Viking Bronze Stirrup Mount Collection

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. 6.3 grams, 34 mm



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

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?

Comprising: square mount engraved with a knotted cross, three mounting lugs to reverse; discoid mount with lug to reverse, three bird's heads to front with jewelled eyes; openwork ringed cross; scalloped polygonal mount with leaping beast in low relief, pierced, two mounting lugs to reverse. 11.8 grams total, 14-30 mm



From the collection of a North American gentleman, formed in the 1990s.

Composed of a flat-section discoid body with pelletted border, low-relief motif of an advancing beast in regardant pose, tail curled beneath the body, the mouth open; pin-lug and catchplate to the reverse; Baltic workmanship. 9.17 grams, 26.61 mm



Ex property of a Dutch collector before 2014. From the collection of a North American gentleman

The brooch is a later Scandinavian copy of a 9th century Anglo-Saxon brooch type with a regardant horse. The present example has a more dragon-like beast in similar pose with serpentine head and extended tongue.