Our living history club had a local event that was just for fun. They called it Celtic Cattle Raids, and the two themes of the day were, well, cows and Celts. Armored knights fought and died to roll a huge toy cow up and down the field. It was a scream.
One of the art competitions was for the Punniest Cow. People dressed large stuffed cows as "Sir Loin" and other bad puns. Our third grader had been planning her puns for a year. Having studied their ancient Celts, she knew about Queen Boudica and Chief Vercingetorix. So, our kids dressed up their stuffed cows in true Celtic style.
Queen Boudicow wears a Sculpy replica of the Battersea Helm, and carries a replica of the Battersea Shield, both of which are made of bronze. She has long, red hair as described by the Roman historian Tacitus.
Here's the original helm and shield from the British Museum:
Queen Boudica is always depicted in British art as carrying a spear, so of course our cow has one. Boudicow is wearing a tunic of light purple. The Romans commented that she was richly dressed, and purple was a rich color in the Roman world, so we though that was a good guess. The hem of the tunic is stamped with Celtic knot designs. They are taken from the Book of Kells. The woad war paint is also from an old Celtic design. The belt is in a card-woven style. Boudicow wears a torc of twisted copper around her neck, which was a fashion that Tacitus also mentioned.
The printed tail on the tunic was a particularly nice touch.
From ancient Britain we turn to Gaul, and Chief Vercincowterix, who also led a scary but unsuccessful uprising against the Romans.
Vercincowtorix wears a Celtic bell-shaped helmet with cheek guards. He carries a leaf-bladed sword engraved with Celtic designs.
Note that the first-century Romans adopted both the idea of chain mail and the distinctive cheek guards from their Celtic enemies.
Our sixth-grader did a lot of the chain mail work. Dad helped at the tricky seams. You can see that Vercincowterix wears plaid woolen pants and a genuine linen tunic. The big kids learned to sew on this project, and our sixth-grader made the linen tunic on his own.
The shield is the clipped oval shape favored by the Gauls, with a center boss for the grip. It is decorated with more designs from the Book of Kells. Our kindergartener stamped a lot of the fabric and the shield. Here you can see the back of the helmet, which is fluted like the original.
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Could it get any more Celtic? You bet! We gave Vercincowterix long hair, and lime-washed it with white clay in the ancient Celtic fashion. Then we painted his cheeks with more Celtic war paint.
