Warding Evil and Welcoming Luck: Protective Amulets of the Ancient World

Ancient Origins

In the past, human life was vulnerable to disaster; Disease, wars, famine, natural disasters and many other factors could easily claim the lives of individuals. For this reason, people sought all kinds of protection they could get their hands on. This also implied protection of the supernatural sort. Amulets were the most widespread protection of this kind.

 People would go to witches, wizards or specialized merchants who knew how to make such objects, and sold them—sometimes at quite a high price. However, people used to pay because protection of their lives was more valuable to them than money. Made out of wood, metal, clay, stone or other materials, many amulets have survived up to the present day. They display a wide range of symbolism which fascinates even the modern man.

Turtle shaped amulet, Sioux People of North America. (1880-1920) “Decorated with beading, this turtle-shaped amulet made from animal hide is thought to contain an umbilical cord. The amulet was worn by girls until they reached puberty, to ward off illness. In many Native American belief systems, turtles were thought to look after women's diseases.” (Wellcome Trust/ CC BY-SA 4.0 )

Making Magic and Producing Protection
 It was believed magic was a source of protection to those who needed it. Thus, a multitude of amulets and talismans appeared, each with different uses. The creation of an amulet was a ritual in itself and an amulet could only be made by an initiate. Each amulet was based on a symbol and among the most well-known amulets are: the Ankh, the Yin-Yang, the pentagram, the Chinese symbol of luck, the nazar, the mystic knot, the all-seeing eye and the Egyptian scarab.

The Ankh (held in the right hand), during the reign of Hatshepsut (1508–1458 BC) ( Public Domain )

 The symbol of Egyptian sovereigns par excellence, the Ankh is the symbol of eternal life. It was placed in the sarcophagus of all Egyptian pharaohs in order to provide protection and to offer them the chance to live forever in the afterlife. Also, the Ankh was proof of the power and rank of the Pharaoh. Another symbol of Egyptian sovereigns, the scarab symbolized long life. Also, it was believed to possess the power of transformation, and when used as a hieroglyph it meant “to come into being by taking on a given form,” “to be”, and “to become.”

Universal Harmony
The symbol of universal harmony and of the perpetual laws of the universe, the Yin-Yang represents unity in diversity. It was thought that where there is light, there will always be darkness, and where there is darkness, light will also follow. Yin represents the dark, feminine element, while the Yang is the bright, the masculine. From the opposition of the two forces, results universal harmony.

The Yin Yang symbol. (Flickr/ CC BY 2.0 )

The pentagram has been a very powerful mystic symbol since the dawn of time. It was believed to defend its bearer from all evil and attract good fortune. All these qualities were due to the fact that an element was associated with each corner of the pentagram. Thus, the elements united together attracted beneficial influences.

The five-pointed pentagram symbol. (Flickr/ CC BY 2.0 )

Good Fortune
The Chinese character for good luck appears as an amulet in many forms. It even now appears on medallions, on buildings, in traditional Chinese calligraphy paintings and in many other examples. It was felt that by wearing this letter, luck was attracted.

A papercut showing the luck character Fú written in 100 different ways. ( CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Warding Evil
The Nazar or “the blue eye” was thought to have the power to protect against the evil eye and to reject negative energies. This symbol may even now be worn as an amulet, but it can also be seen on airplanes, buildings, cars or in other places.

Left, the blue Nazar ( CC BY 2.0 ), and right, the Ruby Eye Pendant from an ancient Mesopotamia ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ). Many amulets were used to protect against the evil eye.

Originally from Tibet, the mystic knot represented the Samsara, the eternal cycle of reincarnation. Also, it represented unlimited wisdom and the strong connection between knowledge and applied method. A powerful symbol, it was believed to attract the benevolent energies of the ancestors to their descendants.

The all-seeing eye was thought to have the power to provide knowledge. It was said to see and reflect the past, the present, and the future. Because knowledge is power, legend the one who had it could become the most powerful man on earth.

Maneki Neko is a popular cat symbol with its raised paw meant to invite good luck. The higher the paw is in the air, the greater the invited luck. Also, it sometimes holds a Koban, a Japanese coin meant to ensure financial luck. Widely used in Feng Shui, Chinese coins with lucky symbols are believed to attract financial luck. In most cases, they have represented on them a dragon alone, or a dragon and a tiger together, in order to attract the positive energies of these two mythological beings.

Left, a Maneki Neko or Lucky Cat ( CC BY 2.0 ), and right, a Koban coin ( CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Throughout human history a multitude of magical rituals were conducted for different purposes and intentions. Magic rituals led to the appearance of magical objects such as amulets which are still believed to have different warding or welcoming properties, and are thought to be able to help the wearer in various regards. All these have improved man’s life or, at least, they have given him the feeling that he is under the influence of divine protection.

Featured image: Amulet of a Ba. Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 332-30 B.C. Jewelry and Adornments; amulets. Gold with inlays of lapis lazuli, turquoise, and steatite. (Public Domain)

 By: Valda Roric

Tyr: The Norse God of Law and War Breaks a Promise

Ancient Origins

The Norse god Tyr is not very well-known, at least when compared to such names as Odin and Thor. But he is also part of the Aesir tribe in the Norse pantheon and Tyr could be called the bravest of the Norse gods. This aspect of his personality is evident in the best-known myth about him, the Binding of Fenrir.

 Tyr - God of Justice, War, and Law
 Tyr was once a major god widely worshipped by various Germanic peoples and there were several variations to his name. In Old English, for instance, he was known as Tiw, whilst Tyz was his name in Gothic. In the pantheon of these Germanic peoples, Tyr was regarded to be a god of war. Given the war-like culture of these peoples, Tyr would have been one of their most important deities.

 The role of Tyr diminished, however, with the arrival of the Viking Age, as he was superseded by Odin and Thor. These two gods were also associated with war, though they were also associated with wisdom, strategy, and cunning. As a result, Tyr was overtaken by Odin and Thor in importance.

The Norse god Týr, here identified with Mars. ( Public Domain )

 Tyr became the god of law and justice, the role which he is remembered for today. Whilst war and law seem to be two contradicting aspects of life, to the Norse and other Germanic peoples, these two aspects are actually intertwined. Law, like war, may be used to settle disputes, and victory may be gained over an opponent using either method. Additionally, a legal assembly could be regarded metaphorically as a battlefield.

The Binding of Fenrir
Tyr is easily recognized as he is depicted as a god with only one hand. The explanation for this is found in the myth known as the Binding of Fenrir, arguably the most famous tale regarding Tyr. In this myth, the gods wanted to bind the great wolf Fenrir. This monstrous wolf was one of the three offspring of Loki, and the gods had been keeping him in Asgard since he was a puppy in order to keep an eye on him. As Fenrir continued to grow, the gods began to worry that they would not be able to keep him in their home and, fearing that he would wreak havoc if he left Asgard, they planned to have the creature bound up.

