LOT 0293

Viking Bronze Rider and Valkyrie Mount

CIRCA 9TH CENTURY A.D.

1 3/8 in. (6.3 grams, 34 mm).

Openwork plate brooch or mount with two pierced lugs to the reverse depicting a rider and standing figure; the horse and figures shown in profile; the rider wearing baggy trousers and a cloak or mantle, a spear carried beneath his leg, his hair worn long and knotted at the rear; the standing figure wearing a floor-length robe and holing a shield; square panel beneath the horse with a grid of nine squares.

Found near Great Massingham, Norfolk, UK, circa 2010.

Cf. similar mounts from Tissø, Ribe, Sentinget and elsewhere published in Gardeła, G., Pentz, P. and Price, N., Revisiting the 'Valkyries' in Current Swedish Archaeology, December, 2022 (offprint copy included).

The scene depicted on the mount or brooch is often assumed to represent an armed warrior on horseback and a Valkyrie holding a shield. However, the rider's long and looped hairstyle may be typical of females of the period, and the standing figure often appears to be wearing a helmet. In a detailed discussion by Gardeła, Pentz and Price (2022), the standard interpretation is challenged since we do not know whether the scene shows humans or deities, nor whether the rider and attendant might be interpreted as an armed female being welcomed into Freyja's home of Folkvangr. Does the grid beneath the horse imply that there is a gaming-board available to the rider, a typical item of hall-based enjoyment alongside the horn which symbolises beer or mead? Or does this actually show a saddle-cloth, a prosaic piece of riding equipment?