Friday, August 8, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Reindeer horn evidences early trade between Danish viking town Hedeby and northern Scandinavia

Published 9 October 2023
– By Editorial Staff
A rune stone and a house in Hedeby. On the right, the remains of a horn hair comb found in Uppland.
2 minute read

Analysis of ancient combs reveals that extensive trade contacts existed around 800 between the Danish viking town of Hedeby, located in today’s Danish-German region of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, and northern Scandinavia. The combs are made from reindeer antlers, which at the time were only found significantly further north.

Hedeby, or Haithabu in German, was a Danish trading post that, during the viking age between 800 and 1050, is said to have been the largest central town in northern Europe, according to Swedish history magazine Världens Historia. In the year 1050, it was burnt down by the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada (Haraldr harđrádi).

Researchers at the University of York in the UK, Stockholm University, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA), and the Leibniz Research Institute for Archaeology in Germany analyzed hair combs made of deer antler from Hedeby.

The goal of the analysis was to examine the collagen in the combs to determine from which type of deer the combs were made. In the study, published in the scientific journal Antiquity Journal, researchers found that 85 to 90 percent of the combs were made of reindeer antlers.

At the time, reindeer were only found in Northern Scandinavia, indicating that the reindeer antlers and the combs were imported to Hedeby. A previous study also showed that horn waste in the town did not contain much reindeer antler, suggesting that the combs were not produced in Hedeby.

According to the researchers, these findings collectively suggest that there was large-scale and frequent contact between Hedeby and the northern parts of Scandinavia around the year 800.

We have begun to answer a whole range of questions about the timing of travel and trade in Viking-Age Britain and Scandinavia, says Dr. Steven Ashby at the University of York.


“A very large city at the very end of the world’s ocean”

There are also historical testimonials from Hedeby, including those from Ibrahim ibn Yaqub al-Tartushi, an Arab-Jewish explorer from Spain, who described Hedeby in the 10th century as a “very large city at the very end of the world’s ocean”. He particularly noted the good access to drinking water, the free status of women, and that only a small number of its inhabitants were Christians. According to Al-Tartushi, at that time, the brightly shining star Sirius held a particularly sacred place in the religious beliefs of the Vikings in Hedeby.

 

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Time To Rock delivers

This year's edition of the rock festival Time To Rock took place in Knislinge, a small town in Skåne, southern Sweden. During four July days, The Nordic Times' cultural reporter Mikael Rasmussen was on site to experience a festival filled with emotional artistry that blends well with a strong familial community spirit – and of course: Loads of music!

Published today 11:10
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5 minute read

The four days were filled with community, appreciation and a tremendous amount of music. It’s friendly, cozy and the visitors who choose to attend Time To Rock do so with care. The festival is like a big family that welcomes and integrates. It strikes most visitors what a thoughtful spirit prevails within the constructed community called Time To Rock.

The musical acts are numerous and varied where many tastes are truly satisfied. It’s especially charming to observe when children also come along and show appreciation as well as provide humor in that way that only children can when, for example, their favorite band performs. Smash Into Pieces attracted children and adults alike where the entire festival area swayed as both seated and standing audience members sang along, applauded and smiled in agreement at how well everything fits like a glove.


Advertising partnership with Brokamåla


The promised land of camping life

The festival is also reaching its limit in terms of accommodation for those who choose to camp. There were 300 more overnight guests than last year and now the Time To Rock management needs to look for land alternatives. This means the festival can accommodate approximately 1,100 camping guests. But the land issue becomes a tough nut to crack, expresses Martin, the camping general maestro, who guided Mikael Rasmussen around the camping area in his fine golf cart. There’s a lot of recycling during these days where a collaboration with a dealer in Kristianstad, Sweden enables them to even return cans from Germany, for example, precisely because there’s such a quantity and the metal is valuable, just as valuable as the metal music that’s played and performed from the stages.

For example, the German veteran band Dirkschneider performed with Udo Dirkschneider and his characteristic workshop height that thereby lifted the entire atmosphere to the audience’s delight. Their repertoire on this occasion was to play all the songs from the legendary album Balls To The Wall which celebrated its 40th anniversary. There was also an opportunity for the audience to rock out to Dirkschneider’s encore conducting the song Princess Of The Dawn.

