Conversations podcast. I'm your host Becky Hill,
otherwise known as Soul Chaser Becky and I am
a proud Viking geek. I fell in love with the
history, culture and mythology of the Viking
Age and I have been on an endless quest for more
ever since. Join me as I discuss all things North
with those who have been inspired by Viking Age
history and North mythology in their creative
works or those who have studied the sagas and
archaeology and review. how such subjects are
being presented to modern audiences today. If
you like Viking stuff you are welcome in my Valhalla
and I hope you stay for the conversation. Welcome
everyone to Valhalla Conversations podcast, where
we talk all things north, whether it's history,
mythology, artifacts, sagas, poetics, and of
course, everything that's been reinterpreted
and retold since. And today I am delighted to
welcome our 21st guest to Valhalla, Terry, otherwise
known as Biani the Cabbage Killer. Welcome Terry
to Valhalla. Hello. Glad to be here. I'm very
pleased to welcome you. Now, I guess we should
probably explain to our viewers and listeners
why you're known as Biani the Cabbage Killer.
Well, it's my Viking nickname, which was given
to me about 10 or 11 years ago now. Actually,
no, even longer. Don't the years build up? So
it's probably about 11 or 12 years ago now when
I was at a big science festival called Big Bang
Fair. And I was doing a weapons demonstration
using sharp weapons, all about the physics of
weapons. And I had a crowd of kids all around
me, behind barriers, I should say. And at the
end of it, so what I do at the end is I use a
cabbage. It has to be a specific type of cabbage.
Otherwise, it doesn't hold up very well. And
so I was using the sharp weapons on that. And
I finished off with slicing it up with a Danax.
And after I'd gone back to my main store, where
I have all my display and everything, I was just
setting up. And this little lad, about 10 years
old, so he's probably a year five or year six.
And he comes up to me, and he looks at me, and
he says, you're bianni the cabbage killer I thought
that is now my name so given to me by a 10 year
old lad at say at the Big Bang Fair in the NEC
in Birmingham that is awesome and that actually
really suits the whole I guess the idea behind
all these Norse nicknames that we hear about
in sagas and poetics. Exactly, exactly. Which
is Bjarne, not Bjarne, Longbreeches. Oh my god,
something Longbreeches. Ragnar, was it Ragnar?
That was it Ragnar Longbreeches because he supposedly
wore hairy trousers of sorts. Yes, yeah, so yeah,
my nickname was actually given to me, as all
nicknames should be. You can't just take one
for yourself. That is very fitting and elaborating
further on that because as you mentioned you
were to a big science fair, the big bang, this
is because your main role is not just talking
about Viking history but connecting it to the
modern knowledge of science that we all have
today for children in primary schools and beyond.
That is true, yeah, yeah, so I'm known as the
science Viking, that's like my website scienceviking
.com because While I've been a Viking Rean actor
for 36 years now, I was also a science teacher.
And so when I left formal teaching, I actually
set up to do science parties and science shows.
I had a couple of science shows that I did at
other science festivals, British Science Festival
and whatever. And they went really well. um sort
of travel universities and what we're doing that
but it was too much like hard work and i thought
why why don't i merge my love of history and
the re -enactment with the science so i became
the science viking um by when i'm teaching about
vikings then i also include a lot of the science
in there because there's loads and loads of science
you know weapons is all about physics and so
are ships really um and the various things like
the Viking Sunstone and their navigation and
everything. That's all physics and chemistry.
And then, of course, I can do the anatomy, depending
on how gory they want the stories of battles
to get. But these things naturally go together.
And so my whole philosophy is when I go into
a school or when I'm display into the public
at an event or something I I always sort of say
like this this is the way that teaching used
to be many many years ago where it's not like
it is all artificial in schools where you do
one one lesson is all about this and the next
lesson is all about this and the next lesson
is yeah it's this topic here and none of those
things are allowed to touch yeah boxes not allowed
to touch each other um well yeah they should
be touched and in fact they should all be jumbled
up together because the way we learn best is
by learning about lots of different things and
how they're all interrelated all at once. So
that's what we do. So they learn about history
and they also get the science as well. Sometimes
without realising it. I know that it certainly
makes a point when I think about Viking Age shipbuilders
and how they kind of like use the science of
I presume, I'm going to say fire but I could
be wrong, kind of like to help shape the wood
and to kind of like carve the wood but also to
like typical mixes such as all the tar that they
used to kind of like waterproof everything and
make them stick and it's just there's so much
to it as well as kind of like... Obviously back
in those days it wasn't science and all science
is just Latin for knowledge and so they would
have all that knowledge but that would all be
sort of practical knowledge that's built up.
a lot of it through trial and error, but building,
it's also science is building on what's gone
before. So you know something works, then you
find out that something works, and then you think,
right, how can I improve on that? And that's
how things go. And so, yeah, nowadays, we call
it science, but the end of the day, all it is
just knowledge. And it's just, we have a greater
knowledge about how these things work, because
we understand the chemistry and the physics behind
it. That's all it is. Yeah. I mean it's making
me think now to of course the different accounts
that you sometimes come across, although I've
come across it mostly in historical fiction more
than actual non -fiction, but kind of like when
someone's received a gut wound they drink something
that's really strong and pungent, usually onions.
It's always onions. Just see if they can smell
it coming out the other end, which is obviously
a sign of a leakage, but then of course there's
different probably herbal remedy type bandages
or poultices that they would have treated to
a common injuries back then, I suppose, to a
degree. Oh, yeah, exactly. Actually, that leads
nicely on to an Anglo -Saxon medicine, Bald's
I -Self, from Bald's Leech Book. Really? Yeah,
I don't know if you've ever heard of that. No,
not heard of that at all. OK, so Bald's Leech
Book, which is in the British Library, and it's
a leech book. In Anglo -Saxon times, a leech
was a doctor. A leech book is a collection of
all his recipes and remedies for various ailments
and illnesses and stuff. And so he'd written
all this stuff down. It was written, I think,
between about 940 and 970, or something like
that, in Winchester. So Bald was a monk. And
that document has come down through the ages,
survived a few things together, you know, like
Bay of Walsh and whatever, and it survived all
this time. And back in 2015, 2016, there's Dr.
Christina Lee at Nottingham University. Oh, yes,
I know Christina. And she was translating it.
Oh, wow. And she came across this recipe for
a WEN, W -E -N. And to paraphrase and summarize,
it basically says, take onions and garlic or
leeks. So they called it onions and cropliatch,
which is either garlic or leek, although garlic
seems to be better. and mash them all up in a
molten pestle and then to an equal amounts. And
then to that, you take equal amounts of wine
and ox gall, which is the bile from the gallbladder
of a cow. Yeah, lovely stuff. And you mix them
all together. And it says to do it in a brass
vessel and then leave it for nine nights. And
then on the 10th day, you strain it through a
cloth to clarify, get rid of all the bits. And
then it says, apply at night. to the eye with
a feather. And afterwards, it also says the best
medicine. So the story is that when she read
this, she knew about Freya Harrison, who's a
Viking reenactor and was a microbiologist at
Rottingham University as well. So they got together
because they had a common interest. So there's
medicine from the 10th century that says it's
the best medicine. And Freya is a microbiologist
in the lab at the university. So I thought, why
don't they make some and try it out? So that's
exactly what they did. Freya knows that. Oh,
by the way, when. and again it's sort of like
a sort of a blemish a lump for a zit or something
and okay and this in particular case was a stye
on your eyelid which as a microbiologist knows
is caused by a bacterium staphylococcus aureus
so they got organic ingredients and they even
tried to source them from the local area around
Winchester and they They had to use dried bile
because you can't really make it anymore. The
abattoirs won't send it to you when you have
tried. But anyway, so they made it and they tried
it on Staphylococcus aureus and it worked. When
they put it in petri dishes, it actually killed
the bacteria. So would domestos. You don't want
to be putting bleach in your eye. No, as well.
You can imagine if you know, because that's going
to trickle into your eye, isn't it? That is onions,
garlic. The wine obviously turns into vinegar
plus all that mixture. That's going to sting
like hell, isn't it? It's going to really sting.
So you don't want to go for all that if it's
not going to work. So. But also, if it's just
like a bleaching agent, that could be dangerous
to the eye. So when they tested it, they tested
it against various forms of bacteria. And they
found out that it worked differently against
different bacteria. Some worked great, some middling,
some not at all. So it's actually an antibiotic.
