Not battle ready

Viking women didn’t carry swords–a free woman carried a knife, used primarily for eating. But they did know how to use one, and in a pinch would borrow a brother’s sword and go galloping off for vengence.

You may still be able to find Vikings at the SCA, and you can certainly still get a sword at one of their shindigs, and often axes too (the one shown is a “bearded” ax), but many reenactors will look for a sword that is not “battle ready”, that is, not sharpened.

There are many stories told of sword displays collapsing, or a sword accidentally falling, sometimes even near a child, and thank the gods, no one was hurt–because the swords weren’t battle ready.

And once the horns and the mead come out, and your posse starts fumbling and dropping things, you will be more than glad if they don’t have any sharp items on their persons.

As you can see, my sword is not battle ready, and never will be.

Viking Kittens

And now for something completely different. This looping video of the Viking Kittens always cracks me up. And it’s the first time I’ve ever been able to understand the lyrics to this song.  If you’re still in a bad mood after watching it, check out the 404 party on this  404 message page.

(BTW, the real Vikings didn’t wear horns–only the Hollywood ones did.)

Sleipnir on Gotland Stones

Very interesting graphics of Odin’s eight legged horse Sleipnir appear on Gotland picture stones. (This post continues a discussion inspired by thread at LH; previous posts  here and here) .

Sleipnir

Sleipnir.

For Kron’s daughter over at LH. (Click picture to see larger.) Whenever I want to check the weather in Norway I just peek at the Norwegian webcams.

Nordic Horses

There are a number of sources for images of medieval Scandinavian horses, but fewer for Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse. Sleipnir was the offspring of Loki and the stallion Svaðilfari. In response to a comment on a LH thread, here is a sampling of Nordic medieval horse images, both four-legged and eight-legged.