I think that one of the things I hate most about living history is the tendency to compartmentalize eras. I am certainly not speaking in favor of anachronisms; I am referring to cross-pollination.

If I had a nickel for every time the reenactor of one period—ironically, usually one who decries that no one else is up to his standards—I could probably afford Starbucks for the rest of my life! There seems sometimes to be a prejudice against other eras. I was told that so,meone thought Micel Folcland was beneath contempt because it was not American Civil War. Several AWI reenactors regularly refer to Civil War reenactors as Silly War reenactors and announce that articles on the French and Indian war is beneath their dignity. Reenactors of one era note they will not buy a magazine which features articles on eras that they do not recreate. Reenactors of American living history want nothing to do with medieval—”we had a war to get rid of that crap”—and medieval reenactors note they want nothing to do with American “because it’s not old enough to be real history.” And so on. You’ve probably encountered similar statements and perhaps—I hope not—said them yourself!

The fact is, as I noted while in Norse drag to a cowboy and a Colonial American reenactor at Reenactorfest a few years ago, we reenactors have much more in common than our different eras show how different we are. After a moment of thought, they agreed. After all:

• We both do the same kind of research for our impressions (though as an Anglo-Saxon reenactor noted, it’s far easier for the ACW reenactors!)

• We both wear funny costume

• We usually both adopt pseudonyms for our impressions

• We both use obsolete or “old-time” technology (even persons doing more recent eras in many instances)

• We even often employ the same tools, kit and instruments in many instances (a friend who did several eras called this “cross-timing,” a term that I have adopted; however, reserch things befoe using them!)

And again, so on. The differences are, in the end, rather trivial, sometimes more akin to different cultures from the same era than to segregating influences. There is also the matter that much of earlier culture did not change as fast as today’s OSs and Ipods do, and there was a tendency to not throw away things even if they were “out of fashion.” There are samples of Norse and Anglo-Saxons at the turn of the millennium who used materials from the Roman Empire; there is every indication that the famous Sutton Hoo helmet was at least a century old and even repaired for further use before being placed in the grave! Knowing what went on in the past is often as important as knowing what is going on in the era that you recreate!

A quarter century ago, Donlyn Myers of Smoke and Fire News  (a multi-era newspaper) noted that she and I were two of the few people who were really interested in more than one era. While that has changed, I think, there is still tendency among many to remain oblivious or even antagonistic to reenactors from other eras. That is indeed, unfortunate, because the people who are wear such blinders continually are forced to reinvent the wheel, not to take advantage of what another era has learned and can offer (both intellectual and physical). What can you learn from another era:

• What to avoid without trying it yourself (or changing it for better results)

• What to do (without reinventing the wheel; the number of times groupsw from different eras have virtually the same threads going at the same time—and refuse to listen to anyone who says that “in such-and-such a century they…”—would be amusing if it weren’t so tragic)

• Where to send someone who is interested in another era (instead of trying to pound a square peg into around hole)

• Everyday details of another era (entertaining and educational even if they are not practically useful for your impression; plus, if you are doing a third person, you can use these details to better explain details in your own era)

• As mentioned before, what is offered by sutlers and other vendors of another era that you might use in your own era

• Examples of how to better research and to determine the truth of your era

• Examples for recruiting, kit spex and other ways that your group runs things

The list goes on. These reenactors of other eras can be instructors, students, sometimes even mentors and always fellow travelers.

I have always liked talking to folks from other eras. I like being able to share things, especially with people who regard anachronisms the same way I do. I really like timelines, and I try to go to reenactments from other eras to schmooze and enjoy the ambiance.

