Nordic Nonsense
This Viking is thought to have been the first European to step foot on continental America.
Who is Lief Erikson?
This God sits in the High Seat in Asgard, and is particularly appropriate today.
Who is Odin?
You might build a fake one of these structures in the side of your house to stop ghosts getting in!
Space in a longhouse is usually delineated into this number of sections by large arches and posts.
What is 3?
This 10th century King of Denmark lent his name and runes to a late 20th century technology.
Who is Harald Bluetooth?
(He united the tribes of Denmark just like Bluetooth unites your devices apparently)
The English translation of Gladsheim, the central place of power and home of the Gods.
What is "bright home"?
The skill and wealth of hunters was not the only reason that the bones of this animal were deposited in key locations in a viking house in Iceland...
What is a Walrus?
What is 30-50m?
The year of the first Viking raid of Iona Abbey, although contact was possibly made with Orkney and Shetland before this.
What is 795 AD?
This big ol' plant is "the undisputed centre of the universe" according to Hedeager, but the home, the hall and the Thing were the central social institutions in this world.
What is Yggdrasil?
A place of significance in the Iron Age, and possibly symbolically constructed with the cosmic order of Asgard in mind, with many parallels to the descriptions of the mythic world in its physical remains; its name translates to "God's Home"
What is Gudme?
A deposition of a Walrus Scapula near an internal partition within a house in Iceland helped define the division between these spaces within the home
What is public and private?
This suffix is a place name thought to indicate the possible presence of farmsteads in the landscape
What is -by or -stad?
Half of those slain in battle go to this hall, presided over by Freyja
What is Folkvangr?
The discovery of articulated walrus vertebrae behind this important household structure led Carlisle and Milek to theorise that it was not the deposition itself that conferred meaning, but the act and memory of deposition by a community, reinforced overtime- A quite literal "backbone"
What is the High Seat?
The quantity of this raw material, strategically placed in a turf wall, clues researchers into the significance of specific crafts as well as the potential danger of magic (and women) in the mind of 10th century Icelanders
What are iron blooms?
The title sequence from this 60s British sitcom could be used as an allegory for how Viking settlement in Scotland has been previously understood, unless of course it is completely lost on a wonderful group of culturally diverse MSc students...
What is Dad's Army?
The spring of wisdom in Old Norse mythology
What is Mirmer's Well?
The names of the three sites used as case studies by Carlisle and Milek
What are Hofstaðir, Vatnsfjörður, & Aðalstræti?
(Hoff-stader, vants-fyur-thur & Adal-strat-i (I think))
The size of the hall in Gudme, which was compared to the home of the Gods in Asgard by Hedeager.
What is 500m2?