👍👌👏 A lot of work is done calm, peaceful and, most important, without talking. The sounds of nature and work is all I need to really enjoy a video like this. A lot of channel owners seem to like hearing themselves talking and they usually do it way too much. This channel reminds me of my most favourite = Primitive technologies (Mr. Plant, NZ). Thanks a lot for making teaching explaining recording editing uploading and sharing. Best regards luck and health in particular.
Dear @@gesithasgewissa You're welcome, it's my pleasure. Thanks for replying and especially for giving a heart to my comment. I always and totally appreciate both very much. 2) Yes, I can understand that. Mr. Plant is quite an inspiration and the legitimate father of nearly all similar channels. Unfortunately a lot try and tried to copy him. A lot used even heavy machines (discovered after going to their locations after some months). I was so glad that Primitive Technology started to upload again after he had stopped for quite a while. Please keep your honest and inspiring videos coming, Sir. I hope that your yet still very underrated channel grows fast. Sincerely yours.
I bet that the firewood pile will be a cozy nest to some woodland critters this winter too. If I were a little fox or squirrel, that would make a cozy getaway.
Laying in bed with a horrendous ear infection and this is exactly what I need right now….. so calming…… I love watching these types of vids when I’m not well. The sounds more so than the visuals make my mind slow down so I don’t focus on the pain…..thank you for your healing content.
This is one of my favorite videos yet. It's something SO SIMPLE, just getting and protecting firewood, but I think that's the reason that it's so nice. The mundane stuff from then is so relaxing and charming now, especially considering the gorgeous nature it takes place in. (I love the more involved stuff too of course!) This also has my favorite background sound of all of them because it's got wind, water, rain, and the sound of the anglo-saxon stuff you're doing all in the same video! I'm probably going to use this video as background noise while I work on stuff now. And daggonit, I don't recognize the purple or pink flowers! 😂 My best guess for the purple would be some sort of sage but I'm pretty sure I'm way off the mark
Ah I'm happy to hear it! I was worried it would be a bit TOO mundane, but I'm glad it's appreciated for it's peacefulness 😄 and sweet, it does make a beautiful ambience to work to. The pink flowers are willowherb, otherwise known as fireweed. They grow prolifically over here, especially on recently cleared ground!
Love this one. Reminds me of being a kid in rural PNW 20, 25 years ago. Splitting & stacking wood under a tarp. Firewood is an important resource for many people even today.
Gotta wait for fire season restrictions to ease here in the south side of Oregon. We let our logs season whole, but maybe next month I'll drag them to the road and split them.
I absolutely love your channel!! As an author of medieval fantasy stories this is such insight for the way most (though not exactly all) European peoples worked on and lived the land after Rome fell. Thank you once again and I pooo forward to more!!
@@gavenace3667 I'm working on a medieval fantasy book set in England myself and have been thinking that about this channel since I found it! It gives me an idea of some of the day to day stuff I wouldn't have thought to include, which is really useful
@@fallonfireblade4404 That awesome and I wish you the best of luck!! If you’d like to exchange contact information and share ideas and whatnot about writing let me know!
I work as a chimneysweep, and I do my own firewood to burn in the winters. I do it with a chainsaw and an axe, and i have a modern effective fireplace. It always amazes me how incredibly much time effort people in the past must have put in to making firewood, given the lack of machine tools, proper fireplaces and insulation in their houses. I just cant see how they had enough hours on the day to get the equation together. I amazes me.
It would have been a huge part of daily life, no doubt! Although, given the open smoke holes, these houses weren't likely very warm no matter how large you built the fire. Hearth fires were used for cooking and heat when gathered around close, but most people had daily work to get on with which kept them warm.
Well im not entirely convinced by that. I doubt there would have been much outdoor work to do in the dead of winter. Freezing cold, dark for much of the day and snow and ice covering the land. Iether way, the amount of firewood needed must have been staggering. Im convinced you would burn through that stack in less then a week if you tried to live there during the coldest part of winter.
@@isakjohansson112 Pretty cold, not much warmer than outside with fire out, but it got cosy enough with the fire going. I probably burned about the size of this stack, plus a similar volume of smaller sticks and kindling, as I was busy out coppicing and building during the day, and only had the fire going to cook in the evenings and sometimes the morning. I suppose that could be different if there were more people on the farmstead, with some weaving and cooking all day next to the fire. Although most excavated weaving huts show little evidence of hearth fires.
It's quite a windy spot, a small hollow stream and meadow in a larger range of hills. My girlfriend and I have affectionately named the land Windhazel!
I am also a living history interpreter but not as far back as you. I must say you are very good and way ahead of my efforts. Congratulations and keep at it because there is a lot to learn from you. This is about the use of the bracken fern. I once did a scout in Northern Michigan, USA mostly in a pine forest in the fall of the year. I usually make a bed of hard wood leaves to lie on to protect me from convection and the hard ground. Being in a mostly pine wood I did not have that convenience. So using what I had at hand I cut a bunch of bracken fern and made a pallet of sorts. By morning the fern had stuck together and could be moved as one unit just be pulling on a corner. It did not soften the ground, but no moisture came up to bother me throughout the night and it did somewhat block the cold. That was something I stumbled upon by accident. It was a good place to sit in the early morning next to the campfire and drink my tea. Stay at it, good stuff. YHS, campdog
Thank you once again for sharing your experience with us. A special insight into life long ago as I suddenly became hungry and went into the kitchen for something to eat and then returned to your video, realising that the people of the past wouldn’t have the luxury of having a good larder necessarily. They would have to work hard for their food, maybe foraging, setting traps, planting a garden, very dependent upon the environment. Not like ourselves where we can go shopping having the world as our larder. You give me an insight into a lost life where survival is fragile and finally balanced and even now we shouldn’t take things for granted. Nature is fraught with danger and your videos remind me of that, thank you.
