I was thinking of using the mail on fireplaces.
Or leather armour and fur. Swords and chainmail were more for tribal chiefs than your average Viking. Leather armour an axe and a spear were much more common.
Spears were vitally important and if you have ever fought with one you will see why. They were not usually thrown unless they were designed for that.

Most battles were fought with the shield wall. This was extremely brutal and tiring. Often one side would try to break through the wall by throwing a volley of axes and following up with a brutal attack.
You were not considered a man until you had stood in the shield wall.

If you are interested in stuff like this but don't like wading through dry history texts I highly recommend Bernard Cornwell's historical fiction like "the Winter King". He wrote the "Sharpe" novels which are also very good. Sean Bean did the Sharpe series on TV.


If you are ever in eastern Canada there is a viking settlement from the 11th century that has been excavated and a replica built so you can see what it was like. Apparently it was problems with the Scraelings(what they called indians) which is why they left. Most likely it was caused by the Vikings having metal which the natives coveted. Apparently when the Vikings would build fishing camps on the coast of Newfoundland the indians would wait until they left and tear apart the entire settlement looking for any scraps of metal. The Vikings had to rebuild every season.