The Viking Borre-style Gripping Beast Pendants

A decade ago, I suggested that a 10th century gripping beast pendant found widely across the Viking world (Campbell 2013) may represent a bound shapeshifter (reminiscent of Loki's fate as recounted in the "Lokasenna" of the Poetic Edda), perhaps functioning as an amulet for the 'containment of chaos'.

The design of the pendant features a highly contorted quadruped with forward facing head and a ribbon body connecting thorax with hindquarters in lateral view. Two of the animal's limbs are bound to an encircling rim and a third grips the creature's own ribbon body. The circling ring is ornamented with four fanged beast heads in facing pairs on each side of the pendant. Two small paws reach over the long ears of the lower two beast heads to grasp on to the encircling ring. Details of the ornament on the  fore- and hind-quarters vary between examples and a distinctive variant from the Lake Ilmen region of Russia lacks the beast heads around the rim of the pendant (Toropov 2014).

Perhaps the best known examples are those of the Vårby Hoard, found in the Mälaren valley of central Sweden and the piece found at Little Snoring in Norfolk (Gurney 1999). While originating in Scandinavia, there is evidence, in the form of failed castings, that these amulets were also produced in Estonia (Tvauri 2012) and the same may be true for elsewhere in the Baltic region as well as in Ukraine and Russia.


Illustration of the Little Snoring pendant in Gurney (1999)


A specimen shown here below, similar to that from Little Snoring, but with unknown findspot, illustrates the main components.


Silver and niello gripping beast pendant with remnants of gilding, 4 cm.



Less sophisticated examples in copper alloy are known from Sweden, Estonia and Ukraine. Whereas the finer details of the Scandinavian original designs are lost, all the main components are seen, including the three gripping paws of the contorted quadruped and the four surrounding fanged beast heads.


Copper alloy gripping beast pendant from western Ukraine, 37 mm.


A sketch of the western Ukraine copper alloy example shown above.



A variation on the theme, lacking the four fanged heads around the rim, is known from the Lake Ilmen Region of Russia (e.g. Toropov 2014, pg 232). In this case, the head lacks ears and appears on the suspension loop above the rim. Two paws (not belonging to the quadruped) appearing on the lower part of the rim are retained from the more elaborate Scandinavian original.



Variant lacking the four fanged heads around the rim, known from the Lake Ilmen Region of Russia (e.g. Toropov 2014, pg 232), height 28 mm.


A possible earlier Germanic parallel


The final expression of the gold migration age bracteate pendants may provide an earlier parallel to the gripping beast pendants. The D-bracteates display a highly stylised beast in profile view, in some cases with a griffon-like beak and in others with open jaws. Two limbs are schematically displayed, with spiral hips and distinct feet, interlacing with the animal's body. The D-bracteates have been dated to between the end of the first quarter and the end of the first half of the 6th century (Behr 2010 and references therein).




Example of a D-bracteate design from the first half of the 6th century (based on a specimen found in Thurrock, Essex, PAS ID ESS-4FF212). The two limbs, shown in blue, extend from a schematic spiral hip, then interlace with the contorted body of the beast, shown in green.



D-bracteates have been found across a wide area, and like the much later Borre gripping beast, the pendant design must have referred to a well-known meaning at the time. Behr (2010, pg 36)  commented that the monsters on these bracteates are "coiled up, interlaced with their own legs, thus unable to move. They may represent death as vanquished."  She suggested that "the Anglo-Saxons perceived the amuletic power of bracteate images ... through the image of the defeated monster."

Conclusions


The Borre bound gripping beast pendants discussed here represent a widely known motif in the 10th century, with findspots ranging from England to Scandinavia to the Baltic, Ukraine and Russia. The design is consistent with an amuletic function, the secure binding of the shapeshifter to the encircling rim plausibly representing the containment of chaos and warding off misfortune. A similar flavour of interpretation has been applied (Behr 2010) to the much earlier gold D-bracteates dating to the first half of the 6th century.


References

Behr, C 2010, ‘New Bracteate Finds from Early Anglo-Saxon England’, Medieval Archaeology, 54, 34 88.

Dronke, U. (ed. and trans.), The Poetic Edda Volume II: Mythological Poems, Oxford: Oxford University/Clarendon, 1997, repr. 2001

Graham-Campbell, J. 2013. Viking Art. Thames & Hudson.

Gurney, D. 1999. Archaeological finds in Norfolk 1998. Norfolk Archaeology 43, 358-368.

Markuson, J. 2023. Recovering the Design of a Gripping Beast Pendant. https://youtu.be/3XXHGn3pITM?feature=shared

Sedov, V.V. 1982. Eastern Slavs in the VI-XIII centuries. Archeology of the USSR. Moscow, pg 249 and 281

Smith, R.D.A. 2015. A Viking Bound Gripping Beast Pendant and the Lokasenna Story https://lifeartearth.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-viking-bound-gripping-beast-pendant.html

Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241). Prose Edda.

Toropov, S.E. 2014. Chance finds of Scandinavian Viking Age objects in the Lake Ilmen region from collections of the Novgorod Museum, in Archaeological News 20, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg.

Tvauri, A. 2012. The Migration Period, Pre-Viking Age, and Viking Age in Estonia. Estonian Archaeology 4

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