Viking Objects
Borre Style Brooch (DENO-805B20)
This copper-alloy brooch is an example of Kershaw’s East Anglian series and is decorated with interlaced Borre-style designs. For more information on Scandinavian jewellery in England check out our blog: Brooches, Pendants and Pins: Scandinavian Dress Accessories in England.
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Viking Objects
Anglo-Scandinavian Mount (NLM-491EBD)
This copper-alloy mount is decorated with an openwork plate interlace ornamentation in possible Borre style.
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Viking Objects
Abbasid Silver Dirham Fragment (CM_1775_2008)
A silver dirham fragment possibly minted at al-`Abbasiyya. The dirham was a unit of weight used across North Africa, the Middle East, and Persia, with varying values which also referred to the type of coins used in the Middle East during the Viking Age. These coins were extremely prized possessions not only for their silver value but as a way of displaying one’s wealth and vast trade connections. Millions of Arabic dirhams would have been imported throughout the Viking world and are mostly found in hoards.
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Viking Names
Ingleby
Ingleby, in the Repton and Gresley Hundred of Derbyshire, takes its name from the Old English ethnonym Engle ‘the Angles, later the English’ and Old Norse by ‘a farmstead, a village’. There is also an Ingleby in Lincolnshire (historically Yorkshire). This Ingleby is close to the Viking winter camp at Repton, and the site of a unique Viking Age cremation cemetery. 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 Objects
Needle (CM. 1844-2008)
A cylindrical copper-alloy needle with a circular eye punched into a flattened section. Needles were a common textile tool and could be made from bone, metal or wood. They are generally considered to indicate the presence of female craftspeople, reinforcing the view that the Viking camp at Torksey was inhabited by women and children as well as the warriors of the Great Heathen Army.
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Viking Objects
Copper-Alloy Ear Spoon (CM_1849_2008)
This copper-alloy ear spoon has a spiral twisted body with a small rounded head. It was found at Torksey, Lincolnshire. Ear scoops (also known as ear spoons) were used to clean out ear wax. They are very common finds on Viking Age sites, suggesting that people took this aspect of personal hygiene very seriously.
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Viking Names
Ullesthorpe
The first element of Ullesthorpe, in the Guthlaxton Hundred of Leicestershire, is the Old Norse male personal name Úlfr (Old Danish Ulf), an original byname meaning ‘wolf’. It was a common name throughout the Viking diaspora. The second element is Old Norse þorp ‘a secondary settlement, a dependent outlying farmstead or hamlet’. The township names that line Watling Street and those to its north-east are predominately English in origin; however, Ullesthorpe, Catthorpe, and Bittesby are the exceptions. It is important to note that although Ullesthope has both an Old Norse specific and generic, Bitteby’s first element is Old English and Catthorpe’s is a feudal affix, which indicate only light Scandinavian settlement in the surrounding area. Ullesthorpe and Bittesby were formally a single land unit which Bittesby was later carved out. Ullesthorpe was likely the dependent village of Bittesby, and now has a narrow reach of land to its west which runs to Watling Street.
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Viking Names
Eindridi
The Old Norse male name Eindriði is mainly found in Norway. It is the first element of Enderby (now divided into Bag Enderby, Mavis Enderby and Wood Enderby) and possibly Anderby, both in Lincolnshire. There is also an Enderby in Leicestershire.
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Viking Names
Heath
The eatlier name for Heath, in the Scarsdale Hundred of Derbyshire, was Lund from Old Norse lundr ‘grove, small grove’. Heath from Old English hǣð ‘heather; a tract of uncultivated land’ replaced the older name which remains only as a field name.
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Viking Names
Woodthorpe
Woodthorpe, in the Scarsdale Hundred of Derbyshire, is an Anglo-Scandinavian hybrid name from Old English wudu ‘a wood; or wood, timber’ and Old Norse þorp ‘a secondary settlement, a dependent outlying farmstead or hamlet’.
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Viking Names
Skalli
Skalli an original byname meaning ‘bald-head’. It is recorded in Western Scandinavian mythology as the name of a giant, it is fairly common as a byname in Norway and Iceland. A few instances are recorded in runic inscriptions in Sweden and in Danish place-names. Skalli is the first element in Scawby, Lincolnshire, as well in several other place-names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire