. Maybe I'll give it a go during my holiday in a couple of weeks!

My first try at card weaving.

We had a fancy lunch: we shared a loaded fries and I got a bun with warm ham and mustard saus and my fiancé had a hamburger. Not Viking of course, but tasty non the less. Luckily we sat down under the big tarp, because a big shower came pouring down when we finished our food. So we decided to wait out the worst. Chatted with the people next to us and then went on our way again.

I finally got myself a pretty straw hat! I've been looking for one for a while now. I did see some online, but I rather not buy it there. You really need to know if the size is right! And the price for that matter too. My fiancé got a beautiful wooden bucket he had been looking for. I bought a nice leather pouch which I'm going to use as a fire starting kit! We were both really happy with our simple yet so useful finds! I also got a small linocut print of a coin from Haithabu. Not that I have space on my walls for it, but I'll find a way to show it off.

Even though it was raining on and off, with big showers that made everyone run to cover, the vibe was really good. Made you appreciate the sun even more when it poked trough. I also ran into Oscar, another buddy, we hid from the shower that just started pouring down and talked about the fact that this rainy weather isn't that bad. Because now we can also show our nice woolen clothing. Most events are in summer, during warm weather, so you only wear your linnens. Which are also pretty, but not all we have in our closets.

After we saw everything, I took some pictures of my whole outfit of the day. I am really happy with my kaftan: a couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to tailor it to my size. It was handmade by a good friend of mine, Max, but because he had to go of measurements I sent him it did not turn out the perfect size. Which was no problem at the time. But now that I had the skills to do so, I decided to redo the whole thing. I also gave the outer fabric a dye bath, to give it a bit darker color for the white. This turned into a really light brown. Almost not noticeable, but for me it was enough. I also gave it a trim of rabbits fur, just because I some precut lying around. I did this with the same idea of, they could have had a piece of fur lying around, maybe they used it too. Because I can't think of any find with fur cuffs. But I did see it before, when I was at a market in Ribe, Denmark. One of the market tents had a lot of clothing, including a kaftan with a complete rabbits fur trim around the front and the cuffs. It also had a woven band around the trims. Maybe I'll look into that too, as a future upgrade.

Me, really happy with my hat.

It was a really good day here at preHistorisch Dorp I had a lot of fun, tried my hand at tablet weaving, got some nice stuff like my hat. I met some friends, listened to epic stories and ate some good food. What else can you ask for at a Vikingfest? Maybe a bit less rain? I think it just added to the ambience.

Well, I hope you like this post, if so let me know in the comments. And tell me, what did you buy at the market? Also let me know if I should make a post about our visit to Ribe three years ago!