Vendel Age Birds Tattoo

Typical birds from the Vendel age (550-793, actually pre-viking age), freshly designed by me along the traditional styles.
Birds like that are found all over Europe, like in Sutton Hoo, Välsgarde and off course the overwhelming Staffordshire hoard.

Urnes tattoo

This tattoo is based strictly on the ornaments, one can find at the stave church of Urnes, Norway, wich was built around1130 and is probably the oldest stavechurch on norvegian ground.

Detail of the church, showing the intertwining, gripping and biting dragons.

Jelling style tattoo

Entirely handmade tattoo, inspired by a design on a little silver cup, found in the grave of Gorm den gamle, last pagan king of Denmark.

Man on a quest

Here we have another man on a quest, that travelled all the way from the north of sweden to get the wished symbols on his skin.

What we see here is the tree of life with Hugin and Munin woven in the so called Vendel style in the branches, the leaves are in speartip shape, a hommage to the highest god, Odin.

Furthermore is Lokis mask in the trunk, the bearer named his first son Loki.

In the roots we see the three Nornes, Urd, Verdandi and Skuld, depicted in the Oseberg style or Gripping Beast style.

The whole design has the shape of a Thors Hammer.

Vidar Tattoo part two

Vidar Tattoo

A thug ride: Sometimes one has to go a long way to get what one wants....The Tattoo depicts Vidar, Odin´s son, killing Fenriz in an act of revenge after the wolf ate his father in the final big battle Ragnarøk.
The two birds on the forearm symbolize Hugin and Munin.
The sleeve was done in one big session, that took four days.
I always apprechiate it a lot, when my customers go and see a professional photographer, cause the picture is the only thing, that remains for me when the inking is done...

The wheel and the runes symbolize the man s closest family, one rune for every member.......

Some Jorvik works

 A celtic lion.....

 The oldest person (so far) I ever tattooed.........

 a Lurcher.......

 the symbol of ultimate strenght (Thanx to Marcus for assisting designing n thanx for lining up, Adam!)

....and the best things in life are simple.....:)

Cheers and greetings to the Uk and Ireland! It s always a pleasure to see you guys, good time is always too short and to say goodbye to a friend hurts more than a swordwound........

The end of the story: Odin gets eaten by the wolf, there's no hope, no future, when the king of all gods dies, what you gonna do then, eh?

We' re all f...ed in the end, that s it..............

Surtur, the giant King of fire.

Surtur on the "Volcano-man", a very faithful customer to our studio.

Surtur is the king of Muspelheim, the home of fire in the nordic mythological universe. He is the biggest enemy of the Aesir Gods, with his flaming sword Surtalogi he cuts the rainbowbridge, that leads to the realms of Asgard and kills the unarmed god Frey, the god of fertility and joy.

Keep it real

This piece isn't designed by me, an archaeologist from sweden created it, following 1:1 the old rules of designing the typycal swedish patterns from the viking period.

Norvegian Vikings

Have you seen this man before?

After the Initiation

An 18- year old viking girl from one of the south swedish first nations right after receiving her first tattoo.

I support a strict 18+ tattoo- regulation, in times where rites of passage lost their meaning, this is one of the very few left, a point in life, where one clearly understands, that there s no way back and you passed an important point in life that should be marked, even if ist s just the driving license, to be able to buy legally alcohol and smokes or the official end of the parents influence.
(And - Yes!...... Vikings smoke and drive cars in the 21. century, even if you don´t belive it!)

Vinland warrior

Sometimes you´ll meet people that make you spontaneously decide to be very friendly when you´re not heavier armed........

This design shows, how strong the vikings are attached to the artefacts, the belt fittings are 1:1 replicas from original findings.
Especially here you can see that the habit of having the same style in carvings, jewelry, embroidery and tattoos, like you can still find in ancient cultures with an unbroken tattoo tradition, is still alive in northern europe. (handpoked design)

The gudvangen worx....

It s just some very nice experience to do pieces like this in the places, where the norsemen nearly 1000 years ago developed this style, gives something special to it....

Gudvangen works!

A piece, done a while ago by hand, showing the Urnes - stavechurch- sidepanel to every detail, "the real deal".