Viking shield with carved massive Wolf head and Norse Drake ornaments - Ulfhedna

This shield features a wolf head carved in wild cherry wood, attached to the center of the plywood base, with ornamental Norse drake patterns carved along the rim and decorative steel bolts.

Wolf warriors appear among the legends of the Indo-Europeans, Turks, Mongols, and Native American cultures. The Germanic wolf-warriors have left their trace through shields and standards that were captured by the Romans and displayed in the armilustrium in Rome.

The frenzy warriors wearing the skins of wolves were called Ulfheðnar ("wolf coat"; singular Ulfheðinn), another term associated with berserkers, mentioned in the Vatnsdæla saga, the Haraldskvæði, and the Völsunga saga and are consistently referred to in the sagas as a type of berserkers. The first Norwegian king Harald Fairhair is mentioned in several sagas as followed by an elite guard of ulfheðnar. They were said to wear the pelt of a wolf when they entered the battle. Ulfheðnar is sometimes described as Odin's special warriors: "[Odin's] men went without their mail coats and were mad as hounds or wolves, bit their shields...they slew men, but neither fire nor iron had an effect upon them. This is called 'going berserk.  In addition, the helm-plate press from Torslunda depicts a scene of Odin with a berserker with a wolf pelt and a spear as distinguishing features: "a wolf skinned warrior with the apparently one-eyed dancer in the bird-horned helm, which is generally interpreted as showing a scene indicative of a relationship between berserkgang ... and the god Odin

The shield base is made out of 15mm thick birch plywood, and finished with wood staining and varnishing with linen seed oil and acrylic transparent coating. The Wolf head composition was carved separately on a 50 mm thick wild cherry or beech wood piece, and attached to the base.