Gaumr Min Ords @vikingrways - Tumblr Blog

I made this a long time ago and was very nervous about posting it to Tumblr. I can’t really think of a good caption~ everything I wanted to say is in the little blurb at the beginning.

‘God of Arepo’ Fan-made graphic novel

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Read the Original Story Here

woventree-blog

I’m just never going to understand how anyone could read into Norse history and mythology and think: “Wow, all this stuff about racial intermarrying and being hospitable to travellers goes so well with my beliefs about keeping European blood-lines pure, I’m gonna use the symbols of my socially progressive nearly-democratic ancestors to back my obsession with tradition and fascism!”

northern-seidmadr

Since I had a neo-Nazi follow me today, a reminder of the stance of this blog.

ruffboi-mags

I think the point is that they don’t actually read into Norse history and mythology. They just go with what they think Norse history and mythology are like.

star-anise

Let’s be real, they just play Skyrim and daydream a lot.

irisharchaeology

Our bronze Valkyrie pendant is inspired by this Viking Age find from Birka in Sweden (photo 2). The replica is available here Viking Valkyrie Pendant

In Viking mythology a valkyrie (from Old Norse valkyrja ‘chooser of the slain’) was a spirit woman who rode over the battlefield. Warriors who were deemed to have died a heroic death were brought by the valkyries to Valhalla, the great feasting hall of the slain. Once there, the valkyries served the fallen heroes with horns of ale and mead.

thesilicontribesman

Recreated Viking Settlement, Yorkshire Museum of Farming, York, Yorkshire, 3.8.19.

historyarchaeologyartefacts

The Franks Casket: the densely decorated Anglo-Saxon whale’s bone chest, 8th century,England, [980 x 680] ‌

thereenactorsporn

irisharchaeology

A beautiful and intact 13th century church at Gumfreston, south Wales (with a later medieval tower).

thefallingdream

So here it is. Remember how I said I have a lot of feelings about archaeology and handbags? Well, this is the particular handbag I was having a lot of feelings about at the time. This is a reimagining of a Viking age frame bag, generally referred to as a Hedeby bag (although the frames have been found elsewhere the Viking world).

This one is fancy af, it’s wool, linen, and silk, in period-expensive colours and weights, fully lined, even though I actually believe that these bags would’ve been more utilitarian, unlined and made of plain undyed linen, but that’s not an argument I’m especially well positioned to make right now and anyway I wanted a pretty Viking handbag for Moesgaard. Also this belt loop arrangement (you can sort of see in the second pic, the cord runs through loops along the side) is a concession to stitch-fascists, because I need evidence for eyelets, but I reckon it was eyelets, based on my experiments eyelets work the best. This bag is already going to be a cat among the pigeons though, it upends decades of accepted knowledge, so as it is I expect pushback from a certain type of douchebag (the ones who run on equal portions woefully outdated info and shit they made up, and try to enforce it). Hence I stuck with what I can support the most strongly, and begrudgingly conceded the rest for the time being.

I’m not going to dump all my evidence and results here, I’m working on a proper report that I’ll be releasing soon, but basically this is a bag that both fits the material evidence and IS USEFUL. It actually WORKS as a BAG. You can CARRY stuff in it. All kinds of stuff. This is not true of the conventionally accepted interpretation of the material evidence.

I don’t want to be an ass and like, pull an example from google image search and shame some other reenactor who was only going along with what they’d been told, so if you want to compare this to a conventional Viking age frame bag reconstruction, just google hedeby bag and you’ll get the idea. And look I’m not blaming reenactors for the uselessness of the conventional interpretation, this is entirely academia’s doing.

Handbags are a very gendered item in our time, but they weren’t so in the Viking period, because Vikings didn’t have pockets. In our time, a certain percentage of adults have no concept of what makes a handbag functional, simply because they have never habitually used one. It was such a person who originally interpreted the Hedeby bag frames, and IN MY NOT AT ALL HUMBLE OPINION, IN MY ACTUALLY VERY ARROGANT OPINION, they got it ass backwards. The simple fact is that women know a lot of shit that men just don’t even know that they don’t know and when women’s voices aren’t heard and respected in research and academia, as was very much more the case when the Hedeby frames were initially recovered and interpreted, the results suffer. This feminist rage part isn’t going in the report of course, the evidence will speak for itself or it won’t. But it does. I mean you can see how much it does. BECAUSE I KNOW HOW HANDBAGS WORK. BECAUSE, LIKE A VIKING, NONE OF MY CLOTHES HAVE FUCKING POCKETS.

Anyway those are some of my feelings about archaeology and handbags. And this is my fancy Viking handbag. It’s pretty damn good.

Making hedeby turnshoes

#leatherwork #reenactment #sca #lochac #mordenvale #runa #hundadottir #viking #dark ages

norsesuggestions

Bockstensmanen, a medieval person who happened to die in a bog which preserved his clothes (and more), clothes like hella comfy??

Like seriously. Comfy and warm wool clothes!

(yes this are pictures of his actual outfit, not reconstructed clothing. They were very well preserved in all except colour. The bog gave everything that yellow shade, i suspect)

Picture from: https://www.museumhalland.se/bockstensmannen/kladerna/

norsesuggestions

His kjortel (the clothing for his upper body)

He got a mantel that resemble a poncho

It goes around the entire body! So perhaps not quite a mantel but.

A got a little hood with a fashionedble long thingy at the end

Warm that too! There is no openings for wind or anything, so like. Just pull hood over head, get warm!

Warm socks! Gotta keep em feets warm (and just like in english, the swedish words for trousers, byxor, is in plural in its normal form, just because the medieval version of trousers consisted of two separate peices like here.

Somewhere, there should be something for hos upper legs but idk were that one is)

Anyway! I do think one can tell that keeping warm was an important part of the logic behind bockstensmannens clothing. Not odd that, when he lived in Scandinavia and all…

All pictures from

https://www.museumhalland.se/bockstensmannen/kladerna/

norsesuggestions

When we already at it, with listning his entire outfit. Here his this shoes

norsesuggestions

Reconstruction in how he might have looked like in life. The musuem points out, that his skull was very smashed when found, werehas it might be a bit so so with this dolls facial similiarity with bockstensmannen in life. And his hair colour we know not, the bog will colour most hair red with enough time.

But that hairstyle! That he really had! Bockstensmannen wore like Peak Fluffy Medieval Hair Fashion in life