Hirdmenn

Helmet The nasal was updated before the film, but for some reason this is the only photo we have of the helmet. Nasal helmets have not been found in Scandinavia but were depicted in numerous period artwork. They were popular at the end of the 10th century. Mail The short sleeved mail shirt was worn by Roman soldiers already in the 3rd century. Since then the model spread all around Europe. Mail is the only known armour type used by Vikings. The reproduction Arttu wears in the film is made in India and has relatively large rings. Most historical mail had quite small rings because it offers more protection. There is one nearly complete Viking age mail shirt found in Gjermundbu, Norway. Shield The shield we used is not a precise copy of any particular shield, but follows the overall standards of round center grip shield of the time. It’s 80 cm wide, 6 mm thick, and the boss is around 1 mm thick. For this movie we made the shield from plywood, but original shields were made of planks (and

Making of The Wyrm and The Maiden Grim a short fight demo movie (Go watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQbZrAfXFqE ) As the best projects do, this production started as a conversation in sauna, in midsummer 2017.  Me (Arttu) and Joeli were discussing how cool it would be to make a choreography for a movie with the weapons we had just been training with. In training session on the following week this still was in our minds and we started to put together the situations that had happened in sparring.  The goals of the movie were not discussed immediately, since we were old friends and we already knew what we both wanted to do. In retrospect I can list the project goals that were clear when the producing started. -Making a cool Hollywood-quality fight using real weapons and gear -Using shields as they should be used -Using spears accurately    -Only using historically authentic stuff that would fit the Scandinavian context of late 10th century -Becoming a Youtube hit (still wor

The preparation of our first shield was a long process. It took a lot of studying and this is a version Arttu was most interested in building. The preference was to make as light and agile a shield as possible. It is made of radially cut spruce. The boss is made of gnarl, the handle is ash, and the raw hide is deer. The planks are 6 mm thick in the middle of the shield and about 3 mm thick on the edge. The board Radially cut planks were a huge problem and we made some ourselves, but those turned out just a bit too thin and ended up becoming scabbards instead. We managed to buy radially cut planks from Fiskarssin saha . These enabled Arttu to make the board. Originally tried from pine                                Self made planks came 3-5 mm thick :(        From Fiskarssin saha (Finnish company) After using a circular saw Then there was some simple gluing with hide glue. Clamps.... ...and oh.. the GLUE ... That we didn't try to make first, but bought from Plektra . It comes as &qu