Treasure Dragon Graffiti in Orkney July 4, 2014
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval, Prehistoric , trackback
Maeshowe was a Megalithic tomb on Orkney. At some point our Viking ancestors broke in and desecrated the innards of Maeshowe with their tiresome graffiti. We have visited some of these graffiti before while in search of an axe. However, of special interest today is the treasure graffiti: translation Bruce Dickinson.
It is true what I say, that treasure was carried off in the course of three nights. Treasure was carried off before those crusaders broke into the howe.
Then nearby and associated:
Away to the north-west is a great treasure hidden. A long time ago was a great treasure hidden here. Lucky will be he who can find the great fortune. Hakon single-handed bore treasure from this howe.
The graffiti date to the twelfth century and tell a story. A group of Viking crusaders (i.e. Orkney or Shetlanders or perhaps Scandinavians en route to commit genocide in the Levant) decided to open the tomb in search of treasure. Medieval and early modern societies were frequently convinced that these prehistoric tombs had treasure in them. The problem is that Atlantic communities just didn’t have that much filthy lucre in prehistory and usually their tombs had some broken pots and burnt bones and nothing more: there are very rare exceptions. There was then the question of what to do after the excavation didn’t bring any gold to light. Here we see a strategy well known to folklorists. Allege that X or Y had got there before you and secreted the treasure somewhere else: in this case Hakon was the thief.
Most interesting and most magnicifent though is the dragon on a near-by wall. Time and time again in Germanic legend dragons had the responsibility of looking after obscene amounts of treasure. Beowulf’s dragon (and Beowulf’s killer as it happens) had been sitting on his pile for three hundred years when the Jutes came knocking. If you were going to break into a treasure lair you had to be ready for the dragon. There are spells from as late as the nineteenth century used by treasure seekers to allay the dragon within. Other medieval or ancient dragon drawings? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
What happened at Maeshowe is unknown but this is my guess. A bunch of Vikings decide to go on Crusades and testosterone and righteous anger peaked at the same time. They wanted to bond and realised that as Godly soldiers of Christ they could attempt something that the previous four centuries worth of Vikings had not dared consider: they could break into the dragon’s treasure house. When they got in they found nothing there and came up with a story as to what had ‘really’ happened. One of them drew this dragon on the wall: the real treasure of the Howe.
Can’t help but wonder how many Arabs, Jews and Christians they murdered in the next ten years.
And for those who want the teeshirt…
