Leather Viking Spectacle Helmet

Once more, for those not listening in the back of the room, Vikings as a general rule, did not wear helmets with horns on them. Horns may well have been worn for ceremonial occasions, but wearing horns in battle is really not a very good idea for a slew of reason. The best of these reasons is the embarrassment of being killed because your horns got caught in the rigging of your longship as you began your assault on another Viking ship.

Another little known fact is that a great number of Vikings wore leather helmets into battle. You see, metal helmets were a pain in the neck to make, so armor smiths tended to charge a lot for them (especially when some moronic greenhorn would ask for a really cool helmet with crazy horns on top.). Quite a few Vikings could not afford metal helmets (that's sort of why they went on raids in the first place), so they had leather ones made for them.

Not many leather helmets have been found in archaeological digs (leather doesn't tend to hold up well over thousands of years), but there is a lot of evidence that leather helms were as common as metal ones. This particular helmet is a replica of the common spectacle helms of metal found in various digs.

The helmet is made from high-quality leather, dyed black for more menace. It is strengthened by metal rivets in a dozen spots. A leather set of Spectacles protects the eyes and the bridge of the nose from the ever-unpopular slash to the face. Hanging leather cheek plates protect the sides of the face and the top of the neck and a protruding beak on the back defends the nape of the neck. A leather chin strap secures the helmet.

The helmet comes with an adjustable leather liner for a perfect fit. This helmet fits small and medium sized heads (the liner adjusts to your particular head size). It weighs approximately 1-3/4 lbs with a 25-3/4" inner circle.