Tyr. ( CC BY SA ) 

The gods, therefore, began to bind Fenrir with various ropes and chains. In order to obtain Fenrir’s consent to being tied up, the gods told the wolf that these bindings were meant to test his strength. Each time Fenrir broke free, the gods cheered and clapped, though in their hearts, they were growing increasingly worried. Eventually, the gods decided to seek the help of the dwarves, the best blacksmiths available, to produce a rope or chain that not even the great wolf would be able to break free from. As a result, Gleipir was formed. This was a light and silky rope made from several rather odd ingredients – the sound of a cat’s footsteps, the beard of a woman, the roots of a stone, the breath of a fish, and the spittle of a bird.

Tyr and Fenrir. ( Hellanim)

Consequences
When Fenrir saw the rope, he became suspicious, and would only allow the gods to tie him up on the condition that one of them placed his hand in his jaw as a sign of good faith. Despite knowing the consequences of his actions, Tyr volunteered to place his hand in the wolf’s mouth. Tyr had befriended Fenrir when he was still a pup and was known to be an honorable god, and so the wolf trusted him. When Fenrir found that he had been tricked, and that he could not break loose from Gleipnir, he was furious, and bit Tyr’s hand off. Tyr lost not only a hand, but also a friend.

Tyr and Fenrir. ( Public Domain )

Fenrir would be bound until Ragnarok, when he would break free from Gleipnir and devour Odin. As for Tyr, he would face Garm, the guard dog of Hel, and both would succeed in killing each other.

Top Image: Tyr, Gleipnir and Fenrir. Source: Wolnir

By Wu Mingren

The Day of St Patrick and the myth of snakes being cast out of Ireland

Ancient Origins

Today marks Saint Patrick’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick, a cultural and religious holiday celebrated every year on 17th March in Ireland and by Irish communities around the world. The celebration marks the anniversary of Saint Patrick’s death in the fifth century and represents the arrival of Christianity in the country. The Irish have observed this day as a holiday for over 1,000 years, and while the festival began as a religious feast day for the patron saint of Ireland, today it has become an international celebration of Irish culture.

Over the centuries, the mythology surround the life of Saint Patrick has become ever more ingrained in the Irish culture. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is credited with expelling all the snakes from Ireland, and today, not a single snake can be found there. But the true meaning of the casting away of all snakes runs much deeper.

Saint Patrick was born in Roman Britain in the 4th century AD, into a wealthy family. According to the Declaration, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders at the age of sixteen and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland. There he spent six years working as a shepherd and during this time he “found God”. The Declaration says that God told Patrick to flee to the coast, where a ship would be waiting to take him home. After making his way home, Patrick went on to become a priest.

According to tradition, Patrick returned to Ireland to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity. The Declaration, a Latin letter which is generally accepted to have been written by St Patrick, says that he spent many years preaching in the northern half of Ireland and converted "thousands". Tradition holds that he died on 17 March and was buried at Downpatrick. Over the following centuries, many legends grew up around Patrick and he became Ireland's foremost saint. While his true name was Maewyn Succat, he later became known as St Patrick, named after his place of burial.

The symbol of the shamrock
On St Patrick's Day it is customary to wear shamrocks and green clothing. St Patrick is said to have used the shamrock, a three-leaf clover, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish. This story first appears in writing in 1726, though it may be older. In pagan Ireland, three was a significant number and the Irish had many triple deities. The triple spiral symbol, or Triskelion, appears at many ancient megalithic and Neolithic sites in Ireland. It is carved into the rock of a stone lozenge near the main entrance of the prehistoric Newgrange monument in County Meath, Ireland. Newgrange, which was built around 3200 BC, predated the Celtic arrival in Ireland but has long since been incorporated into Celtic culture.

An Irish shamrock on the left, and the triple spiral symbol on the right.

 St Patrick banishes the snakes from Ireland
The absence of snakes in Ireland gave rise to the legend that they had all been banished by St. Patrick chasing them into the sea after they attacked him during a 40-day fast he was undertaking on top of a hill. However, all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes. Water has surrounded Ireland since the end of the last glacial period, preventing snakes from slithering over; before that, it was blanketed in ice and too chilly for the cold-blooded creatures. Scholars believe the snake story is an allegory for St Patrick’s eradication of pagan ideology.

The snake was the symbol of the Celts and their spiritual elite, the Druids - who inhabited the island of Ireland long before the arrival of Christianity in the 5th century AD. When Patrick arrived, the only “pesky and dangerous creatures” that St Patrick wished to cast away were the native Celts.

Since snakes often represent evil in literature, "when Patrick drives the snakes out of Ireland, it is symbolically saying he drove the old, evil, pagan ways out of Ireland [and] brought in a new age," said classics professor Philip Freeman of Luther College in Iowa.

An Image depicting St Patrick casting the snakes into the sea. Image source

St Patrick features in many stories in the Irish oral tradition and there are many customs connected with his feast day. Over the centuries, these traditions have been given new layers of meaning – the symbolic resonance of the St Patrick figure stretches from that of Christianity’s arrival in Ireland to an identity that encompasses everything Irish.

Today, St Patrick is a patriotic symbol along with the colour green and the shamrock. St. Patrick's Day celebrations include many traditions that are known to be relatively recent historically, but have endured through time because of their association either with religious or national identity.

Modern-day celebrations of St Patrick’s Day

Featured image: St Patrick banishes the snakes. Image source.

 By April Holloway

Britannia, Druids and the Surprisingly Modern Origins of Myths

Ancient Origins

The new TV series Britannia, which has won plaudits as heralding a new generation of British folk-horror, is clearly not intended to be strictly historical. Instead director Jez Butterworth gives us a graphic re-imagining of Britain on the eve of the Roman conquest. Despite its violence and chaos, this is a society bound together by ritual under the head Druid (played by Mackenzie Crook). But where does this idea of pre-conquest British religion come from?

 Contemporary sources of the period are very thin on the ground and were mainly written by Britain’s Roman conquerors. No classical text provides a systematic account of Druidical ritual or belief. In fact, little was written at length for hundreds of years until William Camden, John Aubrey and John Toland took up the subject in the 1500s and 1600s. But it took later antiquarians, including William Stukeley writing in 1740, as well as William Borlase in 1754 and Richard Polwhele in 1797, to fully develop their thinking.

Popular ideas of pre-Roman Britain today are derived from their elaborate Druidical theories: the bearded Druid, possessor of arcane knowledge, the stone circles, the ritualistic use of dew, mistletoe and oak leaves in dark, wooded groves, and the ultimate horror of human sacrifice and the bacchanalia that followed.

MacKenzie Crook as head Druid Veran in Britannia. (Sky Atlantic)

Ancient disputes
The antiquarians were a disputatious lot and their debates can seem baffling, but underpinning them were fundamental questions about the first settlement of the British Isles and its religious history. In particular, the antiquarians asked if ancient Britons were monotheistic, practising a “natural” religion awaiting Christian “revelation”, or polytheistic idolaters who worshipped many false gods.

The answer to this question determined how the antiquarians understood the monumental stone structures left by this past culture. Were Stonehenge, Avebury or the antiquarian riches of Devon and Cornwall not just relics of idolatry and irreligion but also evidence of the supposed hold the Celts once had over the land? Conversely, if the stone circles and other relics were evidence of the struggle by an ancient people to make sense of the one true God before Roman Catholicism corrupted their beliefs (remember these antiquarians were all Protestant thinkers), then a God-fearing Englishman could claim them as a part of his heritage.

