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Main => The Round Table => Topic started by: Sir Rodney on 2014-07-21, 03:55:47
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A recent visit to the International Wolf Center (http://www.wolf.org/) in Ely Minnesota brought two of my greatest interests together, and left me a bit puzzled.
In an exhibit hall dedicated to mankind’s shifting view of wolves through the ages, photographs of bronze matrix stamps from Sweden grabbed my attention. These stamps are basically dies which were used to make copper helmet decorations similar to the famous Vendel helmet. The Wolf Center description of one particular stamp reads:
The top plates show berserkers battling two bears at a time (left) and dressed in wolf helmets (right).
The source of my puzzlement is this, I clearly see boar decorations on the helmets of the warriors, not wolves. Am I seeing this correctly? Does anyone else see what I see?
The plates are located in the Statens Historiska Museer (http://www.historiska.se/), Stockholm, Sweden. The plate in question can be better viewed here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/historiska/6915493263/in/photostream/ (https://www.flickr.com/photos/historiska/6915493263/in/photostream/)
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The tusks, if that's what I'm seeing, definitely says wild boar to me.
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Those look like boar to me. They also don't look like they're wearing the clothing to make them Úlfheðinn.
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Definitely looks like tusks to me as well. Combining that with the curl of the tail and what appears to me to be that hair 'crest' that starts behind the ears is what finishes it for me.
It would be one thing if the tusks were more towards the front of the mouth, I could see it potentially then as well, but that distinct curve placed thusly in the mouth seems very...boar-like.
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Top picture, lower left plate: figure on the right is walking on two legs, carrying a spear, and appears to have a wolfy looking head. Is that who they meant? Berserkers would have crested their helmets with the head of a beast and draped the rest of the pelt over their shoulders, tying the arms around their neck.
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I didn’t include the full narrative, but they (MN Wolf Center) are stating the top right plate shows “berserkers … dressed in wolf helmets”.
As Vincent noted, several clues are driving my determination of boar helmet crests. Namely: the curved tusk near the rear of the mouth, curly boar-like tail, the crest of short hairs starting at the shoulders, short & powerful legs, and a pig-like snout.
I understand the artist(s) who created these dies are not trying to be anatomically correct, just look at the depiction of “bears” in the top left plate. That being said, the plate in question sure depicts boar crested helmets to me.
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I could kind of see how they could be mistaken for wolves at a glance, but they look like piggies to me, too.
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Those look like boar to me. They also don't look like they're wearing the clothing to make them Úlfheðinn.
The Wikipedia entry on Úlfheðinn is very interesting. They show one of the same plates (MN Wolf Center bottom left) and describe it thus:
In addition, the helm-plate press from Torslunda depicts a scene of Odin with a berserker—"a wolf skinned warrior with the apparently one-eyed dancer in the bird-horned helm, which is generally interpreted as showing a scene indicative of a relationship between berserkgang... and the god Odin"—with a wolf pelt and a spear as distinguishing features.
Which leads me to believe that the MN Wolf Center simply referenced the wrong plate in their display altogether. ::)
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They might look like piggies but do they taste like piggies ... Get me a fork.
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Tusks and the dorsal fur on the back.
Definitely a boar.