Maestro David's Skjoldehamn Hood

There aren't an abundance of Viking Age clothing finds. The nature of organic material is to break down, particularly in wet climates, barring specific circumstances, such as bogs. As a result, there are only a few garments that we have good extant examples of. We don't, for example, have any significant part of the ubiquitous women's hangerock (the apron dress). We have artistic representations and tiny scraps of cloth preserved under brooches from graves, but other than that, it's all speculation. What we do have examples of are hoods. Most of the hoods that have been found from Scandinavia in the Viking Age come from Greenland, but there is one very good example from Skjoldehamn, Norway.

The Skjoldehamn hood was originally misdated to being from the 15-16th century when it was found in the 1930s. Since then, modern dating has placed it as likely from the 10th century. There is considerable debate as to the origins of the hood (possibly Sámi) and the gender of the body it was found with (Svestad, 288).

What we do know about the hood is the material reality of it. It was incredibly well preserved. We are able to know the weave of the cloth, the construction techniques used, the finishing on the seams and the most likely original color. So many details were preserved that this particular hood is one of the most reproduced hoods out there, and with good reason. Not only do we know a ton about it, it's incredibly comfortable to wear.

The Skjoldehamn hood is a fairly straightforward garment. There is one large rectangle and two smaller squares. The large rectangle is folded in the middle and sewn up one side to create the shoulders and hood. The squares are attached to the front and back to create the V shape. The original had ties at about ear level, which were likely used to pull the hood in for extra face protection and to tie back to widen the field of vision as needed.

I have made several hoods in this style. As usual, I chose to not do a true reproduction but to interpret the find to fit the person receiving the garment. I recognize this will occasionally result in some people evaluating my work to "dock points" as it were, but I maintain that as garments were not factory made in the SCA period, no two will be exactly alike or even substantially similar. People did the best they could with the materials at hand with varying degrees of skill and talent.

There are five deviations from the original in my interpretation:

The material I used is a wool felt rather than a woven cloth.
I used one continuous length of cloth for the hood and shoulders and did not have a seam that went across the top of the hood. I did not add the top seam that creates the little crest seen on the original.
After displaying this hood, I plan to untack the point below the chin for a more comfortable wearing experience. Modern wearers are used to wearing modern hoodies with a larger face opening than in the hoods we see from Viking Age Scandinavia. Modern wearers generally aren't out in the Scandinavian elements with these style of hoods so it's less crucial to make sure the garment affords as much protection as possible. They are more comfortable if you knock that top angle off. You can see in my embroidery where I plan to make the cut after displaying it.
I did not add the ties at the ears. I considered it, but ultimately decided against it as this isn't a reproduction but an interpretation and I didn't want to.
The seams are not finished in the same way as the original, which is discussed further down the page.

For Maestro David's hood, I used a cashmere wool felt for the material instead of woven wool cloth. The hood is very warm and offers protection from rain as well. It also tends to grab every cat hair and piece of lint that's floating around, which isn't great. Mistakes were made, I suppose. But that's what lint rollers are for! It's a very warm hood and that was my goal.

I lined the hood section with silk for a more comfortable wearing experience. Viking Age Scandinavians had access to high quality silk and while there's not evidence they used it for lining garments (and it wouldn't have made sense for them to do that. Silk was a status symbol to be shown off, not hidden underneath other fabric) we do know it was used for caps, as shown by the Jorvik silk cap. Lining the hood with silk is absolutely a stretch of the historical record, but it was a resource I had available and I wanted the hood to be more comfortable to wear than the felt alone would be.

The original Skjoldehamn hood was constructed using a combination of whip stitches and running stitches. I used running stitches in my interpretation for the majority of the seam construction and whip stitches on the pelican applique.

I was concerned with the seams being too bulky from the wool felt I chose. Because felt doesn't need to be finished, I decided to overlap the seams rather than fell them or French finish them. Most seam finishing options would have left the seams far too bulky for my preference. As you can see in the first picture to the right, I overlapped both edges 1/4" then pinned them in place. I tacked them down with a running stitch, then went back over them with a decorative stitch using a heavier wool yarn. Not only is the decorative stitch visually appealing and period correct, it's also functional. Between the running stitch and the embroidery, the seams are extremely durable.

Like the extant find, Maestro David's hood has an unturned edge finished with a blanket stitch in wool. I also did a decorative stitch along the construction seams for the two squares in the front and back.

This hood is a gift for my friend, Maestro David Vázquez de Valençia to celebrate his elevation to the Order of the Pelican (done in 2019, just before the world shut down). David's persona is a early to mid 16th century Spanish, but he has expressed interest in exploring some Viking Age options, which is right up my alley.

His medallion was designed by Viscount Antonii Machinevik. I loved that His Excellency incorporated a nod to David's household, Three Skulls into the medallion. I reached out to him to get his permission to use his design as the basis of my own. As I was doing a Viking Age Scandinavian hood, Viscount Anotonii's design wouldn't quite work stylistically but I wanted my design to have the same elements, if not the same style. He graciously agreed and after discovering that birds are difficult, I finally came down on a design that I felt had the same energy as the original with the Nordic styling I was looking for.

I cut the larger shape of the pelican and the skulls from wool felt then embroidered them onto a different piece of wool felt using a very fine 2-ply wool yarn. I added most of the details with a back or a chain stitch, then needle felted the colored parts of the pelican and the eyes and noses of the skulls.

Once the embroidery was finished, I realized that the design didn't lend itself to being centered easily but I did the best I could and cut a hole out of the hood, slightly smaller than the design. I used a whip stitch to attach the applique to the hood and then finished the back.

The pelican applique needed a protective backing after it was attached to the hood. I had some scrap silk and used that. It was *just slightly* too small to cover the entire thing, but I wasn't going to try to piece a section that small and I wanted to use the scrap from the lining. I don't love that you can see a bit of the original green felt backing, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it either. Charmeuse silk is, as ever, a complete pain to work with and required approximately 700 pins to hold it in place while I used a whip stitch to attach it to the hood and to the applique.

I have made six or seven hoods in this style, ranging from ones thrown together at the last minute with linen scraps for my kids to the reversible wool hood that I made for myself and several in between. They are one of my favorite items to make and gift. They can be as fancy or as basic as you want to make them. This is by far the fanciest I've ever made. I'll be entering it into Highland Foorde's A&S competition at Highland Havoc on November 12, 2022. (Update: I won an honorable mention, which I'm happy with) After that, I'll give it to Maestro David to wear in good health with my love and friendship.