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While summer lingers here with us I wanted to write a quick post about vinoks, the floral crowns of the Ukraine. Floral crowns are nearly universal, but the vinoks descend from a long lineage of Greek and Byzantine flower crowns which were worn to denote purity (and eligibility) among maidens.

(Instagram/Treti Pivni)
A group of floral artists and photographers calling themselves Treti Pivni (which means “Third Rooster”) are working to repopularize the vinok in the modern world (and to breathe fresh life into ancient Ukrainian cultural traditions.
I can’t speak to the authenticity or meaning of these crowns, but the beauty speaks for itself. I hope you enjoy them. If so seek out the Third Rooster…er…Treti Pivni. They are out there right now agonizingly inserting strands of wheat into wreathes for the delectation of the world.
We are living in a glorious new era of super marketing. Usually the results of this are rather hideous: our livelihoods are hostage to “keyword position metrics” and “analytic toolbars”. Every day the press is filled with histrionic drivel about threats which are statistically unlikely to hurt us (but which clearly drive hits). Yet there is a silver lining of a sort: in order to keep people’s attention, quotidian phenomena are being lavished with grandiloquent new names (or old poetic names which have been rediscovered and given new prominence). Speaking of which, don’t forget to check out tonight’s spring equinox super worm moon!
These days, the full moon on each month is given a sobriquet which is reputedly derived from ancient Native American lore. Here is a table of these names:
January: Wolf moon
February: Snow Moon
March: Worm Moon
April: Pink Moon
May: Flower Moon
June: Strawberry Moon
July: Buck Moon
August: Sturgeon Moon
September: Corn Moon
October: Hunter’s Moon
November: Beaver Moon
December: Cold Moon
Now I don’t remember any of this from when I was growing up (although this is possibly because I was playing Pacman rather than hunting migratory elk). The first time I remember hearing anything like this was in Disney’s “Pocahontas”. Yet the names have an obvious and evocative allure which speak to ancient annual rhythms.
The “Worm Moon” of March is called that because the ground softens and worms start to appear (although, come to think of it, the pinkish brown earthworms we all know so well are actually comparatively recent Eurasian invaders), but I like to imagine that it is the WORM moon when Lord Nergal, the God of Pestilence decides whether to winnow the overpopulated Earth. Or perhaps it is the Wyrm Moon, when dragons come out of their winter eyries in the south and fly off to their accustomed fantasy realms…
Ahem. At any rate, tonight marks an unusual occasion when the vernal equinox occurs at the same time the moon is full and at its perigee. This will be the final super moon of 2019 so go outside and enjoy it while you drink traditional spring spirits and discuss beautiful nomenclature.
Last year I wrote about the world’s fastest human powered boat, the 170 oar Hellenic navy trireme Olympias, which is scheduled to visit New York’s harbor as part of the tall ship festival this summer (July, 2012). One of my friends has even been training to crew the classical warship while it is here, so we will be returning to that story soon! In the mean time, however I have been following the somewhat related story of the traditional construction of a Viking longboat in Norway.
Viking ships were up to three times as fast as the other ships of the time. They could be pulled entirely on the beach and they had flexible, clinker lined hulls which allowed them to conform to the waves in the manner of the serpents, dragons, and seabirds which were their emblems. Vikings used their superior ships to undertake prodigious feats of sailing. The Norse mariners sailed from North America in the west, to the far distant Sea of Azov beyond the Black Sea (and pretty much everywhere in between). Not only were the sea coasts of Europe, Central Asia, and North America accessible to Viking ships: because the vessels had such a shallow draft, they could operate on rivers which were regarded as non-navigable. From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Scandinavian sailors could appear almost anywhere to explore, trade, pillage, or hire out as mercenaries.

The Sea Stallion from Glendalough (Havhingsten fra Glendalough) is the largest replica Viking ship built to date. The ship is 29 metres long and carries 60 oarsmen, with a crew of 70 – 80.
The ship being crafted today in Haugesund (Western Norway) is based on a large greatship (storskipene) of the Norwegian coastal fleet. The boat will be christened the Dragon Harald Fairhair in honor of King Harald Fairhair (c. 850 – c. 933) who welded the petty kingdoms of Norway together as a unified nation (that’s a metaphor—he used statecraft and war to assemble his kingdom rather than actual welding). In order to make the ship as realistic as possible, traditional boatwrights have pored over classical literary sources from medieval sagas, as well as analyzing drawings, carvings, and actual period boats from wrecks and burials. The project’s website describes the completed boat
At a hundred and fourteen feet of crafted oak, twenty-seven feet on the beam, displacing seventy tons, and with a thirty-two hundred square foot sail of pure silk, this magnificent ship will indeed be worthy of a king.
The Dragon Harald Fairhair will have 25 pairs of oars. It is necessary to have at least two people on each oar to row the ship efficiently. That will give a crew of at least 100 persons, yet the craft should be able to be sailed by only twelve.
When it is finished, the Dragon King Harald, will join a veritable fleet of reconstructed Viking boats (which can be seen here at vikingstoday.com). The craft should be seaworthy in summer of 2012, but its builders anticipate spending a season experimenting with rigging and sailing techniques (since there are no actual Viking sailors left to explain how to operate a working Viking longboat.