Hello and welcome back to the Will I Bike It podcast.Today I'm at Moorforge Viking Settlement.My guest is Peter Merritt.Hello.And Peter Merritt is most well known for his bone carving and his leather work, right?
Yeah.So, yeah, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you.It's nice to be here.
Very good to have you.You're renowned throughout the lands for your carving work.
Well, I like carving.I like making nice things.That's my philosophy.I like making things that make people smile.And if I make things that make them smile, they'll give me some money and I can pay my bills and that makes me smile.So everyone's happy.
Good philosophy.I think so.
Yeah.Is it worth explaining a bit more is what you do to people that are listening and watching?
Basically what I do is mostly biking. And because I'm I suppose I'm just naturally a bit creative.A lot of my family have been artists and what have you.Yeah.
And years ago, when I worked at a place called Dane Law outside York, which was a reenactment center for school kids.Yeah.
As well as doing all the teaching and role play, we had to build our own Viking village and we had to make our own clothes, mostly boots.And I ended up doing some of the bone work and what have you.
So after 16 years of doing that, I became a bit of a dab hand at sewing leather and carving bone.
And then when I left, you know, cause all things have a shelf life, I thought I'm going to carry on doing the craft work and the jewelry side of it and the footwear.
And I thought, I went on a silversmithing course, which someone said, go on a silversmithing course.And I did it and it was jolly interesting, but not enough to want to really get into.And I thought,
I like making the jewellery out of the organic stuff the Vikings used, because not everybody could afford loads of silver brooches and what have you.
But as most of them were farmers and fishermen and hunters and what have you, they'd have had pretty easy access to bone of all different sorts, and whale's teeth and whale bone, depending on if they're in Scandinavia.And deer's horns.
I thought, so many people in the Viking world are doing the silver work, Why don't I focus on the organic sort of bone and antler type work?
And having learned to do some of this when I worked at Danelaw, I've now put a lot of practice in and got, like I say, a bit more, without bragging, a bit more competent.And people, people want to buy my stuff.Yeah.
So I'm delighted to sell it to them.And then, I mean, I'm very honored.I might get a message on the old Viking messenger from someone saying, will you come and join him with our festival in Norway? And I'm like, yeah, sure.
I'm on the plane sort of thing.But to make it worthwhile, I try and do, say, three markets, as they call them, in a row.Fly from Gatwick, get to Bergen, go to a festival, get the coast bus to the next one and so on.
And just live like a Viking for three weeks, you know, selling and running shoe courses like I did last summer.Because I like doing the the boots as well.Here's a pair I've just made recently, little children's shoes.
So I got asked to run a course for the Karamei Biking Club, which seemed to go down alright.Yeah, I just love doing it.I like making nice stuff, you know, and if it's historical, that's brilliant.Sometimes I suddenly get ideas
that are not Viking, but they're based on Viking stuff.So I'll do my own little take on things.For instance, why am I sitting here with a mother woolly mammoth from Ice Age Norway, followed by the baby?
Well, partly because my daughter asked me to make one for her little daughter, my new little granddaughter, to hang on the cot.And she said, oh, that's so sweet.Why don't you make some more?So I've been making them.
to give them a Scandinavian connection, they're made out of very old, I didn't kill it, Norwegian sealskin.I was going to ask what they were made from.Made of sealskin, yeah, with little proper pearls for the eyes.
So that's very obviously not copied from a find.Some things are to do with sort of a bit spiritual and to do with the moon and
the sun and the stars and what have you, all things that the Vikings, without their electric lights and light pollution, would have been very much aware of.So that's a little reindeer antler moon pendant.
And then some things I make are really very carefully copied from the originals.So if I get my little booklet here without falling off the seat, and it shouldn't happen as I am completely sober,
This is like a little encyclopedia thing that I keep adding to and I can show customers where all the references.Yeah, absolutely.And I just screenshot them off the Internet and then print them up at the camera shop.
But there's all sorts of wonderful stuff.So one day I found this little comb from Gotland in Sweden.And much to my amazement, the comb is only about six or seven centimeters long.
Kind of like a travel comb, really.So I thought I'm going to copy it. And here it is, so it's got its, there's a little comb and there's its case.And this is quite an interesting one because there's actually a little hole in the case.
And my first interpretation was, oh, it has a little peg that goes through it into the comb to stop it coming out.But the second time I've made it, I looked at the hole and I thought that is exactly level with the rivets.
And I just thought, I bet they drilled the hole in the wrong place. And someone said, look, don't get upset about it, doesn't matter, because the rest of what you've done is jolly nice, just leave it like that.
So I also copy the, I won't call them mistakes, because that's a bit insulting to a Viking craftsman or woman, but I copy the lapses in concentration, shall we say.
We've had this conversation on here before.I don't know if you know Tom Timbrel?
He's a blacksmith.Right.And he's talked about how many of the originals have slightly wonky carvings and things on the handles.
Well, if you think that a lot of this work was done either at the end of a farming day when somebody was fairly weary or perhaps struggling with their youthful eyesight by lamplight round the fire or someone just standing there tapping their foot saying, haven't you finished it yet?
I'm paying you all this money.Yeah.And I think sometimes they just rush things a bit because time was precious, you know. And also just didn't mind still works.
So who would have been carving this stuff?Are we looking at someone that's doing this as their craft?Or as you say, is it someone carving their own things in it of an evening?Is it a bit of both?
Well, my thinking is if you if you find as a young Viking farmer, let's say that you're really quite competent with this kind of thing.There's every possibility that you might end up in a workshop in York or Bergen or somewhere like that.
Doing it professionally because literally everybody wants your
Your stuff and that's great because then you don't have to go and slave in the fields all day sort of thing Yeah, but I think most I often use as an example I say imagine a Norwegian farmer in ten hundred living ten miles up a valley in the middle of absolute nowhere You basically got to do pretty much everything yourself Yeah, you don't have to do it brilliantly, but you have to be able to shoe a horse You've got to be able to weave or you or your wife does you're going to be able to do some basic bone work or iron work
So I think it's either proper professionals in workshops, like they found in York, or just normal people.A bit like in Victorian times, you know, the dad, the minor dad would mend all these kids' shoes, you know, in the washroom around the back.
