#norse society

[the-merry-otter]

Tunic embroidered with old Norse runes around the bottom that read “I joined the SCA and all I got was this stupid t-tunic”

[father-of-the-void]

Útiseta

[colleendoran]

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At the SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS on Instagram, see a video of my exhibit COLLEEN DORAN ILLUSTRATES NEIL GAIMAN.

Thanks so much to the Society of Illustrators, Neil Gaiman, and curator Kim Munson.

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[the-hanged-mans-ghost]

Consider this as your annual reminder to 10000% join your local SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) if you're into the middle ages (Anywhere in the world, you don't *just* have to do vikings/norse/europe, it's just pretty common to lmao), crafting, sword fighting(or any other type of fighting, they've got lots!), sewing, cooking, art, dressing up in cool period accurate(or even just semi accurate, I've heard a lot of places aren't *SUPER* picky as long as you make an effort to dress appropriate for the period)!!!

My sister and I joined our local chapter about 6 months ago and it's amazing so far! We jsut went to our first actual event (a 6 hour drive away bc we live in the middle of nowhere) outside of monthly meetings and it was so friggin fun!

We learned how to make (Finnish/Lithuanian/Latvian/Estonian) spiral ornaments for clothing or decoration(the square looking thing below), learned how to make a silver ring from some fine silver wire, learned how to make a 12 strand braid with wrapped ends, and made a few friends while we were there! I've also learned how to use a lucet fork (honestly kinda like a loomband bracelet but with string lmao), a tablet weaving loom, and I'll be learning how to weave wire to make necklaces, how to brew mead, and a few traditional recipes from the other members, too!

So if any of that sounds fun or interesting, consider joining! Our group meets once a month on the third Thursday, but your local group might be different, I linked the website for the sca down below this, so definitely contact them and jump down this rabbit hole, I promise it's worth it!

This metal square thing is a spiral ornament! It's sewn onto clothes, aprons, bags, anything you'd like!

This is my first by-myself tablet weaving! It's a pattern found in the oseberg viking mounds(not sure if 'hat's 'mounds' is the right word but I've seen it used so oop-), creative liberties taken with the yellow border and the colors obv.

https://www.sca.org/about/kingdoms/

SCA's main website(which can be a little confusing to navigate at first), and the link to find your kingdom(so you can find your group easier, but def check out the other parts of the website too, it's got great info!)! You should be able to find your kingdom and local group by clicking the area that your state/area fall under! I know it says there's a fee, but I don't think it's mandatory right away (it wasn't for our group), and if you have troubles paying it, talk to the group and explain your situation, thy might have funds to pay for you instead! (our group has mentioned several times that they have the funds to pay for our memberships of we decide this is something we'd like to do long term!)

[greenwitchcrafts]

It's been a while since I've shared my altar all cleaned up~♡

[ancestorsalive]

The grave of a völva, a female shaman and seer in Norse mythology, was discovered in Köpingsvik, on the Swedish island of Öland. This grave contained several intriguing artifacts that provide insight into the völva’s role and status in Viking society.

One of the most notable items found in the grave is an iron staff that measures 82 centimeters long. This staff is adorned with bronze details and features a unique model of a house on top. The term “völva” translates to “wand carrier” or “carrier of a magic staff” in Old Norse, indicating the significance of this artifact. The staff or wand was an important accessory in the practice of seid, a type of sorcery practiced in Norse society during the Late Scandinavian Iron Age.

In addition to the staff, the grave contained a jug from Central Asia and a bronze cauldron from Western Europe. These items suggest that the völva had connections to far-reaching places and was likely a part of the upper strata of society.

The völva was dressed in bear fur and was buried within a ship setting, or stone ship, which also contained sacrificed animals and humans. This type of burial is indicative of the völva’s high status and the reverence with which she was regarded.

These findings are on display in the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm. - Source: Pagan Trader ThePaganTrader.com

[eosvartauga]

Hey y'all apologies for ignoring this blog for so long, just got super busy! Anyways, here's my pattern instructions for making your own Guddal tunic! Available for FREE on my Patreon

[arsenicflame]

i lure you in with my incredible izzy hands takes and then i strike by spamming your dash with lesbians youve never heard of

[jortschronicles]

Dragging a Viscount into Early Period

My first hack at more elaborate men's Rus has been prompted by a favorite Viscountess of mine dragging her fighter into early period.

I was given a pile of fabric for pre-determined aspects: a chenille upholstery fabric for the body, a buttery yellow linen for the facings, and a cream linen for the pants. For full disclosure, this piece is a commission that I'm doing at a reduced rate in hopes of getting my name out there on a pretty prominent figure in my region.

