News

In mid-March, the youtuber and textile-worker "JilianEve" contacted us for a little interview on wool combs. Ása accepted the request and sat down to have a textile tool chat in a setting a little different from that on the Viking markets.

Especially this year the same questions keep being asked about the availability of wool combs, their prices and whether we are willing to send them by parcel delivery. Víl answers some of them here.

Actually, we did not expect to be at any larger Viking event this year. So we were more than lucky when we saw that the warrior week in Ribe would take place, an opportunity we just had to grasp.

The Viking Museum Haithabu is closed - as is almost everything else, due to the Corona pandemic. No markets are taking place and for the first time in four years, the hospitality of the spring market's organizers as well as the warm atmosphere of what would have been our first market this year has been denied to us. Luckily, we moved to Northern Germany a few months ago. So we took our cups and some beer and went to the historical place anyway.

We have been unusually inactive on this website in the last couple of months - apart from some gallery-uploads and article-updates. What's wrong?

After we came back from our summer tour, I happened to read about stoned Vikings at L'anse aux Meadows. Can this be true? Let's go and fact-check...

After two months of traveling the North, we are back for a while to have some "normal", non-Viking life. We had a beautiful and interesting time and want to thank everyone who joined us - be it for weeks, be it for a fun evening only.

Viking Age wool comb finds are comparatively few, scattered and - compared to big textile finds, great collections of weapons or jewelry of gold and silver - not as easy to spot in the literature. We did, however, find a very nice pair of wool combs this year which is comparatively well preserved. This one we would like to show you in this article.

The blog post might have gotten fewer during the last months, but that does not mean that we are hibernating in a corner like some bat, waiting for spring. On the contrary, we are working, researching and trying out stuff.

This year we decided to really enjoy midwinter. The precious beeswax candles were lit and the troughs were filled with a delicious meal. We took inspiration for the food from the book "An Early Meal" by Daniel Serra and Hanna Tunberg, however, we had to slightly change some recipes...

There are many signs in nature that Equinox is fast approaching and the summer season is coming to an end. One of these signs, of course, is the ripening of fruits, be it in the garden or outside of it. Last weekend we left our home to find some of the wild fruits...

"As soon as their boats arrive at this port, each of them disembarks, taking with him bread and meat, onions, milk and nabidh, and he walks until he comes to a great wooden post stuck in the ground with a face like that of a man, and around it are little figures. Behind these images there are long wooden stakes driven into the ground."

The last few months have passed without many updates but by no means without noteworthy crafts output. Some of them will get their very own blog entries, some will only be mentioned here briefly.

I am currently working on my new apron dress. The fabric is bought and dyed and waits until I have the courage to cut it into pieces. In the meantime, I also think about decorations, pearls/amulets and a new set of oval brooches. When I was looking into the oval brooches from Birka, I faced two major problems...

Just like the spring around us, the dandelion flowers have exploded and bright yellow blossoms decorate the gardens and meadows. When last weekend this was combined with brilliant sunny weather, we decided to pause our work in the garden and collect some of the flowers in order to dye some yarn and fabric with them.

A total of 8½ people and 5 dogs arrived on Saturday to dye indigo blue and onion orange. The weather exceeded our expectations and the event was a complete success.

During Christmas, a history series in three parts about the Vikings was broadcasted by the Swedish television. The episodes can be watched online for about a year.

On two further evenings in the woodworking shop, a handful of new spindle shafts and quite a lot of nalbinding needles were born.

Finally, Víl managed to finish the last piece of kit purchased in Trelleborg: a hand forged spoon carving knife. At this point, a new addiction was born: carving spoons.

Last week we added some fleeces (or parts of them) to our wool collection. Even though they're not from any old Nordic sheep's breed, we are looking forward to make them into nice yarn.

The weather's not being kind to us. First, there was a lot of rain, and now it's getting colder and darker by the day. Certain signs that midwinter's on its way. But that's not going to keep us from doing more Viking Age-related stuff. Here are some things we've done in the meantime.

While autumn leaves change colours once more and the sun sets quicker and earlier it is time to look back upon one more successful market season. Since we have been reporting about current affairs throughout the summer, we can limit ourselves to the last two months with a lot of activity and another two markets: The early medieval crafts market in Dietsfordt near Wesel and, very spontaneously, HIKG in Adventon near Osterburken.

You might have picked up the news already: Ancient Arabic, or to be more precise, Kufic characters have been discovered in tablet woven bands from Sweden. If this is true, the consequences might be most interesting...

One of my favourite Viking/SCA-blogs posted something really useful yesterday. It's an overview over the abundance of certain weaves (like tabby, twill, diamond etc.) in Viking Age Scandinavian textiles. Bad news for all herringbone lovers: Quit using it so much.

After the muddy showdown at Mudgård, we went south to Denmark's oldest city: Ribe. There, we would have our last stay during our Denmark tour at the Ribe Vikingecenter.

Before we continue with the article on our first time at the Ribe Vikingecenter, we pause for a small interlude with pictures from the National Museum of Scotland...

Moesgård was really big as well - this year they had more than 600 warriors fighting, plus all non-fighting companions and traders. But even though the campground not only covers a big, grassy field, but extends to the beach as well, it was very, very crowded...

Our first Danish market would have been at the Viking Age fortress Trelleborg on the island of Zealand. But before we got there, we did a short stop at Hedeby...

A few days ago we came back from our big Denmark-summer-tour. Almost a month of "Viking life", traveling from one market to the next, staying always at least one week at one place, gave us some really special impressions.

The summer solstice is over and now we walk towards the darker times of the year again. However, this is no reason to fall into some kind of winter lethargy. It's rather the opposite - most of this year's markets lie ahead of us, after all. And apart from that, we haven't been lazy.

Because the time was just right to do it, we dyed some woolen fabrics and yarns with birch leaves last weekend. The results are quite amazing...

This year's Viking season is well underway with the first market having been the exceptionally nice Easter market at Hedeby and our recent visit to the Frankfurt Archaeological Museum with Ylgia and Gisli. But there's of course more going on, so here comes a brief update on our current 'behind the scenes' activities.

During the exhibition "Odin, Thor and Freyja - Scandinavian Cult Sites of the 1st Millennium AD and the Frankish Realm" by the Archaeological Museum Frankfurt and the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, there are several guided tours focusing on a certain aspect. We visited one of them - "Women (and women pictures) in the pagan North and on the Christian continent", by Dr. Petra Hanauska.

At the first weekend of this year's May we visited the special exhibition "Odin, Thor and Freyja", hosted by the Archaeological Museum Frankfurt in cooperation with the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. In the following post we describe our personal impression of the exhibition.

The season's first market led us to the place where the southernmost runestones once stood, a meeting place between North, South, East and West: Hedeby. We took part in the spring market and experienced a market as beautiful as the colours of the rainbow...

The Sagas tell us how Icelandic Vikings settled in Greenland, archaeological evidence has proven it a long time ago. For generations there lived a Norse population on the southwestern coast. But during the 15th century, contact with Europe ceased. The Greenlanders have died. Why?

It's still not really warm and one's hands freeze especially quickly. One solution are nalbinding mittens, for which we have two magnificent finds - unlike the popular nalbinding caps.

If you thought that there's nothing new to get at Birka and everything is known, you are badly mistaken. Especially during the past years there has been a lot going on. There is now an article about the latest investigations to be found under "'A'...

Since we'll be expanding our activities more and more into other countries outside Germany, we finally have an English version of our website, albeit only of the most important parts and not all of the articles. But stay tuned for more content!