Children of Ash and Elm

by Neil Price;

  Lastly, we have a single reference to facial cosmetics in the writings of Ibrāhīm ibn Ya’qūb, a Jewish traveller from Spain who made a memorable trip through the market centre of Hedeby in Denmark. While there in the 960s, he observed, “There is also an artificial eye makeup. When one uses it, the beauty of both men and women is enhanced, and it never disappears”. No more than this is known, whether it was a Danish fashion or more widespread, but my imagination is touched by an image so far from the Vikings I was once taught about.

  Leaf through the pages of any well-illustrated book on the Vikings, or visit a market-festival with early medieval re-enactors, and it would be easy to think that the clothing and fashion of the period are well-known to us. This notion is thrown into sharp contrast by two discoveries made by metal detectorists in Denmark, as late as 2012 and 2014.

  The first was uncovered in the late December frozen ground at Hårby, near Roskilde: a small figure in gilt silver, rendered in three dimensions (a rare thing in Viking art), in the form of a standing person armed with sword and shield. Details of the decoration suggest a date of about 800. The figure has the long, knotted ponytail conventionally taken as a feminine marker and has therefore almost universally been interpreted as a woman, but there are also gender ambiguities. The figure has not been given obvious breasts, although we have so few three-dimensional human images that we do not know whether this was artistic convention or even a Viking-Age cultural preference for a flatter chest. Could this even be a male-bodied individual with a transgressive haircut?

  The clothing is also unusual and hard to gender. The Hårby figure wears a pleated underskirt that seems to be ankle-length, but the feet of the image are broken off so one cannot tell. Over this is what appears to be a sort of singlet, with a deeply plunging V-shaped neckline and two thin shoulder straps that leave a very wide-open area around the top of the arms. The undergarment does not seem to extend above the waist, because the figure is apparently bare-skinned under the ‘vest’. Interestingly, the hem of the singlet is not straight but instead cut at a slant down from the figure’s proper right to left. Apart from looking quite striking, one effect is to leave less fabric at waist height by the right hand, which holds the sword, while the wide arm-holes of the vest also give good freedom of movement. As a sort of floor-length waistcoat over the vest and skirt, the figure wears (perhaps) a straight-falling cloak heavily ornamented in interlace designs, picked out in a kind of black enamel called niello. The clothing of the Hårby figurine is of a type never seen before.

  The second object turned up in 2014 at Revninge in the east of Denmark—a curious gilt-silver pendant just under five centimetres long in the form of a human figure. The body is flat, in two dimensions, whereas the head swells into three-dimensional relief and is pierced at the back with a hole for suspension. It too is a unique object and, on the basis of the art-styles, can be dated to the beginning of the ninth century—the same date as the Hårby figure. The Revninge piece is special for the extraordinarily detailed clothing it wears (probably the most intricate example known), the surprises thereby revealed, and the fact that like the Hårby figure, it gives few clues as to the person’s gender.

  The figure wears an underskirt, over which is a belted long-sleeved gown that comes down to the feet. The bodice is tight, and there appears to be a shawl of some kind around the shoulders. Each item of clothing is rendered in a different style and decoration, which surely represents a variety of fabrics, patterns, and, perhaps, even colours. If one converts this image to reality, the effect must have been stunning. Over the shawl, the figure wears a multi-strand necklace. The hands are clasped just below the belt, either side of a ‘buckle’ that appears as a very large trefoil brooch. Such jewellery is normally thought to be worn higher up on the body, fastening a shawl, so its position here is unusual and unexpected. There are excavated examples of Frankish trefoil sword fittings, almost as big as that of the Revninge figure, reused in Scandinavian contexts—perhaps this is one of those. Two lines, with roundels partway down, descend from the trefoil fastener, and it is not clear whether they are the long, pendant ends of the belt or the embroidered edgings of the gown. The figure’s hair is worn drawn back in a bun, parted in the middle to leave the ears uncovered.

  8. The ambiguities of dress. The enigmatic figurine from Revninge, Denmark, with its elaborate clothing. Photo: John Lee, © National Museum of Denmark, used by kind permission.

  At first, the Revninge figure was almost universally described as female, and often as either a fertility goddess or a Valkyrie—the usual go-to clichés in the rush to label. But doubts soon crept in; in fact, there is little to indicate whether this individual is male, female, or beyond such binaries. In late Iron Age Scandinavian imagery, many ostensibly masculine figures are depicted with long jackets or kaftans, with a skirt-like lower section that flares out. They appear on the Vendel period helmet plaques, on several pendant figurines, and on the Gotland picture-stones, amongst numerous others.

  Taking the two figurines together, Hårby and Revninge, one can look at the clothes, even reconstruct them to a degree, but in the end there is no way of knowing if these were even human fashions—and, if so, of what social status, although surely wealthy. If this was the clothing of a god(dess) or some other supernatural being, does the Hårby figure reveal a Valkyrie’s face, perhaps for the first time? Is the Revninge image what a fylgja looked like, or a dís, those ancestral spirit-women of the North? These things would probably have been obvious to a Viking-Age person, but not to us. There is something to be learned from the fact that two finds of five-centimetre figurines have shifted, indeed undermined, scholars’ presumed understanding of Viking-Age clothing. With this sounding of a note of caution, what is really known of dress at this time?

