Isabel

The South door of Staplehurst Church in Kent, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧, a genuine Viking door, that has been dated to 1050 AD. It has some of the oldest ironwork in England still in situ. The door tells the story of the Norse day of Judgement, the Norse view of the final apocalypse: “Ragnorok”. According to the legend the Day of Judgement starts with a cockerel crowing and waking Heimdall, the watchman, who blows his horn Gjallir to call the gods to battle. Jormungandr, the Midgard serpent (who has grown until he encircles the world) and other monsters on the Ship of the Dead fight the gods. The serpent is shown wriggling and again, stretched in agony, vanquished by Thor. Surt the sunwheel throws sheets of flame over the earth. The stars fall while above flies dragon Nithhoggr, who feeds on the slain. But above him is a cross, symbol of a new hope coming and a Christian conclusion to the Norse legend. The ironwork might be interpreted as following: the big circle on the left is the Midgard Serpent and the shapes on the right are the serpent after Thor has smashed it up with his hammer. The circle in the middle top center is Surt, the Sun Wheel, and the dragon flying across the top is Nithhoggr, the eater of the dead, and above him is the small cross which helps to turn the pagan myth into Christian art. The thing in the bottom left hand corner that looks like a long-necked bird is probably the cock whose crowing announces the end of the world. It is worth remembering that once Christians believed that the world would end in 1000 AD and when they woke up to find the birds still singing and sun still shining they assumed that they should have calculated from the time of Christ’s death. But the year 1033 brought further disappointment. #archaeohistories