But if you wanted some really nice shoes, then you'd go and see a professional.Same sort of thing.So that's my theory anyway.Yeah.Yeah.So that sort of answers that bit of it.
I mean, I can keep holding things up if it would amuse people on the podcast to see.So I'll just go through a couple more, well, two or three more examples.
Yeah, I mean, just quickly, I'll say if you are listening to this, it's worth going over to my YouTube channel and having a look so you can actually see the pieces that we're talking about.
Yeah. All right, well, I'll give you some more examples then.
One of the pieces that really fascinates me, it's a bit of leather work, is this piece of leather that was found in about, I think it was about 1880 when they dug up the Gokstad ship with all the stuff in it in Norway.
And this piece of leather was found and it was deemed at the time, which certainly is deemed now, to be a purse. for your silver pennies.And I have seen multiple interpretations of it.
You can't go and see the original piece because they didn't conserve it, because they didn't know how to.And now it still exists, but it's like a little jigsaw in a jiffy bag in a drawer somewhere in a museum.
But I looked at this and I thought, everybody's making it in two halves or holding it over.And fair play to everyone for having their own interpretation.But I looked at this And I thought the slits mean you can put a different color through.
And then people put a different color through here.And then I, as a leather worker, looked at the stitch marks pressed into the leather, and I thought, it's 10 or 11 sets of binding stitches.
Which means the only way to put it together as a purse, in my opinion, is you take your piece of leather, like so, You can back it in whatever you want because we don't know.Add a little bit there to put your coins in.
Cut this, fold it over, and then bind it with your 10 or 11 sets of binding stitches.And that then holds the purse shut.And then the little holes that are on the leather, people put a hanging strap through.
But they're so far down the leather that it would be topsy-turvy.It wouldn't hang properly. So I think it's just two bits of leather that can hold it shut.OK, now I might be completely wrong with that.
But the thing about some of the I mean, if you find a buckle, it's pretty obvious it's a buckle.
But a lot of the bits and pieces that are found, we don't know what they were for.And it's it's conjecture.
So that's my piece of conjecture that.Let me pick another thing at random where I have to do a little bit of conjecture.
There's a very nice lady who I know in the north of Norway, who I've never met, but briefly a couple of years ago, her hobby was to send me random photos of finds from the north of Norway.And this was one of the finds that she sent me.
And apparently it is a container of sorts.So I thought, what would they make it out of?It could be wood, it could be bone, but I reckoned it's probably something like reindeer antler.
And then I thought, well, how do you plug it?So I thought, well, what wood would they have in the north of Norway?Well, it's birch, mostly.So I put birch in the bottom and I made a birch lid like so.
And then I saw the engraving and I thought, well, I'll do that.And then much to my artistic horror, I saw that inside all the engraving was a second cell. You've got good eyes.I can't see that on the picture.You can in just the right light.
So this little pot here, which you could have kept your salt in it or beads, or you could have used it as a money box.Nobody will know.Or your needles.That took me a day and a half to make, as in about nearly 14 hours or something.
It's all the carving.And then there's a little bit of conjecture about what all the colour is made from in all these pieces. And one idea is they used to get beeswax and melt powdered charcoal or ash into it and make a paste.
And beeswax, when it's cold, it's very hard.So you just pick a bit off with your nail when you've mixed it and you rub it in and then wipe it smooth.
you get this lovely color and I always say to my customers photograph this little tiny worksheet on how to Remix a bit because it does come out eventually.It's organic.
Hmm So I always send them away with the info on how to mix a bit of old candle Yeah from a matchstick head or something and rewax it.So that's rather nice and yeah, and then I was in a place called Sonata mo which
last year at this wonderful museum called Kingvatn, or Visitor History Centre.And the lovely lady who runs it there said, I think I probably dropped quite a subtle hint, like, can I please have some?
She said, you can take a pot of resin melted from pine trees home, because they used to use that to caulk the boats and paint the boats and paint the houses.And I brought a bit back.
Praying to whatever god was listing that the jar wouldn't split in the suitcase in the middle of the airport because that would have been disastrous And you can just paint the engravings in with a little brush and this resin and you just get a rather nice soft subtle color like that
If they use anything else to color in the pattern, I'd love to know.But I think those two interpretations are fairly acceptable, bearing in mind that a lot of this history that people like me do for a living is conjectural anyway.
So when actually I'm just going to ask you as well.So we're talking about colors.So what about this?
Well, this one. This was a buckle, I'll show you a picture of it in a minute, that was found in Viking York, made out of bone, with a metal pin.
This is one side of a strap-in that was found in the same dig at the the your big Center dig I don't know if the two pieces went together, but they were found so close together that they might have done Yeah, and it's Dean originally It was thought that the copper rivets or what they thought might have been copper rivets used to rivet it onto the belt Had leaked the is it called verdigris that green?
Yeah and then somebody I think said no it couldn't have leaked enough to to colour the whole buckle.So now the thinking is if you get vinegar or the equivalent and put some copper in it turns the liquid green and then you can drop the buckle in.
But I have to confess that it takes weeks and weeks and weeks to do it and I did have a go with my own belt and it turned it such a rather mediocre shade of green.Yeah.And it had to sit there for another six weeks.And I did.
I'm going to fast to the podcast.I did use some modern ink and a felt pen.
I know.I know.But so there's the there's the original.But the shape itself, I'm quite pleased.I think I've got it fairly, fairly close, you know.Yeah.So.So although I might break the odd rule like that, the one
rule I don't break, and no disrespect to anyone else who does it in a different way, is I do 99.9% pretty much do everything by hand.
I don't mind using a grinding wheel to, because I'm not a blacksmith, but I get old knife blades and I'll grind them into a Viking one.Well, obviously you can't do that with a file.So I'll use a grinding wheel for that.And if I'm drilling out
A long piece of antler to make a needle case.I can perfectly well do it by hand, but it takes so long I don't mind using an electric drill for that Because it keeps the cost out and it saves my poor fingers which have fairly worked to the bone
But other than that, I do it all by hand.So I'll get a hand saw and I will, for instance, clamp my bone in a vice.And they must have had some sort of a vice, even if it wasn't a modern one like that.