Three stages with 47 bands where most of the playing schedule held up health-wise except for Black Ingvars who we missed with their interpretations of children’s songs, schlager and dance band swing in incredibly heavy hard rock arrangements. At short notice, the band Alien replaced Black Ingvars’ absence instead. It’s enjoyment for all the senses with all the bands that perform. There are wonderful bands like Quireboys who offered beautiful southern rock with elements of very competent rock harmonica. The band Oomph thundered like Rammstein and the singer offered theatrical looks and expressions. More senses were also satisfied when Cobra Spell performed in latex, leather and managed to conceal the most intimate parts in kinky leather and latex as well as their instruments.

Crescendo on the fourth day

Clearly the best was the last day of the festival’s four fully packed days of beer, food, camping and musical equilibrium. Always equally fantastic to see and hear Mikkey Dee from legendary King Diamond then Motörhead and now frequently touring with Scorpions, where he traveled from Hannover to Knislinge, Sweden to perform songs from the time with Motörhead.

It’s a shame about the bands that have to perform bad songs to empty audiences while well-composed melodies are a pride to perform such as Ace Of Spades, said Mikkey with a twinkle in his eye.

What song should we play now then, Mikkey asked the audience. Ace of Base, came the joking response from the audience.

The program continued and was followed thereafter by, for example, Jean Beauvoir, the children’s favorite Smash Into Pieces with delicious catchy songs, cool computer graphics and fire show. Then Majestica with fantastic guitar equilibrium by Tommy Johansson like Yngwie Malmsteen and with a singing voice that in its highest registers conjures images of Judas Priest’s Rob Halford himself. Yes, these are truly powerful experiences and the program delivers and then tops it off with Myrath who alternates oriental dance and musical elements in their metal-based melodic compositions.

The charismatic theater and drama-dressed singer Noora Louhimo in Battle Beast gives her band and the festival’s visitors new dimensions and it would be desirable if the musicians also knew to match the artistic drama queen Noora. New as master of ceremonies this year was Orvar Säfström.

Welcome to your comfortable comfort zone! Orvar encouraged the audience in a hymn to the legendary departed Lemmy from Motörhead. The audience was urged to look up to the sky because that’s where he is, stated Säfström, and nowhere else!

Another encounter that touches my soul and heart is with one of the festival’s most frequent visitors. The person is named Jens Björk and we can all see him usually sitting in his wheelchair on the designated wheelchair ramps with a good view of the stages and artists. At regular intervals, Jens wants to film with his smartphone or stand up and groove to the rhythmically heavy hard rock and metal songs that reach him perhaps deeper than the rest of us. Jens suffered a stroke and subsequent aphasia about 10 years ago and has since undergone various therapeutic treatments.

Jens constantly works on practicing language, movements and social contexts. It feels extra nice when trust is built up and our mutual patience means we understand each other and music is like wisdom at such a frequency that it can only be perceived. Therefore music can be healing and curative, and despite the high sound volume streaming from the speakers at Time To Rock, the ears are not damaged but instead the tones reach deep into the audience’s bodies. And Jens texts me a couple of days after Time To Rock packed up and writes like this:

“Good evening! Jens here with the wheelchair. Now I’ve woken up after a wonderful festival in Knislinge and the last band Sonata Arctica – really lovely end to the festival”.

This certainly puts a finger on how important these fantastic festivals are!

Bows & curtseys

So thanks to the entire Time To Rock management with festival general Andreas Martinsson at the helm, press manager and everyone’s Andreas Hygge Hügard to all those who built up the festival environment, host and security personnel, emergency services such as police and ambulance who also like the church had a welcoming event element where those who wanted to familiarize themselves with its so important functions. These good people were Time To Rock 2025 and visitors already express a longing for Knislinge’s oasis. May all good energies flow!

And we also put in a request for next year — the fantastic goth rock band Fields Of The Nephilim. Thanks in advance!