Stukeley believed Britain’s first settlers were eastern Mediterranean seafarers – the so-called Phoenicians – and they brought Abrahamic religion with them. In studies of Stonehenge (1740) and Avebury (1743), he argued that the ancient peoples descended from these first settlers lost sight of these beliefs but retained a core grasp of the fundamental “unity of the Divine Being”. This was represented in stone circles, so “expressive of the nature of the deity with no beginning or end”.

By this reading, Druidical veneration of heavenly bodies, the Earth and the four elements was not polytheism but the worship of the most extraordinary manifestations of this single deity. Moreover, that this worship was conducted in the vernacular and relied on the development of a teaching caste intended to enlighten the people meant that Druidical religion was the forerunner of Protestantism.

Sacred site. (Sky Atlantic)

Borlase, surveying Cornwall’s antiquities, rejected much of this. He scoffed at Stukeley’s Phoenician theories, saying it was illogical that Britain’s first people were overseas traders, and he argued that Druidism was a British invention that crossed the channel to Gaul. Borlase reckoned patriotic French antiquarians, convinced Gauls and Druids had resisted Roman tyranny, were reluctant to admit that “their forefathers [were] indebted so much to this island”.

But was Druidism something to be proud of? By drawing on classical, Biblical and contemporary sources, Borlase developed an elaborate account of the Druids as an idolatrous priesthood who manipulated the ignorance of their followers by creating a sinister air of mystery.

 According to Borlase, Druidical ritual was bloody, decadent, immoral stuff, with plenty of sex and booze, and only compelling in atmospheric natural settings. Druidical power rested on fear and Borlase implied that Catholic priests, with their use of incense, commitment to the Latin mass and superstitious belief in transubstantiation, used the same techniques as the Druids to maintain power over their followers.

Going over old ground
 Poems such as William Mason’s Caractatus (1759) helped popularise the idea that the Druids led British resistance to the invading Romans – but by the 1790s sophisticated metropolitan observers treated this stuff with scorn. Despite this, Druidical theories retained much influence, especially in south-west England. In Polwhele’s histories of Devonshire (1797), he wrote of Dartmoor as “one of the principal temples of the Druids”, as evident in iconic Dartmoor sites such as Grimspound, Bowerman’s Nose and Crockern Tor.

Most important were the “many Druidical vestiges” centred on the village of Drewsteignton, whose name he believed was derived from “Druids, upon the Teign”. The cromlech, known as Spinsters’ Rock, at nearby Shilstone Farm invited much speculation, as did the effect achieved by the “fantastic scenery” of the steep-sided Teign valley.

Spinsters’ Rock, Dartmoor. Matthew Kelly, Author provided

Polwhele’s influence was felt in Samuel Rowe’s A Perambulation of Dartmoor (1848), the first substantial topographical description of the moor. Many Victorians first encountered Dartmoor through Rowe’s writings but the discussion of these texts in my history of modern Dartmoor shows that a new generation of preservationists and amateur archaeologists did not take Druidical theories very seriously.

For the late Victorian members of the Devonshire Association and the Dartmoor Preservation Association, scepticism was a sign of sophistication. If an earlier generation had detected Druidical traces in virtually all Dartmoor’s human and natural features, these men and women were more likely to see evidence of agriculture and domesticity. Grimspound, once a Druidical temple, was now thought to be a cattle pound.

Despite Protestant hopes during the Reformation that superstitious beliefs associated with landscape features would be banished, the idea that the landscape holds spiritual mysteries that we know but cannot explain, or that the stone circles of antiquity stimulate these feelings, remains common enough. Indeed, Protestantism came to terms with these feelings and the Romantics saw the beauties of the British landscape as the ultimate expression of God’s handiwork.

 Britannia recalls Robin of Sherwood (1984-6), with its mystical presentation of the English woodland and, of course, the BBC comedy Detectorists, that delicate exploration of middle-aged male friendship against the rustle of rural mysticism. A sense of spiritual presence can also inflect the British landscapes of the New Nature Writing.

But Butterworth is working according to an older tradition. Rather like his antiquarian predecessors, he has created a largely imagined universe from some scattered classical references and a great deal of accumulated myth and legend. Whether Britannia will re-enchant the British landscape for a new generation of television viewers is impossible to say, but my hunch is that those lonely stones up on the moors, such as the Grey Wethers or Scorhill on Dartmoor, are going to attract a new cohort of visitors.

Top image: Zoe Wanamaker in TV series ‘Britannia’. Source: Sky Atlantic

The article ‘Britannia, Druids and the Surprisingly Modern Origins of Myths’ by Matthew Kelly was originally published on The Conversation and has been republished under a Creative Commons license.

Icelander Sagas May Have More Truth to Them than You Think

Ancient Origins

Myths and legends – purely the creation of creative and imaginative minds, right? Not necessarily. Numerous stories, sagas, and texts from the ancient past have been proven to hold facts. For example, a 2013 study validates an intriguing idea presented in the Icelander Sagas - Vikings were probably less brutal than many people assume.

From its beginnings in Greece, the word mythos, English ‘myth’, was rooted in truth. In Greek it means ‘word’, ‘tale’, or ‘true narrative.’ The Greek word is also closely tied to myo, which means ‘to teach’, or ‘to initiate into the mysteries’. When Homer composed his works such as The Iliad he had the idea in mind that myth conveys truth.

A page from a skin manuscript of Landnámabók, a primary source on the settlement of Iceland.
( Public Domain )

 About 400 years later, myths had become known as fiction, superstition, and fantasy. They were considered symbolic, not factual, as the concept of truth was picked apart by science and philosophy.

Nonetheless, the original meaning of the word myth came back again as archaeology and research have proven many legendary stories from the past hold truth at their core. For example, the once legendary city of Troy has been found, and many sea monsters drawn on ancient maps have been identified as real animals, such as giant squid, walruses, and dugongs.

Truth in can be found in the Icelandic Sagas as well. For instance, a so-called ‘magical gem’ known as a Viking Sunstone was once used to navigate the seas. It is spoken of in the sagas and has been proven to be a real crystal made of a calcite substance. This type of stone has been found in a shipwreck. Viking artifacts discovered on an island of Denmark show the legendary city of Lejre, discussed in “myth” actually existed.

A calcite crystal found on an Elizabethan ship believed to have helped the Vikings navigate the seas. Credit: The Natural History Museum

The Icelandic Sagas provide insight on Scandinavian and Germanic history. They discuss early Viking voyages and battles that occurred while at sea, provide information on migration to Iceland, and mention feuds that took place between Iceland’s earliest families.

Norsemen landing in Iceland. ( Public Domain )

These stories were written between 1100 and 1300 AD in the Old Norse language. Most of the tales were written on Iceland, but some refer to the lives of people who lived before 1000 AD. The majority of the stories are written in a realistic way, but some are embellished with fictional elements. Nevertheless, they all deal with human beings in a way you can understand.