I will line the vice with leather, stop the bone flying out, saw out my blanks, and then I will set to with this very rough rasp, and although it's a modern one, they must have had something similar or they couldn't have worked the bone.
You can't do it with a knife.
So we haven't found any examples of tools like that?
Well, there's a find called the Mastermeyer casket, which was a chest full of blacksmith's tools lost in a bog, but I'm not an expert on it.But I think there was Was the tools like that in it?I think there are files or files.I think so.Yeah.
But they they must have had something because this myth of sitting whittling bone with a knife.Well, you can if you've got years upon years upon years to do it.If you want to finish it, you need the tools.Well, exactly.
And then in my little box here, I've got another file. This one I actually dropped once and it snapped, but it's actually the perfect length.So you go from this rather evil looking thing down to that one.
And then I personally, with the help at the age of 59, my glasses, I then go down to these little needle files.And to anyone watching who might think of taking up doing a bit of carving, always buy the most expensive tool that your funds will allow.
Because I once got given a pack of these by someone in Norway about 12 years ago as a little present.And I might as well set about with a pack of lollipop sticks.They just literally didn't work.So you've got to get the best.
And in my little tool roll here, I mean, I've got that's one that I snapped by mistake, but it's actually ideal for scraping.Some of them I grind down.So if you're smoothing comb teeth, for instance, you can get the file in between.
You can also use it as a very tiny little saw.I've got the round ones.
So in some cases, you're customizing the tools.
Oh, completely.Yeah.Yeah.That's a good old Viking chainsaw file.But it works.So I literally have, I won't hold every single one up, but I've got and each of these costs just under 20 quid.So there's and you have to replace them quite often.Yeah.
Because bone is tougher than you think.Yeah.It's quite an investment in tools.And just while we're talking about tools, This is just a little tiny knife for just cutting slits if you want to do laces in and out of cone cases and things.
This is my artistic granddad's old paintbrush, or one of them, which is brilliant when you're sanding, engraving, and you want to get the dust out quickly.
Like that?Yes.If you drill a hole, like in a pin like this, You can put this little, it's from a Dremel set, but you can put that in if it's a small hole and just twiddle it and that'll take the edge off it.Lady's nail file for sharpening my chisels.
I don't mind adapting stuff.A tool, as far as I'm concerned, a tool is a tool.If it does the job, it's a tool.So when I'm doing my delicate little carvings, I'll hold one up in a minute.
These are actually watchmaker's screwdrivers, heavily disguised.Again, get the best quality you can find.Bit of spit on that.Do your business.And these little chisels and scalpels and what have you, wherever the rest are, become sharp enough.
This is from a scalpel. Just one millimeter at the end.That's the business end and they're sharp enough to carve bone.Yeah, but This is a little piece.
I'm doing for a customer at the moment You've got to be patient because you are literally picking off fractions of a gram You know once you've done the filing it won't just come off like this And for instance, this is one of my little jewelry pieces it's it's all to do with Norway and
But that had a lot of chiselling in there, especially to dig it out and set the mother of pearl in.This is quite sweet.It came to me in a dream at the start of it.
This is called Springtime in Hardangerfjord, and Hardangerfjord is a huge, big, almost inland sea in Norway.And when you sail across it on the ferry in winter, it's very, very dark.
And when you sail across it in the warm summer's evening, it's very, very light.So depending on how you turn the mother of pearl and how it catches the light, you either get your winter sea or your summer sea.
And if you're going across it in winter, you just get endless successions of pale winter suns. And then suddenly one day you'd be sailing across it, say in March, and you get the first springtime sun.And there it is.
And that's done with recessed amber.So that's just to do with Norway, but it's not a copy, but it's just a piece of jewellery, you know?
So I love doing things like that.
So is there a particular kind of bone that is better to work with?Like, do you have a preference for a kind of animal bone or is it whatever you can get?
If you want to make a really solid cloak pin like this or solid hairpin, I'd recommend a good piece of Cow bone because it's very thick and then you can cut out exactly the blank you want Yeah, you want something super long like when I was working in Norway Occasionally people would bring in elk moose leg bones and they really really well if you use a pole vaulting It's that long then did you get a really long pin?
Yeah, if you want say a A little needle case.This is not a copy, but we know they use bones for needle cases.A little bit of sheep's leg bone is perfect for that.
So it's more matching the project to the size of the bone?
So the actual bone itself carves in a similar way?
Oh yeah.Apart from what I call grumpy old Norwegian old elk leg bone.When they've been stamping up and down the mountains for 10 years, they get incredibly dense.
leg uh leg bones yeah but you also know they're taking a hammering doing it because they they have little like shin splints in the bone little micro fractures running down it a bit like runners do who are overdoing it on their marathons yeah but if you can get a piece that's not got a crack through it it's really solid but if you're going to make a comb it's best although they did use bone it is most combs are made out of antler
Um, cause you can get the teeth really quite thin and they will flex if they get stuck on a, what I call a Monday morning, not in your hair.Whereas if it's bone that's gone that thin, it might break.But the downside to using ankler
Of course if you get a piece of antler, let's let's pretend a spoon.Let's pretend it's antler.
Yeah, let's pretend it's flat Yeah, sometimes it is and let's decide you're gonna cheat and just make that like that quick quick quick So when you're making the cone the teeth have got to they've got to go with the antler Yeah with the lines or the fibers a bit like you have in wood
But the trouble is you very rarely get a piece of antler wide enough with the grain going downwards.So what you have to do, and again, let's just pretend this is a piece of antler.
You discard the soft core where the blood goes when the antler is growing the nutrients.And then you try and find bits that are slightly flatter.So what you do is you cut out little plates and then you line the plates up.
