Sutton Hoo on Google

"Sutton Hoo: Anglo-Saxon Ship Burial" is a virtual exhibit now on display at the Google Cultural Institute. It may be viewed at this link.

The Typochronology of Sword Pommels from the Staffordshire Hoard

"This paper consists of two parts. First, Svante Fischer will discuss the question of correlating typology and chronology into typochronology. Second, Jean Soulat will discuss the typology of the Staffordshire pommels and offer a preliminary date for the hoard. The authors are of the opinion that the sword pommels of the Staffordshire date from the early 6th century to the early 8th century.

The paper has been financed by the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities (KVHAA)."

The full text of this paper may be found at Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Anglo-Saxon gold pendant treasure

"A gold Anglo-Saxon pendant which was found in a village outside Canterbury has been determined to be treasure at an inquest.

Malcolm John Skeels made the discovery when he was metal detecting in Petham on November 1."

Read the full article at This Is Kent.

Free Kindle Download: The Isle of Many Gods

The Isles of the Many Gods - An A-Z of the Pagan Gods & Goddesses of Ancient Britain worshipped during the First millenium through to the Middle Ages, by Sorita d'Este and David Rankine. The Kindle edition of this work is currently a free download at Amazon UK. 

UK experts find 7th-century teen buried in her bed

Via Yahoo! News and the Associated Press:

"Archaeologists excavating near Cambridge have stumbled upon a rare and mysterious find: The skeleton of a 7th-century teenager buried in an ornamental bed along with a gold-and-garnet cross, an iron knife and a purse full of glass beads.
Experts say the grave is an example of an unusual Anglo-Saxon funerary practice of which very little is known. Just over a dozen of these "bed burials" have been found in Britain, and it's one of only two in which a pectoral cross — meant to be worn over the chest — has been discovered."

The full article may be read here.

Researchers collect DNA from men with possible links to York’s Viking past

(Thanks to Christy for finding this.)

"Men with Viking surnames filled the meeting room of New Earswick Folk Hall and queued to help research into the ethnic origins of the British people.

Academics were collecting DNA from men with Viking names to see if they are directly descended from the Scandanavian traders and seaman who once ruled York and Yorkshire."

Read the full article at the York Press.

Viking mass grave linked to elite killers of the medieval world

"A crew of Viking mercenaries – some of the fiercest and most feared killers in the medieval world – could be the occupants of a mysterious mass grave in the south of England, according to a new theory.
The intriguing hypothesis is being put forward in a documentary, Viking Apocalypse, which will premiere on National Geographic UK on Wednesday, 25 January, and attempts to piece together the identities of a group of men who were apparently the victims of a horrific mass execution around the turn of the 11th century." Read the full article at PhysOrg.com.

Barlaston Wassail: Celebrating an Anglo Saxon new year

"A village in Staffordshire is celebrating the new year with a procession in honour of its Anglo Saxon kings and heritage. ... Local historian Tim Cockin has organised a two-mile long, torch-lit procession from Barlaston in Staffordshire across the heathlands. ... Standard bearers will carry 12 Anglo-Saxon themed banners representing the 12 calendar months delivering wassail - meaning good cheer - as the Anglo-Saxon procession tours around the village." Read the full article at BBC News.

Wassail

A demonstration of the ancient custom of  wassailing, specifically that of the Orchard-Visiting wassail:




Some excerpts from Wikipedia's artcles on wassail and wassailing:

Some scholars prefer a pre-Christian explanation of the old traditional ceremony of wassailing. How far the tradition dates back is unknown but it has undeniable connections with Anglo-Saxon pagan ritual. Of recent times the word Wassail (from the Anglo-Saxon toast Wæs þu hæl, "be thou hale" — i.e., "be in good health") has come to be synonymous with Christmas. The word wassail is old English (OE) and so may predate the Norman conquest in 1066. According to the Oxford English Dictionary "waes hael" is the Middle English spelling parallel to OE "wes hal". The American Heritage Dictionary, fourth edition, gives Old Norse "ves heill" as the source of Middle English "waeshaeil". The correct response to the toast is Drinc hæl.
Christmas was not celebrated anywhere before the third century, and only gradually moved northwards through Europe. It was probably the Normans who brought the celebration to England. Traditionally, the wassail is celebrated on Twelfth Night (mostly regarded as January 6, but more properly the evening of January 5). However most people insist on wassailing on 'Old Twelvey Night' (January 17) as that would have been the correct date before the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752.



