The dancing warriors scene is known from six fragments and occurs four times on the helmet.
It appears on the two panels immediately above the eyebrows, accounting for five of the fragments.
The sixth fragment is placed in the middle row of the dexter cheek guard, on the panel closest to the face mask; the generally symmetrical nature of the helmet implies the design's position on the opposite side as well.
None of the six pieces shows both warriors, although the "key fragment" depicts their crossed wrists.
A full reconstruction of the scene was inferred after the first reconstruction, when Rupert Bruce-Mitford spent six weeks in Sweden and was shown a nearly identical design on the then unpublished Valsgärde 7 helmet.

Design 1 pictures two men "in civilian or ceremonial dress" perhaps engaged in a spear or sword dance "associated with the cult of Odin, the war-god."
Their outer hands each hold two spears, pointed towards their feet, while their crossed hands grip swords.
The depiction suggests "intricate measures," "rhythm," and an "elasticity of . . .
dance steps."
Their trailing outer legs and curved hips imply movement towards each other, and they may be in the climax of the dance.
The prevalence of dance scenes with a "similarity of the presentation of the scheme of movement" in contemporary Scandinavian and Northern art suggests that ritual dances "were well-known phenomena."
Sword dances in particular were recorded among the Germanic tribes as early as the first century AD, when Tacitus wrote of "[n]aked youths who practice the sport bound in the dance amid swords and lances," a "spectacle" which was "always performed at every gathering."
Whatever the meaning conveyed by the Sutton Hoo example, the "ritual dance was evidently no freak of fashion confined to a particular epoch, but was practised for centuries in a more or less unchanged form."

While many contemporary designs portray ritual dances, at least three examples show scenes exceptionally similar to that on the Sutton Hoo helmet and contribute to the understanding of the depicted sword dance.
The same design—identical but for a different type of spears held in hand, a different pattern of dress, and a lack of crossed spears behind the two men—is found on the Valsgärde 7 helmet, while a small fragment of stamped foil from the eastern mound at Gamla Uppsala is "so close in every respect to the corresponding warrior on the Sutton Hoo helmet as to appear at first glance to be from the same die," and may even have been "cut by the same man."
The third similar design is one of the four Torslunda plates, discovered in Öland, Sweden, in 1870.
This plate, which is complete and depicts a figure with the same attributes as on design 1, suggests the association of the men in the Sutton Hoo example with "the cult of Odin."
The Torslunda figure is missing an eye, which laser scanning revealed to have been removed by a "sharp cut, probably in the original model used for the mould."
Odin too lost an eye, thus evidencing the identification of the Torslunda figure as him, and the Sutton Hoo figures as devotees of him.
The dancing warriors scene is known from six fragments and occurs four times on the helmet. It appears on the two panels immediately above the eyebrows, accounting for five of the fragments. The sixth fragment is placed in the middle row of the dexter cheek guard, on the panel closest to the face mask; the generally symmetrical nature of the helmet implies the design's position on the opposite side as well. None of the six pieces shows both warriors, although the "key fragment" depicts their crossed wrists. A full reconstruction of the scene was inferred after the first reconstruction, when Rupert Bruce-Mitford spent six weeks in Sweden and was shown a nearly identical design on the then unpublished Valsgärde 7 helmet.
Design 1 pictures two men "in civilian or ceremonial dress" perhaps engaged in a spear or sword dance "associated with the cult of Odin, the war-god." Their outer hands each hold two spears, pointed towards their feet, while their crossed hands grip swords. The depiction suggests "intricate measures," "rhythm," and an "elasticity of . . . dance steps." Their trailing outer legs and curved hips imply movement towards each other, and they may be in the climax of the dance. The prevalence of dance scenes with a "similarity of the presentation of the scheme of movement" in contemporary Scandinavian and Northern art suggests that ritual dances "were well-known phenomena." Sword dances in particular were recorded among the Germanic tribes as early as the first century AD, when Tacitus wrote of "[n]aked youths who practice the sport bound in the dance amid swords and lances," a "spectacle" which was "always performed at every gathering." Whatever the meaning conveyed by the Sutton Hoo example, the "ritual dance was evidently no freak of fashion confined to a particular epoch, but was practised for centuries in a more or less unchanged form."
While many contemporary designs portray ritual dances, at least three examples show scenes exceptionally similar to that on the Sutton Hoo helmet and contribute to the understanding of the depicted sword dance. The same design—identical but for a different type of spears held in hand, a different pattern of dress, and a lack of crossed spears behind the two men—is found on the Valsgärde 7 helmet, while a small fragment of stamped foil from the eastern mound at Gamla Uppsala is "so close in every respect to the corresponding warrior on the Sutton Hoo helmet as to appear at first glance to be from the same die," and may even have been "cut by the same man." The third similar design is one of the four Torslunda plates, discovered in Öland, Sweden, in 1870. This plate, which is complete and depicts a figure with the same attributes as on design 1, suggests the association of the men in the Sutton Hoo example with "the cult of Odin." The Torslunda figure is missing an eye, which laser scanning revealed to have been removed by a "sharp cut, probably in the original model used for the mould." Odin too lost an eye, thus evidencing the identification of the Torslunda figure as him, and the Sutton Hoo figures as devotees of him.
Sutton Hoo helmet