The Vikings wouldn’t really live up to their ferocious reputation if they’d just kept dogs and cats as pets. So, as the World History Encyclopedia notes, they also kept bears — yes, bears — as pets. And it wasn’t just a few exceptionally badass Vikings. It was actually quite common for people to keep brown bear cubs in their homes, raising them as fully domesticated pets that they called their “house bears.” But it wasn’t just brown bears, either. Vikings who had settled in Iceland and Greenland were known to have domesticated polar bears and sent them back to Europe to trade for royal favors and other valuable items.

However, hardcore as it is to be able to say you have a pet bear, in the end, the pets were often more trouble than they were worth. Since a bear is a bear, and will sometimes leave home to go rummage around in other people’s things, authorities placed large fines on such incidents. Still, the bears served an extra purpose that other pets don’t in general. When they died, they were eaten and their bones buried — so Viking bear owners at least got a decent meal out of the situation.