Söderala Bronze Weathervane
Used as an indicator of the direction of the wind, a weathervane could have been useful when sails started to be used.[2] Some argue that these weathervanes largely served ritual or social purposes, especially since later on they mostly show up in churches. In fact, though there is much literature on the decoration of ships, it is difficult to find any mention of weathervanes specifically.[3] A wood carving from Bergen shows that some ships did display what appears to be a weathervane such as this at the prow of the ship, so there is evidence to show that they were used on ships to some degree.[4]
Even if such weathervanes were less common than say, the famous dragon’s heads at the prows of ships, they are still a good indicator of the rich decoration of ships. We can also find many descriptions of the general decoration of ships in the texts, such as these excerpts from the Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason:[5] “[The ship] was fashioned with a dragon’s head and aft with a crook ending in like manner as the tail of a dragon, & both the prow & the whole of the stern were overlaid with gold,” “But after they had been talking thus a while saw they that four more ships came sailing by, and one of these was a dragon, large indeed, and bedecked with gold,” and “The prows were burnt-gold as from off the slip she glided.” Though these depictions all relate to the famed dragon ships, it is not a stretch of the imagination to see a weathervane such as this fitting in with these other ships.