What brings this up is that we were recently in Gettysburg and, quite unwittingly, wandered into its second largest reenacting event of the year, Remembrance Day. We stayed an extra day to see the parade, to visit sutlers, to talk with fellow travelers, to trade ways of doing things and to watch thousands of very good reenactors. We had a great time, and we picked up a number of items—tent stakes, bees’ wax candles and lye soap for example—for use in our camp, as well as a few items that were just neat. It was fun and instructive, and if I go back, it’s going to be during an event like this. I heartily urge others from this and other eras to go to such a reenactment, to see, to learn and hopefully to improve!

I also urge folk to go to timeline and other multi-era events. My favorite of the year is ReenactorFest (now Military Odessey Fest, but it will always be ReenactorFest to me!) in Chicagoland in February. And to mix and to mingle with the folks that do another era but who have a Clew!

Micel Folcland focuses on civilian, everyday life, and I assume that this has dissuaded many “swordjocks” from joining or participating after they find they can’t play war games with us. But as I often note, after all most “Vikings” were farmers for most of the year. Dan Crowther has put a good article on civilian living history up on his blog at http://www.celticclans.org/re-livinghistory/?p=460

We just got back from a multi-era trip to the East Coast, including the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC. The exhibit has a hundred pieces of the Staffordshire Hoard, along with videos and modern reproductions provided by Regia in the UK. It will be there until March.

The Staffordshire Hoard is a collection of gold and silver pieces from the seventh or eighth century that is redefining our idea of the so-called “Dark Ages.”  It was discovered in 2009 by a metal detectorist working with the owner’s permission in a field near the village of Hammerwich, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England. The Hoard, consisting of some 3,500 items, has been valued at over five million dollars, which will be shared between the finder and the owner of the land. It is not only an example of finding a picture window into the past but of everyone concerned doing the Right Thing! Authorities and archaeologists were alerted by the founders, and a subterfuge was used to keep the discovery secret and safe until authorities had a hand on it. There are many sites available that speak more about the discovery, including this site.

The Lost Gold of the Saxons display was incredible and highly recommended. The artifacts are overwhelming, and after a while you just concentrate on the videos, taken from the two documentaries put out by NatGeo and including a sequence on how the inlying, etc. was done (that may be on the second doc, which I haven’t seen). The things sent by Regia in the UK were wonderful and well arranged. it was fun guessing who sent what (and who various persons in the videos were, since the nasal helms were very confusing. They did a marvelous display where a rebated sword was in a cage, so kids could pick it up and feel how heavy it was but couldn’t swing it around!

The NatGeo folk apparently drastically underestimated the appeal of the exhibit. They had no exhibition catalog, had sold out of the DVD of the first program two weeks ago and didn’t expect new copies for another week or two, had only one facsimile of jewelry for sale, no CDs of music (archaeological or otherwise) except for a DVD of Beowulf recited to lyre music) and only two books on Anglo-Saxon life in the bookstore. They did have an umbrella with a sword hilt handle 🙂 They still have until March to put in new stuff, so I will be watching it!

The first documentary on the Hoard is available on DVD; a DVD of the second documentary will, I was told, be available in two months (apparently, they were overwhelmed by requests and questions and are rushing it into production).

The food in the cafe was good as well 🙂

Information on the exhibit may be reached on the National Geographic site. To get the book and DVD published by National Geographic without going to Washington, you can go to their shop online.

“The most instructive experiences are those of everyday life”—Friedrich Nietzsche

From its start, there have been four main goals for Micel Folcland:

1. Of course, for participants to have fun. That does not mean, as it does with some societies, to let members do anything they want. As a folc once wisely said, “History is fun.” Research is fun. Learning things is fun. Quite simply, those folk who call research and accuracy anal and restrictive are doing something that, to me, is not fun!

2. That leads into the second, that is almost as important as the first. We want everyone to be accurate. No sneakers. No spectacles. No cinematic versions of reality. Sometimes this involves research, and it is certainly being anal, including a willingness to change the portrayal as new information becomes available.

