Do I recognise myself in this rather brilliant edit to a classic comic...?

Yes. Yes, I do.

Andy Marshall’s Remarkable Anglo-Saxon Survivals You Can Still Visit www.digest.andymarsh...

One of my small people got the last chocolate-chip brioche hot cross bun for breakfast, so his little sister smacked his head into a radiator.

I know it's not a competition, but I think I'd prefer unwelcome overtures from the dog to the Primary school equivalent of prison dining hall fights...

The Gilling Sword with its tapering fullered blade and opposing curved upper and lower hilt guards.

The Gilling Sword was discovered #OTD in 1976. It is named after Gilling Beck, North Yorkshire, where it was found by a nine-year-old Garry Fridd while playing in the stream. It is one of the finest surviving Anglian weapons. 📸York Museums Trust

Announcing this year’s Jarrow Lecture: Bede, Providence, and Early Medieval Kingship. Full details here:
medievalarchaeology.co.uk/2026-jarrow-...

Insular mount from Agdenes. Lead models from the Viking Age used for the serial production of cast bronze jewellery have so far been found at only a few sites in Norway.

Maixner, B. (2026). Implications of recent metal detector finds for the interpretation of King Øystein’s Harbour in Agdenes, Norway. Fornvännen, 121(1).
Was this site an important seasonal market place?
#OpenAccess #Archaeology #VikingAge
doi.org/10.66449/for...

The crypt at Hexham Abbey is one of the surviving marvels of 7th century Anglo-Saxon architecture, once part of St. Wilfrid's original stone church.

To me, mention of her brings to mind The Joyce McKinney Experience, a Peel-Session band from Leamington Spa who I loved in my youth.

Funny, the ripples people leave in the world...

Nooooo... 😬

A 12th-century wall painting of Cuthbert depicted as a bishop of that time at Durham Cathedral.

Cuthbert was consecrated as bishop of Lindisfarne by Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, and six other bishops at York #OTD in 685. He would spend almost two years ministering and preaching across his diocese before dying from illness at his former Inner Farne hermitage. #medievalsky

Thatched wooden houses huddled together in an artist's impression of 10th-century York.

Ælle, king of the Northumbrians, and Osberht, whom he had supplanted, died in a clash with Danes at York #OTD in 867. Either the two men had buried the hatchet to retake the city or Osberht had joined with the Great Army in a bid to reclaim the throne. 📸York Archaeological Trust #medievalsky

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne died #OnThisDay in 687. He was a popular saint in northern England both during his life and after death, with a cult of worship centred on his tomb in Durham Cathedral. Pictured is a 12th century wall-painting of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral (image: Durham Cathedral).

In 2013, the Swedish version of ”Antiques Roadshow” visited Visby.

A man brought this large, unprovenanced pseudo-penannular brooch from the Viking Period for evaluation and after a bit of a debacle it was bought by the state and is now kept by Gotland Museum.

#FindsFriday 🏺

I'm late in hearing about this, and so late in re-posting - but tonight's talk looks absolutely fascinating! It's going to be well worth tuning in.

Also coming in with 'cowardy'... and I approve of the 'k' suggestion!

The amount of times I've read Rígsþula and thought 'Hang on, this is fanfic...'

I think I'd have got carried away too!

Well, for me - centre disc in the first photo, track eight. It feels like the days for playing 'The Serenade Is Dead' *very* loud...

I genuinely descriped them as 'magpies' in a first draft!

I completely agree, although I'm impressed at how thorough and clever their collecting was. There's a particular type of pin they gather at the camps, and we think they liked them because they were brass, not bronze: shiny but also useful!

A finds photograph of a small piece of decorated metalwork, TDB 1137, from the site of the Great Army camp at Torksey, Lincolnshire. Two sides of a flat, roughly rectangular piece of metal are shown against a white background. The back is plain and rough, but the front is decotated by a very fine, small knotwork design of interlaced lines.

I haven't got any little runes like we had for last week's Viking camps #FindsFriday, so instead I thought we'd look at another small and beautiful object. This is DB1137 from the Great Army camp at Torksey. It's a tiny cast piece, barely 25mm long, originally part of an Irish horse harness. /1

The cover of the book 'Life in the Viking Great Army', available through the Oxford University Press.

The other harness fittings from the camps at Aldwark and Torksey can be found in our open-access databases on the PAS - but as always, if you'd like to know even more, then all the finds are examined in our book, 'Life in the Viking Great Army', published by the Oxford University Press. /end

An artistic reconstruction of the winter camp of the Viking Great Army at Torksey, showing an imaginative view of how the site might have looked.

