EDDA: A LOVELY LIE DOWN BY THE SEA

Röst gefr ödlingr iastar

öl virdi esvá – fyrdum.

Thögn fellir brim bragna

biórr forn er that – horna.

Máls kann mildingr heilsu

miödr heitir svá – veita.

Strúgs kemr í val veiga

vín kallak that – galli.

The king gives currents of yeast [that is what I adjudge ale to be] to men.

Men’s silence is dispelled by surf [that is old beer] of horns.

The prince knows how speech’s salvation [that is what mead is called] is to be given.

In the choicest of cups comes [this is what I call wine] dignity’s destruction.

 

Vikin poet Snorri Sturluson wrote this in his epic work Edda, a primer to teach poets and scribes of his day the etiquettes of court and the manners and language one should use when addressing kings. He was slaughtered in his cellar in Iceland in 1241.

Vikins drank from horns and the skulls of the vanquished but their helmets had differing types of wings, not horns, to indicate their rank. 

Those graves at the top were hand-cut into sandstone for important Vikins at Lewsham in Lancashire. The drinking skaal, skål or skál was photographed at the Natural History Museum by Derek Adams. That cutter, cup and trencher is my standard handbag table setting. Piss all over it last thing at night and you'll never get sick.

Be warned about these helmet things and Occ Health and Safely. Helmet horns is bullshit.

It seems that when Hakon or somebody got their cleaver into the scone of St Magnus in Orkney they never got the  chance to drink a proper draught, unless they used a straw. This is with some of his bones in the wall of the beautiful Edda-era Vikin kirk bearing his name just up the hill from the Highland Park Distillery in Kirkwall.  And here's a photo somebody got of him before he saw Jesus. No it's not, it's a reco job by forensic wizard Hew Morrison 

Personal Marketing, Viking Era: I reckon if Magnus had presented a bit more along the lines of, like, say, my Brer Stephen, he wouldna got such a leak in his skál.