3. Micel Folcland was, from the beginning, educational. That certainly distinguished us from the various fantasy LARPs that say they are reenactment groups and which use claims of accuracy only to not do things they object to. As many visitors have said, “You taught me something new today.” That’s what we are trying to do and, sometimes, we succeed in educating ourselves as well, when we research something that has eluded us!

4. And the fourth is that we attempt to portray everyday life.

With these goals in mind, once again, we see that Micel Folcland was never that much different from any other group that does serious living history. A member of one of the farbier societies noted to me that he wants to recreate the unique and the extraordinary, but as Kenneth Hudson, speaking of living history interpretation in museums but relevant for other efforts, notes, participants “dress in period costume and conduct period crafts and everyday work.” At our first board meeting, we adapted the motto: “The common Anglo-Saxon on the cow-path.” (As we refined our focus, we changed that to the average Anglo-Scandianian, but the idea never changed) After watching the inaccurate but hysterical British situation comedy, “Dark Ages,” we added another motto: “Common as Otter Plop.” And hopefully, though we have strayed a bit—for example, most people of he time would have slept on the ground but we, owing to our venerable and wizened old age, use a reproduction of one of the Oseberg beds—we have remained true to the ideal.

The reactions have been varied. A lot of people respect you for making this choice. Some think that you’re a prat because no one cares. A few don’t understand (not merely why you made the choice but what the choice could possibly be). A few ask the pertinent question: How do you determine what is everyday culture?

Obviously, that can be difficult. We know that folk of the kind engaged in textiles; they’d be running around naked otherwise. We know that there was kind of military training; it was, in the words of Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger in The Year 1000, an age of thugs. We know what was eaten and when (if they had a successful harvest in many instances). But how many communities had moneyers? How many pieces of furniture did a household have (and what kind was found)? Did the culture have artifacts from another time or from another culture, and if they did have any, how many did they have?

Obviously, that must be found out with research, and then the answer must be compromised a bit to suit modern laws, health statutes, etc., as well as how educational its practice might be for the MoPs. The existence of artifacts and practices must be found in period as well. For the most part, most serious living history societies follow a simple rule: If you find two (independent) instances of the existence of an artifact or practice, then it is fair use (some groups use three instances, but that is up to and your group). Concentrating our era, let’s take a few examples:

• Scissors have been found in the Viking Age, so their use is permitted (if they resemble those found from the period).

• Books were well known so their use would be permitted, but their ownership restricted to certain classes and should not be widely used (unless reenacting a monastery or the such and if, as before, they resemble those found in the period).

• Some items from other cultures have been found in trading centers (such as silk), their use and possession are permitted would generally have been restricted to the wealthy.

• They have found a single jade Buddha in Northern Europe, so its use would be restricted.

• Although the Norse knew about cotton no doubt, they would have also realized how useless it would have been in their homelands, so there is no evidence it was used in Northern Europe at this time, so its use in recreating our era would be forbidden.

• The use of horned helmets has never been proven for the time, and their invention and assignation to the Vikings has been documented, so their use is not only stereotypical but not timely in the least.

Decisions have to be made by each group as to how many unique and expensive artifacts may permitted in an exhibition. Some might depend on the integrity of the individual and not make a ruling, allowing members to use and own artifacts that have little or no provenance. Others might limit each person to a single (and different) artifact that is uncommon. A few might just forbid any artifact tht is restricted in any way.

In the case of Micel Folcland, the use of a unique or expensive artifact has to be okayed in each instance by the AO. In most cases, it depends on how many folc are involved or, in some instance, the intention of the show (for example, hangerocs are rare in the period we recreate and are limited to a single person at a show, but in shows for Scandinavian-American organizations, we are more lax). We are trying for the common impression and feel that the abundance of uncommon items, especially in a small group of participants, would lerad to incorrect interpretation of the era by MoPs.

Such decisions must be made by the group involved, and hopefully this something that has already been considered. And when a decision has been made, the group should hold to them and enforce them!