  Most of what we have comes from imagery such as the huge number of human figures depicted on picture-stones (a kind of illustrated carving found only on the island of Gotland) and gold foils, and also from clothing fragments found in graves and preserved in the corrosion products of metal objects that once rested against the textiles. This information can be combined with jewellery and other dress accessories excavated from burials, with functions that can be guessed at from their positions on the body. This is a database that has been built up over more than a century of fieldwork and incorporates thousands of variant examples. The clothing itself has been reconstructed through the patient work of dedicated specialists, such as the staff of the Centre for Textile Research in Copenhagen and their colleagues at similar institutions.

  Women of all social stations seem to have worn a basic, ankle-length shift of wool, or perhaps linen, although the latter would have required looking after. Such items were carefully smoothed on plaques of whalebone—often beautifully decorated with snarling animals—using oval ‘slickstones’ of hollow glass, green or blue, with a flat side to lay against the cloth. The shift had a vertical slit at the front neckline that was held together by a small brooch. These are found in every kind of metal, from lead to gold, depending on budget. For the poorest, this might have been the extent of their clothing.

  Some women wore full-body over-dresses on top of the shift—a simple, practical outfit for everyday use. Those of higher status, however, seem to have preferred an apron-like garment that started at chest height and hung from the shoulders by thin straps that detached at the front. These were fastened above the breasts by two oval brooches, one on each side. The straps were gathered behind each brooch and fixed with a pin, although the join was concealed underneath the metal. As each brooch could be unfastened independently, enabling one side of the apron to be folded down while the undershirt was pushed aside, it is thought the design was an aid to breast-feeding. Inside the tortoiseshell shapes of the brooches, archaeologists sometimes find several layers of textile, as if a number of different items of clothing had been pinned under there simultaneously. Some women apparently wore additional panels of fabric suspended down their fronts—perhaps for display or as
a pinafore to protect the rest of their clothes when undertaking tasks.

  The oval brooch has become the single most common supposedly female marker in Viking-Age graves, where their presence is often used to determine sex if no human bone survives. They came in many different patterns and designs as well as materials—from bronze and copper alloy, with silver and gilt, all the way to actual gold. The art-styles used can be closely dated, which provides one of the prime chronologies for the period. Some of the brooches could be taken apart and had openwork upper surfaces, enabling cloth of a contrasting colour to be placed within, enhancing the effect. Many of the oval brooches were completely covered in decoration, twisting interlace, or mythical animals, sometimes in high relief.

  Over the whole outfit, women might have worn a heavier gown that extended to the ground, with wide, deep sleeves. Some examples buttoned or otherwise fastened high at the neck, while others were cut away in front so the underlying dress, oval brooches, and beads would have been visible in the opening. Women wore a simple cap covering the hair and gathered under the chin, either of thin linen or, for the wealthy, made of imported silk from the Mediterranean, the Middle East, or even China. In some graves, we also find thin bands of silver worn around the forehead and temples either as a sort of tiara or, more likely, holding a headscarf in place.

  Shoes and boots of leather have been found, some ankle-length and fastened with a simple toggled flap across the front. Others are laced around in a circle through multiple loops just below the top of the opening, not across the front like today’s shoes. This was cheap, practical footwear, although some examples were decorated with coloured threads. High-end boots, by contrast, could be calf- or knee-length, made of heavy, tooled leather and decorated with interlace designs (one of my best excavation memories is of patiently revealing one in the thick, black mud of a waterlogged Viking town). Inside, knitted woollen socks, sometimes in the nålebindning technique, kept the feet warm and dry. Poorer people probably made do with grass and straw packed around their feet, ensuring both insulation and a snug fit.

  A question seldom asked, and hard to answer, concerns how Viking-Age people used clothing; how did it make them feel—the combinations of fabrics, the sense of them on their skin, the circumstances in which they were worn? Just like us, the Vikings had fashion too, and dress was used to signal not only wealth and taste but also a great many other things, not the least of which was power (or the lack of it, in people who had less freedom to choose their own attire). Clothing conveyed achievement, but also aspiration. The international canvas of the Viking Age provided new sources of textiles and outfits with which to experiment, and new arenas to try them out. At least some of those who pursued a mobile life, with all its opportunities and risks, may have dressed as the kind of person they wished to be—and perhaps eventually became.

  Necklaces of beads, sometimes in multiple strands, were hung between the oval brooches or sometimes just draped around the neck. Made of glass imported from the Mediterranean as raw materials and then reworked in the North, they were manufactured in a wide range of shapes and colours. By the middle of the Viking Age, finished beads of carnelian and other materials were entering Scandinavia from the Levant in large quantities. Ibn Fad.lān mentions how much the merchants he met prized such items, especially the dark green ones. Each of them had an actual coin value and thus acted as a walking statement of wealth. Archaeologists also find examples of amber and rock crystal beads.