And then you cut out your handle, which can go all the way down the length. And then you fit it all together by it's a real it's a bit of it's a bit of bit of magic to do this carefully.But I've done it a few times.I'm used to it.
So you drill through and then you slot your plates in and then you rivet the little pins that you put through either copper or iron.And that's why if you look at the back of a comb that's been done the correct way, you can see the separate plates.
And you can always tell when someone
Has done a bit of a budget buy and again nothing wrong with that You can tell when they're made of bone perhaps imported from somewhere and the people making them aren't paid a lot So they whack them out because somebody will proudly show you their comb and go.
Okay.It's got a few teeth missing and as soon as I see a comb with missing teeth, I know it's been made against the the grain, it's not been, the teeth aren't following the grain.
So if one of the teeth snapped on one of my combs, I'd be absolutely mortified and replace it straight away.But because I do it the right way, it's not happened yet.
And is that something you've learned from trial and error?
Partly, but partly, because when I started making combs, I sort of kind of looked things up.This is all pre-Internet, because I've been doing this since Noah got out of the ark kind of thing.
But I learned very quickly and also it was slightly logical looking at the antler.Yeah, you can almost see the grain.So my first ever comb was done properly and.Trying to explain it can get a bit wearing on both the explainer and the listener.
So here I took some photographs, so there you can see the handles.There's the plates.I mean, you can almost see the grain there, you see?
And then that's the riveting process, slotting it all together.That's it all riveted together.I mean, all co-makers have got their own technique, but I prefer, get the plates in, doesn't matter if they're wonky, then tidy it up.
And then you can see here, I'm using a jeweler's saw, saw out the teeth, either by doing straight cuts or by doing it in, this.
It depends on how how you want the teeth.
And the saw that I use in going back to that silversmithing course which didn't really suit me but one of the most amazing things I learnt on it was how to get a piece of wood like this with a V in it and then you anchor that into your work desk or wherever and then you put the piece on
and you can saw out the teeth.So if I'm doing a comb, I'll put it on there and then I'll saw the teeth out like that.And I don't think the Vikings had a saw where you can unwind the blades, which you get from Cookson's Gold, little plug for them.
But we know they did have saws because A, if you don't have a thin saw blade, you can't make the teeth.
can't cut them in with a knife and also occasionally and I've been guilty of this myself if you're a bit over enthusiastic cutting the teeth you go oh no and you just nick the handle by mistake and if you look at some of the combs that have been made you can see the little nicks in them
And one site I was reading, or reading the site about all of this, it said that with a microscope, you could almost see the last little nick made by each tooth from the saw, you know, if you enlarge it.
And then people say, how could they make things like saws?And I think you could say that, but not in a facetious way.You can say that, well, they made long ships.
And they built swords, and they made beautiful jewellery, and they made helmets, and they built longhouses.So if you were a skilled blacksmith, you'd get a piece of metal and flatten it, and then chip in teeth. It's not easy, but it's quite doable.
I think, again, on the Mastermind, I think there are a few saws in there.Yes.So there are examples that have been found.So they definitely did.Yeah.
And some of the comb teeth from Viking times are very, very fine.But then if you're making a lot of jewelry, you need very fine bits of metal, don't you?So.Yeah.
But I use that because you can change the blades over when they break, which you do all the time.
And it works sometimes if it if it isn't broken don't try and fix it, you know, that's what I think You're talk quite a bit about your process with bone making Do you want to maybe talk a bit about the leather work as well and let's do that cover a bit of that.
Yeah well shoes all came about because I In the very early days, I'll tell you why in a minute if you ask me why, but I started doing medieval stuff and just making a suit of armor and then one for my mate and then one for another mate.
Then we used to go and fight these battles at various little festivals and street events back when I was very young.And I had to make the shoes for them, for the outfits or some of the shoes.
And I slightly bodged them together, but then I thought, oh, I can actually do this. And then when I started working at Danelaw, we all made our own boots out of camel leather, literally out of bags and bags of camel leather.
Somebody sold the business, but it wasn't very thick on the bottom.So at the end of reenactment days, it was like a race to the sink to get your foot and sock and boot in the sink.I mean, it's absolutely disgusting.And rinse the mud off.
It really was.But that was the early 90s.Yeah, we were young and nobody cared.But then one day my boss walked up to me in the foyer
at this history place, and knowing he could talk to me fairly bluntly without me being offended, he just said, sort the boot problem.And he said it to another member of staff as well.
So my take on it was I, living in New York, I went down to the Jorvik Centre in about 1994 or thereabouts, and I just stood with my sketchpad drawing.They had a Jorvik shoe on the display.
and I drew it from every single angle possible and then went back to site and got some thicker leather.We bought some more solid leather for the soles and slowly but surely worked out the pattern for this shoe and then thought that was pretty fun.
Quite like doing ankle boots now.Then I worked out a pattern for ankle boots and then I wanted the taller Hedeby boots.I worked that out and then we had a Roman fort as well so I thought
I thought what I used to do for fun on my days off was walk along Hadrian's Wall dressed as a Roman soldier but wearing my Viking shoes and I thought that is just no good at all.
So I went down to Vindolanda and again with my little nose pressed up against the glass drew all the boots, the Roman boots and made those and so on and so on.So I ended up working this place having made umpteen different styles of boots.
But now I mainly do just Viking stuff so this is This is a generic pair of, I suppose, 8th to 11th century type leather Viking or Saxon boots.And I say generic because this design is taken from about 10 different designs.
An ankle boot is basically an ankle boot.But I made them correctly as in they're called turn shoes or turn boots.And the idea is you stitch the whole thing together inside out.
Then you soak them, sometimes for up to two or three days if it's really solid leather.And then with vast amounts of effort, you push the toe back through and you pop it the right way around.And it hides all the seams.
And then I put a whacking great big insole in, and that stops the seams rubbing your foot.And then I put them on the stall, and then people buy them.
So I've got that sort and then, although I never ever make what they're worth because they take so long to do, but children are expensive little beasts and mothers can only afford so much money.
But I make the kids ones because they're just sweet and it makes the stall look nice.And I make a few quid off them and it uses up the scraps, leftover bits of leather.