Keep all of these rules of thumb in mind when determining what would or would not be commonly used in the era and culture you recreate. If you do, and apply it fairly, you will find out that you are being educational, accurate and, more than anything else, having fun!

For a useful book concentrating on common life in England around the First Millennium, see

Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger’s The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, An Englishman’s World. I have three copies and even today, a decade after its publication, often read parts!

When the jars and bowl were finished, I transferred the salve I purchased from Jas. Townsend & Sons, an old friend and purveyor of eighteenth-century merchandise. It was composed of wheat, honey, bees wax, and lavender oil (all accurate for my period even if it does not duplicate any known recipes of the time). Townsend adds, “And it’s guaranteed not to contain lead, mercury, or arsenic as did so many of the original salves.” Sin e the jar it came in was an eighteenth-century style, I gave to my wife, who is a lover of fine ceramics.

Then I designed a new box large enough to contain them. I did not make the ends sloping like so many boxes of the time had, simply for reasons of space. I have grown accustomed to pegging all my boxes, but for this one—I figured that a physician would have the money for metal—I used cut nails to hold it together (cut nails resembled forged nails, but they are much more affordable; Tremont Nails are great to work with and offer several appropriate styles!). I briefly considered studding it with a huge bunch of nails, à la the Oseberg chest, but decided not to do so. The chest was made of poplar, a hard wood that is far lighter than oak. No provenance; that was just for convenience in carrying it.

After sanding the poplar, I stained it a dark color. Though I do not distress items I make—everything is new once, and I like the patina that age and use gives an item!—this resulted in what both I and others have seen as a distressed product. Still looks good.

Afterwards, I needed hinges, of course, and then it occurred to me: the ingredients of the chest are valuable and would have been protected by a lock. Turning again to Daegrad, I bought a pair of hinges and a lock. The hinges are applied. And I’ll apply the lock as soon as I can regularly unlock it!

There are still a few things that I need to acquire before next season. One, of course, is crosswort. I have an empty jar reading to receive some of it. I’ll bring halms of various types as they became available, but they will not be parts of the regular kit. And I intend to make a mereswine whip.

And there is the rub. Mereswine is Old English for porpoise. Finding porpoise skin is, to say, the least, difficult and possibly illegal. Mereswine whips were used for flogging the madness out of patients, so I had to have one. Using the style of whip owned by the Museum of London ), I made a prototype reproduction that looks a lot like the original. Consulting with a local leather expert, we decided that lambskin would be the best readily available, legal alternative; and I will be making another whip just to be certain of construction details and then makng my own faux-mereswine whip!

A local organic food store had a sale, but unfortunately they did not have rue, lily berries, crosswort and other ingredients I needed. I got ingredients for some more jars:

• Salve (from Jas. Townsend, already mentioned)

• Wormwood (actually a brewing supply)

• Honey

• wheat

• fennel

• berries (dried blueberries because they did not have ivy, and these look good…and can be eaten on the line as well)

• Hempseeds (in addition to the more recognizable plastic)

• willow leaves

I’m looking forward to trotting it all out next season and healing a few MoPs!

For copies of translations of Bald’s Leechbook and other leechbooks of the period, see the three volumes of Thomas Oswald Cockayne’s Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England: Volume One , Volume Two  and Volume Three.

When I decided to do an Anglo-Scandinavian leech impression on the line, a few things occurred to me. The first was how to display the leeches. There were plenty of canisters and jars from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but there was very little evidence for what was done in earlier days. A few people suggested that leeches were just kept in the pond out back. But as I read further, it become increasingly evident that the worms were not used inAnglo-Scandinavian  England of this period (nor undoubtedly in the rest of England nor in Scandinavia). After reading treatises of the time on bleeding, I became certain not only that bleeding was done by piercing parts of the body but that the laeces knew that bleeding could be much more harmful than it could be theoretically beneficial. Times were listed when bleeding was warned against, and there are warnings that a patient should not be overbled. This rather sagacious commentary was forgotten later, when nearly a third of George Washington’s blood may have been removed to cure him (right before he died, possibly from blood loss). The leeches were tossed out (well, most of them. One named Læknir the Leech was kept because one of the mmbers of the group was smitten with the name).

