On the whole trip, one of the little treasures that most caught my eye was an Anglo-Saxon helmet recovered from a well near Lincoln Cathedral by an alert workman. It is impossible to see such a practical and yet beautiful object without wondering about the people who made and used it.

If Oshere was the name of the craftsman, he was a wonderful worker. The nosepiece of the helmet has a truly lovely design of a duck's bill (dragon's snout?), with complex intertwining dragons whose tails stretch down to the lower tip of the noseguard. I was very frustrated trying to copy it, so I made a point at the next opportunity to get a book on Celtic braids and designs and work out how some of the designs were organized. I put that work on another page.