And well, basically, to cut a long story short,
it is currently, well, i've not i think the last
paper i read was a couple of years ago but it
did they tried to get it into clinical trials
and it went through stage one like the safety
tests with a healthy volunteer um but i don't
think they've managed to get funding for it which
is stupid as what they were aiming to use it
as was a possible treatment for a drug -resistant
diabetic ulcers which if you get an untreatable
infection like well usually mrsa And our antibiotics
are literally 50 -50, whether they work against
MRSA. If they don't work, the treatment is amputation.
Well, it turns out Bald's eye self kills MRSA
better than anything we actually have. It is
a powerful antibiotic. paper that I read on it
it was saying that is basically because each
each of those individual ingredients is slightly
antimicrobial but when you leave it and you let
it brew for that nine nights basically to brew
a nine is a is a good time because like yeah
that's three times three nine and three is a
mystical number and multiples yeah so you've
got that but it turns out that nine nights is
about how long it takes to get to its maximum
potency. And after that, it's dribbling away
a bit. And don't leave it long enough. It's not
as good. So in that time, there's all sorts of
chemical reactions going on in there as it's
brewing away. And they know that the compound
is probably one of several compounds based around
allicin, which is the antimicrobial compound
in alliums. And so I think they're still They're
probably one on the way to figuring out what
all the active ingredients are but it's actually
a combination of things rather than just the
one thing that they like, you know, like aspirin
is just that one ingredient salicylic acid. So
yeah, but it's a lot of medicine isn't like that.
It's a combination, especially natural remedies.
It's a combination. So yeah, but it turns out
it kills MRSA better than anything we currently
have. So the fact that they've not been able
to get funding for the clinical trials means
a bit. To me, that sort of smacks of big pharma,
don't it? Yeah. Yeah, because it's going to be
a cheap thing, because it's cheap ingredients.
And so it's probably not something they can make
money out of. Yeah, which is, whenever I tell
this story, I always say, yeah, it's a good argument
for the nationalization of the pharmaceutical
industry. That's a good point. couldn't be making
profit out of people's illness, should you? Yeah,
so anyway, so yeah, so it's a powerful, powerful
antibiotic. And it comes all the way back from
the 10th century, which together then, Christina
and Freya, who I think last time I looked was
now an assistant professor at Winchester University,
not Winchester. Another one being worried. It's
in Warwickshire anyway Names fall out of your
head names always fall Anyway, yeah worried university.
I think yes She's their assistant professor there
now, but they set up this thing called the ancient
biotics project So there's a website which is
using old manuscripts As an avenue of drug discovery
So yeah, which is new apparently in China. They've
been doing this for years I dare say there's
some Chinese person going to watch this and thinking,
yeah, we've been doing that for years. You're
only just catching up with us. But yeah, it's
a new avenue of drug discovery. And they found
quite a few using just quite common things, like
even stinging nettles. There's all sorts of things
they can use stinging nettles for. But this is
all going through the proper scientific procedures.
So yeah, so it's really, really good. Well, thanks
for sharing that. That was a wonderful story
and stuff I've never heard of. I mean, I was
vaguely aware of Christina's work back when she
was working on it. Yeah. And I think I read a
blog post or interviewed somewhere about kind
of medicine and injuries and Viking HIV. But
it was so long ago now. I think it was like definitely
pre -before COVID. Yes. But yeah I remember meeting
Christina at a couple of Viking aid symposiums
or conferences that I got to go to like the Midlands
Viking symposium I got to go to for a number
of consecutive years and she was very welcoming
considering I was one of the very few non -academics
there. Everyone else was studying it I was just
like I just want to learn more for free without
going to university because I can't afford it.
as much as I would love to study it full -time
professionally I just can't time and life and
money are all against me and other things but
yeah I would definitely be looking up that website
later on because it and you're right about the
kind of like the Chinese angle because everyone's
familiar kind of like with the word of Chinese
medicine but it always kind of even brings up
the stereotype of something kind of like kooky
involving kind of like weird things that you
wouldn't usually put together but it's it it
shows that they're kind of like they're acknowledging
the versus us where we're all so kind of like
we're so kind of like men and women of the 21st
century going forward. We don't often look back
and consider what people knew then as being worth
what we know now. There's almost like a superiority
-ness isn't there about knowledge now and knowledge
then? Although I think the thing about Chinese
traditional medicine, it's called Chinese traditional
medicine but it was, I might be wrong. But from
what I understood, it only goes back to about
the 1950s. And it was all done during the Great
Cultural Revolution by Chen and Mao, who wanted
to do all this stuff. And a lot of it was all
sort of entirely made up. It just gets some good
sounding. But for example, I think, is it still
or it certainly was the best medicine against
malaria was the artemisine which was because
one of the things that the Chinese are excellent
at is extracting compounds from plants and they
for years they were able to do it much much better
in the West I mean they might still be able to
do it better but when it comes to extracting
the active compounds from plants, the Chinese
are world leaders in that. So that's one thing
they're really, really, really good at. So yeah,
but there's so much in nature that you have to,
and back in the Viking times, they would have...
Sim what works in various things, you know, like
I'm rubbish at herbalism, but you know, various
plants that are called sort of, you know, bone
knit and wound words and all that sort of thing.
And those, and those will come from the traditional
ways of using them because they did actually
help with, with all these things. Because the
plants are our natural sort of pharmacy, aren't
they? Yeah. Yeah, that's basically all we knew,
knowledge of plants and animals and what to eat
and what to eat. Because knowledge of poisons
and toxins was probably just as valuable then
as it should be now, really. I'm constantly telling
my five -year -old, don't eat those berries,
they're for the birds, so we call them bird berries.
Yeah, and many of the things that are in plants
are actually poisonous. most poisons can be used
medicinally. Because all a drug is, is a substance
that has an effect on the body. And lots of these
drugs come from plants. And it's actually, it's
Paracelsus, the 15th, 16th century alchemist,
who's known as the father of toxicology. he was
the one who sort of to again paraphrase it he
had a 16th century way of putting it but it's
basically the dose that makes the poison and
a lot of things that are considered poisons now
um are actually medicines you just use them at
the right dose and they have a beneficial effect
rather than rather than for example uh botulinum
oh yeah so uh your botox people go and have their
injections of to make themselves apparently look
young um although i don't see it just looks and
makes them look like android mannequin type things
don't it um uh the botulinum toxin is the most
dangerous toxin on the planet um like uh there's
that was it there's a picture somewhere of a
of a like a pile of about two kilos of botulinum
toxin. It's a white crystal. And they said, yeah,
that little pile there could kill every single
person on the planet. Yeah, so we're talking
parts per 100 billion of that. Yeah, it's just
a few molecules can completely sort of stop the
paralyze. It's basically a paralyzing agent.
But all these different things. So you've got
herbalism. is where our medicine originally comes
from, really. But again, using just, these are
all my own personal fingers, by the way, but
just using the straight plants from nature, I
find problematic because you've no idea how much
of the dose of the active compound that you're.
after, you've got no idea how much of it is in
that plant. So it might not have enough, in which
case it's going to be useless, or it might have
too much, and then you overdose. That was just
by looking at the plant. So I'm sure there's
herbalists all come and fight. And I'm quite
always, always happy to be put right. But yeah,
so that's why I like modern medicine. So while
we've got recipes from ancient times that are
being used today, we have that modern 21st century
scientific eye on it and we can make it be safe.
Yes I mean you talk about kind of like the dosage
and toxins it certainly made me think about alcohol
because of course strong alcohol is damaging
to any cells whether you're drinking it or kind
of like dabbing on a cleaning surface as well
we had alcohol gel so much during the COVID pandemic
years exactly of course I've got no idea how
strong proper mead would have been back in the
day or even kind of like watered ale because
of course Jorvik Museum's always telling you
the country to go round that because the day
when was not clean to drink they just drink watered
ale all the time. Yeah, yes because part of the
process of making these things is sort of fermentation
and also you boil the water as well. It kills
the microbes for most of them then the fermentation
process gets rid of most of the rest of them
so yeah. It's a That's why we all used to drink
beer Well, I'm saying that if you had a clean
source of water then you should drink water So
a lot of towns and whatever you couldn't because
the water wasn't clean Mm -hmm. Yeah, so it's
yeah, but if you've got clean water drink clean
water, and that's what they used to do anyway
So, of course we've touched on how you're barely
the cabbage killer teaching about the Oh yeah.
Blades, hitting bodies and what can happen. Excuse
me. I know kind of like from browsing your wonderful
website that you also kind of take on other character
type roles to explore such as medieval medicine.
