VIKINGS IN TIEL!

This weekend we went to the Viking gathering in Tiel, the Netherlands which we had been told about at Bislisch. There were loads of tents and a bit of music ...

There was also a smith who was smelting bronze. He had come all the way from Poland.

He was a real nice guy. He told us about this really big three day Viking festival held in August every year in the North of Poland where thousands of 'Vikings' get together, cool!!! We had been chatting to him and watching him work for a while and then he got my Papa to help with the bellows.

This was the result: it's a belt end, he had a similar one on.

Then came the battle. They started with a re-enactment of the battle between the local Tielenaren and the Viking invaders. It started with the Tiel scouts fighting four Viking warriors.

After one of scouts ha run back for reinforcements we heard the Vikings in the distance beating their shields, what a brilliant sound. They already had a local captive. 'Hold ye still wench.'

The Vikings are eager for a battle.

But first the champions of both sides had to face each other. The Viking champion was a most excellent fighter...

...and he won!!!



Some more fighing...

So that was the Viking event of this month. Ooh it would be so cool to go to the one in Poland!!! And of course I want to go to the one in Scotland, Shetland I think, Up-Helly-Aa where they burn the Viking ship!!!

VIKINGS IN BISLISCH!

On the 13th of September the local museum of the German Village Bislisch had the opening of their new Exhibition of Vikings artefacts and modern replicas. For the opening the Düsseldorf Vikings came to town to give demonstrations of their ancient crafts. They were a real nice bunch!


One of the pieces in the exhibition, beautiful!!!

We hadn't seen the name label next to these arrow heads and were trying to figure out why they had been made like that. Was it to make them go faster? Was it so they were harder to pull out of enemies chest? And then we saw 'Brandpfeilspitze mit Feuerkorb' and realized, 'ah they're fire arrows'. BODACIOUS!!!

Some very nice jewellery. I esspecially like the torque style one at the back.

One of the Düsseldorf Vikings. He's the one who told us about the Viking gathering at Tiel, which we just went to yesterday. This guy had pottery, helmets, jewellery, glass beads, drinking horns, leather bands and...


...axe heads!!!


Here's a band weaver. We just saw him again at Tiel and he recognized us.


Here's a close-up to show what the weaving disks looked like. He twisted then one by one in a certain way to get the pattern in the band. These ones are metal. He said originally they would have been wood, bone or horn. He said though that wood wore out the threads, bone made his group of discs too wide and horn was too expensive.


This lady was on the same tent as the weaver above. She's doing a very cool knitting crocheting thing that I really want to learn. The wools are all naturally coloured. The green was from birch bark and the orange from onion, cool!!!


Wow, check out this dude's bellows. He busy smelting bronze at the moment.


Here he is pouring it out into the bar shape mould.


And he is beating it a bit. We watched him for quite a while. The black smith gave Phoenix a bit of bronze at the end, naturally he was chuffed.


A carver, making a similar piece that was on display in the museum. He got this head done really quickly. In the morning when we arrived you couldn't really see what it was supposed to be, then we walked back this had appeared, amazing!!!


These were some of the real Viking artefacts in the display found locally.


I bought this bookmark from the weaver.


And I bought this (with my initials) from a Rhune carver, I don't have a photo of him and his stall sadly. I had a go at using an old drilling tool, it was really cool and amazingly easy. There was another man who happened to be at the stool who told us loads of cool stuff about Rhunes and the link between old and new Scandinavian languages.

After going to this opening I now want to learn all the crafts too, aaaah, so much to do so little time!!!

Dag?

I noticed on my entry Castlefest 2009, that I had said 'what a dag' and realised that you dutchies probably don't know what I mean by this. It's real down-under slang. Literally a dag is the shitty bit of wool around a sheeps bum, nice huh? When one uses it like I did, it's in reference to something that's funny, it's a dag. Get it?

CASTLEFEST 2009!

Some people will know that I am constantly on about Castlefest and a certain most bodacious band called Omnia. So I thought I'd show you a couple of pics.

Castlefest is a Medieval, Celtic, Folk, Pagan, Fantasy, etc. Festival. There's loads of Music, Visual Entertainment, Food and Drink and Stalls. It was on the 31st of July, 1 st of August and the 2nd of August. I was only there on the 1st of August, the Saturday. This also happened to be PAGAN NIGHT!!!

The first band I heard play was the Dutch Celtic Folk band Rapalje.


Dieb, backed by William, David and Maceál sang an a capella version of 'The Bog Down in the Valley-O'. The crowd went wild.


Then something really strange happened, two dancing pumpkins appeared...


...and one of them dived off the stage...


...and surfed the crowd dude!!! What a dag!!!


While chilling out on the grass and eating lunch two wandering minstrels came by, by name of 'De Flierefluiter'.


Later on at the main stage a Dutch band called 'Scrum' played some tunes in the style of Flogging Molly... they were very good!!!


Back on the smaller stage where Rapalje had played earlier on, a German dude called Kelvin Kalvus showed us some tricks... he was very very cool...


...very, very, very cool!!!


Back to the main stage... a mixed Scandinavian band band called Valravn performed. Oh man, they were brilliant!


And suddenly just to make sure we were still paying attention a giant crow appeared.


After Valravn had finished performing my brother Phoenix and I had a quick chat to three of the bandmembers while they signed our CD: Martin Seeberg, Juan Pino and Christopher Juul. They were a real dag!!!

OK. A break from the music for a moment. This is the Wicker Beast. Loads of people put a sacrifice in it to the Gods and Goddesses including Phoenix and I.


Then, aaaaaaaaaaah (scream of excitement), it was Omnia's turn!!! Here's Steve doing his thing.


Oh my God there's a weird light coming out of Steve's head. To the left you can see Luka on the slideridoo and in the background new band member Tom Spaan on drums.


Then the great moment came... the burning of the Wicker Beast!!!


Up up it went...


...and Omnia played 'Auto Luonto' to completely seal the deal. I chanted along: 'Auta luonto, anna voima, tee vereni vahvemmaksi' (translation: Help me nature, give me power, make my blood run strong and stronger). I felt completely at one with, well, everything and felt proudly PAGAN!!!


So hey, that was Castlefest 2009 in pictures. The feeling I get there I can't explain and I could never make somebody understand that feeling unless they too had experienced it at some point in their life. I can't wait till next year and hope to be there the full three days!

http://www.castlefest.nl/

Omnia's Website

Rapalje's Website

Valravn's Website

Scrum's Website

De Flierefluiter's Website

Kelvin Kalvus' Website