More thoughts on women warriors

*I was going to link to this post from my personal blog but in the end decided to just repost. Here’s an interesting addition to the debate about the Viking warrior grave in Birka I discussed yesterday. The author, Professor Judith Jesch, makes some good points about the overall gaps in the journal authors’ argument and presentation. Go read […]

A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics

A recent paper in American Journal of Physical Anthropology shows that a grave in Viking-age Birka, Sweden, furnished with the material goods of a high-ranking warrior, is that of a female.

Doctor Griffith

For the last year I’ve been lost in a project that’s not Hild-related. And, Lo! That project was successful! I now hold a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University. I am Doctor Griffith.

38% of English ancestry derived from Anglo-Saxon migration

An article published 19 January 2016 in Nature Communications, “Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon genomes from East England reveal British migration history,” by Stephan Schiffels et al, estimates that the ancestry of the modern-day East English population is about 38% Anglo-Saxon.

Cait Sith in the Eildon Hills

Two maps of Gododdin territory—where Hild becomes Cait Sith…

Paperback of Hild just out in the UK

Hild is “A magnificent and convincing portrayal of a strange, wild, beautiful world.” — Guardian

Quick addendum to Elfshot-and-beliefs post

I recently began Karen Jolly’s Popular Religion in Late Anglo-Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context and found myself starting to make some changes to a previous post, Elfshot, medicine, and changing belief systems.

Frige hwæt ic hatte

Are the riddles in the Exeter Book designed to have more than one answer, and, if so, why? To educate or to entertain? Either way, here’s my solution to Riddle 53.

Elfshot, medicine, and changing belief systems

Anglo-Saxon medicine is a mix of empirical treatment and sophisticated psychological techniques. The trick with placebo and nocebo—for both the medieval practitioner and the modern—is in understanding what the stricken patient believes. These beliefs change over time.

Gododdin

Hild is heading north to talk (unofficially, of course) with Coledauc of the Gododdin. I had to draw maps to work out where she might go, and how, and why.

Carnyx

When did the Picts stop using the carnyx in war? And why? Perhaps it was because they were weighty and cumbersome. Perhaps it was because of cultural change—religion.

Breguswith’s eye salve kills MRSA

Breguswith knew all about the miracle eye salve that fights MRSA…

Genetic structure of the British population

“The regional genetic differentiation and differing patterns of shared ancestry…carry clear signals of historical demographic events.” Nature’s recent article on the genetic makeup of the British population is full of eyebrow-raising stuff.

Hæðfeld: Where Edwin lost his head?

Where, exactly, was the battle of Hæðfeld? I have a theory, based on research I’ve done on water courses and roads of 632.

Working Roman baths in 7th C Northumbria?

Were there any working baths in seventh-century Northumbria? I’m guessing not, but perhaps some of those wall forts were in reasonable shape. Birdoswald? How about Arbeia? We know that Osric was born there…

Gemæcce

The story of making a novel about Hild of Whitby