‘The flood lifted up a fish on the high beach,
A burial ground. The savage king was sad
When he swam on the shore. Whale’s bone.’ (Williamson 2017: 1067)
This poem was carved into the front of the Franks Casket, an early eighth-century English box made from whalebone (Lapidge 2017: 199). The box, connected thematically and materially with this poem, is a curious object combining Germanic and Roman legend, Jewish and Roman history, and the New Testament, and may have contained relics or a religious book (Williamson 2017: 1065). Its overall style mimics that of others found in late antiquity, at least one of which may have travelled their way as far as Northumbria, where it is said to have been made (Lapidge 2017: 199).
The poem, and its placement on this box, speaks to a part of human-animal relations that many of us have grown distant from. The ‘savage king,’ a cryptic choice of translation that some replace with ‘savage animal’ or more simply ‘whale’, is saddened deeply by the water which brings it to its death on the shore. A whale being beached is a story we see today, and one that invokes feelings of sadness and sympathy in us. But that is where the poem quickly ends with ‘Hronæs ban’. Whale’s bone. The spirit of the whale, and its emotional state, is gone, to be left with its corporeal form, a form that could later be used to make a box like the Franks Casket. Living bone has transformed completely into material for human use, even if the creature that once owned it is still revered in the form of verse.
Very few of the materials we use today come from animals. In fact, many of us consider it immoral to use animals to create material goods. Fur, ivory, and now even leather, are being ditched for fabricated alternatives. Even when we consume animal products in our food, we are kept so separated from the animal itself that we barely have to think of what happened to it to give us our hamburgers, sausages, or chicken wings. Imagine trying to wear a fur coat with little sad foxes stitched into it, or a packet of beef with images of happy cows plastered all over the package.
In a world without plastic, however, bone is a both a plentiful and malleable material, whether that is whale, cow, bird, walrus ivory or deer antler. The re-enactment group Regia Anglorum make a point of listing the many objects that have been made from ivory and bone in this period:
‘such as combs, sword mounts, bracelets, pottery stamps, pins, needles, ice skates, toggles, dice, gaming pieces, spoons, weaving battens, boxes, pendants, weaving tablets, beads, needle cases, spindle whorls, planes, seals, bodkins, whistles, musical pipes, knife handles, skates, buckles, strap ends, writing tablets, axes, 'ironing boards', tuning pegs, moulds for pewter casting and even for jewellers hammers and clamps’ (Regia Anglorum).
More practical uses such as these dominate the beginnings of the early medieval period (Lapidige 2017: 71), but would continue even to later periods when we start to see more artistic productions. Combs, in particular, are rather complex objects to create and demonstrate evidence of more sophisticated tools and techniques in this period (ibid: 73). However, it is just as possible that many communities had the capacity to produce simple objects such as beaters or a whistle (ibid). Excavations at both small early medieval settlements like Sandtun (in Kent) (Blair 2018: 251), and larger ones like Lunden (Maddicott 2005: 9) demonstrate evidence of bone-working. This suggests both smaller and larger levels of complexity as possibly befitting both areas.
In my own experience of reenacting this craft, it did not take much more than a saw, a craft knife, a small awl (for making holes), and some patience to produce some needles and pins. Animals like horses, cattle, sheep or pigs were commonly available. The bones of a butchered animal could be buried in the ground for maggots and worms to eat away the meaty bits, then cleaned and prepared for carving. These bones, which are softer than something like a deer antler, are not difficult to fashion into basic shapes. Far more decorative or complex objects, like a plate for a book or an antler comb, require more technical experience that may have been found at a more condensed settlement or monastic centre. These more ambitious projects were carved from whale bone and later, once trade had truly kicked in with the Scandinavians, whale tusk (Lapidge 2017: 72). The use of elephant ivory traded from Africa appears to be restricted to producing circular bag rings (Hemer et al), like in the image below.
Some of these craft objects also contained inscriptions much like the Franks Casket, such as bone handles for a knife (Page 1995:6) disc-headed pins (ibid: 287), or the pendant with the Latin inscription ‘Sign of Peace and Image of the Peacock’ above (source). In fact, the earliest runic inscription in England (as of 2017) is likely the one carved on a roe-deer’s ankle bone found in Norfolk (Lapidge 2017: 414). Other objects without inscriptions may have had decorative designs carved into them. The Franks Casket, or the just as decorative Gandersheim casket, are just the crème de la crème of what amounted to a large scale industry for this period. The antler carving of unknown function, featured above, is just another example of the depth of technical capability (source).
However, in the literary world this apparent love for bone or ivory is rather unfounded. The value of metal objects, however, whether that is a sword, a crown, or some kind of jewel, is so obviously recounted in tales such as Beowulf that it is almost not worth mentioning.
Meanwhile, apart from a hall of the Scyldings in Beowulf described as ‘bānfāg’ or ‘bone-adorned’, to mean that it was likely decorated with ivory (Marsden 2015: 739), it is very difficult to find any reference to this material in the literature. This is in stark opposition to the many uses of human bones in kennings (poetic expression made from combining two words) such as banhus ‘bone-house = body’ (Godden and Lapdige 2013: 261), the many references to the opposition between the human soul and body, and the worship of saintly relics in the form of their bones.
The reasoning for this is unclear. Could the abundance of animal bones lead them to be viewed differently to a precious metal, like gold? Could the influence of Christian culture, with its anthropocentric outlook, lead to a prioritising of human remains? I do not know (making this an interesting topic for the future!).
In either case, what is fascinating is the prevalence of bone-working as a practice and form of cultural expression in early medieval England. The difference between their world, in which meat was a treat and bone an easy to access material, and ours, in which meat is abundant but the use of animal material looked down upon, poses intriguing moral questions. Ivory and bone artefacts from their culture, and from many historic cultures across the world, are material reminders of the differences in our understanding of and connection to animal life.
Bibliography
Blair, J. (2018), Building Anglo-Saxon England, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Godden, M. & Lapidge, M (2013), The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hemer, K., Willmott, H., Evans, J., Buckley, M. (2023), ‘Ivory from early Anglo-Saxon burials in Lincolnshire – A biomolecular study’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 49.
Lapidge, M. (2013), The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo Saxon England, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Maddicott, J.R. (2005), ‘London and Droitwich, c. 650–750: trade, industry and the rise of Mercia’, Anglo-Saxon England, 34.
Marsden, R. (2015), The Cambridge Old English Reader, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Page, R. (1998), Runes and Runic Inscriptions : Collected Essays On Anglo-Saxon and Viking Runes, Martlesham: Boydell & Brewer Press.
Williamson, C. (2017), The Complete Old English Poems, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
British Museum Digital Collection.
Regia Anglorum, ‘Bone and Antler Working’.