File:Social Scandinavia in the Viking age (1920) (14803894983).jpg

Identifier: socialscandinavi00will (find matches)
Title: Social Scandinavia in the Viking age
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Williams, Mary Wilhelmine, 1878-1944
Subjects: Scandinavia -- Civilization Scandinavia -- Social life and customs
Publisher: New York : The Macmillan company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
and bits,and a few others of a more special nature. Long nailsand spikes were commonly used for fastening the boards;but pins and pegs of wood served for this purpose aswell. The roofs of the better houses were of what is some-times called compass style, with two V-shaped gable ends joined by a straight ridge pole; but theFinishings hip roof was not unknown. The frontHouses gables were often decorated in various ways by means of carving. A very common formof ornament was a carved figurehead—of a dragon orsome other animal—painted or gilded, as for the decora-tion of a ship; and sometimes the discarded figureheadfrom a ship itself was employed; but the most usual deco-ration for this part of the house was perhaps ornamentaledge-boards, called vindskeidar, the crossed ends of whichwere at the top often carved to represent twisteddragons tails, while the lower ends projecting over theeaves were shaped like dragons heads. More simpledesigns, however, like those found upon the Northern
Text Appearing After Image:
fell) Fig. !). Elaborately Carved Early ?*Iodeni Dour lraine, Hesemhlinj: An-cient ^lodels. (From DuChaillus Viking A (jr. Copyright 188l>. Tuij-lished bv Charles Scribners Sons) i HOMESTEADS AND HOUSES 133 houses at the present time were probably most frequentlyseen.^^ The outsides of wooden houses were commonlyleft to be darkened by the weather, but both roofs andwalls were sometimes covered with tar, for the protectionof the lumber; ^^ and it is possible that paint, particularlyof a dark red color, such as could be secured from copperand iron ore, was used also at an early period. Thesod and stone buildings with turf-covered roofs couldnot be thus artificially decorated, except at the gableends, but the moist Northern climate soon produced anatural green covering of moss and grass which suppliedthe need; and many a humble sod roof bore a luxuriantgrowth of brightly colored wild flowers, which gave thesehomes a charming picturesqueness and a resemblanceto a modern arbor, or garde

Note About Images