Yes, yes. I mean I have, I've got sort of two
main characters that I use, Erna Lesbiani and
then there's also Albert Harvey. who's a feudal
alchemist, which is my other main one. But I
also have things like I've got medieval monk
where I do an art workshop. Oh, nice. Yeah. Oh,
it doesn't. I mean, I've done it a few times.
I still got all the stuff, but I've not done
it for ages. But it's a nice one, especially
for schools, because I do a lot of work in schools.
In fact, I'm off to a school tonight. And I've
got a science festival on Sunday as well. There
are more schools next week. So yeah, I've spent
a lot of time in primary schools. But anyway,
my medieval monk, Brother Meletus, who's actually
named after, I think it's something like the
fourth archbishop of Canterbury. Yeah, so back
in the seventh century, or was it eighth century?
Seventh or eighth century. But I do a workshop
all about the making of the Lindisfarne Gospels.
Oh, wow. Can I come? I want to come along. I
want to know all about that. So I've got sort
of laminated pages from the Lindisfarne Gospels,
all the artwork and some of the writing. And
it's all laminated because like. kids get their
fingers all over it. It's in a folder, so it's
a modern folder, but that's the only modern thing
there. But otherwise, we in this and it can be
anything from a half day to an all day workshop.
And basically we make iron gall ink using like
proper ingredients. So yeah, it's authentic ink
the way that they've been using since about the
seventh or 6th or 7th century, and that iron
gall ink all went all the way up to about 17th,
18th century. They only stopped using it because
it's slightly corrosive, so once the metal nibs,
pen nibs, were introduced, they found that it
sort of corroded the metal pen nibs, so they
sort of developed other types of ink that weren't
as thick like iron gall ink is. if the iron gall
ink isn't made just right because it can still
be slightly acidic. So one big problem for conservation
of manuscripts is the fact that the iron gall
ink does actually degrade basically because it's
acidic, it destroys the paper or the parchment
that it's on. Sometimes you open it up and it
just crumbles because the ink has eaten it. But
apparently in the Lindisfarne Gospels, when they've
analyzed the ink, they've actually found that
it was pH neutral because once it was made, it
seems that they added powdered chalk or limestone
to it to neutralize it, which is why the Lindisfarne
Gospels has lasted so long because they got rid
of that acidic -ness. Yeah, so even back then
in the 8th century. they they knew what they
were doing great definitely did realized and
they realized that this ink was corrosive and
how to get rid of that corrosion by neutralizing
it with limestone or chalk so i wonder if they
must have noticed that old books in their time
were like crumbling because of that ink yeah
because if the ink isn't made properly then it
can get quite corrosive also if you add too much
iron sulfate into it as well um because you find
a lot of old manuscripts the what was black and
it turns brown and that's because not all of
the iron was reacted with the tannins um from
the from the locals and so basically the iron
oxidizes and it goes rusty yeah so whether uh
the brown comes from, which also is going to
degrade the parchment or paper. So, yeah, so
anyway. No, it's all fascinating. That's the
thing, you see. Everyone thinks, oh, we're making
some ink, but then you look at the chemistry
of it and you look at the history of how it's
made, how it's used and how it's made and everything.
One of my favorite recipes for white cool ink
is the one that was written down by Sir Isaac
Newton himself. Really? Wow. and he actually
uses strong ale in his recipe oh and i've made
it i'll tell you what i made it using old speckled
hen and i'll tell you what it was absolutely
gorgeous it smelt lovely oh yes and and it also
it just it was so black on the page it was and
it sort of went on so beautifully and had such
lovely coverage. But then you'd expect this person
is still considered the greatest scientist ever,
even more than Einstein. You'd think he'd know
how to make good ink. But if you look up on the
internet, you can find his actual recipe for
making iron gall ink. Oh, that's remarkable.
Yeah. So we do all that. the kids can use read
pens or together quills to do some writing. So
that's that bit. But then for the artwork, so
then I go through the artwork and all the hensific
pages and the carpet pages and all that sort
of thing and all the illuminations. And then
look at the pigments. A lot of the pigments are
poisonous, so we can't use those. but I've got
samples of them and the original minerals that
they come from so show them where the pigments
come from and then they go through the process
of making their own paint using non -toxic, yeah
they're solid tempera paint blocks that you get
in art stores. They use those and sort of they
crush them up with rocks and then I've got so
you can crush them so that sort of simulates
take getting the mineral and and crushing that
up and then they can mix it and and Grind it
so I've got a load of glass mullers and we just
use sort of porcelain tiles and whatever to do
the mixing they can use usually we use water
for it as their water based pigments, but you
can you can use glare which is made from egg
whites or you can use egg yolk for tempera painting
so they've got all the different binders that
we can use or even sort of you know rabbit hide
glue or something like that all sorts of different
things you can make paint out of but yeah in
schools usually just use water but they go through
are they using the the millers which are sort
of glass things sort of very flat large flat
bottoms they're like with a glass handle on top
and you use that to sort of grind the pigment
so it's really really fine and into the water
so it comes out a lovely fine paint and then
they scrape all that off into seashells like
oyster shells or mussel shells or whatever or
big cockle shells and stuff and then we don't
go through making the brushes but I'll show them
out. And then they use modern paintbrushes and
then they can, so they've made their own ink
and done writing with it. They've made their
own paint and ground it up and mixed it and everything.
Hell of a mess. That's the 30 kids. Hell of a
mess. But then once they've collected everything,
they've made everything, then they can do their
own artwork. And I always get them to do some
artwork based on what they've seen from the pictures
in the Linda Swan gospel. That's wonderful. Yeah,
so they so they learn One time I did it and I
had a written Feedback and one of it was a girl
who said I thought it was just an art class But
it turned out to be art and history and science
Yeah, and at the end of the day that is exactly
what it's all about. Yeah I wish you were at
school or lived near me to come to my school
when I was growing up because I would have absolutely
loved that because we just learned about Romans
if I was school and it was just boring and then
we moved straight to Victorians. We didn't really
touch on Vikings until secondary school but that
was purely all about Alfred the Great versus
the Vikings. It was very much Anglo -Saxon biased.
You're not the first person to tell me that actually
You should consider doing adult classes. I've
signed up if I was geographically nearer I would
be Well in a way, that's what I do sort of because
like you know when I when I do the schools But
I also do events like I'm gonna be at the Yorvik
Viking festival again 11 12 years I've been doing
that now Oh wow. Originally it was Russell Scott
who used to be the authenticity officer, in charge
of authenticity for the Vikings Society. But
he's actually the one who got me into the Vikings
all those years ago. Really? Yeah. Unfortunately,
he died a couple of years ago. I'll keep on the
tradition. I'll go there with his wife, Liz Scott,
so we still go. But yeah, but when I'm there,
a lot of people always, they come to a reenactment
or they come to a festival, pagan festival, something
like that. And so many people think, oh yeah,
this is for the kids. No, it's not. In fact,
I talk to the adults. You do? I've seen it. I'm
talking to the adults, but I hopefully do it
in such a way so that the kids are engaged as
well. But I'm telling all the adults all this
stuff about all the stuff that you won't find
in an ordinary textbook. But from all the archaeological
papers and stuff like. And yeah, it's brilliant.
And it's the adults who end up staying. Very
much. I don't know. Yeah, and it's the adults
who end up staying. So it's definitely much an
adults thing. And you can't tell me that a grown
man or a grown woman don't like holding a sword
or an axe just as much as the kids do. Oh, I
know. I remember, because I had the pleasure
of finding you in your tent at the Olympic Viking
Festival this year, 2025, having recently kind
of met each other in a different sphere. Yeah.
Ian Stuart Sharpe's Vikings and Valkyries podcast,
where your character did a lot better than my
character. I will say that, I'm not going to
spoil it anymore. But I loved your character,
I absolutely loved the fact that you had a talking
jet ski. No ski even, not jet ski, wrong one.
