For peat's sake

Given the time and place in which I had chosen to set my persona, I rapidly came to realise something very important; and that was that she was Definitely Not A Saxon. She probably doesn't have anything against individual Saxons, as long as they're civilised and not coming at her friends and neighbours with spears, but the point is that a lot of them did run round wielding spears and other weapons in the direction of the Britons, and so she's very keen not to be taken for one. This is, after all, around the time of the Battle of Badon, which most historians agree did actually happen. They're just not sure who the leaders were, exactly where or when it took place, and whether or not King Arthur really existed.

There were two main things that distinguished the British from the Saxons. One was obvious: Saxon women at that time usually wore a peplos, a garment which seems to have had its origins in ancient Greece. The Viking one shown in the link is fastened at the shoulders with a pair of annular brooches; the Saxons did it a little differently. They tended to go in for "turtle brooches", which were oval and very large - pretty much the size and shape of the palm of your hand. Now I can't wear one of those anyway (although I'm intrigued to discover that you can get the turtle brooches!), but there is no doubt that Síona would have refused to wear one on principle. And the other thing was that the Saxons were mostly pagan at that time, whereas the British and Irish were mostly Christian. While Síona's faith is very important to her, she wouldn't necessarily make a big thing of it outwardly if she weren't being Definitely Not A Saxon; but I realised she needed to have a cross.

Well... I've got a cross. Two, in fact; one with a pin for winter wear, and one little wooden one that I wear as a pendant in the summer. (That's my metal allergies coming into play again. The pin is fine as long as the back of it is not in direct contact with my skin.) But they're quite small and discreet, and during that period of history they didn't really do small and discreet. Síona's cross needed to be... pretty definite.

So I went looking for a large Celtic cross pendant, ideally somewhere in the 7 - 10 cm range, maybe a little bigger, but certainly no smaller. Trouble is, nobody wears a cross that size these days unless they're the Pope or something (and his has probably been handed down since the Middle Ages anyway). It was pretty frustrating. Everything was too small, and everything that was anywhere near the right size was far too expensive, and I was just getting to the point where I thought I'd have to learn to carve my own when I ran across the one in the photo. It is 8.5 cm high and it is exactly what I want; it's clearly Celtic, and it has that little bit of irregularity about it which you'd have got at the time (nice straight clean lines look too modern, because they are - they're probably created by a machine). It was actually intended to be a small wall decoration, but never mind. It works.

It's made of turf.

I kid you not. It's made of 5000-year-old Irish turf (well, give or take the odd century, I assume). When I saw that, I was flabbergasted; I was a bit worried about the structural integrity, but then I saw that the same company also make holy water fonts out of the same stuff, so I thought... well, if it'll hold water, holy or otherwise, it must be all right. And it is. It both looks and feels like some kind of very dark wood.

It showed up on Saturday morning, along with the bottle of dye and the galvanised bucket, and I have to say it looks even better in real life than it did on the website. (It's not usually quite as shiny as it appears in the photo; that's the flash.) And the bloke who makes them put his e-mail address on the accompanying card, so I e-mailed him and said that this cross was amazing and just right for what I wanted it for, but I was very curious about how that (and all the other things they sell) was manufactured. I couldn't understand why it was so much like a piece of wood. After all, 5000 years old is a respectable age for a bit of turf, but it's nowhere near enough to fossilise it.

Well, apparently the exact details of manufacture are a carefully guarded secret, but what he could tell me was that the mysterious structural integrity comes from glue. The turf is reduced to a fine powder and mixed with some special kind of glue, then the resulting goop is moulded into the various shapes. I suspect it's not a glue I've come across, because it sets absolutely hard; with most glues there's a little bit of give somewhere, but there's none at all here. I'm going to stick my neck out and say possibly resin-based, but obviously I don't know.

Anyway, it's going on a chain made from white howlite nugget beads, with a hanging loop made from much smaller round ones; I think they could make small round beads at the time, but what they definitely didn't have (indeed, for quite a long time) was faceted gemstones like the ones we see today. Nero's emerald monocle was certainly cut, but it was probably not cut very regularly; they didn't have the technology to do it. Gemstones were normally made into either round or oval cabochons, and this could be done pretty accurately, so small spherical howlite beads shouldn't be stretching things.

Oh, and speaking of beads...

This happened about a week ago. I couldn't quite bring myself to photograph the state of the box immediately after the accident. These boxes are normally great - they have sliding catches which can't come undone; but it is possible to fail to fasten them properly. Which I did. And then I dropped the box. At least I did drop it into the bag, so the beads did not go all over the floor; in fact most of them stayed in the box - they just jumped into a lot of different compartments. What you see in the bead dish is the beads I scooped out of the bottom of the bag. I don't like to think how many hours it took me to sort all that out, but it really messed up the start of the week. I call this the "overspill box" because it contains all the odds and ends that won't go in the regular boxes... but I didn't intend for that to become literal.

Anyway, if you're after a really unusual gift (or little treat for yourself), the Irish turf website can be found here; I actually got my cross from their Etsy shop, and it was the same price as on the main site. They do a lot of different free-standing crosses, but also things like clocks, wall decorations, and... bardic harps. (Probably not playable, but still quite gorgeous.) If nothing else, it's certainly a talking point.

I realise that they stock every single item which is on Síona's coat of arms. Just how cool is that?!