Ravenhold Hand Made Viking Round Shield | 24 Inch Diameter | Twin Ravens on Red and White with Steel Valknut Boss | Norse Reenactment Gift | RK-1433

Ravenhold is a hand made Viking round shield built the way the excavated ones were built, from planks butted edge to edge, faced and painted, bound at the rim and pierced at the centre for a steel boss. The face carries two black ravens standing on a rust red ground with a white band running between them, and the boss at the middle is engraved with a valknut. The ravens are Huginn and Muninn, thought and memory, the pair that Odin sends out over the world at dawn and that return to his shoulders at evening with everything they have seen. The Norse poem Grimnismal has Odin say that he fears for Huginn but fears more for Muninn, which is as neat a line about the terror of losing your memory as anyone has written since.

The shield is planked, faced, painted, rimmed and bossed in our Memphis, Tennessee workshop. It ships with the steel boss riveted in place through the centre hole, and with the leather arm strap, the two hand grips and the shield rivets supplied loose in the box so you can set the strap positions to your own forearm rather than to an average one.

Specifications

What the boss is actually for

People assume the steel dome in the middle of a Viking shield is decoration or reinforcement. It is neither. It exists because of how the shield is held. A Viking round shield has no forearm straps in the medieval sense. It is gripped in the fist by a single bar running across the back, at the centre of the disc, and the wood is cut away around that fist to give the hand somewhere to sit. That leaves a hole through the middle of the shield with your knuckles in it.

The boss is the steel cap that covers that hole. It is domed so there is air between the inside of the dome and the back of your hand, and it is riveted through the shield board around a wide flange so a blow landing on the dome is spread out into the planking instead of being driven into your fingers. Without it a centre gripped shield is a board with a hole and your hand exposed in the middle of it.

The centre grip also changes how the shield is used. Because the shield hangs off your fist rather than being strapped to your forearm, you can punch it forward, rotate it fast, and reach across your body with it in a way a strapped shield cannot manage. The cost is that your arm takes the full weight at the end of a lever, which is exactly why Viking age shields are thin, light and often only a centimetre or so through the planking. A heavy shield on a centre grip is unusable after a few minutes.

The wood, the paint and the rawhide rim

The body is planked rather than cut from plywood or a single slab, which is how the surviving boards from the Gokstad ship burial were made. Planks butted and glued edge to edge give a face that can flex a little under a blow and that splits along a plank line rather than shattering across the grain. You can see the plank joints on the face of this shield, and they are meant to be visible.

The rim is bound in rawhide and riveted at intervals. That rawhide is doing the most important job on the whole shield. A bare wooden edge is the weak point, because a cut landing on the rim splits the board inward along the grain. Wet rawhide shrinks hard as it dries and clamps the edge of every plank together, so an edge blow bites into hide rather than opening the wood. It is the reason Viking shields survived more than one fight.

Be honest with yourself about use. This is built for display, wall mounting, costume and light reenactment, not for full contact steel combat, where organisations set their own thickness, rim and boss standards and inspect for them. A shield like this will not pass those inspections and we are not going to tell you it will.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the leather. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us where it goes. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On this shield the engraving field is the steel boss, so your runes or your chosen design take the place of the valknut rather than joining it. Read more on the engraving page.

Mounting and display

At 24 inches across, this hangs well over a fireplace, a bed or a desk without dominating a normal room. The simplest mount is a pair of heavy picture hooks or French cleat brackets set to catch the rim at two points, which spreads the weight and stops the shield swinging on a single nail. Do not hang it from the arm strap alone. Leather stretches over years and a strap that has taken a shield off a wall onto a stone hearth is not a repair anyone enjoys.

If you want it usable rather than static, fit the arm strap and grips before you hang it. Lay the shield face down, set your forearm across the back with your fist at the centre hole, mark where the strap needs to sit and rivet from there. Fitting it to your own arm rather than to a standard position is the whole reason we send the fittings loose.

Care

Keep it dry. Painted wood and rawhide both hate sustained damp, and a shield left in a garage over a wet winter will lift its paint and soften its rim binding. Indoors, an occasional dusting is genuinely all it needs. Outdoors at an event, bring it in at night rather than leaving it leaning against a tent.

The steel boss will spot with rust if it is handled with sweaty hands and left. Wipe it and put a thin film of light oil or paste wax on it a couple of times a year. Any surface rust lifts with fine steel wool worked with oil. The notes on the steel care page cover the boss and the rivets.

Forged in Memphis

The planks are jointed, the face is painted, the rawhide is wet bound, the boss is spun and engraved and the rivets are set in our Memphis, Tennessee workshop. This is not an importer catalogue shield with a sticker on the back. That is why our lifetime warranty against defects in the build, the boss and the fittings has no end date and needs no receipt.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand made rather than machine made or bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The plank lines fall where the boards fall, the painted ravens are laid on by hand so their line weight varies, and the rawhide rim takes its own colour as it dries. The dimensions, the material and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use this for full contact reenactment

No. It is built for display, wall mounting, costume and light reenactment. Full contact groups set their own board thickness, rim and boss requirements and inspect against them, and this shield is not made to any of those standards.

Does it arrive ready to hold

The boss is riveted on and the shield is finished, but the leather arm strap, the two hand grips and the rivets come loose in the box. That is deliberate so you can fit the strap to your own forearm length. It is a twenty minute job with a hammer and a solid surface.

How heavy is it

Light enough to hold on a centre grip for a long while, which is the point of the type. Viking round shields were thin and light on purpose, because a heavy shield held out at arm length on a fist becomes unusable within minutes.

What do the two ravens mean

They are Huginn and Muninn, thought and memory, the ravens Odin sends out at dawn to bring him back news of the world. They appear on his shoulders throughout Norse poetry and are among the oldest and best attested images in the whole tradition.

Can I hang it outside

We would not. Painted plank and rawhide binding both take on damp, and sustained weather will lift paint and soften the rim. It is an indoor piece unless you are carrying it at an event, in which case bring it in at night.

How long does it take to ship

Processing is one to two weeks because each shield is planked, painted and bound to order, then shipping is free within the United States. Returns are accepted within seven days. Custom boss engraving adds a few days.

What is in the box

• One 24 inch planked Viking round shield, painted and rawhide bound
• Steel valknut boss, riveted in place
• Leather arm strap and two leather hand grips, supplied loose
• Set of shield rivets for fitting the strap and grips
• Forged and finished in Memphis, Tennessee

Explore the range

See more in round shields, viking shields and shield bosses, or read the guides.