But yeah, I was kind of like stood patiently
kind of like on the sidelines waiting for people
to stop coming and talk to you. So then I could
come and talk to you, but so many people were,
both kids and adults. And it was lovely to see
because I, even though I wasn't directly involved
in the conversation I was listening in and learning
indirectly at the same time and so many people
were interested in your fox skin or your apple
sets or kind of like the beads and the ornaments
and artifacts that you've created to have and
I love the tales you tell about them both kind
of like in a narrative sense but also in a historical
sense as well. Yeah well at the end of the day
it's all storytelling isn't it and while I I
find it very hard to tell formal stories, because
then you have to remember stuff. Whereas when
I can make it up to go along, then I'm OK doing
that. So yeah, all I'm doing is telling people
about stuff and hopefully doing it in an engaging
way. But if you go to a reenactment or a historical
event or something, and people go and say, oh,
yeah, do you want to hold a sword? And they go,
yeah, OK, I've done that. but when i sort of
give them a sword or an axe and then i say right
yeah now you can feel the way that it feels in
your hand and if you hold it like this you can
feel this and if you hold it like this you can
feel this and then i'll explain the physics behind
it and then they go oh my god yeah and and uh
and then they that's what helps them realize
well okay so the reason that axes hit harder
than swords is because of so -and -so and so
I'm explaining the thing and all of a sudden
what they can feel in their hand isn't just oh
look I'm holding a sword isn't that nice they
feel that way and they I understand why it feels
the way it does and so hopefully I think my unique
selling point if you like is the fact that I
enhance their experience by giving them that
extra knowledge that maybe some real actors don't
know. So yeah, that's sort of what I do. But
yes, I was talking about Albert Harvey. Who wasn't
it? And the alchemist. Yes, I got, because alchemy
is basically history of chemistry, isn't it?
And so once I got interested in the history of
the chemistry and then all the alchemist is like,
yes, again, Saez and Newton, who had all these
breakthroughs, he didn't really consider himself
a scientist. He considered himself an alchemist.
He wrote vastly more on alchemy than he did on
science. So we've got his, you know, like Principia
and his work on optics and gravity and all that
sort of thing. And a lot of those were because
someone would say, ask him, what do you think
about so -and -so? And he'd say, I don't know.
Give me a couple of days, and I'll work it out.
And then he goes away, and a couple of days later,
he comes back. Oh, yeah, OK. So here's all the
laws of motion and gravity and gravitational
attraction and everything. A lot of it didn't
understand himself. He said, well, what is this
gravitational attraction? Only God knows that.
or Einstein, as some people call him, came along
with the explanation for that. But back in the
17th century, they didn't know that. But what
he could do is explain why they moved or how
they moved. He explained the physics behind it.
And to him, that was a, well, yeah, this is my
take on it. For him, it was just an interesting
problem. yeah even when even if he had to invent
new maths like calculus to do it um for him it
was just an interesting problem but his main
interest was actually in alchemy and he apparently
wrote over a million words on alchemy yeah unfortunately
a lot of his stuff um got broken up and sort
of bought by various private collectors so his
stuff is all over the world but i think there's
um a project now to digitize all his stuff and
all his work on alchemy and it's all coming together
you can you can find it on the internet i think
work on alchemy and and also he was a um a biblical
prophet as well really yes he he was very interested
in um biblical prophecy and he actually analyzed
the bible and revelation and all that to try
and work out when the end of the world would
be and The reason that you get all these mad
American people coming on your telly and saying,
oh, it's the end of the world, and so and so,
and the rapture's coming, and you get all these
tales. I think even the last rapture, which was
only a couple of weeks ago, wasn't it? The last
one called Date for the Rapture. And in America,
some people did actually sell their cars and
belongings and stuff, expecting to sort of get
bodily transported up to heaven. Yeah, it didn't
happen. And the reason is, and you've got all
these crackpot American TV evangelists and so
-called prophets and whatever prophesying the
end of the world, but they're all wrong. Because
Isaac Newton, he prophesied that it was, I can't
remember the exact date, but it's somewhere in
2066. So. maybe I'll make it maybe I'll get I'll
be a hundred then if I if I live to be a might
live to see the end as well but I mean who are
you gonna who you're gonna trust for the day
well some crackpot American just out to make
a quick buck or one of the yeah I could be the
greatest scientist of all time so Isaac Newton
but anyway so so we've got all those different
tailors and the reason I really got interested
in the alchemy as well is because when I was
a science teacher we had all these different
tales of scientists through the ages and you
know all to illustrate you know like Van Helmond
who is a scientist that tell the story about
how he discovered where the biomass of plants
come from. It comes from photosynthesis. I don't
think he understood that. But the question was,
you have a seed, you plant it, and it grows.
But where does all the stuff that make a tree
come from? Where does it all come from? Because
everyone always thinks it comes out of the ground,
which is quite natural. So you plant them in
the ground, and that's what they grow out of.
But he did an experiment for this in the 17th,
18th century. Rubbish debates. But anyway, so
he got a massive great big pot and he planted
a sapling and he weighed everything. He weighed
the sapling. He weighed the amount of soil that
he put into it. And he measured, weighed all
the amount of water that he put into it and everything
and left it for five years measuring it all the
time. And after five years sort of came to the
conclusion that, well, in the textbooks. that
the year sevens and eights in key stage three
in secondary school, it says, and by this, he
discovered that the biomass comes from the air.
But he didn't. That revelation didn't come till
later, because his conclusion was, well, the
only thing I've added is the water. Because before
I started, this is how much soil weighed after
when I finished the experiment. it weighs a couple
of ounces less. So obviously, it didn't come
from the soil. Where else could it? Well, the
only thing I've added is water. So his conclusion
was the biomass comes from water. And in those
days, there was still, like you still had the
theory of four elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and
Water. So he explained it that way. So that was
his conclusion. And the thing that I hated is
the fact that In the textbooks, it said he discovered
that biomass come from the air because it's the
carbon dioxide fixed by photosynthesis that you
get. Yeah. So, you know, in a way, sort of all
plants and trees are made from thin air. Yeah,
they're just made of air is all. Yeah, but the
textbooks were misrepresenting the story and
I don't like that. And so now I can tell people.
properly that that's where it came from. So I
sort of did all that and I thought, yeah, I'm
going to do an alchemist character. But before
I started it, I actually spent two years researching
and learning up about alchemy before my first
thing, which was at Moncastle Castle, about six
miles from me in Cumbria. And it went down really
well, especially. And I had all these great ideas
about all these alchemical experiments that I
could do. But at the end of the day, It was all
too difficult to do in a tent and I didn't have
the right equipment. So I thought, you know what,
I'll just go straight to transmutation. So we'll
just go straight to making gold. So that, so
as well as having loads of sort of stuff on display
and I can explain all the chemistry and the history
behind all these different things. The actual,
the one actual activity that I do. is transportation,
where I take copper coins. And before your very
eyes, I transmute them into gold coins. And you
think, well, if you're doing that, you must be
really rich. But no, I've got a rubbish this
model, because all those gold coins I make, I
give them away for free. But in the context of
an alchemist, I have to say, but this only works
through the grace of God. If you've got any hint
of sort of avarice in your heart, you're doing
it through greed, profit motive, then it ain't
going to work, despite the fact that it's a natural
process, because they thought it was a natural
process in those days. Although, we'll come back
to that, because in a way, it is. But it's not.
But anyway, so they thought it's an entirely
natural process. Alchemy was just speeding up
those processes. That's all it was doing. But
if you didn't have a pure heart and you weren't
doing it with the right intention, then it wouldn't
work because it only works by the grace of God.
So that's what they were. So that's what I include
in my. in my spiel about it. And of course you've
got to include a bit of Blackadder in there as
well. But yeah, so it's all about the story.
I'll tell you what though, when I do this, I
mean, the actual... demonstration is really,
really simple. And it's actually in a textbook.
You can sometimes see it done in schools, especially
on school open evenings when the science department's
doing their displays and they might do, yeah,
they're gonna display some transportation, making
gold and whatever. So it's in one of the experiment
books from the Royal Society of Chemistry. But
it's quite funny because I do it on a charcoal
fire, on a little charcoal fire. And I think
it's the first week that I was doing it at Moncastor
and my head of science came along. Well, my old
head of science when I was in school and she
is watching and she said, how do you get that
to work? Because she said, I've tried doing this
in the classroom using proper equipment. And
she said, I can't get this to work. I said. And
there you are doing it in a muddy field, a charcoal
fire, and you've got it to work every time. It's
by the grace of God. That's wonderful. I'm just
so impressed with the knowledge that you have
and the passion and all these tales and anecdotes
and the history that's just pouring out of it.
It's just sensational. Well, I've done a lot
of reading, and I sort of remember a few things.
But I have to keep reading up because some of
it falls out of my brain or gets lost. And I
always like looking for new stuff. Actually,
with regards to the alchemy, back in September,
I was at a Renaissance fair in Kent and doing
my alchemist. thing over the weekend. And I had
a group of science teachers that come all dressed
up in all their fairy costumes and everything.
