Buried Treasure

Literally.  A pair of hobbyists with a metal detector recently discovered an Iron Age silver hoard in Denmark:

http://www.roskildemuseum.dk/Default.aspx?ID=651

The page is in Danish, but the pictures are more or less self-explanatory.

You have to understand, I’m the sort of person who considered the highlight of a visit to the British Museum to be the room with the Sutton Hoo treasures, and when the news broke back in ’09 about the discovery of the Staffordshire Hoard, I experienced a moment of sheer fannish delight.  (High-pitched noises of glee may have been involved.)

What does all this have to do with writing?  Not all that much, directly; but for me, at least, it’s all part of the furniture of my mind, the things that enticed me into medieval studies, and into fantasy as well.  As I commented once to a friend about the Sutton Hoo artifacts, “This is the stuff that dragons drool over.”