The fact that Borre-style objects are so common in Scandinavia may in part be
explained by the fact that this was the last period of full paganism. By the last quarter of
the tenth century Denmark was officially Christian and the practice of accompanied
burial was dying out. Norway and Sweden had not yet achieved that state, but
Christianity was beginning to seep in, and burial customs were beginning to change.
Another reason for the style’s popularity was that this was the period of maximum
Viking expansion, when the kingdom of York and other parts of the Danelaw flourished.
Ireland, the Isle of Man, the north and west of Scotland and even parts of Wales were
settled by Scandinavians. In the east the Swedes largely influenced the river routes of
eastern Europe, founding trading stations and even a proto-Russian state; they traded
southwards with Byzantium and the Arab world. The Scandinavian Borre style appeared
commonly in more or less pure form in all these colonies. No other style was so
widespread.
The succeeding Jellinge style has its roots in style III and is closely related to, and
largely contemporary with, the Borre style. The two styles, however, rarely merge. The
name is taken from the ornament on a small ( 4. 3 cm high) silver cup, with traces of
gilding and niello, found in the burial chamber of the North Mound at the royal burial
place of Jelling (Figure 24. 4 ), Jutland, which is dated dendrochronologically to 958 / 9.
The mound was presumably raised to take the body of King Gorm, whose remains were
later removed to a grave in the church built at the foot of the mound by his son Harald
Bluetooth when Denmark became officially Christian, a few years after Gorm’s death.
(An accident of dialect introduced the term ‘Jellinge’ – with a final -e – to describe
the style, a label which is by general consent retained to distinguish the style from the
site.)
The style’s chief motif is a beast with a ribbon-like (approximately S-shaped) body;
the head – unlike most Borre-style animal heads – is normally seen in profile and has a
round eye, a pigtail and a lip lappet. The body is often beaded, usually double contoured
and usually has an insubstantial hook-like hip. Its most diagnostic feature is a ribbon-
like body, which distinguishes it from the more substantial and slightly more natural-
istic body of animals of the succeeding Mammen style (Figure 24. 5 ).
The style can be considered only with reference either to the Borre style or to the
Mammen style, with both of which it is often associated. Links with the Borre style are
clearly seen on the composite rectangular silver brooch from Ödeshög, Östergötland
(Wilson 1995 : fig. 79 ). One of a pair, the midrib and its ends are decorated with a design
Figure 24. 4 Ornament on cup from Jelling, Jutland. © Eva Wilson–– David M. Wilson––