So what are these made from here?
Well, these are made from Norwegian seal skin. And we know in the north of Norway that certainly the Sámi make sealskin boots for winter.
There's some conjectural thinking that the Vikings would have done as well, because they live cheek by jowl with the Sámi.
These ones are not taken from a find.So it's a bit of conjecture.But but because I know that some of the things I make are really very, very close copies, I don't mind doing a bit of conjecture as well.
And they're just it's the same size as these teeny tinies here. I just thought they're rather sweet, really.They are, yeah.And you put them on the store and nobody thinks, oh, aren't they sweet?And while they're going, oh, isn't that sweet?
I'm gently suggesting they might like to buy a coat or something, you know.
It draws them in.Yeah.Yeah.If they fit me, I'd take them.
They're wonderful.And these came about because I was working in a place called Gudvangen in Norway a few years ago doing my biking thing.And one of the staff members said I got some leather armor.
it's all falling to bits and would you fix it and in return the deal we hatched was she Brought in a small suitcase full of old sort of secondhand seal skin.So I fixed her armor She was very happy.I got loads of seal skin.
So I was very happy completely legal to been dead for years Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, and there's some seal skin boots And then like I said do other periods as well.These are This is my interpretation of a fine from about 14th century
London and they're just again little children's boots and again they're turn shoes.
I imagine the smaller boots probably take as long if not longer than the bigger ones?
Certainly as long sometimes because they're so fiddly to do.I think these took me about something ridiculous like about 10 hours to do.
And the problem with doing seal skin is if you get harder leather and you brad all a hole in for your needle to go through, when you take the brad all out you can see the hole.When you brad all seal skin, It's quite elastic.
So as soon as you take the brad all out, it goes.So I call it sewing by braille, basically.
So what I do is that now I've learned to make a little row of dots with a pen and put the hole in the middle, but even so, so these ones, yeah, they do take a long time.But a pair like this, I'm size nine and I've timed it more than once.
A pair of size nines takes me between nine and 10 hours to stitch. without showing off, I am quite quick.But I do really tight stitches, so you don't see any of them when you've turned in, what have you.
And then this sort, the Hedeby boot, which I've adapted these ones, I put some conveyor belt on the bottom, because when you're in Norway, doing like two weeks in the rain, it's very boring getting two weeks of authentic wet feet.
But to make a pair like that, size nine, done the correct way.That's about 15 15 hours of sewing.You know, really quick, fast, intense sewing.
But, you know, and keeping up the quality.So Viking boots that I make are they're quite expensive, you know, but and you can buy them cheaper made abroad.
And you if you want cheap ones and you don't mind them being made by machine, there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever. But I kind of cater to people who go, I want these stitched by hand.And I'm like, I'm your man, you know?
And then with the leather work, I do think, well, I've already talked about the little Gockstein purse.But although there's a lot of debate about did the Vikings have purses or did they carry bags?
I personally believe, based on my own experience of doing Viking stuff, Think a little purse like this is really really useful whether you're putting a needle and thread in it nails money your comb String anything.
So I have one on my belt there and I got this one, which is a bit more Sami it's actually copied from a an original Sami one from about 200 years ago.So I slightly stretched the conjecture on that.
But we know they had these horn handle bits at the top of their bags and what have you because they've been found.So I don't mind doing a bit of conjecture because I think the Vikings would have had things.
Yeah, yeah.We can't find 100% of the things that they had, so there has to be some leeway.Exactly.Not everything can be 100% replica.
And then this one was just fun.I cut this leather out.It's just from an old leftover bit from shoemaking.And I was going to do the usual all the way around and over the top.Then I thought, oh no, it stops about there.
So I thought, that's just going to look a mess.So I cut it off at the top.I thought, I'll use a bit of seal skin. and I'll make a nice little sealskin flap.
And then I thought sealskin on the underside is rather boring, so I got a bit of silk I'd brought back from Norway.We know the Vikings did use some silk for their clothing.Then I just backed it in silk and I thought... That's a fancy purse.
Then I thought, let's give it a bit of a sort of Sami-ish red stitching around the edge.And there it is.It's not a copy. But I like it, you know?
It's an interpretation.And people in my Viking world buy these things, and people are quite strict on looking right.And if they think it's all right, then brilliant.Yeah.Very nice.Yeah.So there's all of that.
One other thing I can just tell you about for sheer fun of it.Yeah.To do with what materials do you use?You said looking for a photograph, which.Isn't. there, it might doesn't matter.
Is this little piece here.So I was going through the Viking.Oh, if you just.Well, I'll help.Yeah, that's all loose.OK.
I was going through your Viking Facebook and then I came across a photograph of a little website thing of a little mammoth ivory bird that was found in a cave outside a sort of lake in Germany.
And they'd done their carbon dating and they reckoned it was 33,000 years old.Wow.
So obviously somebody who relied on the water and the lake and what have you for their living and knew all about the birds and what have you, carved out of a scrap of mammoth ivory, carved this tiny, tiny little bird.
And I thought I just happened to have some mammoth ivory on my shelf, as you do in my funny world. So I got my piece of mammoth ivory, which is quite damaged, so I used some Stone Age super glue to mend the cracks, haha, but I carved it.
And it's quite sweet to think that my piece of mammoth ivory was just a scrap that someone sent me from Germany as a leftover piece. could be as old if not older than the original find.And I thought, that's quite surreal.
And then I thought, well, I've got to display it.So what can I do to make it look cool?So I've got a piece of 5,000-year-old bog oak, which is sort of, it's not fossilized oak, but it's certainly not like normal wood anymore.
And you get it out of bogs in Norway.And I thought, well, that's exactly the right color of the mud on the bottom of this Ice Age lake. So I cut that piece out.
So the little cormorant or whatever it is diving down to the mud to root around for a fish or something.I had to slightly cheat and get some stone age copper wire for the brackets, but that's allowed.And then it just sits on there.
So that has nothing to do with Viking.But in my world, if I want to go off piste a little bit, I have no No worries about doing that.
