Viking cards

by Amanda Fleet

As some of you might know... a) I write a lot of letters/cards to people and b) my Dad is currently in a care-home that we can't visit (though I do go and shout to him through the window a few times a week).

I'll have a review of some beautiful paper for letters coming soon, but today I want to share these amazing Viking cards with you!

The last couple of years, we've taken our holiday on Harris and Lewis. In Lews Castle in Stornoway, they have some of the Lewis chessmen on long-term loan from the British Museum. They are fabulous - incredibly expressive and exquisitely carved. We should have been back to Lewis this year for our holiday, but we were scheduled to go the first weekend after lock down started and everything got cancelled, so I didn't get my fix of Viking carvings. I've loved Viking carvings and art for a long time (and they feature in my books) so when I saw the Viking cards available from Nero, I had to have some, to help stave off my cravings!

They come in sets of six, with a mixture of black backgrounds with single-colour line drawings, dark (or coloured) backgrounds with colourful drawings, and white backgrounds with black line-drawings. I bought both sets.

image shows 6 cards with Viking art

The cards measure 15.5 cm x 15.5 cm and are blank inside. I've been using them to write to friends during lock down, especially my Dad who is also a lover of Viking art. The designs are also bold enough that when he's lying in his bed, he can still see them clearly across the room.

One of my favourite designs (that is going to get framed rather than sent to anyone!) is the black and white drawing of the Nidhogg Serpent (middle right in the top image above). According to Norse mythology, Nidhogg (or Níðhöggr) lives below Yggdrasil, the tree that connects the nine realms, and eats its roots (see here for more on the Norse mythology around Nidhogg). Some of the other cards feature images from the Jelling stones - a series of massive carved runestones dating back to the tenth century, found in Jelling, Denmark.

The card stock is high quality (what else would it be, given that Nero stocks them?). It's 300gsm acid free, and the envelopes are Original Crown Mill with a silk paper lining. All this, for £1.33 each? I mean, you could buy some crappy card on the high street or in the supermarket for that kind of price, but why would you, when you could get something this high quality?

Viking cards set 1

Viking cards set 2