Gettir is ready to fight in this illustration from a 17th-century Icelandic manuscript.
 ( Public Domain )

In 2013, a study published in the European Physical Journal provided a thorough analysis of the relationships discussed in the Icelandic Sagas. It showed a world of complex social networks and challenged the typical view of Vikings as savage people.

By following the interactions of over 1,500 characters that appear in 18 sagas, including five famous epic tales, the researchers from the University of Coventry found that the ‘saga society’ parallels what is found in a real social network. This supports the idea that the Icelandic Sagas were based on reality, though with some fictional distortion at times.

The saga museum contains figures like these which tell the history of early Iceland - the saga age. (Jeffery Simpson/ CC BY NC SA 2.0 )

 Top Image: King Haraldr hárfagri receives the kingdom out of his father's hands. From the 14th century Icelandic manuscript Flateyjarbók. Source: Public Domain

By April Holloway

Dissolving Myths: Vikings Did NOT Hide Behind Shield Walls

Ancient Origins

By ThorNews

According to Rolf Warming, an archaeologist and researcher at the University of Copenhagen, the Vikings did not use shield walls in combat. A typical Viking shield was relatively small and light, and used as an active weapon.

– There is a widespread misunderstanding among Viking enthusiasts and us archaeologists that the Vikings have been standing shield-by-shield forming a close formation in battle, Warming said to the Danish research portal videnskap.dk.

His research results are supported by archaeological finds, written texts and known Viking fighting techniques that were based on surprise, speed and weapon skills.

Warming, who is also the founder of the Society for Combat Archaeology, has studied how the Vikings fought in battle. He finds no evidence of the use of shield walls in medieval texts or through practical tests.

 – The shield wall we see in the popular TV series “Vikings” or “The Last Kingdom” is very nicely made, but unfortunately not true.

Individual Warriors
Among other facts, his theory is based upon an archaeological experiment where Warming equipped with armor, helmet and copies of old Viking shields tested different combat situations against an opponent armed with a sharp sword.

The shield was severely damaged when it was used the same way as in a shield wall, but when Warming used it actively to avoid direct hits from his opponent, the damage was considerably less.

The archaeologist believes that there must have been far more disadvantages than advantages by using shield walls and that the thin and relatively light Viking shields would not have lasted very long.

In addition to the practical tests, the researcher also reviewed a number of historical sources from the Viking Age and the Middle Ages.

He did not find any descriptions of Viking shield walls.

Warming concludes that the Vikings probably fought the enemy actively using their shields, either to avoid being hit by swords or axes, or to hit the enemy with the edge.

Sixty-Four Painted Shields
In 2010, an almost complete hand-held shield was excavated at the Trelleborg Viking ring fortress dated to the reign of Harold Bluetooth of Denmark (c. 958 – 986 AD). So far, this is the only complete shield found in Denmark dating back to the Viking Age.

Fragments from the Trelleborg shield put together. (Photo: National Museum of Denmark)

With a diameter of 85 centimeters, eight millimeters thick near the center and thinning to five millimeters at the edges, the Trelleborg shield was relatively light.

It is made of seven fir planks, has a hole in the middle and a moderately decorated handle. Originally there must have been a boss, but it was never found.

 If the Trelleborg shield was typical for the Viking Age, it was originally covered with animal skin to make it stronger, and it was probably painted in bright colors.

 In addition to the finding at Trelleborg, there were also found complete shields in the Gokstad ship mound in Norway. The Viking ship was excavated together with a large number of grave goods including sixty-four round shields painted in blue or yellow used as a so-called shield rack to protect the crew against incoming arrows and spears.

Two of the sixty-four shields from the Gokstad ship, thirty-two on each side. Every second was painted in yellow or black and the longship must have been a magnificent sight. (Photo: Museum of Cultural History, Oslo)

The Gokstad shields are like the shield found at Trelleborg - relatively thin - and research has shown that they would easily split when struck with arrows, swords and axes.

This strengthens the theory that they were originally covered with animal skin: The skin shrinks a little when it dries out, something that increases the strength.

By using animal skin, it was also possible to use relatively thin pieces of wood and thereby keep the weight as low as possible.

However, the shields were not strong enough (or big enough) to withstand multiple hits from swords and axes in a shield wall – something that confirms Warming’s theory.

 Combat Techniques
 It is known that the Vikings used a wide range of combat techniques. One of these is the so-called svinfylking (”Swine Array” or “Boar’s Snout”), a version of the wedge formation used to attack and break through enemy shield walls with an ax as the primary weapon, something that was creating fear and panic.

Svinfylking – sketche

The disadvantage of the svinfylking technique is that it would not work if the attackers had to make a quick retreat.

The Norse sagas also confirm the Viking mentality: Norsemen were fearless warriors who did not hide behind shield walls while they waited for the enemy to attack.

Top image: Illustration of a Viking shield wall (unknown artist)

The article ‘Dissolving Myths: Vikings Did NOT Hide Behind Shield Walls’ by Thor Lanesskog was originally published on ThorNews and has been republished with permission.

8 Viking myths busted

History Extra

An image of Viking sailors making the voyage across the Atlantic between Europe and America. One sailor is seen wearing a horned helmet. In reality, says Janina Ramirez, Viking helmets would have been simple skullcaps. Painting by NC Wyeth, c1350. (Image by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Viking Age stretched from the ninth to the 11th century. During this time Viking culture had a huge impact on great swathes of Europe, Asia, Africa and even America – many centuries before Columbus sailed the oceans. They could navigate the known world and commanded respect wherever they went. Yet the Vikings are surrounded by myths. Here are eight of them busted…

 Myth 1: They wore horned helmets
Let’s get this out of the way straight off. There is no evidence that the Vikings wore horned helmets, and nothing like this has ever been discovered in any archaeological dig. They certainly wore helmets but they would have been simple skullcaps, designed to protect the head from impact. Having a pair of horns on your head in battle would not have been helpful if warriors were striking at you with clubs, swords or axes.

 The helmet plaques from Sutton Hoo and Vendel suggest that god-like warriors donned helmets with protruding ‘horns’ (although these are actually hook-beaked birds), but the Viking raiders and traders did not.

 The modern idea of Vikings in horned helmets originated in the 19th century, but it was Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle [a cycle of four operas by the German composer based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas] that seared it into the modern imagination. Costume designer Carl Emil Doepler (1824–1905) created horned helmets in the 1870s for the Viking characters, and so the myth was born. Numerous cartoonists, filmmakers and artists have continued this fantasy right up to the present day.

Detail of a Viking helmet from grave one at Vendel, Uppland, Sweden, 7th century. In the Swedish History Museum’s collection in Stockholm. (Photo by CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)

 Myth 2: They were a defined group – ‘The Vikings’
The term ‘Viking’ comes from Old Icelandic ‘Viking-r, a creek-dweller’. The Viken was the primary mercantile region of Norway, so it is possible that this apparently homogenous group of people got their name from the extensive trading they undertook out of their busy ports. The word ‘Viking’ later becomes synonymous with ‘naval raids/naval expeditions’ and begins to function more as a verb. Individuals or groups would go ‘a-Viking’, which would mean they would leave their native lands during the warmer summer months, travelling in longboats to regions where they could trade and raid.