Because if anyone were to challenge me on my authenticity, I would just say, well, check out this lovely comb I copied rivet for rivet that was found in Dove Marler in Latvia, for instance.
You know, which is an absolute copy of something from, well, Latvia, which is kind of near Scandinavia.Or like I say, my little comb from Gotland, which is really, really quite accurate.So if you do that, it's fun to do the
you know, the artistic things as well.I think for your own sanity as much as anything, you need a bit of variation, don't you, rather than always making carbon copies.And you need to be creative.
You talked earlier about artists in your family and stuff.
So there's obviously a little bit of... Well, oh God, my family.I was thinking about it.
When you go back, like grandparents, great grandparents, you've only got to go back about four generations and you're up to 16 grandparents, eight male, obviously eight female.
So when I say my family, it's like, well, one branch of my family, if you go back on my mum's side and then back on her dad's side, her great granddad.
lived in Ireland and was a bit aristocratic because he was married to the niece of one of the chancellors of England.I won't go too much into politics, but he was quite posh.
And he was a painter.He was also completely bonkers.But my mum said he was a good painter.
And then his son, his son found his father so overbearing that when they left Ireland, they worried about the Irish not liking them.
The great-great-great-grandfather, the one who was a bit mad, hired this yacht and they sailed around the world in it, evading pirates in the Adriatic or somewhere.I mean, close-run stuff.
And they got back to Florida and my great-grandad was so annoyed being stuck on the boat with his overbearing dad, he jumped off the boat.I don't mean he literally swam.Well, he might have done.Set up a photograph studio in the swamps in Florida.
realised that wasn't the best business plan in the world and then went off to New York and got a job in about 1890s surveying the early electrical lines or something.
But he took up photography and he used to go off to Africa and photograph lions and giraffes and there's a famous picture of him being charged by a rhinoceros and apparently And this was before zoom lenses and it really does fill the screen.
Apparently he jumped up a tree or something like that and made a capture.Not capture, death.But he used to paint pictures of all these animals and write books about them and take photos and go and do lectures.
So in my house in real life, my modern house, I've got loads of his paintings hanging up on the wall.And that's really nice.And his son, my granddad, He was very sort of upper crust army chap.And he was a ferocious boxer.
And he's only about five foot four.He was called Herman the German for some reason in the olden days, people thought the Germans were quite scary because he was so ferocious.
But when he wasn't boxing people's lights out in the army, he married my gran, who was lovely.And he also became an artist and a very, very subtle, clever, competent painter of beautiful landscapes.Yeah.
And he's one of the guys who could go into somewhere like York Minster and get all those multitudes of lines and get a pen and ink like this.
Slap a bit of watercolour in and you think, how the hell have you done that?It looks like he's drawn every single piece of that church.
Absolute genius. So he was very artistic.And then on my dad's side, my dad's aunt, my great aunt Helen, she was an accomplished seamstress and then became an artist at about 85 years old.And so on.
And then my daughter, my lovely daughter, has taken up painting and paints beautiful pictures.So certainly one or two sides of our family.Everybody likes creating nice stuff.Yeah.You know? So yes, it goes back a generation.
I hope that answers that, you know.Yeah, absolutely.And then we've got people in my family who some of them are priests and very quite holy, which is the opposite to me.I'm a bit of an atheist.
Some people, businessmen like my dad, who ran people's sort of estates in South Lakes and made sure the countryside looked nice, but wasn't artistic, but he could see
Countryside and see the beauty in it and work out what to do with it to make some money and make it look nice You know So yeah, so I was the thing I was gonna tell you that really fun thing is my great-granddad when he was in America I was just looking this up in his Biography the other day.
He was at double days, which was a publisher in those days.Hmm, and they said this is true This is absolutely truth true as anything.I
They said there's these couple of guys at Fort Myers Airfield, or Army Base anyway, who were trying to get this contraption thing, this glider, to take off by shoving an engine on it.Because there were cars by then, just in 1904, I think, or three.
And they sent him along to see if he could get some pictures of this thing flying, trying to fly.And the two brothers, the Wright brothers, they'd done their quick hop off the ground in 1905 or something.But by this point, we're up to 1908.
And the Wright brothers were really trying to get something to actually fly, rather than just do a bunny hop and come down to land. And my great granddad turns up at the airport.
All the other photographers are so fed up with getting up and the Wright brothers going, yeah, it's the wrong wind, we won't boss.But they'd all just not bother to get up.
And my great granddad got there, got up at four o'clock in the morning, which he did anyway, I think.And the leader of the two brothers said, yep, we're good to go.And this plane, it didn't take off on a runway.
They had to stick it on top of a hill and roll it down it to get the speed up. And it took off, and it flew, I don't know, two or three miles around the airfield, about half an hour, whatever, it's a proper flight.
And my great-granddad took the pictures of it, which I've seen.We've got them in the family.And then he said to either Wilbur or Orville, I think it was, can I come with you and do a two-man flight?
And they said to him, no, you can't, because rules is rules.We've got to take up an army officer first, because it's like an army base.
And the next day they went up and the plane crashed and the army guy was killed and the Wright brother was badly injured.So my great granddad was a bit lucky there.Yeah.
Because if he had gone up in it, I wouldn't, I don't think he'd made his children yet.So I wouldn't be there.Wow.But then if he also hadn't canceled his ticket on the Titanic, because he was due to go back to America.It's all in his biography.
Um, his kids were born by then, but my, I said to my mum, what would have happened?
She said, well, because he married an American lady, hence going to America all the time, the kids would have been shipped off back to America and my granddad would never have met my granny.
So, so that job offer saved his life because being sort of upper middle class chap, he probably wouldn't have survived that trip.
And also it meant I'm sitting here talking to you now.Wow.All for wanted, one cancelled. trip on a rather leaky boat.Well, it wasn't meant to be leaky, was it?But it ended up doing so.Wow.Yeah.That's that's yeah.
Do we have artistic people in the family?I suppose we do.
Yeah.Quite interesting people and adventurers and some of them a bit mad and you know.Best people are, right?It seems to be so.Certainly keeps the world interesting.