I used the calculations for measurements and layout given to me by Dvorianka Anastasiia which are derived from the patterning work done by Mistress Talana the Violet of blessed memory. It is similar to a variation of the style 5 tunic as categorized by The Renaissance Tailor, with trapezoidal gores in both the skirt and armpit, leading to an overall sleeker fit to the body than the standard square armpit gore. As some measurements had changed since Anastasiia last took them, I stressed myself out until I realized I have unlimited power at my fingertips: basic scripting. I wrote a short program to take hard coded measurements and spit out the exact dimensions of the pattern pieces, which felt a little bit like overkill and also not impressive at all.

With pieces patterned, cut out, and (mostly) serged, I delved into construction. I have learned from experience my preferred method of construction is starting by attaching the two body rectangles at the shoulders, attaching and turning the neckhole facing, and then assembling everything flat as follows.

This makes lining up and turning the facing significantly easier for me to do, and hides raw edges within the seams. Starting with the neckhole, however, means there's less fabric for me to fight while I turn a particularly annoying facing.

With the facing laid out on the body fabric, consultation with some of my apprentice siblings determined deep burgundy is the way to go for all the accents. I decided on split stitch around the neckhole and buttonhole stitch around the edges of the neckline, but quickly decided I prefer the split stitch for the rest of the decorative stitching on the garment.

For the sleeve cuffs, I pinned them in place, ran a quick line of running backstitch along the tops of the cuffs to secure them in place, then did split stitch at the top of the cuffs and a running stitch around the opening to keep the edge tidy while still not using visible machine stitching.

One thing the recipient of this garment expressed is that the striped facing secured with buttons or toggles is an ideal look, and luckily I have a significant quantity of the Vindheim buttons from Bad Baroness in stash. I do not have sufficient woven or braided trim in truly appropriate quantity or style for this garment to be aggressively period, but with the fabric we're already taking liberties and the ribbons look nice and appear to be a popular substitute for strips of silk tape performing the same function in our area. I laid the ribbon out at inch and a half intervals and made sure my lines would be straight on both sides. I turned the ends of the ribbons in and secured them with a whip stitch in a matching thread.

With my facing done and the worst of the neckhole dealt with, I seamed the rest of the garment into an actually clothing-shaped piece of fabric and let it hang for a day while working on other projects.

I decided to use a "looped cord" method of button loops, using a cord from an old site token that happens to look an awful lot like the cord used for an award the recipient has received. Starting from the bottom of the neckhole, on the wearer's right side, I've tacked the cord down under the edge of the garment, securing the loops aggressively.

Sometime soon I will get clearer pictures of this garment on the recipient.

The more I look at this garment and all other Rus-ish garments i've made and seen, I think I may need to round the gores into the "skirt" of the tunic more dramatically. I can no longer find the artistic depiction that originally gave me the impression, but until this point i've been letting the right angles of the skirt remain as initially cut, giving an angular overall silhouette but the rounding may be necessary for the right look.

[1000dactyls]

I want to ask what some of your fave httyd friendships are! Because I saw you say about Stoick and Gobber and unrelated but sort of related but I realised the other day Gobber and Stoick are in some ways an older version of fishlegs and hiccup if you looked at them from very very far away

Stoick and Gobber are definitely up there!!! Your Fishlegs and Hiccup comparison does kind of make sense but it is totally nutty and I did giggle a lot. That one screenshot from RTTE of Fishcup and geeking out is their relationship, if geeking out was replaced with beefing out. I also really enjoy Gobber and Hiccup’s friendship!!! Idk in general Gobber & the haddocks are some of my favorite relationships. in their own way, both stoick and hiccup get in their own head — gobber’s unhinged and no-nonsense commentary gets them back into the real world. (Although, stoick and gobber are… ah, i really like stoick and valka, but there is nothing more gentle and queer and loving than taking care of your boy best friend and raising his child together. They’re like… Stoick and Gobber with Hiccup are this one TikTok.)

I like Gothi and Snotlout as a hypothetical duo. I don’t think they interact much, from what I remember (though again — I haven’t even finished watching RTTE for the first time, so I’m just guessing a lot here). Snotlout’s relationships with others are also comedy gold. Him and Hookfang carry some of RoB/DoB’s best episodes; Hookfang’s grouchy, malicious compliance to some of Snotlout’s weirder requests are really funny.

And you can never go wrong with Ruff and Tuff!!! They’re twins — they’re ride or die.

