Ceremonies:
– 11:30 > Troll Bridge Opens – pay our trolls & cross their bridge to festival
– 11:45 > Welcome & Opening Tributes – Disir et al
– 11:55 > Skogar Þrostur – Raising of her sail
– 15:30 > Skogar Þrostur – Lowering of her sail
Runes 101 ( )
– Rune Wall – an 8’wide by 4’high wall showing all the Elder Futhark runes
– Runestone Trilogy – 3 onsite runestones each with informational signs about them and the runes on them. Each stone contains an Aett of Runes (stones are around grounds forming a triangle S, W, & E points)
– 12:00 to ? > Introduction to Elder Futhark – a ‘break the ice’ brief introduction & basic discussion of the runes by Xander – Svinfylkin Tribe Godhi (spiritual leader)
– 1:00 to ? > Advanced Furthark – deeper explanation of meaning of the runes by Xander including demonstration of how to work with runes & hands-on-crafts workshop
- Viking Villages & Culture( )
– Skogar Þrostur Village – replica Viking tent & artifacts – speak with their curators
– Svinfylkin Blacksmith – see forging of pieces from raw metal blocks
- Ship Building Village – longship Disir ( )
– 13:30 -Overview ‘Disir’ Longship Project including show & tell on how they build a longship & why
– 12:30 -Walk through of a Viking ship building village (materials & tasks)
– 14:30 – Alternate time Walk through of Viking ship building village
All Day Games & Fun Activities
– Kubb – Viking Lawn Chess (tournament if warranted)
– Hnefatafl – Viking Table Chess (board game)
– Build a Viking Longboat – build your own longboat and decorate it
– Build a Viking Shield – build your own cardboard shield and decorate it
– Mini Swords & Shields – stop by the Svinfylkin Tribe area to get your mini-Viking a painted mini wood sword &/or shield
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Longship “DISIR” postponement:
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Sadly we will not be able to have a finished or even partially completed longship in time for this festival. We do not want a partial one to be sitting over winter and believe the town might not appreciate it. Instead, and so as to potentially gain helpers for when we do, we will set up a ship building encampment at the festival.
Ship Building Encampment:
We will have the Vinland Longships “Skogar Þrostur” and their replica Viking encampment. If you’ve watched Vikings on the history channel you’ve seen how they build a working village(encampment) as needed where needed. So in addition to that we will add a ship building/repair area to our site. In it we will present various educational & enlightenment stages on preparations to build or repair a longship. Basically one needs 3 types of items – wood, sealing, and metal.
Hopefully the Norns are weaving the arrival of our white oak logs at least a couple of weeks prior to the festival. Our plan then is to have one log debarked ready to begin the splitting/marking process, one partially into the splitting process, one split in half with the other half fully split down to workable plank pieces, and a curved log for the stems(ends) split in half. From the log that is down to planks we will have one plank being hewed and one completed. All of the associated tools will be present along with explanations on the steps of the process.
We will not be making the rope/matting insulation but will have it in a basket as though that step were done, perhaps over the winter months. One also needs pine tar so we will have set up the pit to distill pine wood into pine tar. For safety and environmental reasons we will not actually be burning (destructive distillation) the pine but will show what the setup would look like, what wood you want to use, and some finished pine tar we already have.
Iron is needed for making the fasteners aka nails and ro (think big rivets with washers) but its also needed for making all the tools required to work on the logs and planking. For safety, environmental, and local fire codes, probably (though will check) can’t have a working iron blooming furnace. Instead we will have an area that shows what goes into making a Viking Furnace , a completed ready to smelt raw ore furnace, and an example of one that has already been used plus the resulting iron bloom(raw solidified chunk of iron). Add a big rock (seriously what they used) for forging and shaping of the bloom into usable iron pieces. We also will have at least one if not several blacksmiths on site showing how the nails, rooves, axes, adses, hammers, etc might have been made.
This is addition to all the other areas and activities should make for a great festival even with a completed ship plus you’ll see and be able to sign up for the actual building of it come next spring.
