I hit 3,000-year-old art with a hammer

The famous ship burial at Sutton Hoo, dated c. 625, contained a helmet, regalia, and weapon set that would not have been out of place in Sweden, and indeed seems at least in part to have been imported from Uppland. One of the picture plaques on the helmet was even pressed on a matrix made in the same workshop as one from a royal grave-mound at Upps

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A shield is not just for protection. It’s also for drawing attention. The face of Herne is painted white, and the iron boss will gleam in this bright sun. It’s not much of a plan, but it’s better than doing nothing. He plants the shield at the top of the stairs, driving the rim down between two bands of the metal walkway. Then he kneels behind it,

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It was no wonder, I thought, that already in that hundred years it had become a thing of legend. It was easy to believe that the old smith, Weland himself, who was old before the Romans came, might have made this last artefact before he faded with the other small gods of wood and stream and river, into the misty hills, leaving the crowded valleys t

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