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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Of Salmon and Arm-Rings

Every word's a story.

Anyone who has ever tried to plow through Beowulf in the original Old English knows the word béag: “ring, circle.” It seems to occur on practically every page, so important was it to Anglo-Saxon culture.

The béag was the most important form of jewelry: not so much a ring for the finger, as an arm-ring, a neck-ring, a torc, a crown. Conferring wealth and status, it was also a basic form of currency. One's lord was preeminently a béag-gifa, a “ring-giver”: the lord as generous giver of gifts to his dright. Think of the Horned Drighten, his antlers hung with neck-rings.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • tehomet
    tehomet says #
    There's a town here in Ireland called Leixlip (salmon leap). It was founded by the Vikings a while back.
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    I love the way that ancestral foods connect us to...well, the ancestors. The land. the sea. And they've all got their own stories.
  • susan
    susan says #
    I read this with some interest being of Swedish ancestry. Gravlax is a prepared salmon often found on a smorasborg. While entertai
Stang-Smith: An Interview with Tveir Hrafnar's Aidan Wachter

The stang as icon has been around the Old Craft neck of the woods for decades (if not centuries) now, but the first (to the best of my knowledge, at any rate) to translate it into jewelry is silversmith Aidan Wachter of Tennessee. As even the most cursory glance at his on-line atelier Tveir Hrafnar (that's “Two Ravens,” for those of you who didn't happen to grow up speaking Old Norse) shows, his jewelry and sigils are characterized by bold, minimalist design and precision detailing.

Aidan, how did you come to silver-smithing?

I lucked into meeting and becoming good friends with symbolic jeweler Mark Defrates when I moved to New Orleans in the early 90’s. At one point he needed help in his shop and that is where I first learned the craft.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Thanks, Aidan. I've made the correction above as well. And just to add: if you think the picture above is beautiful, folks, just
  • Aidan
    Aidan says #
    Hi, this is Aidan Wachter- a friend just pointed out that the link above is broken. The address is: www.tveirhrafnar.com Thank yo

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