  A variety of ornamental brooches could be worn for display, much as today. There were zoomorphic ones, with animals and monsters, and others shaped like ships, horseback riders, and more. Pendants were worn in many designs—for example, formed as curling piles of so-called gripping beasts, rather strange creatures who seem to be smiling while strangling one another. There were also enigmatic figurines worn round the neck, little silver female figures holding horns (Valkyries, perhaps?), armed ‘weapon dancers’ (maybe Odin?), and many others, including a disturbing one from Sweden depicting a figure with a blank face and a single rectangular hole where its eyes should be.

  After the beginning of the raids in the eighth century, foreign loot was sometimes repurposed as jewellery—book mounts from ecclesiastical volumes turned into brooches, English sword fittings similarly remade, coins pierced and hung on necklaces. In Norway there is an Irish or Scottish reliquary, almost certainly plundered from a monastery, that seems to have been used by a woman as a luxury box; it is inscribed in runes that read, “Ranveik owns this casket”.

  Female jewellery had many regional variations, preferred styles, and local fashions, but none more so than on the island of Gotland. Although the standard forms are found here, the majority of wealthier women replaced the oval brooches with animal-head fibulas, looking rather like bears or badgers, their long snouts resting on the shoulders. The shawl fastener was not a disc or trefoil brooch but a small round box, worn in the same way, that could be opened and used as a container. As with all the jewellery, these too came with varying degrees of elaboration and in a range of materials and finishes. The box brooches are particularly fascinating, as they may provide a clue as to the identity of the merchants ibn Fad.lān met on the Volga. Describing the women, he specifically says they wear a round thing like a box on their breast—were they Gotlanders? It would make sense given the geography of their travel route.

  Both sexes wore finger rings, often chunky pieces with flat panels covered in ring-and-dot ornament. Arm rings were also worn, and were similarly patterned, as well as large chain-work collars of both gold and silver. These neck rings were heavy, dramatic, and very expensive. Ibn Fad.lān records such “bands of gold and silver” and that a man gave one to his wife for each ten thousand dirhams he possessed—an enormous sum.

  In his meeting with Scandinavians out east, ibn Fad.lān describes the men thus: “I have never seen more perfect physiques than theirs—they are like palm trees, are fair and reddish, and do not wear the tunic or the kaftan. The man wears a cloak with which he covers one half of his body, leaving one of his arms uncovered”. This accords well with the archaeological finds.

  If they could afford it, men would have had an undertunic, probably of soft wool or more likely linen, a breathable fabric. Over this was worn a long-sleeved shirt with a high, wide neck opening, which would be pulled over the head. This overshirt was sometimes embroidered at the neckline and cuffs, and was slightly flared below the waist.

  Trousers of the kind worn throughout the Iron Age were cut tight to the leg. To judge from grave finds, almost everyone wore a belt, probably a vital addition to a loose-cut waistline, and fragments of garments have been found with belt loops. Some of these surviving leggings have integral feet, like small children’s pyjamas today, and this is also mentioned occasionally in sagas. Even when trousers were slightly fuller in cut, some men wore tightly wound bindings (essentially puttees) on the lower leg for insulation and ease of mobility. On picture-stones and in other imagery, as well as in written sources, we also find evidence for a distinctly eastern fashion in trousers that became popular in Scandinavia during the later Viking Age. These were made of extravagant amounts of cloth to produce a very wide, puffed appearance over the thighs and past the knee, with the fabric gathered in boots or with bindings to fit closely on the lower calf.

  A special set of weaving techniques called röggvar attached extra pieces of fleece to the warp during manufacture, which were then teased out from the surface (rather like accidentally catching a thread from a wool sweater, though done deliberately) to make a tufted effect that was thought to resemble fur. There is some evidence that this could be used for producing a particularly exaggerated type of trousers, and it may be this that lies behind the nickname of the famous ninth-century Viking Ragnar lothbrók, his nickname meaning ‘shaggy-breeches’. The effect would have been dramatic, and like some modern fashions its success must have depended on the charisma of the wearer to cross the line from ridicule to style.

  Depe
nding on the weather, an outdoor jacket of heavy wool, sometimes lined with fur, could be worn. Some of these were influenced by eastern fashion and more resembled kaftans, with the two sides overlapping in front and secured by a belt. The Scandinavians operating on the Russian rivers also went in for a kind of brocaded jacket, fixed with toggles or loops and with silverwork panels across the front.

  Many of these fabrics could have been enlivened by embroidered patterns or other designs, probably of the sort familiar from the metalwork. Even buttons were decorated, with carvings on bone or cast ornament on precious metals. As well as other kinds of unisex jewellery, some men also wore necklaces, though these sometimes differed sharply from those worn by women. Pendants included carved bear’s teeth, Thor’s hammers, miniature weapons, and the like.

  Interestingly, no Viking-Age clothing for either sex has ever been found with pockets, which has implications for the kinds of bags and other accessories necessary for carrying even small items.

  Cloaks were pinned at the shoulder, either by a simple ringed pin (a uniquely Norse invention diagnostic of a Viking site) or a penannular brooch of varying elaboration. If a Viking-Age man wore headgear, he could choose from a simple woollen cap or, if he was feeling flush, a more elaborate conical cap made of silk and fur.