We have a special royal welcome to Special Offa!

When we were thinking of who might provide a digital ‘welcome’ for the Special Offa day, the last person we wanted to ask was Offa himself. This isn’t just because he’s a bit of an egotistic cove, he’s also an unrelenting bore and a misery at the best of times. Here he is at the Offa’s Dyke Centre, for example.

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Offa would hardly set the tone….

So while we didn’t want to offend any Mercians, in these challenging times of COVID-19, we decided to call from outside the Mercian realm to get a welcomer and go back in time from the 8th/9th centuries to the 6th/7th centuries AD. In doing so, we found that King Raedwald of East Anglian (aka Paul Mortimer) was alive, well and in lockdown, and had time on his hands to present a short video! He sports his own PPE in the form of the replica melmet from Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo.

Paul is a member of the Wulfheodenas living history group and author (with Matt Bunker) of the recent book The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England: from the 5th to 7th Century. Previously, he wrote Woden’s Warriors: Warfare, Belief, Arms and Armour in Northern Europe during the 6th-7th Centuries AD. Paul’s paper with Professor Neil Price looks at the ‘eyes’ of the face-mask, and suggests the contrasting treatments of the eyebrows might pertain to concepts of far-seeing and Odin. Although you’ll note that even kings claiming godly wisdom and vision require spectacles these days!

Thanks Paul for doing this!

Watch Paul’s introduction here.