Urnes style AoA

Or, Aaradyn goes Minimalist

The SCA as a whole has a lot of Vikings. I think that's awesome, but it makes doing original scrolls tricky. See, the Vikings didn't illuminate the way other cultures did. This forces us scribes to think outside the box.

Or page. ;)

There is a Stave Church in Norway with the most amazing carved doorways. It's in the Urnes style, a very specific style of knotwork that shows up many places in Norse culture. I have a theory that the doorways were painted once, but since it's been around since forever the color is gone and the beauty of the weathered wood is all that remains. UNESCO - Stave Church doorway detail

It's still breathtakingly beautiful.

I received an assignment for a Viking AoA, and decided to use the church doorway detail linked above. There aren't an abundance of Norse period works to draw from, and it makes us stretch as a scribe to use artifacts instead of books as our inspiration.

In choosing something that is not already a vibrant color, as an artist you have a lot of options. However, to stay in period you need to know what your color palate is, and Norse works are no different. I decided to follow the color layout of the abundant runestones from the era, and chose simple red on a beige piece of pergamenata. I left off pieces of the work that would have lead off the page, and modified others to keep the design contained. Parts of this design do not exactly follow the usual course of knotwork from the 12th and 13th centuries. My knotwork techniques have improved since then.

The ink on this piece is Higgins, and is much closer to the consistency of period ink. I find it much easier to work with. I didn't yet have my Mitchell nibs, so this was done with a Speedball nib. This piece does, however, show the lines from my Ames guide, and I have Mistress Eleanor and Master Alexander to thank for my working knowledge of that excellent tool.

I have not yet done a Norse scroll using runes, and I am unlikely to anytime soon. I am not comfortable enough with writing in runes to attempt that yet. For the most part I do try to match the hand with the time period, but in the case of my Norse persona scrolls I tend to use Unical. I'm familiar with it, it's comfortable for me, and it is not glaringly wrong.