And so this is how some of the Great Army spent their winters, carefully processing plunder gathered from as far afield as Ireland and Francia. Once again, industry isn't something we might have previously associated with Vikings - even if TDB1137 shows they still had an eye for gilt and glitter! /8

A finds photograph showing a sample of the fragmentary copper-alloy decorative metalwork recovered from the Viking camp at Torksey. Various jagged-looking and ornate pieces of finely-decorated brass and bronze metal lie on a green cloth background. Some pieces are bright with gold leaf.

While TDB1137 is small compared to these finds, it seem likely it was going to be used in the same way - adapted and attached to something, a tiny but eye-catching decoration. Like last week's lead plaque, it shows how industrious the Great Army was, carefully re-using even the smallest scraps. /7

A photograph of one of a pair of harness fittings from Crieff, now in the National Museum of Scotland. An elaborate piece of metal lies on a dark grey background, with the light showing off the complicated knotwork and birds'-head designs which have been cast into the surface. The piece is also gilded.

A finds photograph of a harness fitting from Time, Rogaland (UNIMUS S12453a), also showing the piece of preserved cloth found attached to the fitting's back. Two cross-shaped objects are on a white background: one is a gilded piece of metal, decorated with complicated designs, while the other is a dark brown fragment of decayed cloth.

There are missing lugs on other harness fittings, like the beautiful mounts from Crieff, Perth and Kinross, or the cruciform one from Heimdalsjordet, Norway. Crooms and Young think the South Shields find was intended to be riveted onto something flat: the Heimdalsjordet piece was sewn to cloth. /6

We've seen these lugs before when we looked at another harness fitting, the stunning DB1224 from the Great Army camp at Aldwark, North Yorkshire. They were often used to attach iron pins to, turning looted mounts into brooches. Given that, why does a lug seem to have been filed off TDB1137? /5

The front of a mount from the site of the Roman fort at South Shields, a roundel design with four stubby arms making a cruciform design. Holes can be seen on the arms, drilled in later and interrupting the decoration. A cross-shaped piece of decorated metal lies on a white background.

A photograph of the reverse of the South Shields find, showing rough raised areas where four attachment lugs have been filed down and removed. A corroded, cross-shaped piece of metal lies on a white background. The metal is rough, but there are clear unfinished areas on the 'arms' of the cross.

The PAS description of TDB1137 (PAS SWYOR-3903E4) says the back of the find is plain, but I'm not so sure. There's a rough, raised area that looks very like those on a mount from Arbeia fort, South Shields, recorded by Alex Croom and Susan Youngs - where the attachment 'lugs' have been filed off. /4

A finds photograph of an Irish harness fitting from Soma, Rogaland (UNIMUS C1950/a). A brightly-gilded piece of roughly cross-shaped metal on a light grey background. The front of the piece is covered in complicated and incredibly ornate knotwork patterns, with holes on two of the arms showing where other fittings would have articulated.

There are more crescents on one of the set of mounts recovered from Soma farm, Rogaland, Norway. That mount seems to have been from an entire bridle's worth of fittings, decorated with near-identical designs to TDB1137. They give a good idea of how spectacular our find must have once looked! /3

A finds photograph of harness fitting LEIC-127138 from Leicestershire. Three views of a flat, rectangular piece of metal against a white background. The front of the piece is decorated with knotwork designs and tiny human faces, while two stubby, pierced 'lugs' project out from the back.

TDB1137 is a classic harness fitting, with the delicate, intricate designs seen on other, better-preserved examples, and with traces of gilding surviving in the cast recesses. There are plenty of parallels, but similar 'crescent' ends can be seen on a find from Leicestershire, PAS LEIC-127138. /2

A finds photograph of a small piece of decorated metalwork, TDB 1137, from the site of the Great Army camp at Torksey, Lincolnshire. Two sides of a flat, roughly rectangular piece of metal are shown against a white background. The back is plain and rough, but the front is decotated by a very fine, small knotwork design of interlaced lines.

I haven't got any little runes like we had for last week's Viking camps #FindsFriday, so instead I thought we'd look at another small and beautiful object. This is DB1137 from the Great Army camp at Torksey. It's a tiny cast piece, barely 25mm long, originally part of an Irish horse harness. /1

Another stunning image by Andy Marshall, who knocks it out the park every time he posts and who's well worth a follow.

Exiting the tiny Anglo-Saxon crypt at Ripon, I've 'felt' the light and space of the later building rise above me before... but I've never seen that feeling captured this well.