Origins: The Dragons

July 29, 2025

The birth of a bookwyrm

I love to read. I used to read a lot before I became fully self employed and a mother to boot. These days it is pretty much just audiobooks (6000 hours according to my audible stats...). This way I can get my literary fix whilst at the same time forging or cooking, though not blog writing.

During my early Etsy days I had a larger scope of ironwork that I sold, not just jewellery. One of the designs was a pendant of a dragon, that was tied onto a silk cord to be a bookmark. The spiral body was based on my earlier spiral pendant design.

I called this bookmark a bookwyrm. And so my first legendary, little but mighty, Dragon was born.

The Original Bookwyrm in its element. September 2012...
with books that I didn't finish reading!

Norse Art and Interlacing

The shape of the head is based on my favourite Norse art style. In my old Viking reference books, Norse art is roughly categorised into 6 art styles. I fell in love with the Jellinge and Urnes styles.

The other reason for choosing these art styles, was that they worked with blacksmithing as a technique. The way iron is worked (and my avoidance of anything welded) sets limitations on the type of designs I can do. Most surviving Viking art was carved into wood or into wax that was then cast into metal, which allows a different and more complex form, than what blacksmithing allows.

Eventually I made dragon variations where long taper of the spiral was tied into knot work, which is the interesting way ribbon like patterns and bodies of the creatures depicted are interlaced in both Norse and Celtic art.

You see a lot of modern attempts at drawing it, but in my mind they stumble on two aspects.. one is that the interlacing doesn't follow the rule of one over, next under. The other issue is the weird modern fascination with absolute symmetry, which is very rare in Norse art itself. Saying that , there is a tattoo artist who does some of the best modern style interlaced Norse art I've ever seen. Go check out Isar Oakmund at Northern Black.

Forging Dragons

One of my favorite dragon adaptations is the penannular brooch. I prefer to make these in silver as the black iron one is a bit more unforgiving if left pinned in wet clothing.

Did you know that I use the exact same pattern for the silver penannular brooch than I do for the iron dragon pendant?

Forging silver is still different. The main difference is reflected in the price. As those of you who follow me and my writing, my pricing is largely based on the time it takes to make something.

I can only forge one single piece of silver at a time. When working iron I have three pieces in the forge... two heating up while I hammer away. I cannot do this with silver. The range at which it can be forged is very narrow, so any distraction can result in the dragons head of tail melting off. Coincidentally this is also the reason I have much less videos of myself forging silver on Youtube.... there is nothing as distracting as operating a camera and filming the same time I am working!

The Dragons journey to fame

Years ago, a blacksmith called Nicholas Wicks approached us to see if we wanted to add a couple of projects to his new and upcoming book: The everyday blacksmith. That link is an affiliate so if you buy it there I will get paid a little bit!

The two projects chosen where the Spiral and the Dragon. The spiral because its a perfect one for a beginner to forge and the dragon, because it involves some more advanced work, building on the spiral. Since then my little dragon has spawned plenty of cousins, as blacksmiths from around the world have had a go at the pattern.

There is one downside to the nature of it spreading over the internet and that is that it is widely thought to be a design that is historical. As a former historical re-enactor this makes me a little uneasy, because in a way it is a form of mis-information. It is not the first time I have encountered this happening with regards to my design work. The easiest assumption is that all of my work is Viking, but only a part of my portfolio is inspired by Norse history, yet that part has come to define my shop.

I have even at one occasion done something about how my non historical work is being sold as historical. In a roundabout weird way I addressed is with my Loki pendant design (see the post about my Loki pendant). The Viking Dragon myth It is largely out of my hands at this point. However, as an antidote, any new designs will receive their Origins Story a bit sooner than 10 years later and hopefully will better establish me as their origin.

Our dragon pendant, published in the book "Everyday Blacksmith" by Nicholas Wicks.

Why cannot Viking art be cute?

To this day the dragon remains one of my favourite items to forge. I am writing this blog at the eve of launching a Dragon themed August, where I am trying to get more of you to buy dragons, so I get to make more of them.

To me each one is its own character. The differences in their expressions are tiny and to the casual observer, they may all look the same. To me, the maker, they are all cute little happy individuals that make me smile when I look at them.

I like it that I can impart a bit of lightness and joy into the 21st century "Vikingosphere" which tends to be dominated by much more fierce and battle ready artwork than its historical Norse counterpart ever had.