Recovering the Design of a Gripping Beast Pendant

[@Brewtifull]

The little Snoring find has always been my favourite piece - hope to get hold of a good recreation some day. Thank you for the analysis!

[@waxmaster-c]

Super interesting. Thanks for making this!

[@jonaslaumarkussen6045]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@lindmueller_art]

Vielen Dank! Wie immer schön erklärt, Hr. Markussen! Es ist mir immer wieder eine Freude und was wäre ich ohne Ihren Kanal. The face of the beast looks friendly and prying. I like it😊..Greetings!

[@jonaslaumarkussen6045]

Danke Schön! Glad you enjoyed it :) Cheers

[@MrEnaric]

I always loved this pendant type, quite challenging to lay out the different beast from pictures of the original finds though! Great analysis, thank you. I always had a gut feeling that rhe feline qualities of the central ‘beast’ had links to cat figurations on several Oseberg carvings and hence a possible link with Freyja’s cult. A cat figure with surrounding ‘dragons’/ ormar seemed logical. What do you think? Both Cats and dragons seem clisely connected with the feminine/ Goddess spheres.

[@jonaslaumarkussen6045]

Yeah, unfortunately, the many debased derivations of this design make it hard to decipher the individual elements. I hope this video helps :) Your guess is as good as mine ;) I don't have a definitive opinion on the significance of the various animals, but personally, I think they are all some kind of general image of 'beastliness'. Their role as ornament is virtually always to make the item they adorn 'come to life' by embodying it with shapeshifting (aka. magical) qualities. So in that sense, you could say that they are indirectly connected to the feminine sphere and to Freyja (though absolutely not exclusively to her).