Thomas J.T. Williams & Michael Bintley 
Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia [PDF ebook] 

Essays on the depiction of animals, birds and insects in early medieval material culture, from texts to carvings to the landscape itself.


For people in the early Middle Ages, the earth, air, water and ether teemed with other beings. Some of these were sentient creatures that swam, flew, slithered or stalked through the same environments inhabited by their human contemporaries. Others were objects that a modern beholder would be unlikely to think of as living things, but could yet be considered to possess a vitality that rendered them potent. Still others were things half glimpsed on a dark night or seen only in the mind’s eye; strange beasts that haunted dreams and visions or inhabited exotic lands beyond the compass of everyday knowledge.

This book discusses the various ways in which the early English and Scandinavians thought about and represented these other inhabitants of their world, and considers the multi-faceted nature of the relationship between people and beasts. Drawing on the evidence of material culture, art, language, literature, place-names and landscapes, the studies presented here reveal a world where the boundaries between humans, animals, monsters and objects were blurred and often permeable, and where to represent the bestial could be to holda mirror to the self.


Michael D.J. Bintley is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Literature at Canterbury Christ Church University; Thomas J.T. Williams is a doctoral researcher at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology.


Contributors: Noël Adams, John Baker, Michael D. J. Bintley, Sue Brunning, László Sándor Chardonnens, Della Hooke, Eric Lacey, Richard North, Marijane Osborn, Victoria Symons, Thomas J. Williams

Table of Content

Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia: an Introduction – Michael D.J. Bintley and Thomas J.T. Williams

Between Myth and Reality: Hunter and Prey in Early Anglo-Saxon Art – Noël Adams

‘(Swinger of) the Serpent of Wounds’: Swords and Snakes in the Viking Mind – Sue Brunning

Wreoþenhilt ond wyrmfah: Confronting Serpents in
Beowulf and Beyond – Victoria Symons

The Ravens on the Lejre Throne: Avian Identifiers, Odin at Home, Farm Ravens – Marijane Osborn

Beowulf’s Blithe-Hearted Raven – Eric Lacey

Do Anglo-Saxons Dream of Exotic Sheep? – László Sándor Chardonnens

You Sexy Beast: The Pig in a Villa in Vandalic North Africa and Boar-Cults in Old Germanic Heathendom – Richard North

‘For the Sake of Bravado in the Wilderness’: Confronting the Bestial in Anglo-Saxon Warfare – Thomas J.T. Williams

Where the Wild Things Are in Old English Poetry – Michael D.J. Bintley

Entomological Etymologies: Creepy-Crawlies in English Place-Names – John Baker

Beasts, Birds and Other Creatures in Pre-Conquest Charters and Place-Names in England – Della Hooke

About the author

MICHAEL BINTLEY is Associate Professor in Medieval English Literature at the University of Southampton. He is author of Trees in the Religions of Early Medieval England (2015), and Settlements and Strongholds in Early Medieval England: Texts, Landscapes, and Material Culture (2020), and co-author of Landscapes and Environments of the Middle Ages (2023).