So that was funny. But here's a group of science
teachers from school, Canterbury, Canterbury
College, which was a private school. And they
said, one of the teachers absolutely fell in
love with me and i'll be your apprentice i really
want to be your apprentice i don't want to be
a teacher forever um but but i'd love to do this
yeah because you're yeah it's basically i'm still
a teacher i'm just doing right and but from that
i'm hoping I mean, to be honest, whether they
go for it or not, it doesn't matter. I'm doing
it anyway, because it's a resource that I can
sell to schools, which is a scheme of work of
12 lessons all about alchemy. Wow. And so this
would come under STEAM. So mostly out of STEM,
sort of Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths.
Well, STEAM is Science, Technology, Engineering,
Arts and Maths. Yeah. like, so this is going
to be a really cross curricular scheme of work
aimed at year sevens or year eights, probably
for after school clubs, STEM clubs. But it's
going to include sort of, you know, you've got
the science, you've got the history, you've got
the art, you've got geography, because like,
alchemy sort of started really in sort of first
to third century Egypt. And then after the burning
of Alexandria, it moved to Greece. I mean, in
first to third century, Egyptian was sort of
like ruled by Greece anyway. So it's sort of
like Hellenistic Egypt. But then it sort of moved
to Greece. And then with the fall of the Roman
Empire. And because a lot of the writing and
alchemy is actually in Greek. And so when the
Roman Empire fell, basically before it fell,
it split into two. The Empire based in Rome,
and you got the Empire based in Constantinople,
in Istanbul, in Turkey. So the Empire split in
half, and then the Western Roman Empire, the
Roman Empire based in Rome, that was conquered
by, was it the Goths or the Huns or someone?
but not my area of history, but basically I think
it was the Goths, wasn't it? They sacked Rome
in the third century AD. But when the Roman Empire
split, the thing about Romans, so they had taken
on, like they took over Greece to start with,
didn't they? And about Romans, they seemed to
me to be a very pragmatic type of people. And
so like all that Greek knowledge from ancient
Greece, all the philosophers, they thought this
is great, they're really large, we can use this,
but anything practical they used and they wrote
about it, but all the other stuff, all the theory
and everything and the mystical stuff and all
that sort of thing, they couldn't be bothered
to call that. So a lot of that got left out and
by the sort of I think it was by the sixth or
seventh century, basically no one in the Western
Roman Empire could read Greek, and it was all
the Latin. And the Latin only had the stuff that
the Romans thought was interesting and useful
to them. And so a large part of the Greek corpus
didn't get into Western Europe, but was preserved
by the Arabs. And so from the seventh century
onwards, the Arabian Peninsula and Islam as it
spread through and into Asia Minor and all North
Africa and into the Iberian Peninsula and Spain
by the eighth century, it was pushing into Europe.
But luckily, Charles Martel defeated a massive
Muslim army up somewhere in France. And so that
was the extent that the Muslims actually reached
in Europe because Charles Martel, he sort of
stopped the expansion eastwards into Europe.
So he, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah. So
that Islamic empire, if you like, they still
had knowledge of the Greek. And a lot of the
Greek writings got translated into Arabic. And
then it was preserved. And it was also worked
upon. So a lot of the early alchemists are actually
Arabic alchemists. So some people like Razi and
Geber and Avicenna, those are all originally
Arabic alchemists but some people might recognize
the names because they've been italicized or
they're into into like the western um speech
so we got to know them through those names but
a lot of that stuff was like the golden age of
Arabic science so up until about 10th yeah 10th
into the 11th century the the Muslim culture
was far superior to the Christian. And the scientific
knowledge was far superior to the Christian,
the Western European scientific knowledge. But
then by about the 12th century, you had in the
Spanish area, you had people translating from
the Greek into the Arabic, but also into back
into Latin. And so from about the 12th century
onwards, mainly through Spain and Constantinople,
then you had all that lost knowledge that had
been lost in Western Europe, but preserved in
the Eastern Roman Empire and the Islamic lands,
all that knowledge now starting to get translated
back into Latin. So then it slowly came back
into Western Europe. A lot of people don't realize
that we've got Islam to thank for holding on
to that knowledge that otherwise would have been
lost. Yeah, that's remarkable. I've only ever
come across brief references to the amazing science
or even the mathematics. I remember following
a history of mathematics. I presented to Cartman
the name of, but I think he had a surname that
I couldn't always pronounce right, but he did
kind of like touch on mathematics coming, mathematical
theory at least, coming from the Islamic part
of the world and that history. What, Jamal Khalili
is it? Does Jamal Khalili really into all that?
I want to say the name Mark by Cartman with the
surname. I could be wrong. I could be wrong.
I like you. It's something that I've read or
watched many years ago now. Yes. Oh, gosh. Wow.
And in my previous monologue, I dare say that
I got a lot of the dates wrong. So if there's
anyone said, it didn't happen then, OK, I'm rubbish
at dates. As long as I've got it within the right
sort of century either side, I hope, then. Yeah,
because I'm rubbish at dates. but yeah so yeah
but that's that's that's what I'm all about you
see is sort of bringing to the public and it's
that it's informal teaching if you like at historical
events and yeah in schools but also science festivals
if they have me and whatever and it's bringing
all this but it's not just the science it's the
fact that everything you can't separate one thing
from another everything is all together And when
you learn about one thing, you learn about history,
you learn about science, and you learn about
people's writings and all that sort of thing.
And also the stories of the people who did all
that thing as well. A lot of them were really,
really, really interesting personal stories as
well, with all this knowledge and the scientific
knowledge, all sorts of brilliant personal tales.
They're like Taiko Braha. I'm probably mangling
how you say his name, but was he Dutch or Danish?
Something like that. And he was a famous astronomer
back in the days when astronomy and astrology
were similar disciplines, and quite often many
astronomers were also astrologers as well. One
of my favorite things about him is the fact that
he had his nose cut off in a sword writing jewel.
And so later pictures, paintings that you see
of him, he's actually got a, I think it's made
of bronze, leather or bronze or something like
that. But he's got an artificial nose that was
made for him because he had his nose cut off
in a jewel. That was a bad duel. Did he win that
duel? Did he lose? I can't remember. I can't
remember. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Wow. Well, to bring
it slightly more back to the present day, I know
kind of like from our brief chats back when we
were part of the Viking and Bad Kiwis podcast,
actual play TTRPG role play game. Yes. Ian mentioned
more Forge settlement in Cumbria and your role
in that. Could you tell us more about that, please?
Yes, blimey. So it's something that I'm involved
with. I actually use it. So, well, start at the
beginning. It's owned by a guy called David Watson.
And, oh, by the way, better show more for the
t -shirt. Yeah, very good. Morphorge has merch.
Yeah, David Watson, he was an industrial blacksmith
that works at Sellafield. And when he left Sellafield,
he sort of became self -employed and he does,
he's still a blacksmith, but works out of his
own workshop now. And he had an interest in Vikings.
And it was sort of about 2004. He Got the sort
of made contact with this local place called
Grampus, which is based in near Wigton and it's
a archaeological and sort of training thing and
they they used to do loads of stuff in the EU
under Erasmus and all that sort of thing I've
been away on a couple of things with those absolutely
brilliant. Obviously Brexit got all that but
Until I'm not a fan Yeah, so he sort of went
away on a few courses because they sort of specialised
in Viking Age stuff, Viking Age crafts, there
was a blacksmith who was interested in that,
and he got invited to go to do an iron smelt
in Iceland, so he went off there, yeah, and got
really interested because there's a guy over
there, whose name alludes me, but he specialised
in making sort of Viking -style buildings. And
so they got funding through Grampus to come to
some land that David owns, a field that he owns
next to his house, and build an Icelandic -style
Viking smithy with a forge and everything, which
is what they did. And it sort of sat there in
his field for a couple of years. And he thought,
well, you know, deal with a bit more. So he decided.
build a workshop, but it was a workshop that
had a living area to go with it. So it's a long
house, but only half of it was totally enclosed.
The other half was half roofed, but it was open
on one side so you could sort of do woodworking
and other crafts and whatever. But then when
that was built, started someone approached him
about having folk nights, doing folk music. in
this place. I said yeah yeah because yeah it'd
be nice to see it actually get used so and and
I'd also been involved a little bit so I was
there for the opening in 2014 of the display
and I was sort of in a tent and everything yeah
holding forth doing my thing and then we had
the the uh the folk nights in the in the Viking
they called it the lock house but it was really
a workshop um and then I think it was a Christmas
one or towards Christmas and so many people turned
up that they couldn't actually get in. Oh bless.
And so people peering through the door and so
they thought well this is no good because if
they get this popular then we need to we need
a bit bigger building and the easiest way doing
it was to roof the entire building and have it
all one long building. So that's when it became
a profit long house. And shortly after that,
I started doing school groups there. And then
we had sort of more open days and stuff there.
