Dragon Islands and Viking Hair
an April round up
In This Missive:
- Wondering at the Isle of Sanday
- Reading the new Beowulf Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley 🤯
- Listening to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter
- Musing on Viking Hair
- Planning the WRITING YOURSELF HOME Masterclass
- NEWS: The US Kindle Edition of Ashes & Stones is $1.99 on Amazon.com through April!
Wonder at the Isle of Sanday
On the Equinox I went to the fascinating island of Sanday—a long island of many peninsulas and white beaches. It’s a distinctly dragon-shaped landmass: do you see the head to the north east—and the tail dipping down to the south west? It is a place of shifting boundaries where ancient woodlands are buried under the sea and uncovered by storms. One of the most important Viking Age ship burials was also uncovered here near the head of the dragon, so to speak. There is also a hollow hill—a tomb of six rooms, a portal tomb of the style of Maeshowe on the mainland, but so remote that there are no queues or tour guides. I had healed enough from my last flare to crawl inside the dark, narrow passage to offer a song to stone walls. M and I wandered on the many white sand beaches and he found a beautiful white hag stone (made of what seems to be some kind of volcanic slag?) I found the rib bone of an orca (my best taxonomic guess). I hope to write about this visit in more depth soon.
Missives from the Verge with Allyson Shaw is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Reading the new Beowulf Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
Many years ago I knew someone who insisted Beowulf was written by a woman. I enjoyed that notion but remained skeptical until now. Headley’s translation reads like a Valkyrie returned from raiding the cannon, dismantling toxic masculinity as she gathered treasure. She’s lived to tell about it; you better listen.
This is proof that so much has changed for women’s voices and for the scope of genre. I’m grateful to have lived long enough to see such things mainstreamed.
Listening to the new Beyoncé Album, Cowboy Carter
Sometimes I’m homesick for an America I never knew when I lived there a lifetime ago. I usually avoid pop music, but I loved Beyoncé’s explosive use of a marching band backing her in Homecoming, and here she employs more Americana to fascinating effect, examining whiteness, calling in allies, and dismantling traditionally ‘white’ genres from Surf Music to Opera and of course Country. In her hands the Beatles’ ‘Blackbiird’ turns into a fiery lullaby for survivors.
Musing on: Viking Hair, or the anachronistic look that spurned 1,000 Undercuts.
I’ve think a lot about big Viking hair, and this predates the fortuitous coincidence of Headley’s headshot (above in Beowulf section—if you look closely it’s almost as if she has the headland of Sanday shaved into her undercut…EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED…amirite?).
Beyond the question of cultural co-optation—corn rows and other black hairstyles on the show Vikings—can we talk about the mythology of Viking hair farming in a more general sense? Summer in Orkney means visitors start arriving on Viking history tours and some have some really extravagant grooming. I love these leuks even if there is absolutely nothing ‘authentic’ about them.
We can only guess at Viking hairstyles, but we know hair was important during the Viking age. Combs were a huge deal, painstakingly made with specific antlers and included intimately in high-status ship burials. I’m obsessed with a particular comb uncovered from Sanday, tucked in the hands of an ancient woman buried in her ship. Hair, and the care of it, was a thing—perhaps even a mystical one.
Researching Viking combs has reminded me of my awe-struck 70s childhood looking up to Hessian teenagers rocking out to forbidden tunes, big combs in their back pockets as they shopped for Frank Frazetta posters at the mall. Back in the day, I thought Molly Hatchet was a girl with a better name than my own, and how disappointed I was to find out they were just a Southern Rock band. Somewhere in all this was my first glimpse of toxic masculinity and power. I’m writing about it in hopes that it will come together and be ready for you to read soon.
I’m Planning the Writing Yourself Home masterclass
Writing Yourself Home: a Masterclass
In this two hour master class we will centre on facets of place writing informed by anti-colonial re-enchantment of land, place, and home.
I bring decades of experience teaching writing to my online workshops. I've taught at the University of California and colleges in the US, delivered community writing workshops as well as master classes for the Taibhsear Collective.
28th of April, 2024. 7pm GMT £25, tickets via Eventbrite
I’ll share practical tips for forming or renewing a sense of place in your writing.
Together we’ll examine our places, sharing discoveries and challenges as a group, exploring forces shaping our place-writing from gentrification to the Scottish Diaspora, and more.
There will be prompts and inspiration for future work.
NEWS: The US Kindle Edition of Ashes & Stones is an April Deal!
Limited-time deal: Ashes and Stones: A Journey Through Scotland in Search of Women Hunted as Witches
Ashes & Stones is only $1.99 through April at Amazon.com
Missives from the Verge with Allyson Shaw is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