 Contemporary writers don’t use the term ‘Viking’ to speak of a group of people. Instead they referred to Norse Men, people from the North, or simply pagans (remember, those recording events were usually Christian scribes). What’s more misleading still is that ‘Viking’ has been used to denote the entire Scandinavian region, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Each of these regions was governed by different leaders and they would have seen themselves as distinct from one another. 

These were also very varied landscapes. The more northern regions, particularly the mountainous areas of Norway, were difficult to farm because of hostile weather, while southern parts, in the plains of Denmark, were more fertile. There were occasions when Scandinavian rulers combined their forces for greater military might, but the term ‘Viking’ is like describing all ‘Northern Europeans’ as the same.

 Myth 3: They were extremely violent
The Vikings earned a place in history due to their protracted raids on often vulnerable monastic sites. Populated by literate scribes, these were the worst places to attack if you wanted a good record in Christian historical documents. Alcuin of York wrote to Bishop Higbald, declaring: “Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. . . .The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.”

 There is certainly evidence of the violent means Vikings used to suppress people, particularly in Britain. Many skeletons have been found with the instruments of their death still wedged in their bones. A skeleton in the North Hertfordshire Museum has a Viking spear head stuck in its neck. However, while some Vikings clearly deserved their reputation as ‘wolves of war’, others lived peaceful existences – farming, trading and integrating across the four continents that they settled. 

What’s more, these were violent times, and the Vikings’ aggression was matched or exceeded by other groups during this period. One of the most famous names of the early medieval period, Emperor Charlemagne, carried out a form of genocide on people in Saxony. In the ‘Massacre of Verden’ in AD 782 his army murdered more than 4,500 Saxons who had been given to him by an ally. This was violence at its most stark. And yet, because Charlemagne had a Christian biographer writing a favorable account of his life, was killing pagans and was seen as ‘father of the church’, his place in history was secure.

11th-century stained glass representing Emperor Charlemagne c800 in Saint-Saulge, France. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystine via Getty Images)

 Myth 4: They took what they wanted and sailed away
 Finds from Scandinavia do indicate that many Vikings pillaged the places they reached, bringing back coins from across the known world to be buried in hoards back in their homelands. However, many chose to remain in the lands they encountered, establishing lasting and important settlements. 

One of the earliest and most extensive Viking settlements was Dublin, established by AD 841. Dublin grew into an industrially strong city with a thriving port and a mint where the first Irish coins were made. It wasn’t just Dublin that changed and developed under the Vikings. In York, the Anglo-Saxon city was relocated further towards the mouth of the river and settled by Vikings as a new and vibrant town – Jorvik. Iceland owes its settlement almost entirely to Vikings, under Ingólfr Arnanson in AD 874.

 Normandy is another example of how Viking settlement could grow from violence into peaceful settlement. The Normans got their name from being ‘north-men’, yet they were given land in the north of France by king Charles III (aka Charles the Simple, 879–929) in an attempt to keep further Viking attacks at bay. Charles even gave his daughter to the Norwegian chieftain Rollo [who gained Normandy from Charles the Simple] in marriage, and the Viking settlers soon embraced French language and culture to develop into a new breed of conquerors.

Decorative Viking hoard cup made from gold and decorated with animals and foliate patterns. Found buried in England. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

 Myth 5: They were godless pagans
They say history is written by the victors, but in the case of the Vikings, history is written by Christians. This meant that while few accounts of Viking religion survive, there are many documents written by Christian scribes that describe them as pagan and godless. This is not supported by the information we can glean from archaeology and later Scandinavian texts.

 Viking religion was structured, hierarchical and based on a number of established narratives. It was not a religion of the book, and the mythology was transmitted orally. The Vikings didn’t practise their religion in temples but rather, like the ancient Celts, held places like groves and rivers sacred. It seems that priests were involved in religious ceremonies, and these were drawn from the heads of families. Priestly office was one of the honours bestowed on kings. The priest would perform sacrifices, either of objects, animals or people.

 Viking cosmology differentiated between life on Earth – Midgard – and other spiritual realms. The gods were thought to inhabit Asgard, while the sacred tree Ysgadrill stretched its roots to the lands of the gods, giants and the dead. There were at least six realms, with a special place reserved for warriors – Valhalla.

 Myth 6: They were ignorant and illiterate barbarians
The Vikings were not the ignorant and illiterate barbarians that Christian writers of the time believed them to be. While they didn’t write long texts like the Sagas until later in the Viking Age, they had developed a complex script – runes – that was loaded with symbolism. Each letter in the runic alphabet was also connected with a word; the ‘f’ rune was called ‘feoh’, which meant ‘wealth’ or ‘cattle’ – this makes sense within a barter society, as cattle hides were a way of measuring wealth. 

Runes could carry spiritual meaning too, and texts record how certain runes were connected with specific gods or goddesses. Rune stones included lengthy dedications and personal names. Smaller inscriptions survive on personal items like combs and weapons.

 Far from illiterate barbarians, the Vikings were some of the greatest naval engineers and travellers the world had seen. Prehistoric carvings and stone ships testify to the importance of boats within prehistoric Scandinavian society and religion. By the ninth century they had developed advanced ships that could traverse the hostile Northern Atlantic Ocean. They travelled further than any single race before the modern age, and took huge risks whenever they set out on a voyage.

Viking runestone. (Photo By DEA/G DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

 Myth 7: They treated their women badly
Viking society was mainly governed by ‘jarls’, the most important of whom could become kings. It was a largely military society, in which strength at arms was prized, yet wise and learned men and women could also wield power.

 Women played an important role in Viking society. They were guardians of the keys to both property and wealth, particularly when their menfolk were abroad. There is evidence that some were trained to be military leaders too, with shield-maidens described throughout the mythology. Women were held in high esteem, with two buried within the famous Oseberg ship.

 One of the most venerated characters in the Germanic pantheon was Freyja, goddess of sex, beauty, gold and death. She rides a chariot pulled by two cats and is accompanied by the boar Hildisvini.

 Women did seem to have spiritual roles within Viking society, with wands discovered in many female graves. Furthermore, they had significantly better legal rights than their Christian counterparts and could divorce their husbands if they were violent or disrespectful towards them.

 Myth 8: They were beardy and unkempt
Far from unkempt barbarians, Viking men and women were quite vain. Many finds like tweezers, combs and razors have been discovered, and it seems they went to great pains over their appearance. 

They didn’t live in dark, dirty huts, but often in large and luxurious halls, like the magnificent ‘Heorot’ recorded in the epic poem Beowulf, which was the setting for lavish feasts, gifts of gold and display of skills at arms.

Viking period bone and deer antler comb and case from the Viking settlement at York, which is in the Yorkshire Museum, York. (Photo by CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)

 The Vikings also had a good diet, which included a lot of fish – unsurprising given that most settlements were near to the coast. Evidence of Viking latrines shows they feasted on elk, bear, puffin, salmon and trout.