In the cider-producing West of England (primarily the counties of Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire) wassailing also refers to drinking (and singing) the health of trees in the hopes that they might better thrive.
An old rhyme goes: “Wassaile the trees, that they may beare / You many a Plum and many a Peare: / For more or lesse fruits they will bring, / As you do give them Wassailing.”
The purpose of wassailing is to awake the cider apple trees and to scare away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest of fruit in the Autumn.{"England In Particular", Common Ground 2007} The ceremonies of each wassail vary from village to village but they generally all have the same core elements. A wassail King and Queen lead the song and/or a processional tune to be played/sung from one orchard to the next, the wassail Queen will then be lifted up into the boughs of the tree where she will place toast soaked in Wassail from the Clayen Cup as a gift to the tree spirits (and to show the fruits created the previous year). Then an incantation is usually recited such as

Here's to thee, old apple tree, That blooms well, bears well. Hats full, caps full, Three bushel bags full, An' all under one tree. Hurrah! Hurrah!

Then the assembled crowd will sing and shout and bang drums and pots & pans and generally make a terrible racket until the gunsmen give a great final volley through the branches to make sure the work is done and then off to the next orchard. Perhaps unbeknown to the general public, this ancient English tradition is still very much thriving today. The West Country is the most famous and largest cider producing region of the country and some of the most important wassails are held annually in Carhampton (Somerset) and Whimple (Devon), both on 17 January (old Twelfth Night).

At Carhampton, near Minehead, the Apple Orchard Wassailing is held on the Old Twelfth Night (17 January) as a ritual to ask God for a good apple harvest. The villagers form a circle around the largest apple tree, hang pieces of toast soaked in cider in the branches for the robins, who represent the 'good spirits' of the tree. A shotgun is fired overhead to scare away evil spirits and the group sings, the following being the last verse:

Old Apple tree, old apple tree;

We've come to wassail thee;

To bear and to bow apples enow;

Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full;

Barn floors full and a little heap under the stairs.

Lamb's wool or lambswool is a variety of wassail made from ale, baked apples, sugar and spices. It is mentioned in Poet's Pub by Eric Linklater.

Next crowne the bowle full

With gentle Lambs wooll,

Adde sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,

With store of ale too,

And thus ye must doe

To make the Wassaile a swinger.

In ancient tradition, the first day of November was dedicated to the angel presiding over fruits, seeds, &c. and was named La Mas Ubhal, that is, the day of the apple fruit, and being pronounced lamasool. The English have corrupted the name to lamb's-wool.

Remnants of Revenants: The Role of the Dreaded Draugr in Medieval Iceland

Via Medievalists.net: "The term 'revenant' is a French term for ghost, derived from the verb revenir, 'to return.' The Icelandic term is more specific to the returning and violently unhappy dead: the feared draugr. These Scandinavian ghosts are almost always purely physical. They rise from the burial grounds (howes), bash the living, and generally make horrible nuisances of themselves until heroes overpower them and destroy their corpses for good. They owe their place in folklore to earlier Germanic literature: a heroic and supernatural tradition that shows up in the medieval Icelandic sagas and ghost stories from northern England."
Read the full article by Mistresss Caitlin Christiana Wintour at Caitlin's Crossroad.

Yorkshire Dales National Park reveals Anglo Saxon building

"The stone building, near Selside, North Yorkshire, was uncovered by members of the Ingleborough Archaeology Group. ... Samples of charcoal found in the soil floor were carbon dated. That revealed they date from between 660 and 780 AD." Full story is available at the BBC.

£32,000 to dig up evidence of the past

"A project to unearth Bingham’s past has received £32,000....Mr Peter Allen, the association’s chairman, said the project was designed to look for evidence of the original Anglo-Saxon core village and to show how the village grew and changed, right up to the 20th Century." Full article is available at the Newark Advertiser.