[catastrophic-crystal]

Thorfinn: is his outfit historically accurate?

Your resident Old Norse nerd is here to dissect Thorfinn’s (CBS Ghosts) outfit. Is it historically accurate?

What we know about him is this: he is a viking from Norway; he died around 1007 (7 years after the Battle of Svolder); ...and that’s about it really.

I’ll be using viking and Old Norse interchangeably throughout this post just to make the language a little less repetitive, although I should note that not everyone in Old Norse society were vikings.

Everything is under the keep reading line, because there’s... a lot of words. Probably too many.

So what is he wearing?

This!

So what did vikings wear? Not this.

For a start, we have no evidence that vikings wore arm guards/vambraces that looked like this--- instead, they may have worn splint armour.

They also did not wear their hair like that. The Vikings TV show was wrong! Shocker! The “Ragnar haircut” is an entirely modern-day hairstyle that people like to associate with vikings. As far as we know, vikings did not have elaborate hairstyles. Instead, they either had their hair long, or short. They may have tied their hair up to keep it out of the way in their daily lives, or worn caps or cloaks, but we have no evidence of this type of haircut. They also likely would not have worn little braids in their hair or beards like Thorfinn does. The beard is on point except for that though.

Vikings also did not tend to wear plain uncut and untreated animal fur like this. As I said, they would have worn capes or cloaks, and oftentimes those were lined with animal fur! But the animal fur would not have been worn alone. However, I am willing to forgive this, since he was left to fend for himself alone in the wilderness, he might have skinned an animal to get it, who knows?

I’m not sure what outer garment Thorfinn is wearing here. Something leather possibly? In any case, they would not have worn this either, not even as armour (they mostly wore chainmail armour or splint armour), and they certainly would not have worn those weird strap thingies? They wore tunics, usually made of wool, and those tunics would have been a lot less skin-tight than Thorfinn’s outer garment. The under garment seems faily accurate though?

The belt and stuff hanging from it seem fairly believable, so I’ll leave them alone for now. The only thing I would say is that Old Norse tunics were very long, so you would expect to see it going down near to his knees, but we don’t see it go further than his belt at all.

The trousers, while are at least loose, are certainly not loose enough. Not to mention there’s no leg wraps--- all vikings would have worn tight leg wraps going up to just below their knees, which would have made the poofiness of their trousers stand out even more!

And lastly... the shoes. Oh god the shoes. Vikings wore turnshoes and that was it, really. They did not wear boots, and if they did, they would not have been that long. The only evidence of boots in Old Norse society that I’m aware of is child-sized. Sorry lads, I know boots are cool.

As for colours, everything here is so drab. And I know, it’s everywhere, this idea that vikings wore natural or dark colours, but it’s so boring to see! Old Norse society was so colourful (depending on class of course)! All of his clothes (bar the shoes and belt I believe) would have been dyed depending on whether he had the money to do such a thing, and I’m of two minds about that--- he was a viking, so naturally of a higher standing than most, but clearly he wasn’t respected by his peers, so maybe he was an odd one out.

Again, depending on his status, he may have worn ringlets, bracelets, and armlets, usually made out of silver. But I’m less concerned about those. I do, however, wish he wore gloves.

Well that’s all from me for now! Hope you enjoyed and sorry for the longass post, I just really love Old Norse society and I Had To Do This. If I missed anything or got anything wrong, feel free to correct me! Just be nice about it :’)

[d0d0-b0i]

some asshole: “i just wanna honor my norse ancestry guys” *gets tattoos inspired by norse history and proceeding to claim that vikings also got them(???on what grounds?? give me your fucking sources), honors a religion which we barely have any information on, and glorifies a culture that was mainly just farmers*

like. if you reallly wanna honor your “norse” ancestry, how about you at least acknowledge the ongoing atrocities we have now (done to our own indigenous people) rather than those from a 1000 years ago, and the fact that it is very unlikely that you have “viking” genes. shut the fuck up. your ancestor was most likely a farmer named stig

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Bathory - Of Doom

[vaguely-concerned]

this is a great video essay that puts into words some stuff I've been trying to express for a long time around why I tend to find a lot of mainstream (English-language mainly) reinterpretations of Scandinavian folklore and Norse mythology hmm... at best tedious and at worst actively alienating and annoying, while also being fair to the realities of triple A game development and the legitimate writing reasons that the studio chose to structure the game/story the way they did. if you just want to hear some cool things about scandinavian folklore and myths and see some banging art, it's also a good time that way!

[burningknucklecraftworks]

New Skjoldhamm fencing hood