Njörðr’s Wanderers
Updated for 2026
Njörðr’s Wanderers returns to Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival! We are an experimental/reconstructive archaeology group studying agriculture, industry, and commerce in the North Sea region from the mid-8th to the mid-10th centuries. We present our research in a living history format, presented as a typical seasonal trading camp found along waterways between Ireland, Iceland, France, and Denmark. We focus on the various cultures, trades, and lifeways found within these camps. A visitor to a trade camp may encounter merchant’s booths, tents, and workshops, meeting crafters and traders in textiles, fur and antler, foodstuffs and fisherfolk, town guards, religious figures and nobility, and transients and travelers.
For the 2026 Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, Njörðr’s Wanderers will explore how wool was instrumental in fueling exploration and trade. We will show wool, textile, and garment production by costumed crafters, with recreated examples of tools and technology used in the various stages of wool production, including the loom, comb, and spindle. Importantly, we will also discuss the power and relationships between women, magic, mythology, and wool, and how women drove the early Medieval economy. As the demonstrations are continuous and informal, the visitor may enter the camp at any time and interact with the crafters in an organic, living history environment.
We participate in several events throughout the year, including Military Through the Ages at Jamestown Settlement (Mar), Frederick Fiber Festival (Apr), Carroll County Celtic Festival (June), Maryland Irish Festival (Nov), and several other regional events throughout the year. Our members are in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and we welcome opportunities to collaborate with other living history groups, sites, and events.
Njörðr’s Wanderers is an inclusive, not-for-profit research organization and are institutional members of EXARC, the international Association of Experimental Archaeology, Open-Air Museums, Traditional Crafts, and Heritage Interpretation.
Email: gro.srhdrojn@ofni
www.njordhrswanderers.org/
www.exarc.org/groups/njordhrs-wanderers
Visit Njörðr’s Wanderers on Facebook
Njörðr’s Wanderers from the 2021 Virtual Festival
Njörðr’s Wanderers: A discussion on the role of wool in the Viking Age
Thus Comes the Maiden: Norse poetry on fiber and society
Fiber Etymology: The evolution of fiber terms
Fiber Lore: Fibers role in cultural belief
The Golden Thread: The role of fiber arts and the fates
