Their website banner is an image of the reconstructed Oseberg Tapestry which was found in the Oseberg ship burial in Norway, c. 834.
For their website see http://ascomanni.webs.com/
]]>Ascomanni Medieval Re-enactment Society is a living history group based in the Tasmanian city of Launceston. The group focus on Anglo-Saxons, Normans, and Vikings during the later Viking Age, specifically the period 966-1066 ending with the Norwegian defeat at Stamford Bridge and the Norman victory at Hastings. Ascomanni (a term used for the Vikings by the eleventh-century German chronicler Adam of Bremen) focus both on the daily life and martial aspects of the Viking Age.
Their website banner is an image of the reconstructed Oseberg Tapestry which was found in the Oseberg ship burial in Norway, c. 834.
For their website see http://ascomanni.webs.com/
For their website see http://eskfestival.com.au/Home.php
]]>The Esk Festival, also known as the Brisbane Valley Festival, is an annual single-day event held in the Queensland town Esk. A major component of the festival are displays of ‘Living History & Medieval Re-enactments’ which take place all day on the ‘Field of Honour’. The festival website promises Celts, Saxons, and Vikings, and medieval re-enactment groups who performed at the 2012 festival were The Knights of Germanica (Holy Roman Empire from 1360-1410), Scions of Mars (15th century knights), Ormsgard Dark Age Village (hunters and traders of 400-1000), Damascus (Crusader Knights Hospitalier), Saga Vikings, Rafnheim (late migration age Northern Europe), and Black Wolf (Crusades). The groups dress in period costume, perform with weapons, and re-enact other aspects of medieval culture such as trade, village life, and pre-Christian religion.
For their website see http://eskfestival.com.au/Home.php
The article can be found at http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article81658763
]]>‘Alfred Was Great King’ is an anonymous article that appeared in the Charters Towers, Queensland, newspaper The Northern Miner in 1954. The article is about the ninth-century Anglo-Saxon/English king Alfred of Wessex, or Alfred the Great. The article enthusiastically supports his title and discusses Alfred’s achievements – saving Wessex from Danish (Viking) invaders, laying the foundations for English law, beginning its naval tradition, and promoting education and prose literature. A lot of text is devoted to another of Alfred’s achievements, the establishment of the Old English Chronicle, now usually referred to as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It is described in the article as ‘the first great work in English prose’.
The article can be found at http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article81658763
Australia with her bright hair glowing
Has her eye on the furrows of the deep
[...]
Clang, clang, clang on the anvil
There are steel ships wanted on the sea!
The reason for Wright’s show of enthusiasm was doubtless the creation of the Australian Navy in 1909. Billy Hughes told the Sydney Morning Herald in 1910 that “Mr Deakin had taken Mr Watson’s scheme [c. 1905] and adorned it with that magnificent eloquence of his till it shone [...] But it was a thing in the clouds [...] The Fisher Government transformed it into iron and steel and guns” (See The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, 16 February 1910, pp. 9-10. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15133137). When the fleet eventually arrived off Australian shores in October 1913, it was welcomed “By very large and demonstrative crowds [...] and fervently patriotic speeches were made at the welcoming banquet” (F. K. Crowley, A New History of Australia, Richmond, William Heinemann, 1984, p.294). During the Federal electioneering of February 1910, the fleet featured large in the overall proceedings. The Deakin-Cook Fusion Party lost the 1910 election, but Australia still got its navy, and balladeers and patriots sang its praises.
]]>David McKee Wright draws inspiration from the journeys of the Vikings across the North Sea in this poetic martial ‘ditty’ that brims with national pride:
Australia with her bright hair glowing
Has her eye on the furrows of the deep
[...]
Clang, clang, clang on the anvil
There are steel ships wanted on the sea!
The reason for Wright’s show of enthusiasm was doubtless the creation of the Australian Navy in 1909. Billy Hughes told the Sydney Morning Herald in 1910 that “Mr Deakin had taken Mr Watson’s scheme [c. 1905] and adorned it with that magnificent eloquence of his till it shone [...] But it was a thing in the clouds [...] The Fisher Government transformed it into iron and steel and guns” (See The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday, 16 February 1910, pp. 9-10. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15133137). When the fleet eventually arrived off Australian shores in October 1913, it was welcomed “By very large and demonstrative crowds [...] and fervently patriotic speeches were made at the welcoming banquet” (F. K. Crowley, A New History of Australia, Richmond, William Heinemann, 1984, p.294). During the Federal electioneering of February 1910, the fleet featured large in the overall proceedings. The Deakin-Cook Fusion Party lost the 1910 election, but Australia still got its navy, and balladeers and patriots sang its praises.