The Children of Ash and Elm

Early Medieval kings were required to fight, to defend and expand their territories, and to display their successes appropriately. The Beowulf poem provides the model. As Hrothgar, king of the Danes, prospers, so the size of his warband increases: Then to Hrothgar was granted glory in battle, Mastery of the field; so friends and kinsmen gladly obey

Given the evidence for widespread violence between warbands in the dynastic inter-tribal wars of the late sixth and seventh centuries, when weapon burials were declining or absent, the direct association of weapons with professional careers as warriors begins to look a little shaky. Härke also points out that the sets of weapons found in most grave

Pictish symbol stonesv have been found here, including the Crawstane – depicting a salmon riding on the back of a fantastical water beast

a medieval Welsh legend, one of the earlier of the so-called Mabinogion collection of tales, contains an inventory of ‘the ceremonial possessions of a traditional ruler: sword, knife, whetstone, drinking horn, cauldron, draughtsboard, mantle and the like’.17 Feasting, gaming, drinking: these were the pursuits of an élite who did not spend their liv