And then about twenty twenty two. I was doing
I'm busy doing schools. Twenty twenty two. David
thinks. One long house isn't enough. I need to
build another one that was about three times
the size. Oh gosh. So this new one was 18 meters
by seven meters at its widest narrowing down
to five meters. So it's a good shape. So it's
sort of, you know, like that boat shaped if you
like. And it's also got a hogsback on it as well.
Oh, very nice. um typical long house shape and
we've we've almost finished that actually i mean
it's all needs a door putting on it and half
the roof needs shingling still but um now we've
got an 18 meter by seven meter space where we
can do more stuff which which is yeah for schools
is brilliant because getting 30 kids in the smaller
long house is a bit of a surprise if it turned
out that it was raining all day It made life
difficult, let's just say. It wasn't a big space
for 30 kids, but now we've got this big long
house, 18 meters by seven meters, that is absolutely
huge. And so that is going to get you some more
things. So now, like the last, since about 2022,
we've started having re -enactments there. Despite
the fact that we've got a local reenactment group,
it's quite funny because they hardly ever use
the site. Yeah, there's Viking reenactment group.
They hardly ever use it. But there's a group
in Edinburgh and another group in Manchester.
And these are Eastern Viking groups. So in Viking
tradition. So like most of them have come from
Poland originally. So it's mostly Poles. In Viking
re -enactment now, there's like sort of three
main styles, I suppose you could say. There is
the Western style that was developed in this
country. Then you've got the Eastern style, which
developed in Eastern Europe here, Eastern Europe.
And you also got another style called Huscarl,
which is sort of a mixture of both, if you like.
But the main thing about Western style is when
you're fighting, because we're not really armored,
Most people don't wear armour, and so when you're
hitting each other with these sort of huge, great,
blunt, small weapons. we get together relatively
gently because we get up and go to well most
people have to get up and go to work on monday
yeah bones and forces split open and all that
sort of thing it happens obviously that'd be
a tricky email sorry boss i just got killed by
a viking over the weekend yeah yeah so uh yeah
and i'm in hospital yeah someone hit me with
an axe but in the eastern style they actually
go for it they wear lots of body armor which
again isn't authentic because in my weapons demo
that I do about the physics of weapons I also
include But when I'm using the shark weapons,
I'm hitting this poor cabbage as hard as I can.
And I start off with a fully armored cabbage.
So yes, he has he has a male. He's called male,
not chainmail. So it's male over it. And I also
give it some padding. So eight. So I've got this
square of one mole, which is a thick woolen cloth
that was a very valuable trade trade good in
Viking times. And I fold it. So it's eight layers
thick. So it's about Yeah, it's about that thick.
And place that over and then put the mail on
top of that and sort of talk about how, while
there's no evidence for Vikings or the Saxons
of that period wearing padding under their armor,
I sort of say, yeah, seems stupid. So here's
some padding. So some people think that maybe
because they didn't have the like the like the
early medieval padded gambesons that you see
like Normans wearing, whatever. um and you know
the the nights after that they they didn't have
that in viking times so maybe because pad you
know to not wear padding would be stupid um yeah
because it it should sort of alleviate the blunt
force trauma uh from a heavy strike maybe they
wore tunics or thick woolen tunics of you know
half dozen bags or something yeah which is a
reasonable thing although you're gonna be really
really hot and sweaty in there yes yes anyway
so i show i show what happens and and the cabbage
that i use is a hard white cabbage tougher than
human flesh and when i'm hitting it as hard as
i can and i'm using like a sword i use a lengthaxe
i haven't got a sharp sword same same thing though
um and i use an axe and especially when they
see what the axe does a good hard blow and It
can destroy the cabbage underneath through the
mail, prevents it cutting. But that thick layer
of padding, even with that blunt force trauma
from an axe, is considerable. And considering
most of your Vikings had axes, it was considerable.
And so my theory is, and it is basically a hypothesis
based on the evidence that I see from this demo,
that if you get a really strong, powerful hit,
especially of an axe the padding ain't gonna
do that much evidence is look i've just smashed
this cabbage through that thing and uh so my
my uh hypothesis is based on that that the reason
they didn't wear um padding under their armor
is because it would slow them down it would make
them less able to fight for long yeah long for
a long period And it's much easier just to get
out of the way and get a glancing blow than it
would a full force blow. And if you are going
to get that full force blow, you're going to
get broken bones anyway. So what's the point
of being hot and sweaty? Yeah. Yeah. So that's
that's why I sort of put across that my own hypothesis.
Obviously, apart from my demo, there's no evidence
for it. And there are limitations. the demo as
well because like it's a stationary cabbage and
i'm up and i'm hitting it you know spot on yeah
so it's you know but if you look at um the work
that Hurstwick do uh which are an american are
they american or canadian uh but they um wait
they i call myself the science viking but they
are true science vikings because like they use
scientific instruments and everything when they're
measuring their stuff. So really good stuff.
Really, really, really good group to look up
Hearst Week. Their website is excellent. And
they go and do sort of experiments on like hall
burnings and all sorts of stuff. They take scenes
from the sagas and try and sort of, you know,
but not reenact them, recreate them. And and
they sort of take measurements and everything
like you know what's the temperature of the fire
they're going to stick a you know temperature
probe in it yeah hot it gets and all that sort
of thing and yeah those are true science vikings
and one of the things that they say is like and
there's a there's a really good book called men
of terror this book by uh william short And it's
an excellent book because it doesn't just talk
about Like the Viking times it's a says a comprehensive
analysis of Viking combat and when they say when
you sort of read the sagas it's When you sort
of look at other people and like you've got the
the later manuscripts the fencing manuscripts
and they the uh the fighting manuals and whatever
from the sort of 13th century onwards um the
viking way of fighting they say was all about
power so like when you see a re -enactment and
you see everyone sort of doing all this tippy
-tappy stuff and whatever that's not fighting
that's that's sport fighting it's more like fencing
yeah it's a sport combat um but when you're talking
about real combat talking about hard, powerful
blows. Yeah, they're aiming to finish the fight
in one hit is what they want. And so all their
blows are really powerful. So my thing there
is, well, if most of the blows that are going
in are powerful, and are aimed to take you down
with one hit, then maybe the majority of the
things that actually hit you. If you get hit,
you are going down. So wearing the mail will
protect you from a glancing blow. And what would
make a powerful blow, a glancing blow, is actually
your movement getting out of the way. And even
if you get hit, hopefully, it's like a lot of
the power is taken away because you're moving
out of the way of it. So it's more of a deflection.
So that's what we're looking at. So when we've
got these re -enactment groups, so these Eastern
Viking re -enactment groups seem to have taken
over Moorforge. So we've got one of those every
year, sort of in June or July. And then we have
craft fairs there as well. So every May we have
a piece of craft fair. So we're looking at sort
of heritage crafts. Because of where Moorforge
is, we don't actually get that big of footfall.
It's in the middle in Cumbria. It's near Cockermouth.
at the bottom of the A66. So, and it's about
sort of 15 minutes drive from the roundabout
on the way to Cockermouth. But because we're
a bit out of the way, even a successful event
is like if we get sort of 300 or 400 members
of the public come over a whole weekend, to us
that's successful. So, but yeah. So these events
are more like, like the craft fair. It's actually
more of a networking event. Can meet each other,
can chat to each other. We've had people collaborating
with each other based on meeting each other at
these craft fairs and things. And so they come
along, do all their setup and we get people coming.
If they sell stuff, that's brilliant, obviously.
But yeah, but we don't have a pitch fee or anything
they can come and they do it for free Yeah, because
it's mainly a get -together and to enjoy this
side of more force because one thing about more
for it's a community mm -hmm and Like we've built
up this big community of the people who use the
site and also the people who come to visit us
and So we've got reenactors. We've got crafters
one of the main guys who organises the craft
event and the re -enactment event, Ashley Velderson.
He's at Velcow Arts. He runs his own re -enactment
group, Oddong Vikings, I think they're called.
They're an Eastern style, but they're also heavily
into living history as well. So he wants to do
the whole thing and he's sort of... He's a tattooist,
so he does brilliant tattoos. The Morphorge team,
which is about half a dozen people in the Morphorge
team, everyone has got a tattoo of the Morphorge
logo. Except me. Except me, because I don't do
tattoos. That's fine. You look gender and do
your own thing in person, so you are a part of
it anyway. And I think it's despite kind of like
Cumbria's most of the remote location from most
of the north of England because of course I,
you're going to have to correct me now, is it
below the Lake District or is it part of the
Lake District? Look how bad my geography is.