 Dr Janina Ramirez is a British art and cultural historian and television presenter. She presented a BBC documentary on Icelandic literature, The Viking Sagas, and is author of The Private Lives of the Saints: Power, Passion and Politics in Anglo-Saxon England. To find out more, visit www.janinaramirez.co.uk

8 Viking myths busted

History Extra

An image of Viking sailors making the voyage across the Atlantic between Europe and America. One sailor is seen wearing a horned helmet. In reality, says Janina Ramirez, Viking helmets would have been simple skullcaps. Painting by NC Wyeth, c1350. (Image by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Viking Age stretched from the ninth to the 11th century. During this time Viking culture had a huge impact on great swathes of Europe, Asia, Africa and even America – many centuries before Columbus sailed the oceans. They could navigate the known world and commanded respect wherever they went. Yet the Vikings are surrounded by myths. Here are eight of them busted…

 

Myth 1: They wore horned helmets

Let’s get this out of the way straight off. There is no evidence that the Vikings wore horned helmets, and nothing like this has ever been discovered in any archaeological dig. They certainly wore helmets but they would have been simple skullcaps, designed to protect the head from impact. Having a pair of horns on your head in battle would not have been helpful if warriors were striking at you with clubs, swords or axes.
The helmet plaques from Sutton Hoo and Vendel suggest that god-like warriors donned helmets with protruding ‘horns’ (although these are actually hook-beaked birds), but the Viking raiders and traders did not.
The modern idea of Vikings in horned helmets originated in the 19th century, but it was Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle [a cycle of four operas by the German composer based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas] that seared it into the modern imagination. Costume designer Carl Emil Doepler (1824–1905) created horned helmets in the 1870s for the Viking characters, and so the myth was born. Numerous cartoonists, filmmakers and artists have continued this fantasy right up to the present day.

_{Detail of a Viking helmet from grave one at Vendel, Uppland, Sweden, 7th century. In the Swedish History Museum’s collection in Stockholm. (Photo by CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)}

 

Myth 2: They were a defined group – ‘The Vikings’

The term ‘Viking’ comes from Old Icelandic ‘Viking-r, a creek-dweller’. The Viken was the primary mercantile region of Norway, so it is possible that this apparently homogenous group of people got their name from the extensive trading they undertook out of their busy ports. The word ‘Viking’ later becomes synonymous with ‘naval raids/naval expeditions’ and begins to function more as a verb. Individuals or groups would go ‘a-Viking’, which would mean they would leave their native lands during the warmer summer months, travelling in longboats to regions where they could trade and raid.
Contemporary writers don’t use the term ‘Viking’ to speak of a group of people. Instead they referred to Norse Men, people from the North, or simply pagans (remember, those recording events were usually Christian scribes). What’s more misleading still is that ‘Viking’ has been used to denote the entire Scandinavian region, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Each of these regions was governed by different leaders and they would have seen themselves as distinct from one another.
These were also very varied landscapes. The more northern regions, particularly the mountainous areas of Norway, were difficult to farm because of hostile weather, while southern parts, in the plains of Denmark, were more fertile. There were occasions when Scandinavian rulers combined their forces for greater military might, but the term ‘Viking’ is like describing all ‘Northern Europeans’ as the same.

Myth 3: They were extremely violent

The Vikings earned a place in history due to their protracted raids on often vulnerable monastic sites. Populated by literate scribes, these were the worst places to attack if you wanted a good record in Christian historical documents. Alcuin of York wrote to Bishop Higbald, declaring: “Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. . . .The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.”
There is certainly evidence of the violent means Vikings used to suppress people, particularly in Britain. Many skeletons have been found with the instruments of their death still wedged in their bones. A skeleton in the North Hertfordshire Museum has a Viking spear head stuck in its neck. However, while some Vikings clearly deserved their reputation as ‘wolves of war’, others lived peaceful existences – farming, trading and integrating across the four continents that they settled.
What’s more, these were violent times, and the Vikings’ aggression was matched or exceeded by other groups during this period. One of the most famous names of the early medieval period, Emperor Charlemagne, carried out a form of genocide on people in Saxony. In the ‘Massacre of Verden’ in AD 782 his army murdered more than 4,500 Saxons who had been given to him by an ally. This was violence at its most stark. And yet, because Charlemagne had a Christian biographer writing a favorable account of his life, was killing pagans and was seen as ‘father of the church’, his place in history was secure.

_{11th-century stained glass representing Emperor Charlemagne c800 in Saint-Saulge, France. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystine via Getty Images)}

 

Myth 4: They took what they wanted and sailed away

Finds from Scandinavia do indicate that many Vikings pillaged the places they reached, bringing back coins from across the known world to be buried in hoards back in their homelands. However, many chose to remain in the lands they encountered, establishing lasting and important settlements.
One of the earliest and most extensive Viking settlements was Dublin, established by AD 841. Dublin grew into an industrially strong city with a thriving port and a mint where the first Irish coins were made. It wasn’t just Dublin that changed and developed under the Vikings. In York, the Anglo-Saxon city was relocated further towards the mouth of the river and settled by Vikings as a new and vibrant town – Jorvik. Iceland owes its settlement almost entirely to Vikings, under Ingólfr Arnanson in AD 874.
Normandy is another example of how Viking settlement could grow from violence into peaceful settlement. The Normans got their name from being ‘north-men’, yet they were given land in the north of France by king Charles III (aka Charles the Simple, 879–929) in an attempt to keep further Viking attacks at bay. Charles even gave his daughter to the Norwegian chieftain Rollo [who gained Normandy from Charles the Simple] in marriage, and the Viking settlers soon embraced French language and culture to develop into a new breed of conquerors.

_{Decorative Viking hoard cup made from gold and decorated with animals and foliate patterns. Found buried in England. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)}

 

Myth 5: They were godless pagans

They say history is written by the victors, but in the case of the Vikings, history is written by Christians. This meant that while few accounts of Viking religion survive, there are many documents written by Christian scribes that describe them as pagan and godless. This is not supported by the information we can glean from archaeology and later Scandinavian texts.
Viking religion was structured, hierarchical and based on a number of established narratives. It was not a religion of the book, and the mythology was transmitted orally.
The Vikings didn’t practise their religion in temples but rather, like the ancient Celts, held places like groves and rivers sacred. It seems that priests were involved in religious ceremonies, and these were drawn from the heads of families. Priestly office was one of the honours bestowed on kings. The priest would perform sacrifices, either of objects, animals or people.
Viking cosmology differentiated between life on Earth – Midgard – and other spiritual realms. The gods were thought to inhabit Asgard, while the sacred tree Ysgadrill stretched its roots to the lands of the gods, giants and the dead. There were at least six realms, with a special place reserved for warriors – Valhalla.

Myth 6: They were ignorant and illiterate barbarians

The Vikings were not the ignorant and illiterate barbarians that Christian writers of the time believed them to be. While they didn’t write long texts like the Sagas until later in the Viking Age, they had developed a complex script – runes – that was loaded with symbolism. Each letter in the runic alphabet was also connected with a word; the ‘f’ rune was called ‘feoh’, which meant ‘wealth’ or ‘cattle’ – this makes sense within a barter society, as cattle hides were a way of measuring wealth.
Runes could carry spiritual meaning too, and texts record how certain runes were connected with specific gods or goddesses. Rune stones included lengthy dedications and personal names. Smaller inscriptions survive on personal items like combs and weapons.
Far from illiterate barbarians, the Vikings were some of the greatest naval engineers and travellers the world had seen. Prehistoric carvings and stone ships testify to the importance of boats within prehistoric Scandinavian society and religion. By the ninth century they had developed advanced ships that could traverse the hostile Northern Atlantic Ocean. They travelled further than any single race before the modern age, and took huge risks whenever they set out on a voyage.

