In the News

The currach I made at Lofotr got some press attention. It was published in the local paper Lofotposten. Here is the scanned article. I'm sorry for the curled paper causing the bad scanning.

Summing Up the Stay at Lofotr

For six weeks have I now worked as a craftsman at the Lofotr Viking Museum and I am now back in Trondheim. The total production of items (during work hours) was:

• 3 needles of whale bone.
• 1 needle of elk (moose) antler.
• 1 large fishing hook of cow bone.
• 1 medium sized fishing hook of elk (moose) antler.
• 1 engraved cloak pin of cow bone.
• 1 netting needle of cow bone.
• 1 engraved button of whale tooth.
• 1 coracle/currach.
• 2 hide scrapers of reindeer (caribou).
• 1 small engraving knife of iron.
• 3 slate sharpening stones.
• Hafting for a bowdrill bit of iron.
  

Unfinished projects:

• 4 metres of a 50 metres long salmon net of linen.
• A composite antler comb (reindeer/caribou antler).

Not much may some say, but keep in mind that this museum has on average around 500-700 visitors per day, making questions from the public a major occupation.

Some of the projects on the photo below.














A closeup of the cloak pin. Poor quality because of the bad light in the house.














The museum owns three viking boats. This is the larges one. Note the new horse head in the front, carved by Doreen Wehrhold.














Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to go back next year to finish the unfinished projects + do a number of new ones.

Sailing with a Viking Boat

Yesterday I was out on my second sailing with the small viking boat called "femkjeipingen" because of it has room for 5 rowers. This is a very quick boat, even for one person to row, so I imagine it would be excellent with five. Sailing is however of course more desirable. The wind this time was almost absent and changed direction all the time, but at the end of the trip we had very good wind. With it's large single sail this boat is very quick, but two people is really too little as you need more people to redistribute the weight in the boat as needed.

I sat on the rodder, while Flurin, a travelling blacksmith from Switzerland sat in the front. Note that this photo was taken when the wind conditions were less than optimal.














This is a boat I WANT! But I guess I have to make myself a large currach to sail instead.

Here is a photo of the chieftain's hall taken from distance.

Currach

I have learnt quite a bit from my the last currach/coracle/bullboat I made. On that one I did a lot of mistakes, most of which I managed to avoid this time. This site also gave me a lot of needed new inspiration.

First of all, what you need to get is a cow hide (or some other large animal). Making the frame takes about 1 day, but dehairing the hide in a stream takes substantially longer.

The frame is started by sticking a circle or semicircle of an equal number of rowan rods into the ground. They don't need to sit deep, but they should preferably be stuck to an angle outwards.














Next you start a special type of weaving where you bring in one and one rod so you get a type of diagonally overlapping weave. The currach site explains it better.














The secondary weaving is done in the ordinary fasion with one round at the time before starting an opposite one.














Bend the withies down and pull 2 and 2 over eachother. This will give the boat a slightly more rectangular or square appearance in the end. Tie the crosspoints with strong cordage or leather. There was in my case no need for it to be weighed down for the recommended 10 days.














Take the dehaired hide and stretch it gently on. Use the longer parts, the legs and such for rope and tie it to the frame. I didn't bother to cut the protruding points and they made it easier to tie the hide to the frame.














The currach ended up quite big and very stable. Here is a photo of two of the viking voluntaries, Brage (14) and Gaute (12), rowing the currach with oars.

Hide Scraper

Making this type of hide scraper is easy. First score around the edge of a reindeer/caribou "skovle" (what we call the flat pieces of the antler here). Brek off the irregular front and then score along the sides. As usual, using hot water will help you a lot. Split the piece along it's lenght. Tidy it up and make the lower edge sharp.














This type of scraper is quite effective, but the width is too large for my strength at least. Adding a long handle to it would make it better of course, since you then could put a lot of weight into it. It is used with a chopping motion, or by forcing the corners under though points. These scrapers were used to scrape both the flesh and hair side of the skin of the new coracle/currach/bullboat I've been making for the museum. A post about that will hopefully be up within very few days.

Viking Era Shoes

I've been to the Viking Museum Lofotr for over one month now. There I have been making quite a few items which I'll post over the next weeks. PS! A warning for the purists: These things are not made with stone tools only.

The shoes were made on an evening course run by viking era shoe maker Fanny Larsson (she makes shoes on order for those who are interested). Though they are a little too big for using without woolen socks they are very comfortable. The pattern is taken from Hedeby, currently in Germany, but formerly in Denmark.














I've used these types of shoes and my bare feet only now for almost 5 weeks straight and the 2 times I've tried on my modern shoes it has been an awful experience.