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Home> Shields> Wooden Viking Shield
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Wooden Viking Shield
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Take yourself back in time at the expense of our classic Viking Shield. The shield is made in the Viking age style as its structure was durable and fairly well done for the period. It is made of wood and features a metal hub and a handle at the back appropriate especially for the Viking era.
The Norwegian Gulaþing laws have a lot of influence on specifying the construction of a shield: ¨The shield should be made of wood with three iron bands and a handle fastened to the back side by iron nails. A later revision of the law says that the shield should be made of a double layer of boards (tvibyrðr), and the front should be painted red and white.¨ A few shields have survived from the Viking age which date from the 10th century like the shields from the Gokstad ship which was equipped with 32 shields, several of which survive intact. All the surviving examples are made from solid butted planks although literary evidence and laws suggests that shields were made of laminated wood but no archaeological evidence supports this style of construction during the Viking era in Norse lands.
At the center of the shield was a domed iron boss to protect the hand. The boss must be large enough to comfortably admit the hand and allow the shield to shift freely around the hand. The later bosses were more flattened while the earlier bosses were hemispherical yet others had a cylindrical neck between the flange and the dome.
At the end of the Viking era, kite shields were used notably since their shape helped protect a fighter while riding on the back of a horse. However, during the Viking age, when the fighting was done on foot, they no longer served any good. Snorri Sturluson, writing well after the Viking age, says that in earlier times, shields were decorated on the border called the circle (baugr, meaning "ring"). Thus, Snorri says that in poetry shields should be referred to as a circle, suggesting that shields were round.
To put the combatant in an aggressive position with good defensive options, the shield was held at an angle to the body either to the outside or the inside. The angle prevents the shield from being driven straight in to the combatant's body, which might pin his arms and limit his options. The angle also allows incoming blows to be deflected, rather than being caught straight on which puts less force on both the shield and the combatant's arm, reducing the likelihood that either will break. Egill used this technique against Berg-Önundur in chapter 58 of Egils saga when Egill placed his shield at an angle so that the spear (kesja) thrown by Önundur was deflected by the shield and glanced off.
Diameter: 24 inches
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