Krister Vasshus
@kristervasshus
Interdisciplinary scholar of (North) Germanic languages, runes, archaeology, religion, biology and cultural history. Currently working as disseminator at Sagnlandet Lejre, and freelancing research. Environmentalist. He, him, jotun.
The photo of the eclipsing sun over Lejre yesterday evening does not quite capture the eerie 539-vibe I got from the strange scattering of light. It certainly did not feel auspicious!
Gradestokken her i Dǫnmǫrk seier 32 grader, og vestlendingen her drøymer om å ha det svalt som eit myrlik. Heldigvis har eg importert eit øl som høver seg godt i den samanhengen.
Oats, sourned milk and blueberries (Vaccinium myrtillus) straight from the bush. A Norwegian breakfast, if there ever was one!
Bringebær < *bremingabazja A handful of snacks on my way to work.
Maula. A Norwegian verb meaning something like 'eating something so nice that it would almost be more appropriate to eat it together with something, but you just eat it on its own'. The verb is derrived from a noun meaning 'mouth'. It is what I did to these wild strawberreies.
Last week a few scholars gathered for an epigraphic workshop, where we tried a few techniques of making various inscriptions. Runes, minuscles, wood, chalk, wax, cake, tea. Trying the processes ourselves already gave us some valuable insights to why inscriptions look the way they do.
Backstage snapshot of me during a photoshoot presenting the reconstruction of clothes found at Thorsbjerg, made by our skilled textile archaeologists and reconstructors at Sagnlandet Lejre. gyldendalogpolitikensdanmarkshistorie.lex.dk/Thorsbjergfu...
Rømme, the Norwegian soured cream, just better, is one of the products I have never perfectly nailed to make myself. My grandmother's recipe from her time as budeia in Nordfjord seems not to work without their old containers they used over and over, with their own strain of bacteria culture.
My office today. Sagnlandet Lejre is open for visitors, and today I will be talking a lot about pre-Christian religion and proto-feudal society in 8th century Scandinavia. Probable mention of Beowulf.
Classicists, help! How can I date this inscription (31996)? The source is CIL VI. Regarding translation, I tend to translate things directly. Any idioms or fixed formulas in here that can change the meaning compared to a direct translation? #classics #classicist #latin #academia #inscription
Den høna synest eg synd på. Det til høgre er vanleg storleik på egg. Synest riktignok at der kom ei litt uvanleg kakling frå hønsegården i morges, så mogleg det er samanheng med denne meteoritten. Må ha svidd!
Some days are a bit more exciting than others. Recently Lisbeth Imer and I had a very beautiful little knife under the scope to document its small cuts. We are joining Jakob Bonde from Museum Odense to write about the archaeological discovery and a runological and linguistic interpretation. #runes
Wolf or hound? Trancks spotted in Vingsted in Denmark, fairly close to a recent sighting of wolf.
Of all the sacred ponds I took a dip in last year, Odensjön (The Sea of Odin) in Skåne was definitely on top two. The small lake is situated in between steep non-active volcanic hills and cliffs, filled with both natural and cultural history. Would do it again.
The hǫrgr at Sagnlandet Lejre also looks good in snow. I recently read Eldar Heide's book on hǫrgr, and perhaps this conjecture of a cult-site is not THAT far off from something that might have been called a hǫrgr. Heide's book is available open access: www.scup.com/doi/book/10....
In Sagnlandet Lejre we have this huge wooden recreation of a small silver figurine standing in front of the reconstructed mead-hall from 8th century Lejre. Looks alright in a light snowfall.
Norwegian: Leirgauk 'clay cockoo' English: Okarina 'little goose' Danish: Pip-i-røv-fugl 'peep-in-the-arse-bird'
Sometimes I take detours just to stop by an interesting piece of history. This summer I passed the Kalleby-stone. The exact meaning of the inscription is somewhat debated. It says "Þrawijan haitinaz was".
Når noko heilt moderne stikk seg så djupt ned i folkeoldet at du må hella ut ein tår for å føla deg sikker på at du kjem deg heilskinna heim. Då er det godt.
Når kona har vore på feltarbeid på Bornholm og køyrt øve Sverige på veg heim, og veit nøyaktig kva gåve ho skal gjera husbonden glad med.
Oh, Denmark. Always so explicit. "Do you wash hands after having been to the loo? Otherwise this [handshake image] becomes this [that other image]"
After having gone through runic inscriptions from around the 700s, we have settled on using a transitional fuþark in our mead-hall in Sagnlandet Lejre.