I found a source for medical instruments of the time, Daegrad tools. Three were offered: a scalpel, a bone saw and, to my delight and while not terms as such, a fleam. I made a leather container for them; I have no documentation for such an item, but I needed someplace to kep them!

This meant that I needed a bleeding bowl. The styles available were all from later periods, and there was no evidence that they were used in our time. I found an illustration showing a bowl being held beneath a dripping wound and, having seen nothing else, decided that was the shape that I needed. I had too few ceramic jars that could hold the herbs and other ingredients. I had an idea of what I wanted. I contacted old friends, Mike and Sarah Wisdom of Hearthstone Arts. They love doing accurate reproductions, and I was able to show them period illustrations of what I needed, and they agreed to make a number, as well as the bleeding bowl.

I already have three leechbooks that I had assembled, two leechbooks from he tme and one a compilation selected from these and other sources. Since only one book of this period and place that I know of—the Stonyhurst or Cuthbert gospel—has not been rebound, I looked to it for the method of binding the book. It was bound in a style similar to Coptic binding, and I have done several variations, all experimental, trying to find a reasonable alternative. (I have one that I like now, so I may be reproducing these leechbooks again using that style!)

Because two ingredients in very many recipes was hemp and dung—and for legal and other reasons I hesitated to include the actual raw materials—I found a source for plastic cannabis leaves and, at a local novelty store, dog poop. Granted, many recipes called for boar or sheep dung, while others just mentioned dung, but finding plastic versions were impossible, and I’m certain my wife would divorce me if I carried around real dung of any type even if I had wanted to! These formed the basics of my pharmacy, and it is amazing how easily they engender conversations with MoPs!

Using red linen, I hand stitched a band that could be wrapped around the head to cure headaches. It was to contain crosswort.

Using a period illustration of a man mixing ingredients for a potion in a mortar and pestle, I actually found a jar that looked like the mortar and then added a pestle, which I carved from wood to look like that in the illustration. At least one person said that it should not be wood, but she does a later-period impression and was selling ceramic mortar and pestles, What I have is considerably smaller than that showed in the illustration.

A short and informative text from he turn of the last century on Anglo-Saxon leechcraft is available at http://www.archive.org/details/anglosaxonleechc00welliala.

You might say that I’m obsessed with getting well in the Viking Age. Or at least in knowing how folk of the time supposedly got well.

My obsessions start with little things. A desire to learn about agriculture during the early middle ages and to build tools started when my wife bought me an old sickle at an antiques store for a buck, and I noticed how similar it was to sickle used in the Julius Work Calendar. Avalanche! I discovered an accurate rubber leech and thought it would be fun to buy a few to display on the line (I didn’t want the responsibility of live leeches). And then a year ago, I saw Dennis Riley of Daegrad was offering some surgical tools from the time. Guess what? Avalanche!

Let me digress at this point and speak for a moment about laeces, leeches (physicians)  and leeches (worms). It is certainly a byproduct of the avalanche, and like the detritus after an avalanche, does not easily fit in anywhere. Forgive me!

The Old English word for a physician/surgeon was laece, from the Old English for “healer.”. This was pronounced leech, and it is by that spelling that we know it today. The process of bleeding as a medical remedy had been known since ancient times, but there is no indication that the worm leech was used in medical practices during the early middle ages in Britain and Northern Europe; the Anglo-Saxons seemed to prefer to make a cut from which their patients could bleed. In fact, it appears that the term “leech” was not applied to the worm until the seventeenth century, when it was associated intimately with physicians and with bleeding! And with this fondation laid, let’s get back to my obsession and learning.

