Dragon Hunting at the Viking Exhibition at the Norwich Castle Museum

I was looking for clues to give me a better understanding of what I think of as "my Hautbois font-base."
Detail from Hautbois font-base.

Bingo! I think I got the chap!  He turns up on a grit stone tomb slab from beneath York Minster (YorkM: 1993.713)


I imagine that it is on the basis of the next picture that the scene depicted is interpreted as slaying of the dragon Fafnir by Sigurd as recorded in the Volsunga Saga.


At this alarm bells should ring!  The Volsunga Saga is late 13th C. The earliest German versions of the story, in which Sigurd is called Siegfried,  begin in 12th C! 

A parallel story is told in the Anglo Saxon epic,  Beowulf -  a text that J.R.R. Tolkien argued must have come from the Conversion period, perhaps some date close to 700 C.E..

The York sculptures above are dated to the 10th C. Consequently they pre-date Scandinavian visual depictions of the story from 11th C onward by 100 years and the Volsunga Saga by 300 years. The Jelling Cup, from the time of Harald Bluetooth's  conversion to Christianity, in 965 C.E. much nearer in time and style.



Away from the Viking Exhibition, I also found depictions of our wyrm in the museum's general collection, particularly on book box and other fittings from North Elmham and Bawdsey. 


North Elmham church was founded by St. Felix.  Bawsey remained a monastic centre until the community was moved to St. Margaret's , Kings Lynn. But there is no evidence that our wyrms  come from a time earlier than the 11th C.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Day of the Rest of My Life

Image
 I have not posted much of late. I have been struggling. Between completing the pioneering work on a possible Withburga Way between Holkham and Dereham in the summer of 2022 and today my health has gone downhill in alarming way. I'll never walk the route in a couple of days, nor yet in 3.  I'll never walk it.  The rapid onset Pulmonary Fibrosis has left me struggling for breath putting my boots on let alone walking.  Yesterday, I went to St. Benet's Abbey , ate my picnic lunch in the car park and set myself the challenge of walking from the car park to the Abbey ruins. It is 0.35 miles and uphill all the way from from the Gate House to the old rugged cross that marks the site of the high altar at the summit. The hill looked quite daunting -  "Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?" I sang under by breath. Stopping often to catch my breath, slowly one foot in front of the other, I got closer to the summit. There before the cross, wind in my hair, it felt as i...
Read more

North Elmham

Image
I’d come to North Elmham pursuing a mystery. Did the Bishops of Elmham from Bedwinus in the 7th century to Herfast in the 11th have their cathedral in Norfolk or  Suffolk?  North or South Elmham? I’d followed a circular walk I’d found in the  Norfolk Health Heritage and Conservations Walks  leaflet (You can get hold of one from Norfolk County Council or on-line at www.countrysideaccess.norfolk.gov.uk .)  It took me through parkland,  along quiet lanes and ended up at the parish church  (Well worth a visit in its own right!) My final destination was indicated by a brown tourist sign. Uncompromisingly it asserts “Saxon Cathedral”! But when you get to the ruins and read English Heritage’s helpful interpretation boards there’s no certainty at all.  What you see are earthworks and  ruins of a castle built by Henry Despencer,  the fighting Bishop of Norwich. He was famous for putting down the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. A man not witho...
Read more

York Minster Pilgrimage

Image
The statue is of Constantine lolling in a chair, just outside York Minster’s south door. On the other side of a pedistrianised roadway one of the great columns of the Roman Garrison’s Principia building has been re-errected. As I stood and surveyed the scene I was very close to the place where in 306 CE the IX Legion proclaimed Constantine Emperor, the successor to his father Constantius. Before Constantine died in 337 CE he had converted to Christianity and the privileges and status that had once belonged to those who promoted the cult of the Divine Emperor fell to well placed churchmen. Some thought the privilege, power and status too much and retreated into the cleansing austerity of the desert. Other’s relished in it, climbing the dizzy heights of hierarchy and enthusiastically taking over Imperial Rome’s loveof monumental buildings pouring endless resources into the building, beautifying and maintenance of Christain basilicas. I am inclined to say, “This is where,...
Read more