The wall hangings were long and horizontal. They were decorated with laidwork (Icelanic: refilsaumur). One of the few surviving refills dates from about 1450 and comes from the church at Hvammur, Hvammssveit in western Iceland. It is worked in laidwork techniques using tan wool on a black woollen ground material (tvistur). It is now in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen (inv. no. CLII,1819).
According to Elsa Gudjónsson, it is possible that this type of hanging was brought from the British Isles to Iceland during the early medieval period. If this is correct, then the Bayeux tapestry, which is a very long, horizontal wall hanging worked in laidwork, might be regarded as an example of a refill-style object.
See also the TRC Needles entry on the Njáls Saga tapestry.
Sources:
- GUDJÓNSSON, Elsa E. (1963). 'Traditional Icelandic embroidery,' The Bulletin of the Needle and Bobbin Club, 47, pp. 5-32. https://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/periodicals/nb_63.pdf (retrieved 7th May 2017).
- GUDJÓNSSON, Elsa E. (1985). Traditional Icelandic Embroidery, Iceland Review
- GUDJÓNSSON, EIsa E. (1997), 'Reflar in Icelandic documents before 1570,' CIETA Embroidery Newsletter, no. 6. (http://www.annatextiles.ch/newslet/news06/newsle06.htm) (retrieved 7th May 2017).
GVE