The first thing was to find out what was done and known during the time. Oh, I knew the basics like everyone, that the ignorant, superstitious savages of the time knew nothing and used a lot of superstition, no experimentation and revered what the ancients had told them. That was the first surprise. In saga, there was a reference to using odorous soup to tell if a person’s guts had been pierced by a wound, bandaging wounds and extracting metal objects causing wounds. I found translations of Bald’s Leechbook (a standard set of recipes surviving from the time), and that led to other books. I found out that they knew quite a bit. They could do plastic surgery, and there was a logical foundation for some of their medicines. They said prayers and charms, but that has been over-stressed, I came to believe, and there seemed to be an evolution of the concept of using prayer—toward using it instead of medicine—over the years. They experimented, and they wrote down their experiences, ideas and advice. The leechbooks they had were translations, and the strict adherence to what the ancients said only seemed to start when the original versions were brought back to Europe.

I bought Steve Pollington’s book on Leechcraft of the era, and it had some useful material but concentrated on subjects that I was less interested in, and it raised as many questions for me as it solved. I created and bound several leechbooks, including Bald’s, an herbarium and a special edition that I edited myself from various sources. And I began to develop a leech impression for doing on the line.

And there was the rub that was not massage.

There is relatively little that is known about medicine of the time, at least about the physical side. Did the Norse and the English share any medical knowledge (probbly, since what the English wrote down were often associated with folk practices which the Norse might already know). Where the doctors all ecclesiastics or were there laymen? (Answer: we think there were lay doctors as well, but schools that taught medical practices were probably all ecclesiastical). Were there signs for practitioners (the Caduceus was apparently not used in northern Europe, and the barber pole—representing the bandages and blood—was a later development, when ecclesiasticals were no longer allowed to do surgery, and the whole class of barber-surgeons was created). Were there medicine cases (probably, but certainly not the leather doctor cases we are used to, though there is one ambiguous reference to such a case during the time covered with rawhide). Were all physicians of the time male (probably predominantly, though there were of course female midwives, wise women and, if you read between the lines, probably female physicians).

I decided to set up a medical shop on the line, and the MoPs loved it, asking questions and being genuinely interested. I made a preliminary medical case (an altered wooden trunk from Michael’s) and filled it with books, bowls, a couple examples of the herbs and other ingredients that would have been used and, of course, the surgical tools. It was quite preliminary, and from its beginning, I was looking for ways to make a better presentation. The next installment deals with this evolution toward that better presentation!

Besides Pollington’s book, there are a few other worthwhile sources. A fine article on Norse medical practices is available from Christie Ward’s “Viking Answer Lady” site.  A very useful article on English ptactices may be found in Stanley Rubin’s “The Medical Practitioner in Anglo-Saxon England.”

Not really, but just as exciting!

The Norse first settled Ireland in Dublin–they founded it!–and at a site once believed to be lost. No more. “A year after test trenches were dug on the ‘virgin’ site, the results of radio-carbon testing on some of the artefacts recovered have confirmed that ‘Linn Duachaill’ exists and is perfectly preserved underneath farmland in Annagassan, Co Louth.”

Artifacts uncovered in initial explorations are going on display and include slave chains and whetstones, and more might be primed to show up! It could become one of the most important Viking sites not only in Ireland but in the world!

For further information, see http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/joy-as-mythic-viking-village-found-170117.html?fb_ref=.TpS8I0jozK4.like&fb_source=home_multiline

My impression is that of an eleventh century Anglo-Scandinavian, but like so many Anglo-Scandinavians, my persona story does not stop there. My character was from Iceland, and he traveled to various places in Scandinavia, Africa and, of course, America. Cheap pulp fantasy? To some extent, but look at the sagas, which tell of the diaspora of the Norse! They were a widely traveled people, probably more so than many of the peoples whom they traveled among.

