PENDANT

The object may be compared with a series of similar, early Viking-period, usually female figures of the 9^th century from Scandinavia and England, made either as items of jewellery in silver or gilded bronze, or occasionally carved in amber. They were also embroidered on textile hangings and resemble other figures incised on standing stones on the island of Gotland. The figures may be portrayed singly, with or without the addition of a spear or sword, or else (the female ones) in front of a warrior on horseback, either holding out a drinking-horn or beaker to him as a sign of welcome, or carrying a shield. It is generally thought that the women represent the valkyries of Norse myth, the maids of Odin who, on the one hand, acted as the guardians of young warriors, presenting them with splendid swords, but who, on the other, also chose who was to die in battle, welcoming the fallen warriors to Valholl, the hall of the slain, where they served them with mead and beer.

A bronze pendant in the form of a hooded human figure with a shield, spear and sword from Bourne, Lincs., provides the closest recorded English parallel to the Wickham Market find (The Searcher, issue for April 1993, fig. on p. 18). Examples of other related jewellery figures from Swedish locations such as Öland, Klinta, Birka and Tuna, including a male figure in a long tunic holding a sword and stave (from Birka) and also a brooch with an armed valkyrie in front of a mounted warrior from Hedeby (Haithabu), Germany, are illustrated by J. Graham-Campbell (1980), Viking Artefacts. A select catalogue (London), pls. 516-518; and in the article by H. Vierck (2002), “Zwei Amulettbilder als Zeugnisse des ausgehenden Heidentums in Haithabu”, pp. 9-67, in K. Schietzel (ed.), Das archäologische Fundmaterial VII [Berichte über die Ausgrabungen in Haithabu, vol. 34], Abb. 6, 1, 2b-6. Further examples of paired valkyries and mounted warriors are known from Bylaugh, Norfolk, Stentinget and Ribe, Denmark, from the Peterborough area, in the British Museum, and an unprovenanced, gilded silver brooch (S. Margeson (1997), The Vikings in Norfolk (Norfolk Museums Service), fig. 8; By, Marsk og Geest, vol. 5 (1992), pp. 42-3, figs. 3-4; British Museum, registration no. MME 1988,4-7,1; N. Mills (2001), Saxon & Viking Artefacts (Buxton), illust. on p. 56, no. V120). A human figure from the tapestry found in the celebrated early Viking-period ship-burial at Oseberg, Norway, apparently wearing a boar-headed head-dress and holding up a shield, as well as amber ‘valkyries’ from Kaupang and Longva, Norway, are also preserved (Vierck, op. cit.,  Abb. 6, 7;  C. Blindheim (1959),  “En amulet av rav”, Universitetets Oldsaksamling Årbok, 1958-1959, pp. 78-90).

Other contemporary illustrations of men dressed in long tunics include the rider on one of the circular mounts from Gokstad, Norway, and the seated warrior with sword on the late 9^th/early 10^th-century Nunburnholme cross-shaft, East Yorkshire (J. Graham-Campbell & D. Kidd (1980), The Vikings (London), fig. 90c, right; J. Lang (1991), Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, Vol. III, York and Eastern Yorkshire (Oxford), ills. 709, 713; references kindly supplied by Prof. J. Graham-Campbell). From the later Norse period in Scotland, a number of the male chess-pieces from the Isle of Lewis on display in the British Museum also wear ankle-length tunics, which were clearly part of the military costume of the time and not female attire. The Nunburnholme warrior wears a closely similar head-covering to the figure from the Wickham Market area, which may further indicate that the latter is also male. The dress ornaments noted above may have been worn as amulets.

The sculptural parallels suggest that the pendant from near Wickham Market is an Anglo-Scandinavian product. It is a reflection of the main Danish settlement in East Anglia after around 879 and can be dated to about this time, if not to later in the 9^th century.