Hornmoot Hand Made Ox Horn Tankard with Rune Engraved Steel Band | Full Pint Drinking Vessel | Stainless Bands and Wooden Base and Leather Belt Hanger | Norse Mead Gift | RK-1611

The Hornmoot is a drinking tankard built around a single piece of natural ox horn, banded top and bottom in stainless steel, set on a turned hardwood base and fitted with a formed steel handle. The horn body carries its own dark and amber marbling straight through the wall of the vessel, and a third steel band across the middle is engraved with a line of Elder Futhark runes. It is a working drinking vessel rather than a shelf ornament. It holds cold beer, mead, cider or water without the metallic edge you get off a bare steel mug.

Horn was the everyday Norse drinking material for a very practical reason. A cattle horn is a hollow keratin cone that can be cut, scraped and polished into a watertight cup using hand tools alone, and it does not shatter when a hall gets loud and a cup goes over. The one thing horn will not tolerate is heat, which is why period horn vessels were always used for cold drink and never set near a fire. We build to that same limit. Every Hornmoot is cut, fitted, riveted and sealed here in a Czech Republic workshop, and it ships with a black leather belt hanger and steel buckle so the tankard can ride on your belt at a feast, a fair or a reenactment weekend. You will find it filed with the horn mugs and tankards, along with the rest of the Viking beer mugs.

Specifications

How a horn vessel is sealed and made food safe

A raw cattle horn is not a cup. It arrives as a solid keratin sheath around a bony core, and the first job is to separate the two and clean out everything soft that sits between them. The horn is then cut square at the wide end, the inner membrane is scraped back to clean material, and the inside is sanded progressively smooth so there is no ridge or pocket left for liquid to sit in. That inner surface is what decides whether a horn vessel tastes of anything. A rough bore holds residue and goes stale. A properly scraped and polished bore rinses clean in seconds.

Once the bore is right, the interior is sealed with a food safe finish that bonds to the keratin and gives you a smooth, non porous drinking surface. The seal is the reason the tankard is a cold drink vessel only. Keratin softens with heat and the seal is not built for boiling liquid, so hot coffee, mulled wine straight off the stove and dishwasher cycles are all out. Cold beer, mead, cider, water and iced drinks are exactly what it is for. If a new horn vessel has a faint smell on arrival, rinse it with cool water and a little baking soda, dry it standing upside down, and it will settle within a wash or two.

The horn, the steel and the wood

Ox horn is a layered keratin, closer in structure to a fingernail than to bone, and that layering is what gives you the smoke, amber and near black banding running through the wall. Held to a window the thinner sections glow translucent. No two horns band the same way, and we do not dye or paint the body to make them match, because the marbling is the reason to own horn in the first place.

The bands and the handle are stainless steel, brushed rather than mirror polished so they do not show every fingerprint, and the bands are riveted through rather than glued on. The base is a turned hardwood disc set into a shoulder cut in the bottom of the horn and sealed, which is what makes a naturally tapered cone stand flat on a table. The centre band is the engraved one, and it is a flat, wide face on purpose so that a rune line reads cleanly all the way round.

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, the leather or the wood. 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 tankard the natural place for your text is the centre steel band, and the leather belt hanger can take a short mark as well. See the engraving page for what fits and how it is cut.

Fit and sizing

The tankard itself needs no sizing, but the belt hanger does. It is a folded leather loop closed with a steel buckle, so it wraps the handle and then buckles round your belt rather than needing to be threaded on before the belt goes through the loops. Measure the width of the belt you actually wear before you order anything to go with it. Most men wear a belt between one and a half and one and three quarter inches wide, and the hanger is built for that band of widths. A wide reenactment belt of two inches and over will still work if you run the hanger over the belt rather than around it.

Hang it on the hip you do not draw a knife from, and let the tankard sit against the outside of your thigh rather than the front of your leg, or it will swing into you every time you walk.

Care

Hand wash only, in cool or lukewarm water, with a soft cloth or a soft sponge and a drop of mild dish soap. Never put a horn vessel in a dishwasher. The heat and the detergent together will haze the horn, lift the seal and can crack the wall. Do not leave it soaking, do not fill it with hot liquid, and do not leave it sitting full overnight.

Dry it upside down on a rack so the bore drains and air can get in. Once a season, wipe the outside of the horn with a very light coat of mineral oil or a food safe wax and buff it back. That keeps the horn from drying out and keeps the marbling deep instead of chalky. Wipe the steel bands dry after washing so water does not sit at the rivets, and give the hardwood base an occasional wipe of the same oil.

Made in the Czech Republic

This piece is made by hand in the Czech Republic, in a workshop that still works the old way. The steel is forged, ground, heat treated and finished by smiths who learned the trade from the people before them, and the wood, horn and leather are cut and fitted by hand rather than pressed out on a line. That is also why no two pieces come out exactly the same.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import these pieces ourselves, check every one when it lands and ship from our warehouse in Memphis, Tennessee. Engraving is done here in the United States after the piece arrives, so your runes or your own design go on before it leaves for you.

A note on handmade variation

This is hand made, not machine made and not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. Grain, tone, hammer texture and exact profile vary because each piece is worked by hand from natural materials. The dimensions, the material and the build are the same every time. The character is not. Horn especially: every single horn differs in colour, curve and translucency, and yours may run darker, lighter, more amber or more smoke than the one photographed. Some horns show a pale streak, some show a near black band, some are translucent enough to glow at the rim. That is the material telling you it grew on an animal rather than coming out of a mould. More on the Elder Futhark elsewhere on the site, along with the Viking wedding gifts.

Frequently asked questions

Can I put a hot drink in it

No. This is a cold drink vessel. Heat softens keratin and works against the interior seal, so keep it to beer, mead, cider, water and iced drinks and leave coffee and mulled wine to a ceramic mug.

Is it dishwasher safe

It is not, and a dishwasher will ruin it. Hand wash in cool water with a soft cloth, rinse, and dry it upside down. That takes about a minute and the tankard will outlast anything you own that goes in a machine.

Will it taste or smell of horn

A new horn vessel can carry a faint smell for the first wash or two. Rinse it with cool water and a spoon of baking soda, dry it fully, and it settles. After that it is neutral, which is one of the reasons horn was used for drink in the first place.

Will mine look like the photograph

The build will match exactly. The horn will not. Every horn bands differently, so expect your own mix of amber, smoke and dark brown rather than a copy of the one shown.

Can I get a name or a date cut into it

Yes. The centre steel band is the place for it, and the rune converter on this page will turn a name or a short phrase into Elder Futhark for you. Your engraving replaces the stock rune line rather than sitting next to it.

How long does it take to arrive

Processing is one to two weeks in the shop, plus transit, and engraved orders sit at the longer end of that. Shipping within the United States is free.

What is in the box

• One Hornmoot ox horn tankard with stainless bands, engraved rune band and hardwood base
• One black leather belt hanger with a steel buckle
• Care card covering hand washing and seasonal oiling
• Made and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

See more in horn mugs and tankards, drinking horns, wooden mugs and cups and Viking beer mugs, or read the guides.