Updated for 2024

After having such a lovely time meeting last year’s attendees, Njörðr’s Wanderers will be making a return engagement this year. We are an experimental/reconstructive archaeology group studying industry and commerce in the North Sea region between the years 800-1000. We present our efforts, through a living history format, 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 that a visitor would encounter. We set up our camp with merchant’s booths, tents, and workshops, where one would meet crafters and traders in textiles, fur and antler, foodstuffs and fisherfolk, town guards, religious figures and nobility, and transients and travelers.

For the 2024 Maryland Sheep and 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. In addition, Yngebjorg (Diana Buck) will be giving a free lecture on ‘Weaving and the Role of Women in the Viking Age’ on Sunday at 11:30 a.m. in the 4-H Hall.

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 events throughout the year at Fort Loudoun Historic Site, including the Across the Centuries historical timeline (May). Our members are in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, and we welcome opportunities to collaborate with other living history groups, sites, and events.

New Location: Njörðr’s Wanderers will be camped out in the Breed Display Barn this year.

To find out more, look for Njörðr’s Wanderers on Facebook or email .

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