There's been a number of pop culture movies/tv series about the vikings (which I do know is not technically a historical title for nordic warriors, ie. 'to go viking'), but I was wondering if tattoos were a common place among the more seasoned warriors in the Nordic cultures of the times, and if they were, were they made to represent anything in particular? Major battles fought, religious affinity, ties to certain lords, etc?
Also as an aside, if they were - what was the process of actually forming them? Because obviously they didn't have access to modern tattoo equipment, so was the possible tattoos all done through a rudimentary 'stick and poke' method? How did they combat the potential for infection? Or was that just a sort of hope and pray situation?
More can be written, but you might like to read "Depictions of Nordic (Viking)"... by /u/Freevoulous . There's also 'AMA: Late Antiquity/Early Medieval era circa 400 - 1000 CE, aka "The Dark Ages"', which overlaps a large amount but does provide a couple of different arguments.
This is not to discourage discussion. More questions, data, and debate are always welcome.