Drinking horn

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Drinking horns from Vendel era, Sweden, at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities. One of the drinking horns is made in glass.
Drinking horns from Vendel era, Sweden, at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities. One of the drinking horns is made in glass.

A drinking horn was a drinking vessel formerly common in some parts of the world, and notably in Northern Europe.

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[edit] Use

"All of the Northern European nations formerly drank out of horns, which were commonly those of the urus or European buffalo. These horns were carefully dressed up and their edges lipped all round with silver. One of these immense horns, at least, an ox-horn of prodigious size is still preserved in Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. It was only produced before guests, and the drinker in using it, twisted his arms round its spines, and turning his mouth towards the right shoulder, was expected to drain it off." (Dwelly’s [Scottish] Gaelic Dictionary: Còrn)

Drinking horns were common amongst the Norse and the Anglo-Saxons. In the Prose Edda, Thor drank from a horn that unbeknownst to him contained all the seas, and in the process he scared Útgarða-Loki and his kin by managing to drink a conspicuous part of its content. They also feature in Beowulf, and fittings for drinking horns were also found at the Sutton Hoo burial site. Carved horns are mentioned in Guðrúnarkviða II, a poem composed about 1000 AD and preserved in the Elder Edda:

A modern, functional replica of a small drinking horn.
A modern, functional replica of a small drinking horn.
Váru í horni
hvers kyns stafir
ristnir ok roðnir,
- ráða ek né máttak, -
lyngfiskr langr,
lands Haddingja
ax óskorit,
innleið dyra.[1]
On the horn’s face were there
All the kin of letters
Cut aright and reddened,
How should I rede them rightly?
The ling-fish long
Of the land of Hadding,
Wheat-ears unshorn,
And wild things inwards.[2]

The Arthurian tale of Caradoc also features the drinking horn.

Large drinking horns were also common among the Thracians, often covered with worked silver or gold plating.

In parts of the ancient world, the drinking horn gave way to a horn-shaped drinking vessel called a "Rhyton" fabricated from metal or clay. When drinking from a rhyton, the vessel is held upright and the liquid flows out of a hole in the end of the "horn", suggesting that natural drinking horns could have been used in the same manner. This would have enabled the same horn to be used for both drinking and for sounding.

Drinking horns from Vendel era, Sweden, at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities.
Drinking horns from Vendel era, Sweden, at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities.

They were in use, well into the Middle Ages, dying out mainly in the 1600s.

Modern-day Asatru adherents use drinking horns for Blóts and sumbels; the horn represents the Well of Urd.

Drinking horns are also a significant cultural symbol in Georgia.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Guðrúnarkviða II in Old Norse from «Kulturformidlingen norrøne tekster og kvad» Norway.
  2. ^ Morris' and Magnusson's translation.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • This article incorporates text from "Dwelly's [Scottish] Gaelic Dictionary" (1911) Corn
  • The Second Lay of Guðrun, in the Elder Edda (Morris and Magnusson translation)