Thursday, August 19, 2010
Kjaere Venner,
Yes, you too can eat like a Viking. All you need is a bowl. Until about the 16th century
most people, including the Vikings from an earlier period, ate out of wooden bowls.1
So what did these bowls look like?
I have made bowls which are a sort of combination of a Scandinavian ale bowl2 and
Viking bowls from the Oseberg burial,3,4,5 York,6,7 and Greenland.8
Here are three examples of my first bowls. The one at the lower right is my very first bowl, and is similar
to Morris’s 8569,9 5” diameter, 2” high, 3/8” thick wall but with a foot like #8571. The other two show my
later bowls with features not found in medieval bowls; a slightly concave lip to facilitate drinking, straight
sections on the bowl contour, and a sharp angle between the bowl contour and the concave lip.
Robin Wood’s “The Wooden Bowl”,10 and Carole Morris’s “Wood and Woodworking in
Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York”11 are fantastic references for medieval and
Viking bowls. After looking at these two books, I set out to make a replica of a medieval
bowl. Elspeth picked out a Coppergate bowl for my replica, Morris's bowl number 8571,
page 2171.12
Page 1
I made the bowl out of Basswood (Tilia Americana, also known as Linden, which is a
light, soft hardwood often used in Norwegian ale bowls and used for carving), and
finished it in walnut oil and beeswax. Some Basswood is cream colored, but this
Basswood is tan colored, in some ways similar in color to willow. (The wood used in
bowls and cups in York were commonly alder, maple, and birch with a few examples
from several other wood species.13)
Most medieval bowls were 6” to 9” in diameter.14 The original bowl 8571 in Carole
Morris' book was 9” in diameter, but the Basswood log I had was slightly smaller, so I
scaled the drawing to 7”, including scaling Morris’s profile drawing to a smaller
mechanical drawing to help me replicate the shape and dimensions of the bowl, see the
next figure.
Page 2
I am really pleased with how this bowl turned out. Basswood dries slowly so, after
turning, this bowl has continued to shrink and warp giving it now a very pleasing shape
(even more so than when I took the above picture). The walnut oil brings out the
beautiful grain of the wood, giving it a slight orangey-brown hue thus making the bowl
quite striking.
Most of the bowls from York were made from alder.15 To more closely replicate
medieval and Viking bowls, I searched for and found a source of alder. In Europe the
alder used was black alder, Alnus glutinosa, and grows to 100 feet. In Wisconsin alder,
Alnus rugosa, only grows to 25 feet. But in Washington state, the red alder, Alnus rubra,
grows to 100 feet. The company Washington Alder, at BuyAlder.com, sells kiln dried
alder up to 8/4 thick boards. After numerous emails with them, they found the closest
lumber yard who is a distributor of the WA alder in Milwaukee, so I bought 10 feet of 4/4
and 8/4 boards. Here are my first alder turned platters and a bowl.
The alder turns nicely, kind of between birch and maple. Initially the turned wood is a
clear light white that finishes to a reddish brown with walnut oil. In medieval times alder
was coppiced, cut at the base every 15 to 25 years, for bowl blanks. That trunk would
produce a bowl blank with no or few knots. The alder from WA was also almost knot
free, similar to what would have been used for turning by the Vikings and Anglo
Scandinavians in York. Of the wood I’ve turned so far, alder is my favorite, followed by
maple. Interestingly, that is similar to the distribution of wood found at York.
Page 3
After visiting L’Anse aux Meadows this last June, I turned a bowl to give to the Viking
recreators with the Canada Parks at L’Anse aux Meadows. Again using Morris’s bowl
8571, this time I turned it with an 8” diameter. The original was about 8.5” in diameter,
and about 2.25” high. My piece of alder was only 2” thick, so I scaled the bowl down to
2” high, which gives a diameter of about 8”. The profile of bowl 8571 scaled to 8” is
shown in the following line drawing.
The finished bowl is shown in the next picture.
Page 4
Hopefully, my bowl will be acceptable to be included in the objects displayed at L’Anse
aux Meadows.
Now that I have a Viking bowl, to eat like a Viking I should make and eat some
Rommegrot. Where did I put that Rommegrot recipe?
Hilsen, Owen Christianson
Views from the Flowage: From time to time I send emails to family and friends chronicling events on the
flowage. Sometimes I relate the latest news, other times I include information (mainly for my education
since I have to look up what I include), but my favorite topics are humorous in nature (well, I try to make
them humorous). Recently I have been turning replicas of medieval and Viking wood items. Please reply if
there is something you find interesting, or if I make a mistake, but do not feel obligated to reply. Thanks,
Owen.
Robin Wood, “The Wooden Bowl,” Stobart Davies Ltd, 2005, page 59, 129-130.
Eivind Falk-Svensen, “Dekor paa tre,” Landbruksforlaget 2002, ISBN 82-529-2628-2, page 46-56.
3
R. Chartrand, K. Durham, M. Harrison, I Heath, “The Vikings, Voyagers of Discovery and Plunder,”
2006 Osprey Publishing Ltd., page 32.
4
James Graham-Campbell,Dafydd Kidd, “The Vikings,” British Museum Publications Limited, 1980,
ISBN 0 7141 1353 0 paper, page 80.
5
A. Christensen, A. Ingstad, and B. Myhre, “Oseberg Dronningens Grav,” Schibsted 1992, ISBN 82-5161423-6, page 114-115.
6
W. Fitzhugh and E. Ward, “Vikings, The North Atlantic Saga,” Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000,
Figure 8.16 Wood Cup, page 136.
7
Richard Hall, “The Viking Dig, The Excavations at York,” The Bodley Head Ltd, 1986, Figure 82, page
76.
8
W. Fitzhugh and E. Ward, “Vikings, The North Atlantic Saga,” Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000,
Figure 22.5 Tableware, page 299.
9
Carole A. Morris, “Wood and Woodworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York,” Published for
the York Archaeological Trust by the Council for British Archaeology, Vol 17: The Small Finds, Fasc. 13.
Craft, Industry, and Everyday Life, ISBN 1 902771 10 9, 2000, page 2171.
10
Robin Wood, “The Wooden Bowl,” Stobart Davies Ltd, 2005.
11
Carole A. Morris, “Wood and Woodworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York,” Published for
the York Archaeological Trust by the Council for British Archaeology, Vol 17: The Small Finds, Fasc. 13.
Craft, Industry, and Everyday Life, ISBN 1 902771 10 9, 2000.
12
Morris, page 2171.
13
Morris, page 258.
14
Wood, pages 29-30.
15
Carole A. Morris, “Wood and Woodworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York,” Published for
the York Archaeological Trust by the Council for British Archaeology, Vol 17: The Small Finds, Fasc. 13.
Craft, Industry, and Everyday Life, ISBN 1 902771 10 9, 2000, pages 2154-2158.
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