_{Viking runestone. (Photo By DEA/G DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)}

 

Myth 7: They treated their women badly

Viking society was mainly governed by ‘jarls’, the most important of whom could become kings. It was a largely military society, in which strength at arms was prized, yet wise and learned men and women could also wield power.
Women played an important role in Viking society. They were guardians of the keys to both property and wealth, particularly when their menfolk were abroad. There is evidence that some were trained to be military leaders too, with shield-maidens described throughout the mythology. Women were held in high esteem, with two buried within the famous Oseberg ship.
One of the most venerated characters in the Germanic pantheon was Freyja, goddess of sex, beauty, gold and death. She rides a chariot pulled by two cats and is accompanied by the boar Hildisvini.
Women did seem to have spiritual roles within Viking society, with wands discovered in many female graves. Furthermore, they had significantly better legal rights than their Christian counterparts and could divorce their husbands if they were violent or disrespectful towards them.

Myth 8: They were beardy and unkempt

Far from unkempt barbarians, Viking men and women were quite vain. Many finds like tweezers, combs and razors have been discovered, and it seems they went to great pains over their appearance.
They didn’t live in dark, dirty huts, but often in large and luxurious halls, like the magnificent ‘Heorot’ recorded in the epic poem Beowulf, which was the setting for lavish feasts, gifts of gold and display of skills at arms.

_{Viking period bone and deer antler comb and case from the Viking settlement at York, which is in the Yorkshire Museum, York. (Photo by CM Dixon/Print Collector/Getty Images)}

The Vikings also had a good diet, which included a lot of fish – unsurprising given that most settlements were near to the coast. Evidence of Viking latrines shows they feasted on elk, bear, puffin, salmon and trout.
Dr Janina Ramirez is a British art and cultural historian and television presenter. She presented a BBC documentary on Icelandic literature, The Viking Sagas, and is author of The Private Lives of the Saints: Power, Passion and Politics in Anglo-Saxon England. To find out more, visit www.janinaramirez.co.uk

The quest for the Holy Grail

History Extra

The Last Supper and first Eucharist, during which Jesus serves wine in the Holy Chalice. © Corbis

In the most popular version of the story, the Holy Grail is a chalice used by Jesus during the Last Supper, which was later employed as a vial for his blood. It was seemingly smuggled across the Holy Land and Europe to Britain. Despite a series of mysterious Grail guardians, including the Fisher King and the Knights Templar, at some point the chalice disappeared.
The sacred silverware became spliced with other legends, invested with mythical powers, and hijacked by conspiracy theorists and demagogues. Pat Kinsella separates the few facts from the profuse fictions that continue to evolve around this elusive relic…

Birth of a legend: Where did the Holy Grail come from? And what might it be?

Holy relics purporting to originate from the earthly life of Jesus are common currency across the Catholic world – with various churches claiming to hold everything from the Holy Prepuce (Jesus’s foreskin) through to nails used during his crucifixion. The most iconic and sought-after souvenir of all, however, is the ever-elusive Holy Grail.
The enduring obsession with the Holy Grail is fuelled by the fact that its form, location and very existence remain a complete enigma. It’s popularly believed to be a goblet used during the Last Supper and then employed by Joseph of Arimathea to catch Christ’s blood when his side was pierced with a spear during his crucifixion. However, some depictions have it as a bowl or a serving plate, or even as the womb of Mary Magdalene – in a scenario where she bears Jesus’s offspring.
The Holy Chalice from the Last Supper is referenced in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke (which historians believe were written c80-100 AD), but it was 1,000 years later that the tale of the Grail became popular, when the medieval romantics began to pen poems about it, entwining the yarn with Arthurian sagas.
The first-known reference to the Grail was made by French poet Chrétien de Troyes in Perceval, le Conte du Graal (which translates as ‘Percival, the Story of the Grail’), an unfinished poem written sometime between 1181 and 1190. Chrétien credits a source book, but the original work remains a mystery.
His fantastical yarn sees Percival – one of King Arthur’s knights  – visit the realm of the Fisher King (the last in a line of men entrusted with the keeping of the Grail). There, he beholds several revered items, including a graal (‘grail’) – an elaborate bowl from which the King eats a communion wafer. Although the Grail is more prop than main player in this poem, it inspired other writers to develop the concept.
In Joseph d’Arimathie, written between 1191 and 1202, fellow Frenchman Robert de Boron fused the Holy Chalice used at the Last Supper, and the Holy Grail, a vessel containing Jesus’s blood. Joseph of Arimathea is cast as the protector of the Grail, the first of a long line of guardians that will include Percival.  
In the early 13th century, German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach developed the story in Parzival, (‘Percival’), an epic poem in which the hero embarks on a quest to recover the Grail. The Welsh romance Peredur continued the theme, but the story really took form in the Vulgate Cycle, a series of Arthurian legends written anonymously in the 13th century.
Two centuries later, Sir Thomas Malory translated these legends into English in Le Morte D’Arthur and the sagas – especially the quest for the Grail – have enjoyed waves of popularity ever since, being retold by a colourful collection of raconteurs from Wagner and Tennyson through to Monty Python, Spielberg and Dan Brown. But is there any fact amongst all the fantasy?

The Grail trail: For centuries, explorers have chased the Grail’s shadow all over the planet

Although most popular versions of the story ultimately point towards the chalice being transported to England, committed Grail hunters have chased the holy relic all over the world. Every perceived clue from ancient texts has been painstakingly pursued, while long-shot leads and far-fetched theories have led their followers to some fairly unlikely corners.
Over 200 churches and locations around the globe have laid claim to having current or historic possession of either or both the Holy Chalice and the Holy Grail – with some stretching the realm of credibility much further than others. Having a semi-plausible relic or a good miracle story can generate a boom in tourism for otherwise out-of-the-way destinations. As the public’s obsession with the Grail tale shows little sign of abating, it’s become big business, right around the world…
Basilica of San Isidoro in León, Spain
Home to the Chalice of Doña Urraca, a jewel-encrusted onyx goblet identified as the Holy Grail by author-researchers Margarita Torres and José Ortega del Rio in their 2014 book, The Kings of the Grail. The chalice has been in the Basilica since the 11th century, after apparently being transported to Cairo by Muslim travellers. It was later given to an emir on the Spanish coast who’d helped famine victims in Egypt, and passed to King Ferdinand I of Leon as a peace offering by an Andalusian ruler. Carbon dating suggests the chalice was made between 200 BC and AD 100.

Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, Italy
House of the Genoa Chalice, once thought to be made from pure emerald and a hot contender for the Holy Grail, until it was transported to Paris after Napoleon conquered Italy and came back broken – revealing the ‘emerald’ was, in fact, green glass. This news would have come as a disappointment to the Genoese soldiers, who named it as their chief target when they defeated the Moors and sacked Almería in a ferocious conflict in 1147.

_{The Cathedral of Genoa, where a glassy Grail contender resides. © Alamy}

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, US
Current home of the Antioch Chalice, a silver-and-gold double-cup design ornament, touted as the Holy Chalice when it was recovered in Antioch, Turkey, just before World War I. The museum has always described this claim as ‘ambitious’ and the relic was recently outed as a standing lamp, not a chalice, believed to have been made in the sixth century AD.  

Catedrale de Valencia, Spain
The Valencia Chalice is housed in its very own consecrated chapel. The agate cup was reportedly taken by Saint Peter to Rome in the first century AD, and then to Huesca in Spain by Saint Lawrence in the third century. Some Spanish archaeologists say the cup was produced in a Palestinian or Egyptian workshop between the fourth century BC and the first century AD.

The Jerusalem Chalice, Israel
In the seventh century AD, a Gaulish monk named Arculf recorded seeing a vessel he believed to be the Holy Chalice contained within a reliquary in a chapel near Jerusalem, between the basilica of Golgotha and the Martyrium. This is the earliest known first-hand report of the Grail after the crucifixion, and the only known mention of the Grail being seen in the Holy Land. The fate of the chalice he described is unknown. It has also been claimed that the Grail is hidden with other holy relics in the vast underground sewer complex of Jerusalem, beneath the legendary Solomon’s Temple.

_{Beneath Temple Mount in Jerusalem some believe there could be a whole host of holy relics. © iStock}

Over to Albion: The Grail myths are as much entwined with British folklore as international history…

After the crucifixion of Jesus, for reasons that remain unclear (and which may well owe more to poetic license and political and economic expediency than historical fact), the story of the Holy Grail is quickly transplanted from the Holy Land to the green and pleasant land of England.
According to legends that have been doing the rounds for at least the last 800 years, the keeper of the Grail, Joseph of Arimathea, arrived in England in the first century AD. He crossed the Somerset Levels (then flooded) by boat to arrive at the foot of Glastonbury Tor on an island known in Arthurian mythology as Avalon.
At the foot of Wearyall Hill, just beneath the Tor, the tired missionary thrust his staff into the ground, and rested. In the morning, so the story goes, his staff had taken root and grown into an oriental thorn bush now known as the Glastonbury Thorn.
Joseph then went on to found Glastonbury Abbey, and set about converting the locals to Christianity – with a staggering success rate. By 600 AD, England had a Christian king: Ethelbert. Meanwhile the Grail – which, according to some stories, was buried at the entrance to the underworld in Glastonbury – became firmly interwoven into myths about King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.
Contemporary records mention none of this, though, and the story only became popular after the publication of Robert de Boron’s fanciful poem Joseph d’Arimathie at the end of the 12th century. The area may have been a significant site for pre-Christian communities, but Glastonbury Abbey was almost certainly established by Britons in the early seventh century.
However, stories connecting the dots between the site, Arthurian legend, the presence of the Holy Grail and miracles performed by ‘blood relatives’ of Jesus were all excellent marketing for the pilgrimage trade at Glastonbury. The local monks wholeheartedly endorsed the fables, right up until the Abbey was dissolved in 1539, during the English Reformation.
An early example of this can be seen when, in 1184, a fire destroyed most of the monastic buildings at Glastonbury. A few years later, around the time Joseph d’Arimathie was published, King Arthur and Queen Guinevere’s tomb was miraculously discovered in the cemetery. There was a spike in pilgrimage traffic and the funds needed to rebuild the Abbey.

_{According to myth, King Arthur’s wizard Merlin still roams Glastonbury Tor. © Alamy}

A good story: From medieval poems to modern action movies, the Grail has provided centuries of entertainment

For two millennia, the legend of the Holy Grail has been reported and contorted by imaginative poets, painters, writers, comedians and filmmakers – to such an extent that the small number of known facts have become increasingly hard to sift from an overwhelming mountain of speculative or purely artistic ideas.
Amateur historians and professional authors have gone off on wild tangents, generating countless pseudo-historical books masquerading as seriously researched non-fiction. Indeed, a vast amount of flimsy and fantastical evidence has been reported as fact to support questionable theories. As a result, the Grail story has assumed a life of its own – one that constantly plays out on the pages of books and websites, and on TV and cinema screens – and each generation consumes a new version of it.

Back in the limelight: Victorian revivalism
During the deeply religious fervour of the Victorian era, medievalism was the all the rage and yarns from the Middle Ages, such as Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, were constantly being reprinted and consumed by a public hungry for tales of chivalry and salvation.
The quest for the Holy Grail was a recurring theme across the arts throughout the age, but everything was based on the medieval myth, rather than known facts and historical events.
Painters began to depict scenes from Arthurian legends, especially members of the ever-earnest Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. When commissioned to decorate Oxford University’s new union building, founder of the Brotherhood Dante Gabriel Rossetti used the Holy Grail as his central theme – thus seeding an awareness and interest in the subject in the fertile minds of future generations of scholars. It was a theme that Rossetti would return to numerous times in his watercolour paintings.
Over several decades, the pre-eminent poet of the era, Alfred Lord Tennyson (Poet Laureate for 40 years during Victoria’s reign), published the epic Idylls of the King, a cycle of twelve narrative poems that retell the legend of King Arthur and his knights – including, of course, the quest for the Grail. These immensely popular poems were dedicated to the late Prince Albert.
William Morris, one of the most significant cultural figures of the era whose talents spanned everything from poetry to interior design, was also acutely interested in the sagas. He wrote verses about the Holy Chalice, and collaborated with Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones to produce vast tapestries depicting the quest for the Grail, which were hung on the walls of the wealthiest businessmen of the industrial age.

_{This vast Victorian tapestry, named ‘The Achievement of the Grail’ measures 2.4 metres high by nearly 7 metres long. It is currently on display in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. © BAL}

20th-century style: The quest on screen
The Grail has been quested after on big and little screens since technology made it possible, but most people will recall the story from at least one of three successful cinematic renditions…
Excalibur (1981), was directed by John Boorman and starred Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson, among many others. An action-packed adventure fantasy, it follows the story of King Arthur, from the moment he pulls the sword from the stone, to the quest for the Grail (via Guinevere and Lancelot’s affair). The film, in contrast to most of the medieval literature, has Percival retrieve the Grail for an ailing Arthur, who sips from it and is restored to health.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), was the Python posse’s first foray into full-length feature films and it is a gloriously ridiculous romp through the Arthurian sagas, with Graham Chapman in the lead role. As the hapless knights search for the Holy Grail they face various challenges and dangers, not least a killer rabbit.

_{A shot from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. © Kobal}

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the third of Steven Spielberg’s successful series of movies starring Harrison Ford as a swashbuckling archaeologist, sees Indy in action trying to rescue his father (Sean Connery). He then needs to find the Holy Grail before the Nazis get hold of it and use it to achieve world domination. Sound stupid? You might be surprised how close some of the plot elements are to the truth...