Artefacts

This is one of the five Viking wooden animal headposts found in the Oseberg grave, a burial mound from the 9th century. The wooden post has an animal head carved onto the top of the neck and a shaft of about half a meter long below it. It depicts a frightening image of a wolf’s head with its mouth open, baring its sharp teeth. There are intricate details of lines throughout the wolf’s head, perhaps highlighting the complexities of such a creature. It was initially painted with colours; however, its paints have since faded. This headpost contains intricate designs that show that a skilled woodcarver must crafted it. There are many opinions as to what this headpost represents. Some believe it is Odin's wolves, Viking dog heads, Freya's cats, etc. Experts are unsure about what it was used for in the burial mound, mainly because there have been no similar excavations from other known Viking graves. 

This is a single-leaf woodcut on paper made by Lucas Cranach the Elder around the years of 1510-1515. It is currently not on display, but is being kept by the British Museum in London, UK. The meaning and reason for the production of this image have not been officially stated, but it is said to have been a broadside for an event that might have occurred in the Saxon countryside (Koepplin and Falk). The image shows a man, seemingly supernatural, due to his being on all fours and thick hair on his back revealed from the tear in his shirt – depicting an image of a werewolf, which is a creature that is classically known as both man and beast. The wild man is seen to be wreaking havoc as there lies dismembered bodies all around him while he holds a baby in his jaw, all while a woman in the background watches in horror with her hands up in the air.

This is the original manuscript of Frankenstein is kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. It was originally handwritten by Mary Shelley in two large notebooks, with her husband Percy Shelley’s edits and suggestions. Shelley began writing her novel in 1816 when she was challenged by Lord Byron to write a supernatural story while vacationing with him and others in Lake Geneva (Badalamenti, p. 423).