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There is a large stylised bearded and helmeted head looking left with raised hand in front; a prone figure below; and two birds, one angular at left, the other at top with a fine left-looking head. Found 1996 at Brinton, North Norfolk and published in Behr, C. 2010. New Bracteate Finds From Early Anglo-Saxon England, Medieval Archaeology, 54, 34-88. The prone bearded and moustached figure has been interpreted as a representation of Woden's son Baeldaeg. I suggest that the mistletoe instrument of his death is shown with three beads of blood dripping from the fatal wound. Apart from the presence of Baldaeg, the imagery is similar to that of the C-type bracteates, though those show quadruped (either a deer or perhaps a horse), Baeldaeg's mount in Hauck's interpretation, being healed by Woden as possibly suggested in the second Merseberg charm (see https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/mz-ii). The stylised large head reminds me of helmeted heads on the coins of Constantine I and Crispus.
This design records the complete transformation from Roman prototypes to the space-filling Salin Style I art of the Scandinavian/Germanic animal styles and subsequent Viking art. All in all, an exciting published example of post-Roman Migration Age art from a millennium and a half ago, both representative and unique.
Behr (2010) writes the following, "Unique images among bracteates, a type of pendants that is after all characterised by longer or shorter series of stylistically related objects, are unusual. They tend to be more common in the peripheral areas of bracteate production. It appears also to be less probable that unique images were made and then chosen to be taken to England and more probable that the bracteates from Undley and Brinton, like Hambleden and Market Overton, were designed and made in England with the knowledge and understanding of the meaning they held in Scandinavia. Thus they became local expressions of the same religious ideas."
There's an interesting article on ambiguity (as seen here between the larger bird and the large face) in Germanic animal Style I art: Lindstrøm & Kristoffersen (2001) ''Figure it out!' Psychological Perspectives on Perception of Migration Period Animal Art', Norwegian Archaeological Review, 34: 2, 65 — 84. On ambiguity, the large claw (in Behr's interpretation) or hand above Baeldaeg's head is in proportion with the large bird (doubling as helmet crest) although it has too many digits, but could also be interpreted as Woden's hand (with the correct number of digits) touching Balder's head (a number of Roman coins designs show left facing portraits and raised right hand in similar position).
Copyright Ru Smith