Historic Strides

“Ghillies”, “bag shoes”, or “bog shoes” are just some of the names these traditional footwear are known by.

They are found throughout most of the Celtic world whether Continental or Insular and they all use a common basic construction style, the drawstring bag.

The shoe on the left is one that I made. The one on the right is fine example of a fancier ghillie found in Germany

The ghillies that we’re making for the Trek are a composite of a few types that have been found. Many ghillies seem to have been only a single layer of leather. However, some Irish examples do use 2 layers with a 3rd “sole” sandwiched between them. Ours will be built the same way, but we are using a simpler style.

Preliminary testing has shown these shoes to be surprisingly water resistant. Additionally, we’ve begun experimenting with foot coverings to wear in the shoes. We don’t have much evidence for cloth wraps, nor stuffings, but we do know that knit socks weren’t introduced until the Vikings, so those are right out for our time period. Personally, I found the wraps to be “ok”, but they often shifted and would come undone. Recently, I’ve started stuffing my shoes with raw wool (as you can see from the above photo). This has worked great! The wool is warm and conforms to my foot shape.

One of the key elements of any expedition is keeping warm, particularly while sleeping. While most modern hikers automatically carry a small tent with them, all that’s really needed is a semi water resistant shelter to stay dry (and thus warm). Those requirements can be accomplished with bivouac bag (”bivvy bag”) which is nothing more than a water resistant canvas outer shell and wool liner. The Norse used this setup with success, particularly on their ships, and so we are using them on our trek. The Norse term for these bivvy bags was Hudfat.

Additional information on the construction of our Hudfats can be found here: Hudfat Details

As I mentioned in my very first posting, some items that we will need just aren’t available in the archaeological record. Others, however, show up in a contexts unrelated to trekking. The spoons that we will be using are just such an object.

The left image is our reproduction spoon. On the right is the image of a spoon that was discovered at the Glastonbury dig in England.

These spoons are not the same shape and size of a typical modern spoon. In fact, thanks to their design, they are a nice hybrid between spoon, scoop, small cup, and ladle.