The Lake District is part of Cumbria. There we
go. Thank you. Thank you. I live in the north
of England, ladies and gents, but I'm pretty
much just on the eastern side between York and
Scarborough. That's the extent of my knowledge.
Well, between Huddersfield and Scarborough. And
now in the West Yorkshire part. But I think it's
really good that Cumbria has that connection,
that representation of Viking history, because
the Vikings did copulate a lot. between kind
of like islands the Isle of Man and then all
the way across through kind of that area and
beyond. Exactly. Because you don't always think
of kind of like you know Northumbria they've
got definitely got Viking history but it's not
always put together when you hear the word Viking
you just think of York or Winchester or Nottingham
or Derby and of course everything in the south
is it's so much in the north but then it's not
always dotted together in common perception I
think. As well Cumbria is more well known for
Romans, anyway. Because you've got Hadrian's
Wall, obviously. Carlisle, big Roman place. You've
got Maryport, big Roman place. You've got Ravenglass.
You've got the Roman Baths there. You've got
Hardnought Fort, the Hardnought Roman Fort and
the Hardnought Pass. And so everyone thinks about
Cumbria being a Roman place. But. arguably the
Vikings had a far greater influence on Cumbria
because all the names of Cumbria are either the
old Breton names or Viking names. Yeah, when
we go out, we don't go out to climb the hills
or the mountains, we go out on the felds. Feld
is a Viking word. So and loads and loads of the
majority of the the town names and whatever are
all based on Viking names and everything. Yeah.
So, but back to Moreforge, like you say, having
Moreforge there is brilliant because when schools
in Cumbria wanted to do, when they're doing Vikings
as part of the Vikings Park curriculum, if they
wanted to do a school visit about Vikings, they
had to go to Yorvik Viking Center. Yes, which
is a fair trip from Cumbria. So basically it'd
be part of a residential where they go away for
a few days or a week or whatever. So part of
a much bigger thing. But now I get schools usually
within about an hour's drive. So south of Cumbria
is a bit more problematic, but certainly it's
all west Cumbria all the way out to Penrith and
all the way out to Tullisle and down to Whitehaven
as well. So that area of north and central Cumbria,
we've basically got a Viking place that schools
can go and just go for the day. So up to an hour
to get there is quite reasonable. I normally
do a day there, sort of like 10 till 2. So that's
a good four hours there with half hour lunch.
And it's immersive because we have the Little
Longhouse, we've got the Smithy, we've got We've
now got the big long house, a workshop, we've
got a vegetable garden, we've got a willow copse,
we've got poles. Oh nice. We've also got a grave,
we've got a rune stone as well now. Oh wow. And
the plans for the future are to have a palisade
around it with an animal barn, we're going to
have a small chapel there which we hope to get
consecrated and a stone wheel cross as well because
But morphology is based in the 10th century and
was a time, certainly in Cumbria, of transition
from paganism to Christianity. Oh, yes. Yeah.
So one of the things that we keep on showing
is that transition. So we're going to have hogsbacks
there. We've got the rune stone. We've got a
Viking grave. We've also got a Christian. They
also want to have a Christian chapel and a Christian
cross as well to show that transition. Have you
decided who's going to be in the grave? Who's
it going to be dedicated to on the Rune Stone?
Well, the Rune Stone, well, unfortunately, one
of the core members of the Viking, of the Moorforge
team, died back in 2020, him and his wife, Sigvard
his name was, and he was, he'd do anything at
Moorforge, anything needed doing, Sigvard was
there. but he died, him and his wife both died
of Covid. Oh I'm so sorry. Yeah, which was a
great tragedy because as well as being a brilliant
volunteer, he also made the most fantastic mead
as well, so he was more of a mead maker. So we
put a grave, like a boat shaped stone grave,
and we say that is where Sigvard is. What a fitting
dedication. And the rune stone is basically to
memorialize Sigurd and his wife. And it's actually
had an international team of experts working
on it to get the inscription right. So Adam Parsons,
who is an archaeologist with Oxford Archaeology
North and who also does blue -axe reproduction.
yep so you know i need to invite him on one day
i will be yeah yeah he knows so much i learned
loads of him and also as well as that like head
knowledge he's such a talented craftsman the
stuff that he does the stuff that he does is
actually amazing but um actually it's quite funny
because i think it was about 20 22 or 23. Judith
Jesch. Oh, yes. Every year she used to bring,
I think she's retired now, hasn't she? Well,
she's now got a visiting professor position at
the University of Highlands and Islands. Yes,
that's right. She's now got a new book out lately,
one about the Giles of Orkney, which I have to
add to my reading list. Yes. Yeah, but anyway,
so see every year she used to bring her postgrad
students to Cumbria because loads and loads and
loads of sites in Cumbria, but yeah, I live Not
far from the gossip cross and the earthen cross
and yeah, there's About three miles across and
the hogs backs and everything and there's hogs
backs all over the place and fragments of various
carvings all over the place from Viking times.
And so she comes to bring them, do the tour.
And Adam invited her to come to Moorforge. And
it turned out, we were on a day where I'd just
had a school there. So we arranged, the school's
gone by sort of two half two. So they came after
that. So I think they came about sort of three
o 'clock or something. And the idea was, They
were going, I'll keep all my school stuff out.
And Adam was going to do a tour of the site and
everything. And then, like, they could spend
a few minutes with me, sort of. And what was
supposed to have been a 45 -minute visit ended
up being two and a half hours. That's the best
kind of visit, though. Because I also brought
a couple of spare cabbages with me. And I have
my quite striking stuff. And so as well as like
tour of the site and everything, they were looking
at all the artifacts on my table and I sort of
talking to him about that and all the different
bits and pieces. And then, yeah, and these are
PhD students. And that's the thing, like PhD
students in Viking stuff. And they were all just
absolutely wrapped at the stuff I tell school
kids. And and they all had to do some coin striking
and brilliant and also Highlight for them was
using my sharp Dane axe on cabbage use as well.
I Think it should be part of every course So
so what was supposed to be a 45 minute visit
turned into two and a half hours because and
they they had to postpone their visit to the
Gosseth cross because they spent their time or
forge with me instead But yeah, so that was that
was awesome. But anyway So when Sigwald died,
we thought, would it be good to have a runestone?
And he said, well, I'll talk to Judith and see
if she can do the translation and the runes.
And Judith also wrote in two or three other world
experts. And so what we've got on our runestone
is runes of the period of the dialect that would
have been spoken in that time. That's amazing.
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, as this does speak
about our family, do they know about this wonderful
memory? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They said
they must be dead chuffed with how well everything
is going for that. Yeah. But the really funny
thing is, like, There's two quotes from David,
David Watson, the owner. The first was like,
build and they will come. And my favorite quote
from him, yeah, because we've now got this site
that's still under construction, but this site
that. It's become an education hub. It's become
a social hub. It's become a hub for reenactors
and people all over the world. And we've had
world experts work on the rune stone and everything.
And it's all that. And he sort of looks, and
sometimes he says it a bit plaintively. It's
sort of just a hobby that got out of hand. I
need people to talk to about biking stuff with
and none of my immediate family or my friends
circle or if my work colleagues They're just
not on this level. I need to find people of your
ill of my kindred to spirit Yeah, but I'm sure
you've heard of this the the Longhouse that was
found at High Tarns. I did, I heard it was popping
up all over social media back when I used to
be on Twitter at the time. So that was another
grandpa's project. Wow. And they were Originally
they were thinking it was going to be a site
associated with, because there's an abbey site
there, homely, or I can't remember the name of
it. You notice I'm not very good at names. Anyway,
because there's a major abbey there. It's near
Silworth. It's about eight miles from Willow
Forge, as the crow flies. When they actually
did so they they sort of looked at the GF it
but they looked at the like Google Maps Yeah,
Google Earth stuff. I thought there's something
there so Grandpa said right, let's get some funding
and we think it's going to be to do with the
the Abbey that's nearby It turned out to be a
longhouse If you if you ever come to more for
which you do need to one day I will do one day.
It's on my bucket list Yeah, and come come the
craft fair is a good time to come because you've
got loads and loads of top quality crafters there
or there's the The training and traders which
is in June and the craft fair is in May on that
It's all it's all on the Warforged Facebook page.