In the story I tell of my character, he sailed to England soon after the St. Bryce Massacre to help relatives. Fólki is, like all other Icelanders of the time, Christian with heathen overtones, though he converted to Christianity before the Conversion. And that brings me to the subject of this entry in a round-about way.

Fenris cross

I wear the Wolf Cross. It has a wolf’s head (Fenris I’ve heard, and that is certainly an easy way to describe it; some prefer to call it a dragon), a stylized hammer (unlike the usual Thor’s Hammer of so many amulets) and what seems to me to be an obvious Christian cross carved into its center. Some liken the amulet to the inverted St. Peter’s cross. It dates from the tenth-century and was found in Fossi, Iceland. It is about 3×1.5 cm. I have found only a single example of the cross, but it almost certainly was not unique because it seems to be cast. I picked up my original copy in Iceland over twenty years ago, and the original artifact is in the National Museum in Reykjavik. I found a slightly larger version in a Goth shop a few years later (but lost it). Losing that later copy means that I am always looking for another copy in the right size. I like to refer to it to the MoPs as the “hedge your bets” cross, worn by a Christian of the time who might occasionally pray to Thor. People understand immediately, including a Lutheran minister who I talked to! There are doubts about this, of course. It might be a Christo-heathen cross. It might be a heathen version of the cross. It might be something else. My interpretation, though, is as valid as any of them and shared by a sizable number of experts!

There are many copies commercially available, but most of them are larger than the original. That is not unusual. At Pennsic fair this year, a person dressed as a “Viking” bragged that he wanted the biggest baddest Thor’s Hammer he could find to show what a big, bad Viking he was. It goes along with the width of belts and so much else. Modern people tend to think like modern people and don’t want the smaller period thing because it does not go with their idea of the size of artifacts of the era! In the case of this cross, most reproductions are about three times the size of the original.

This year at Pennsic, I found the large versions as well, and of course vendors who told me it was an exact duplicate (always know more than the vendors when shopping for accurate goods, it seems). But then in a nearby shop, next to an oversized Fenris Cross, I found a new version. The proper size, although the proportions were different than in the original. I had to make a decision, and it was easy. I prefer jewelry and other pieces of kit that are of the proper size, and the design of the amulet itself is not jarringly dissimilar, particularly when you take into account that modern mass manufacturing was an alien concept. Not finding a copy of that version cross, of course, is a drawback, and I will normally be wearing the replica of the original. The search goes on!

For a picture of the original, along with notes about it and other amulets, see http://www.seiyaku.com/customs/crosses/thor.html and a manufacturer has some notes on the manufacture of  its replica larger than the original (but certainly not as larger as some) at http://www.othalacraft.com/thors-hammer-also-called-wolf-cross.-p103.html.

The term “Anglo-Saxon” is, unfortunately, a charged term. Many people, and especially white racists, have quite wrongly equated it with white supremacy. Micel Folcland has felt this prejudice again and again. For example, at a recruiting gig two young white racists went by our booth, saw what we were doing and gave a white power salute, saying, “Way to show them darkies.” I explained Micel Folcland’s aracist stance, how we welcome members of other races and that there were probably members of the Norse society that were of different races themselves. They left, sullen and disappointed. I don’t think they were thinking of joining, and I wasn’t unhappy.

I could tell other stories. They’re all rather depressing and speak more to the worse aspects of humankind, so I’ll not. Rather, I shall commend you into the capable hands of Si Skellon.

Si Skellon, an erudite and witty fellow Regia member from the United Kingdom, has written a blog entry on the subject, and I thought it was an excellent look at the situation. Head on over to his blog, “A Rather English Viking,” and read his entry on “Anglo-Saxon: the Meaning, the Racism and the Reenactment.” Great work, Si! Can’t wait to see you climb on your soapbox again!

In his entry, Si makes reference to a Facebook group dealing with the subject of racism and reenacting. I’m a member as well, and I hope you’ll consider joining!