Why A Celtic Pendant Is So Popular
A Celtic rings is a much sought after gift for browsers who are online jewellery shopping. But some of the pendants produced in Orkney have much more historic ideas behind the look.
The well-known Skara Brae pendant is modelled on paintings discovered on the walls of this 5000 year-old village whose buildings now hang on to the edges of the windswept sandy shore. Those who built Skara Brae, which was located further away from the coast when sea levels were lower, were Orkney’s first farmers.
Among the crops they planted was bere, an uncomplicated form of barley that was common in Great Britain from Neolithic until Viking times. Impressions of whole grains of bere were found on pottery in a tomb in Unstan, Orkney, dating back to 3000BC. It is considered to be the oldest harvested grain on the earth. As recently as 1769 more bere than barley was grown in Scotland and it is still harvested in Orkney with a little bit in Shetland and Caithness in the far north of mainland Scotland. In Norway bere, called bygg is still cultivated where it could be called korn, as it is in Orkney.
There were numerous rites and ceremonies surrounding planting seed and the cropping of bere. Just those people believed to have the sowing hand were allowed to sow. A straw bitch or bikko was made from the last sheaf that was shown at the harvest home or muckle supper and then kept up high in the barn. In Norway this practice would guard the structure from trolls
Today no ceilidh, dance or harvest home would be complete with no serving of bannocks – griddle or girdle cakes – made from bere. They are eaten with a portion of farmhouse cheese.
While online jewellery shopping for a Celtic pendant or Skara Brae earrings, pendant or cufflinks, spare a thought for the millers at Barony Mills in Birsay, Orkney. This wonderful 19th century watermill still grinds bere grown on land belonging to the mill’s trust as well as other farmers. The millers have just finished shovelling and blow drying 15 tons of bere. Their work will continue to grind this into beremeal.
In Skara Brae the farmers of long ago would use a quernstone to grind the grain by hand. And their necklaces were quite different from the Celtic pendant. These were constructed from bone pins and beads in the New Stone Age, not gold or silver.
When you are online jewellery shopping make sure to look at a distinctive Celtic pendant that can only be available on this website.
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