So yeah, so there are seven questions to ask every guest.I know you don't know what these are.
You might find them a bit random.
I mean, I carve bones for a living.
I'm quite used to random.
Yeah.So the first one is, if you had an unlimited budget, what would be your dream project?
Unlimited?Hmm. Do you know, I've often thought about this, because it's a bit like, what would you do if you won the pools?Not the pools, the what?Pools then, lottery now.
I would do exactly, I think I would do exactly what I do now, but without the, I don't like the word stress, but without the, I don't even like the word worry, but without the worry about, will somebody buy my stuff?
Because as a self-employed person, there's a lot of pressure on to sell, to pay your bills.
But somebody, I was talking about this the other day with someone, the usual fantasy if I won the lottery or unlimited budget.Someone said, well, you wouldn't have to sleep on your suitcases at Gatwick Airport waiting for the morning flight.
You could go and get a hotel.And I was like, no, I probably would still sleep on them.And turning up at Gatwick at midnight and then... Part of the adventure.Part of the adventure.Yeah.Well, they'd say, you could just drive to Norway.
I have a driver's license, but I don't need a car at the moment.Would I go and buy a car? I quite like getting the coast bus from Bergen down to Conway, it's called, and going on the ferry ride and being inspired to make lovely bits of jewellery.
So I would do the same as I do now.But without the burden of money.But without worrying so much about, will I make a sale?Yeah.Yeah, because I quite like doing that.That's always good.In fact, I enjoy it.In fact, I love it.And I've been doing this.
I don't know if it's one of your questions, but I've been doing this in some form professionally since March the 3rd, 1991.Wow.
And I've had about a five-year gap for various reasons, but if you take the five years off, the 33 years, it still comes to quite a lot.
Yeah.Still not bored of it, you know, because you either work at a Viking place teaching kids, you can go and run courses, you can travel to Norway, you can
Get orders from a lovely Australian lady for one of these little slides I'm halfway through doing.You can send that to Australia.You know, you're not doing the same thing every single day.And all of that applies to the boots as well.
So the answer is I'd just do what I do now.It's a good answer.
Yeah.Yeah.So do you think you could survive on a Viking age diet?
No, because if I'm going to be really honest with the camera, my teeth are such a shocking mess and need fixing at the moment.I wouldn't be able to eat Viking food.
In terms of taste, I went with my old company, Danelord, to the first Viking festival in Hafnesfjord, I think it was called, in Iceland in about 94. And the first night we were there, everybody was shoved into the school.
They used the schools in the holidays as like youth hostels.And the first night we got fed this fish just with little hard cannibal potatoes and white gravy, which I think was melted sheep fat.
And I remember a Scandinavian, and they're used to strong food, standing there going, this is a bit strong. And then we were shunted out to eat in this marquee afterwards.
And I always remember sitting there watching this very bonny, young Scandinavian woman looking utterly lovely to a 28-year-old, apart from the fact she was chewing away on a sheep's head.
And then we were offered trays of food, like fermented shark stuff.And I thought, even if I'm starving, I don't think I could last on this. But I did eat the puffin, smoked puffin breast.
And then this weird coiled sort of meat that someone said was smoked over animal poo and someone else said it's not, don't worry, it's smoked over hay.But God, it was so strange.
So the answer is yes, one could survive off it, but you'd have to be quite hungry.And you'd have to adapt your taste buds very quickly.And I remember my boss's secretary, who lived in Leeds in a normal suburban house, was so horrified.
She headed off to the nearest Icelandic supermarket and bought pot noodles, which she even even then I think cost about £10 for each one because it was Iceland.
So yes is the answer, my teeth could cope and I was starving, but it does take some getting used to, to an Englishman who's used to corned beef and mashed potato.
So connected to that question, is there anything you'd miss if you were on a Viking Age diet?
Oh yeah, I'd miss biscuits and chocolate and stuff, but then if I was on a Viking Age diet and always had been, I wouldn't know they existed.
That depends whether you, yeah, how you view the question.Whether you're you now, switched to a Viking diet, or whether you were just a Viking at the time.
Well, I got quite a sweet tooth.So if I lived in Viking times, I would probably have the monopoly on all the beehives in the valley.You know, to me, it's from my hunt.Become a beekeeper.Yeah, become a beekeeper.Use my teeth that way.Yeah.
But I think it was quite healthy food, though.
Certainly a lot more varied than we, a lot more seasonal.
Yes, yes.Well, you got all the I always I always relate everything back to Norway because I just love going now.I have a friend who I go and stay on a farm occasion in the absolute middle of absolutely nowhere by English standards.
And you think of all the berries that grow there and, you know, all that sort of natural stuff.Yeah, that's quite sweet.So it wasn't totally bland.
And if you're feeling it's all a bit bland, just go and ferment it all and spice it up a bit, you know.
So, I guess anything sweet then would be your stuff you'd miss?Well, I quite like sweet.
I do like a bar of chocolate and things, but I don't let it make me unfit because I'm always whizzing about on my bike and carving things, which sort of counters the effect of potential diabetes and what have you.
Equally, when I was a child, you know, I was quite posh when I was a kid, so my dad used to go and hunt and all that sort of stuff.
And when I came back from, dare I admit it, posh boarding school, there was nothing nicer than, like, my mum would make venison stew with not a drop of sugar in sight.And that was really delicious.
I was quite viking.I would make venison stew quite a lot.
It's lovely, isn't it?Yeah, really good.But she used to temper it with chocolate cake afterwards, which she also made, so that was all right.We don't do that.Not as Vikings.
Not that we know of.No.Yeah, so what's the weirdest thing in your kitchen?
In my real life kitchen?Well, one quite weird thing is my bicycle, because I have a small house.I keep my bike in there.Other weird things?
I think this is the one most people struggle with.
Weird, well one of the nice things, I'm going to have to go with nice and different.
is a lovely old whiskey decanter from my family that I was given, because obviously there's so many whiskey decanters, I didn't know what to do with them, so they gave me one.
