Viking Designs
Drawing of an Urnes-Style Mount
A drawing of a cast copper alloy sword fitting with Urnes-style decoration.
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Viking Names
Withern with Stain
The current name combines two originally separate places. Withern shows the influence of Old Norse on an English place-name. Originally, this name was formed from the Old English elements widu ‘wood’ + ærn ‘a house’. However, given the large number of Scandinavian speakers in the area, they pronounced the first element as if it was the cognate Old Norse element viðr, also meaning ‘wood’. The ‘th’ in the modern form preserves this pronunciation difference between the closely-related Old English and Old Norse elements. Stain comes directly from Old Norse steinn ‘stone’ – the place was presumably named after a prominent stone there. Many other place-names in Lincolnshire, like Stainby, Stainfield and Stainton, also contain this word as their first element. Elsewhere in England, such names tend to be spelled ‘Stan-‘, like the very common Stanton, which is the same name but deriving its first element from Old English stān ‘stone’.
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Viking Names
Frisby
Frisby, in the Gartree Hundred of Leicestershire, takes its name from a Scandinavian form of an ethnonym Frisa (gen. pl.) ‘Frisians’ and the Old Norse element by ‘farmstead, village’. This name has a similar construction to Frisby on the Wreake in the East Goscote Hundred of Leicestershire. Traditionally, the place-name has been interpreted as referring to Frisians who took part in the Viking invasions. However, the exact implications of such a name are not yet fully understood and are the subject of ongoing work by Dr Jayne Carroll of the Institute for Name-Studies, University of Nottingham.
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Viking Names
Scropton
Scropton, in the Appletree Hundred of Derbyshire, comes from the Old Norse male personal name Skropi and the Old English tun ‘farm, settlement’. It is thus a hybrid name. It is a joint parish with Foston.
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Viking Objects
Hooked Tag (PUBLIC-6847A6)
This hooked tag is constructed from a circular plate and single hook. The decoration features a trefoil with fillet design on the front probably influenced by the Ringerike style.
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Viking Names
Gunngifu
Gunngifu is a postulated Anglo-Scandinavian hybrid female personal name formed from the very common Old Norse element Gunn- from gunnr, guðr ‘battle’ combined with the Old English element gifu ‘gift’. There is a possible attestation of the name in a medieval document from Lincolnshire.
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Viking Objects
Possible Knife End-Cap (NARC-D16C22)
A cast copper alloy object with Anglo-Scandinavian zoomorphic decoration resembling an end-cap from a knife or dagger handle. It has been suggested that the decoration is, in fact, Viking Jelling-style decoration from the tenth century.
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Viking Objects
Copper Alloy Buckle (LEIC-917DEC)
This buckle consists of an oval loop with a circular cross section and has an elongated triangular pin rest in the form of an animal head. The animal head has a pointed snout, rounded head with rounded upwards pointing ears which merge into the buckle loop. At the opposite side there are two short sub-rectangular cross-sectioned shafts which would have housed an iron pin that held the buckle pin and possibly an articulated plate.
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Item
Crucifix Pendant (NLM-AD60CD)
The settlement of Scandinavians in the Danelaw inevitably led in the end to their conversion to Christianity, though how this process happened and how long it took varied in different parts of the country and is still not fully understood. Finds from Scandinavian-settled areas, like this crucifix with a clear image of Christ on the cross, may well be evidence for this process.
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Viking Objects
Stirrup Mount (LEIC-C97582)
This example of a copper-alloy stirrup-strap mount is decorated with an interlaced design forming two ‘serpents’ interrupted by nine circular holes. It is similar to mounts of William Class A Type 1 but the holes and its large size match Class C mounts more closely.
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Viking Objects
Copper-Alloy Buckle Fragment (SWYOR-1F57BC)
This copper-alloy fragment is probably part of a flat buckle-frame decorated with Borre-style interlace though very few comparable examples exist.