The Sløkkefri drinking horn

In 1849, The University Museum of Antiquities (Universitetets Oldsaksamling) in Norway acquired a three-wheeled drinking horn, now a part of the collection of the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. It probably dates back to the 15^th century, with some details added in the 16^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries. Neither the place or the date of the horn’s origin and its subsequent alterations, nor the function of this enigmatic object have yet been conclusively clarified. Nevertheless, throughout the 20^th century Sløkkefri was cited in literature as an example of Norwegian national folk culture.  

Apart from the description of the horn’s appearance, the museum inventory record of 1849 does not contain any other information. In 1925, Rikard Berge, a prominent Norwegian folklorist and museologist, discovered that a wheeled drinking horn, named Sløkkefri, had been reported at Vistad farm (Telemark county in Norway) in 1786. This was ascertained by connecting earlier written accounts from two folklorists, a bard and a parish priest (Berge 1975, column 551). It has been suggested that the horn has had at least four successive owners since 1786 (Mandt 1998).

In 1953, archaeologist and museologist Sigurd Grieg dated the horn’s mounts to the 1400s (Grieg 1953, 279). There is a minuscule inscription in German on the rim, which states: "help got und maria und [l]a" (Eng.: “help god and maria and [?]”), where the last word is unclear. It is unclear on what basis Grieg established the period of the horn’s origin, but the 15^th century seemingly became the generally accepted birth-century of this object. Additions, such as wheels, German coins, and the so-called rose painting (rosemaling) occurred during a later period, sometime from 16^th to the first half of the 19^th century (Grieg 1953, Tilstandsrapport May 1991). The ‘rosemaling’ is, however, highly untypical for this painting technique and does not conform to Norwegian traditional craft or styles.

It is easy to imagine that the horn lost its original function as a drinking vessel and was turned into a wheeled toy, the dangles and coins of which clinked one against each other as the horn moved for the amusement of the guests, or for entertaining children. While the wheels were undoubtedly not part of the original design of Sløkkefri, Rikard Berge - albeit likely relying on a small handful literary evidence - apparently established the view that there was a forgone tradition of wheeled drinking horns in Norway, to which Sløkkefri seems to belong to (Berge 1975, column 559).

Little more is about the object’s origin, which begs the question as to why Sløkkefri was considered an example of Norwegian national folk culture throughout the 20^th century. It can be argued that Norwegian scholars of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries wanted to construct a coherent history of gradual development, from the heroic medieval ‘Golden Age,’ through ‘the dark ages’ of the Danish period (1537-1814), culminating in the glorious new-born Norwegian state. Folk art was a suitable instrument in their mission, and Sløkkefri became a symbol of Norwegian national culture, more precisely the Middle age (Anker 1999; Kjeldstadli 1995; Nordby 1995; Smith 1988). During the 20^th century, the horn was displayed in a number of exhibitions commemorating the long tradition of Norwegian silver, Norwegian folk art, and Norwegian Applied Art in general. In the years 1982/83, Sløkkefri was the only drinking horn included in the exhibition “8 centuries of Norwegian Applied Art”, held in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and Moscow.

Sløkkefri, a highly untypical drinking horn with a questionable origin, has firmly become an endorsed exemplar of Norwegian folk art, as well as a construct of an ‘invented tradition’ (Hobsbawm and Ranger 2013), which was initially meant to provide continuity with the forgone past, suitable for the nation-building project. Future research may challenge the established role of this object in the national narrative and explore new approaches to re-examine it.