 

Mikael Rasmussen alias Artist Razz

The Hobbit first edition discovered in UK home fetches €50000

Published yesterday 16:38
– By Editorial Staff
The first edition released in 1937 was printed in only 1,500 copies.
2 minute read

A rare first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” has been sold for £43,000 (approximately €50,000). The book was discovered by chance in a house in Bristol, England.

“The Hobbit”, which was later followed by “The Lord of the Rings”, tells the story of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins who embarks on an adventure with a group of dwarves to reclaim treasure from the dragon Smaug. The book has become immensely popular, selling over one hundred million copies and has also been adapted into films during the 2010s. The first edition of the book, released in 1937, was originally printed in only 1,500 copies. Today, only about a hundred copies of the first edition are believed to remain in the world.

During a routine house clearance conducted by auction house Auctioneum, the book was discovered by chance in a house in Bristol, England. Caitlin Riley, the auction house’s specialist in rare books, randomly pulled out a green book from the bookshelf.

It was clearly an early Hobbit at first glance, so I just pulled it out and began to flick through it, never expecting it to be a true first edition, she told The Guardian.

“Very special book”

The copy is bound in light green cloth and features black and white illustrations by Tolkien. Riley soon realized it was a first edition. It was also in incredibly fine condition, which is uncommon since most of these books are usually worn, especially since it’s a children’s book.

The book was auctioned with a starting price of £10,000, equivalent to approximately €11,500. Bidders from around the world drove the price up to more than four times what the auction house had expected. Finally, the book sold for £43,000, approximately €50,000.

It’s a wonderful result for a very special book.

A poem about the children in Gaza while the world watches

The genocide in Gaza

The children cry from hunger and dream of peace – but the world remains silent. Swedish artist and poet Malin Sellergren depicts the unbearable reality of children in this poem.

Published 5 August 2025
2 minute read

Daily terror, daily pain,
children cry in Gaza’s rain.
Six thousand trucks with food denied,
they starve while waiting on the side.

The bombs fall hard, the homes are gone,
on the cold ground they sleep until dawn.
At night they scream from endless fear,
by day they cry with hunger near.

When will this torment find its end?
When will the broken hearts still find mend?
No bread to eat, no life to live,
a mother’s boy had love to give.

He thought, I made it, almost there!
but bullets struck and stilled his air.
So many tried for food that day,
the soldiers came and shot their way.

And in the streets, so many fall,
just children, innocent through all.
For they were born in Palestine,
their lives erased, erased in line.

The world’s afraid, its leaders weak,
they whisper low, but dare not speak.
Sanctions stall, while time runs thin,
should we boycott oranges… or tangerines?

Yet weapons flow from west to east,
while crumbs are dropped, a guilty feast.
Millions starve, their hope is small,
the world looks on, and does not call.

No one dares to say “Enough!”
Israel’s hand is far too tough.
And those who speak are smeared with hate,
their voices drowned, their words too late.

Meanwhile children pay the price,
their lives are bartered, sacrificed.
Leaders claim this land their own,
they crush the seeds the kids have sown.

But still, among the ash and flame,
the children whisper freedom’s name.
Though caught in Gaza on the street
some of their hearts still beat.

 

Malin Sellergren, PoeticArtstories

Artists flee Spotify after Ek’s defense investment

The future of AI

Published 30 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
1 minute read

Spotify founder Daniel Ek’s investment in the German defense company Helsing is now prompting several international artists to leave the music streaming service in protest. The Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is the latest name to remove their music from the platform.

Daniel Ek, who is also chairman of the board at Helsing, led an investment of €600 million earlier this year in the German company that specializes in AI-driven autonomous combat solutions. The technology is used for drones and underwater surveillance systems, among other applications.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard announced the decision on Instagram with the words “Fuck Spotify”, explaining that their latest demo recordings will only be available on Bandcamp.

“Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests millions in Al military drone technology. We just removed our music from the platform”, the band wrote.

The California-based band Xiu Xiu and San Francisco group Deerhoof have made the same choice. Deerhoof expressed their position clearly: “We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech”.

The protest reflects the music industry’s long-standing ambivalence toward Spotify’s dominant position and impact on artists.

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