Tyr Bracteate, Naglum (Swedish History Museum, Stockholm)

A Migration Period gold bracteate found together with a second gold bracteate by the farmer Anders Larsson at Ladugarden, Ladugardsbyn, in Naglum parish, now part of Trollhattan municipality, Vastergotland, Sweden, and held by the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm under accession number SHM 1164. The stamped image shows a person receiving a bite on the hand from a beast, a scene scholars read as the moment in Norse mythology when Tyr places his hand in the wolf Fenrir's mouth as a pledge and loses it when the gods bind the wolf, an episode central to Tyr's standing as the god who keeps his word at cost to himself. The bracteate is grouped with similar finds from Skrydstrup in Denmark and Hamburg in Germany carrying the same motif.