Tall Trees: A Proposed New Meaning for a Label on the Franks Casket

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Tom Grant for discussions of the paranormal Icelandic risi, and to Melissa X. Stevens for creating the elegant image in Figure 1 and for helpful editing. I wish to dedicate this article to my many dear friends and relations who qualify by their height as risar and have enriched my life with companionship and something very like magic: Alex, Chris, Cynthia, David, Gabriel, Matt, Matthias, Rem, Seth, Sigurdur, Stuart, Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson, and William. Chris, Cindi, Sveinbjörn and William have shared the magic of poetry.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See Webster for a full description of the Franks Casket. The British Museum’s images of the casket that may be manipulated for a close-up view are available at this museum link: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1867-0120-1. The right-hand side of the casket in the museum is a replica of the original in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence (Carrand Coll. no. 25). The dialect of the inscriptions and the shapes of the runes suggest a Northumbrian provenance for the casket (Waxenberger).

2 The primary intention of the Skálholt Map is to show the locations of places on the American continent mentioned in the Vinland Sagas. One can view the map and read Jim Siebold’s detailed account of it at https://www.myoldmaps.com/renaissance-maps-1490-1800/4316-skalholt-map/4316-skalholt-map.pdf.

3 The otherworld barrier takes many forms, but the forest is especially prevalent, entered by, for example, Gilgamesh, Aeneas, Dante, Sir Gawain, and even Rebecca in her dream of Manderley.