Anyway, anyway, so the our big longhouse is 18
meters by seven and it's widest The longhouse
that they excavated, they have measured it as
50 meters by 15. Wow. And when you go into our
big longhouse, now that it's all covered up and
it's actually a room, it still needs a front
door on it. But when you go in there, you think,
oh my God, this is amazing. Because one of the
things that we're going to be starting next year
is Viking experience weekends. Oh, yes. I'll
sign up I'll start saving now and so you know
groups of well we're saying a minimum of 10 to
make it worth our while up to about 20 ish so
it's not too big but we're going to be starting
doing those but next year we've got the Midgard
Viking Brotherhood coming for their international
meeting. They've been coming for a couple of
years now when they actually it's quite funny
when they first approached us I had no idea who
they were and you know as a public meeting re
-enactor or historian as I prefer to call myself
sounds a bit more official. Living historian
is the other phrase I've heard. When I first
heard about it, I thought, oh dear, this sounds
dodgy. Are they going to be a weird pagan group
who've got all their Viking knowledge from the
Vikings TV series? Or even worse, is it going
to be one of those pagan neo -Nazi biker gangs?
Yes. There is an issue with right wings, unfortunately.
Yes. But when I looked into them, they are awesome.
They are a Viking -y Pagani. men's mental health
self -help group. Wow. We do loads of charity
work for mental health awareness. That sounds,
that does sound awesome. Absolutely. It's much
needed. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome people. And
they approached us saying, can you put on a Viking
event for us over the weekend? You know, you
know, feast and all sorts of stuff. and we did
and uh this will be I think next year will be
their fourth visit but they're having their international
meet now because we're we're we're limited on
the amount of people we can have you've limited
the numbers to 100 which they could easily get
250 but we said yeah literally can't fit more
than 100 people here But our hall, we worked
out that we will in the feast and Sue, David's
partner. I've been to many Viking feasts, especially
the Viking Society. And I'm sorry, anyone in
the mic who has put on feasts, but nobody, absolutely
nobody puts on a Viking feast like Sue does.
They are the best. They are the absolute best.
She is absolutely incredible. And so what we've
worked out is in the big long house, we should
be able to seat about 100 to 110 people for a
sit down Viking feast. In fact, the background
that you've got, that's basically sort of like
the way our hall is. And so we're going to have
benches and tables down outside, except. Brilliant.
Yeah. So basically, your one is a bit wider than
ours. But that set up, going to be that set up.
And we worked out we can get about 110 people,
including the high seat at the back. um yeah
this one's also got a high seat although it's
got a couple of stuffed bears in the corner you'll
be having stuffed bears yeah you can see yeah
so uh yeah we should be able to have a feast
for about 100 people but for the main Viking
experience weekend we want to limit it to about
20ish um yeah it's it's much more but yeah for
yes yeah we do uh combat training uh using foam
weapons not steel And so we're aiming to get
sort of corporate people there and stag do's
and whatever, all that sort of thing. And people
who just want a fantastic weekend and fantastic
experience. And so we're gonna be doing those
next year. But anyway, this long house that they
found. 50 meters by 18, ours is 18 by 7 and what
we've worked out is if you took our long house,
duplicated it and put the other one by its side
and then duplicate those two and put them on
the end and then duplicate one more and drop
the back, that is how big that hole was. Oh my
gosh. And then you net it for our hole and think
oh my god. That one that they found, it's the
largest Viking longhouse they found in the UK,
in the British Isles, that they excavated. It
must have been absolutely enormous. Must have
taken a lot of effort to build as well, to be
that big. Yeah, yeah. I think it was from about
970 or 990 to about 1040 it was there. Wow. That's
remarkable and the fact that you've got all these
exciting things happening at Moorford to the
big exciting plans for next year and beyond Yeah,
it's it's so great because of course I've only
come across other kind of like three other type
replica type Viking Houses long houses or otherwise
and the only one I can think of is it Mern Park?
Which is outside York, but they're pretty much
primarily used by the local Yorwick I think it
is called the Yorvik Vikings group. Yeah. And
I managed to organize a slight coup of sorts
in that I had, I was into cosplay many years
ago before, before COVID, primarily for the Dragon
Age game and organized a Dragon Age photo shoot
at Men Park using their buildings and scenes
and stuff. And we only were able to achieve it
because one of my friends in the cosplay group
was also a reenactment and she knew the guy that
ran Men Parks. So it's kind of like, you know
who? collection but I know they don't really
do much public things but they also host lots
of school visits such as Millforge does. And
then there's the ancient technology centre all
the way down in Dorset which I managed to go
to one of my many family holidays in Dorset and
see their impressive little house. They do Viking
weekends as well so there's only three that I
know of in the entire country of England considering
how much Viking heritage we have. Yeah and they're
building one on the Isle of Man as well. Oh,
that's brilliant. Actually inspired by more forge.
Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah. So more forge was
also inspired someone else to build one on the
other man. You'll have to sound like a little
raiding party to visit have a feast and then
invite them over. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they've
got any. I don't think they've got a long house
up yet. Again, it's like a matter of funding
because more forge as well. The only building
that was funded was the Smithy. originally back
in 2014 everything else has been self -funded
through school visits and events that we hold
there and whatever of his own money that David
can put in so it's entirely self -funded. You
say it's all run by volunteers is it not? Yeah
yeah yeah yeah basically yeah it's all volunteers.
So they're mostly volunteers at the Ancient Technology
Centre as well? Yeah, I pay David to use the
site, so I charge the school and then the money
the school gives me, some of that goes to Moorforge
and all the events, they all pay part of what
they get to Moorforge, basically to finish the
buildings because I think David wants to have
it done, completed in the next couple of years.
yeah he's approaching retirement age he's got
a wonderful legacy oh yeah basically more forge
more forge is yeah that's his retirement package
is more forge um and then uh yeah and people
like me using it so yeah and and yeah i'm hoping
that especially if we can get these viking experience
weekends off the ground that I'll still do events
and stuff and schools. But basically more forward
will become my main source of income is what
I'm hoping. I mean, it's been 10 years in the
build up to it. So yeah. Fingers crossed. Well,
it has been such a real joy and pleasure speaking
to you about all of this, Terry. You've got so
many fascinating stories, standard notes. Thank
you. And things and knowledge, the knowledge
your brain has, I am in awe of it. I really am.
I do go on a bit, don't I? I do go on a bit.
Oh, no. It's all brilliant stuff. It is captivating.
And that's why adults and kids really will listen
to you. And I hope I am as passionate about as
my crazy Viking geekiness. I am as at your regal
age, sir, because it's just, it's sensational
and kind of like, yeah, it's so great to have
you and I. really wish you many many many more
years successful being a science viking i want
many more cavities to fall underneath your axe
blade and of course i wish more for all the success
it can for you and the rest of the team there
and i will definitely try and visit one day one
day maybe i'll even drag my kid along or kids
depending on how life turns out um just to show
because i i will i have a secret agenda of slowly
converting she knows mommy likes vikings and
she knows mommy likes Thor And that's the extent
of their knowledge so far. But yes. Yeah. Well,
May next year we've got the craft fair. June
is the traders and training where we've got the
Eastern, the Polish Vikings groups there. And
they do put on quite a good show. Fabulous. Well,
if anyone's near Cumbria, traveling to Cumbria,
or just wants a reason to go to Cumbria, here
is your reason. I'll be there moving my coins,
biking and my cabbage killing and basically on
the entertainment. What a brilliant entertainment
you are and I really appreciate you taking your
time out of your busy day because I know you're
going back to Moorforge today to pick up some
stuff to go to more events and more schools.
Yes I've got school tomorrow so I'll go to Moorforge
to go and fetch all my stuff. Well thank you
very much for having me. What since since February
I've been looking forward to it. It's been one
planning because back back in February I can
only do one episode per month but now my kid
is at school. Thank you Tony five. I have time
in a day to do more Viking talks episodes. So
thank you very much again and do check out the
Science Viking website, check out more Forge.
You can follow Toby's Instagram account and see
photos of what he's up to and all his various
guises. and where he's at next and of course
he will be at Jorvik Viking Festival but I will
definitely find you again and give you another
big hug because I just adore you sir. Oh yes
you can never have too many hugs can you? And
what better than to hug a Viking really because
they're as friendly as they are scary sometimes
depending on how you approach them. I'm a very
friendly Viking. Well, thank you very much for
attending, Terry, today. And thank you to anyone
who's listened and watched this long. It's been
a long episode, but I hope you enjoyed. I certainly
have. And of course, do subscribe wherever you're
watching and listening for more fascinating guests
and their all -North talk coming up soon. Thank
you very much. Bye, everyone. And thanks for
having me. Thank you, Terry. See you. Thank you
very much for listening to this episode. I hope
you enjoyed the discussions between my special
guests and myself. Please do check out the episode
blurb for links to their works and websites.
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