Viking Objects
Reproduction Stamped Finger Ring
A reproduction, stamped, silver ring with knotted ends. Rings with this type of stamped decoration are typical of Scandinavian design during the Viking Age.
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Viking Objects
Reproduction Socks
A pair of reproduction woollen socks based on one found at Coppergate, York. The socks are made using a technique called nålbinding.
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Viking Designs
Drawing of Copper Alloy Disc Brooch
Drawing of a copper alloy, gilded brooch with a zoomorphic design. Brooches were a typical part of female dress. Scandinavian brooches came in a variety of sizes and shapes which included disc, trefoil, lozenge, equal-armed, and oval shapes. The different brooch types served a variety of functions in Scandinavian female dress with oval brooches typically being used as shoulder clasps for apron-type dresses and the rest being used to secure an outer garment to an inner shift. Anglo-Saxon brooches do not match this diversity of form with large disc brooches being typical of ninth century dress styles with smaller ones becoming more popular in the later ninth and tenth centuries. However, since disc brooches were used by both Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian women they are distinguished by their morphology. Scandinavian brooches were typically domed with a hollow back while Anglo-Saxon brooches were usually flat. Moreover, Anglo-Saxon brooches were worn singly without accompanying accessories.
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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 Objects
Imitation Finger Ring (NLM-D675CA)
This finger ring bears stamped decoration imitating the Scandinavian ring and dot pattern which is bordered by incised crossing diagonals of a saltire. The ring- and dot-style of decoration was briefly adopted by inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon settlements such as Cottam in Yorkshire and Flixborough in Lincolnshire.
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Viking Names
Mablethorpe
Marblethorpe, in the Calceworth Wapentake of Lincolnshire, comes from a likely Continental Germanic male personal name Malbert and Old Norse þorp ‘a secondary settlement, a dependent outlying farmstead or hamlet’.
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Viking Names
Linby
Linby, in the Broxtow Wapentake of Nottinghamshire, comes from Old Norse lind ‘a lime tree’ and by ‘a farmstead, a village’.
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Viking Names
Scartho
Scartho, in the Bradley Wapentake of Lincolnshire, is a difficult name. The second element is clearly Old Norse haugr ‘a hill, a mound’. The first element, however, has been the subject of much discussion. It has been suggested that the first element is the Old Norse male personal name Skarði or the Old Norse element skarð ‘an opening, an open place in the edge of something, a gap, a mountain pass’. Since the area is now built up, it is nearly impossible to determine the exact topography of the place. It may be pointed out that there are patches of glacial sand and gravel and alluvium at the top of the hill. It has also been suggested based on forms of the name in Scarf- that the first element is Old Norse skarfr ‘a cormorant’, but these spellings occur in only one source. On balance, skarð provide an acceptable first element, but twentieth-century development makes certainty impossible.
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Viking Names
Toki
Tóki is either a short form of names in Þórkell or possibly a pet-form of name in Þór- ‘the god’s name Þórr’ with the addition of the suffix -ki. The name is very common in Denmark where it is found in many place-names. It possibly spread to Norway and Sweden from Denmark. It is fairly common in Sweden in the forms Toke and Tuke and in Norway from the eleventh century onwards, but it is very rare in Iceland. In Normandy it is probably found as the surname Tocque and occurs in a number of place-names there. The personal name is also the first element in Tugby, Leicestershire.
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Viking Names
Flagg
Flagg, in the High Peak Hundred of Derbyshire, is a simplex place-name perhaps from the dative plural form (-um) of Old Norse flag ‘a turf, a sod’ with the meaning ‘place where the turfs were cut’.
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Viking Names
Asbjorn
Ásbjǫrn was a common name in Norway from the time of the settlement of Iceland (c. 870-930) onwards, and is common in Swedish and Danish runic inscriptions. Forms in Æs- are very common in Denmark and a few runic forms likely represent these spellings. Additionally there are numerous instances of the form Osbern found in Normandy which are possibly loans from England. It is a Old Norse compound name with the first element, Ás-, from Old Norse ás, óss ‘a god’, combined with bjǫrn, ‘bear’. It was common for Viking Age Scandinavian personal names to use animals as name-forming elements. Several place-names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire may include the Low German male personal name Osbern, although the name is more likely to be an anglicised form of Old Norse Ásbjǫrn, as in Osbournby in Lincolnshire, and the name is also recorded in medieval documents from both Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.