And that sits on the counter, sometimes with vodka in it, which isn't totally weird, but it's not quite normal either.Vodka in a whiskey.Bit like an alcoholic necking vodka after a whiskey thing.What else?I think that's about as weird as I can go.
Cupboards are quite bare and boring, really.
Oh, no, the absolute weirdest thing is filling in cracks in my terrace with ready-mixed cement, which failed miserably because I didn't mix it properly.So I kept the cement bag.
So I've got an empty cement bag in one of my kitchen cupboards to remind me what I need to order next time.
With a little mental note to myself, next time mix it properly because the sand sinks to the bottom.That's why it didn't work. Yeah, an empty cement bag in my kitchen cupboard next to the sink.
There we go, we got there.
We got there.All right.What's the worst thing you've ever eaten?
Can I do two things?If you like.
One was on an exchange trip going to Germany when I was 14, pulling in with my German family to this posh restaurant on the way to Berlin.And there was this vegetable on the plate that was so disgusting, I thought,
thought the Germans must still hate the English after all the troubles we've had because they really don't like me for making me eat this and it was Jerusalem artichoke. Oh, okay.
And the artichokes are the bulbs where you cook the leaves and make a little pattern on your plate like we had on our family holidays to Britain in the 70s.They're delicious, but the other end of the artichoke or whatever it is, absolutely revolting.
And then I had it a second time and I thought, well, maybe they just cooked it wrong the first time.Then the second time I had it, it was absolutely just as disgusting.And the other thing is a seed that my
slightly alternative sisters, slightly alternative at the time husbands, very alternative friend produced, called this healthy seed full of goodness, which means it's bound to taste revolting, called a moringa seed or moringa seed.
And it's just like a little, looks a bit like a sunflower type seed, that kind of look.And you crack it open and you eat this little tiny thing that you think is so small, it can't do me any harm at all.
It was absolutely the most disgusting thing I've ever... It made the Jerusalem artichoke look like raspberry ripple ice cream.
I've never come across that one.
Absolutely vile.And my body, without going into the graphic details, used every single orifice the next day to expel it and anything it could have tainted.I've never been so blooming ill in my life.So don't go near moringa seeds, everyone.
I reckon you'll have an interesting answer for the next one, based on answers you've given so far.What's the most memorable meal you've ever had?
Because you've given a few examples already of... Does it have to be a nice meal?Can it be a horrible one?If that's what you want to do, then yeah.
As long as it was memorable in some way.Well, one of the most memorable ones was aged about three at our old house. and being fed lunch, including peas, green, boiled, normal peas.
Three years old, my taste buds thinking, these are absolutely disgusting.And I absolutely refused to eat them on a Sunday lunch.And I remember being left at the table for hours while my dad was next door.I used to get that.
And just, I can't remember how, it was a Mexican standoff.I don't know how it ended.
I think they give up eventually.
I think they give up eventually.I think he started getting mouldy.And the other most disgusting meal was being at boarding school in 1973 or 4.Back in the dark days of when everything was pretty grim by modern standards.
And we used to get these sausages, which were really, really nice for breakfast.And then eating this sausage, and it was like crunchy, crunchy, crunchy.
And I spat out the biggest piece of pig gristle, filled with pig hairs that were so wiry, you could have scoured a pan with them.And I was so traumatized by it, for years and years afterwards, every sausage I ever got.
is to cut it lengthways and check it to uh yeah do uh what what you call it when you post-mortem yeah that's the word on this already day i'm so horrified so those are two memorable meals anyway yeah you know i'm sure there's more but they were two that immediately come to mind
All right, so we're on to the very last question.Right.So the premise is you've died.Your family and friends are preparing your grave goods.What food and drink do you get to take to the feast in Valhalla?
Well, drink has to be vodka.OK.Straight up.No mix.Just neat.Neat vodka.And food.Well, if it's going on to the afterlife, I'd like to take something from my younger life.My mum's
Unlimited supply of my mum's venison stew with her chocolate cake made of coffee.However she did it, it was magic.
That'll do.That sounds good.With some biscuits and a bit of chocolate.Sorted.Followed up by my mum's Christmas cake.Yeah, that'll do.I could live on that.I think that covers all the vitamin bases, doesn't it?
Yeah, there's fruit in there, there's venison in there, there's quite a bit of sugar.
Quite a bit of sugar.Yeah.But I had to run around a lot, didn't I?Yeah.In the afterlife.Exactly.Around Valhalla.It's a big place, isn't it?Probably.
Wow, thank you.How was that?Yeah, no, that was brilliant.So thank you for your time today.Is there any way, do you like people following you on Instagram, Facebook, anything like that?
If anybody wants to find me on Facebook, I'm Peter Merritt, spelt M-E-R-R-E-T-T.
And I'm the only Peter Merritt that has both profile and whatever it's cover picture of me dressed as a Viking wearing fur and sealskin boots and fur hat and standing there looking hopefully heroic in Norway, staring into distance.
So if anybody wants to look that up, there's no privacy settings on it and see what I get up to.And if anybody wants to get in touch, just Send me a message on Messenger.I'm not a great emailer.I'm not on Instagram.
Just just despite what people think of Mr. Zuckerberg, I'm quite happy with the service he provides on Facebook and Messenger.Yeah, just get in touch.But the only thing I will ask is.Is please, if you'd like to come and do a course, go for it.
Yeah, but I get hounded by people with all the best will in the world asking me endlessly about how do you do the bone work?And obviously I feel obliged to answer.Yeah, but I can only I'm running out of goodwill to spend hours answering.
I'm not being funny but based on what you said you charge for a course I mean that's incredibly reasonable.
Come and do a course and they'll teach you all the basics you need to get going so you can sit either at home or at a historical event and do some bone work. But yes, but don't don't message me with any advice on the actual carvings.
Yeah, because I've only got so much.No, that makes sense.Yeah.
Absolutely.Yeah.All right.Well, yeah.Thank you again for coming on.Absolute pleasure.Really enjoyed talking.Thank you, everyone, for watching.I'll see you all next time.Goodbye.Bye bye.
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