Who could imagine that a video of a man chopping and stacking firewood would become a spiritually healing balm for the soul? This is such a beautifully crafted video, from the natural setting to the structure which you have personally crafted by hand from the elements of said natural setting, making it as much part of that setting as the trees and shrubs. How many of us these days take the time to watch and listen to the rain for more than a brief moment, truly take in the majesty of a simple rainfall, especially in such an unspoiled setting? Thank you for taking the time to make these videos and share them and your experience. I could watch them for hours; however, I realize the great amount of work and effort which goes into video production, so am very grateful for the minutes provided. Again, thank you.
I always take care to really have time and peace for your videos so that I can deeply enjoy the unique atmosphere and the educational and beautiful images. Thanks!
Iam from far north eastern part of india called nagaland, our forefathers lived exactly the same way. We were also ruled by the British may be that's why our way of living resembled to that of yours. I enjoyed watching your videos. Keep on.
Such a lovely spot you're sitting on🌳🌻!! And how appropriate we got to see the roof already at work😁 The house looks nicely seasoned, like it's been there for ages, well done you!
I LIKE your recent projects. This one took lots of material, labor, and patience. The result is handsome and it taught me new things about cob fireplaces.
So timely. I just finished stacking my 3 cords of oak firewood and split a bunch of kindling. Feels good to be prepared for the winter here in the central Sierra of California. Fun watching someone else do it! 😊
It's soo soothing. I know all these plants, I've played with them since childhood, know how they feel and imagined my worlds with them. It feels like my childhood fantasies came alive. To see that it has in fact been used for thousands of years. I might have been born in the wrong time ;)
Still in awe of your skills. I split and stacked two cords of quartered logs, and it felt like a lot longer than the lovely job you made if it. I must say I'm looking forward to seeing what happens on the Gewissae borderlands this winter. Was hael!
Fabulous video. Brings back memories of stacking the excess hay in the field and building a cover just like this to protect the hay during the winter...it smelt of summer when we opened it to use. Thankyou and good work ,as always.😊
Know what you mean about the smell of the hay . I can remember it from my time on the farm as a youngster , cutting open a hay bale on a cold winter morning and suddenly getting a strong whiff of a hay field in summer . Mind you , the hay had to be good quality for this to happen .
@@gesithasgewissayes I remember a few years ago seeing small hay ricks in Serbia . The builders started off with a pole in the ground about twelve foot high then wrapped the hay around it in a circle keeping the sides vertical ,eight or ten feet in diameter ending in a cone shape at the top which in most cases were then thatched, although a few modern types were using plastic sheets . So you finished up with a tall thin stack with a pointy top which had a small surface area relative to the volume that got rained (and snowed ) on . The pole was there to give the structure some stability , although many of the stacks had timber poles leaning against them for extra support .
Lovely, tranquil video as always! I so look forward to these updates. I'd really enjoy seeing more of the inside of your house; it would help me to imagine what it might have been like to like there. Please keep the videos coming!
Great video as usual it must have been a stressful time making sure you had winter fuel and food to last the the hard times, I've been reading about what we used to eat and was surprised to find Hawthorn was an important source of nutrition being known as bread and cheese in Victorian times, also 'fruit leathers' mashed fruit and berries spread out on a frame and dried they would last for months.
Very true! I love hawthorn berries, they're a great snack. It would be fun to do some dried and preserved fruits next year, when I have somewhere good to store them
@@gesithasgewissa Thank YOU. I can't express how fantastic is this combination of your skills and the specific historical context that I know nothing about! Please recommend books/reading and keep up the amazing videos, you're the best thing in here. 🙌
I was wondering how you are faring given the recent floods; hope all is alright elsewhere, and so happy to see the house doing well--all dry inside, I gather? The alternating direction on the ends of the stack is brilliant! Such a simple solution, such excellent results. We forget how clever humans have always been, then something like this reminds us. Here's to keeping dry and warm.
I thank you for your kind thoughts ☺All is well! The house is completely dry, no flooding on the land since I cleared the drain under the road, and so far so good. Thanks for watching
Good to see you chopping the wood the way you did, I recently, for a game I was a historical consultant for, researched if medieval people were using wood blocks to chop wood on the way we did much later and couldn't find any evidence for it, so weird when you just assume something was done the way it was done for ever and then discover that they didn't :)
But as they say absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence . For example ,I was amazed to read recently that no one is exactly sure where the battle of Agincourt took place , because there is no archaeological evidence to indicate it . I do a lot of hedge laying in the winter and also cut my own firewood and bean sticks . I mainly use a saw of one sort or another but when I do have to do any chopping would always use a block . It’s. More effective than if you have your work piece laying on the ground which always has a bit of give on it and so absorbs some of the impact. I think by a process of elimination people will find a way eventually of doing any task in the most effective way available in their given circumstances
@@barkershill Very true, but till we find that evidence, it's best not to do or show it. I chop wood, I've done living history, to us with our modern brains it makes more sense, but sawing wood was less common back then and precisely because we are so used to it it's too tempting to assume our ancestors did it that way as well. We still need to try and prove it or admit we just don't know. I've been looking at medieval illustrations and am yet to find evidence of anyone using a block for chopping wood.
@@fakehistoryhunteragree with you about medieval illustrations being a good source of reliable information about how things were actually done at that time and far better than some modern film makers idea of how things were . And no ,saws were not much used until recent times , the chain saw pretty much within my lifetime , but I reckon that anyone chopping wood day in day out would soon find the most effective way of doing it which I have to say is often on a chopping block . About twenty years ago I became a self employed gardener, didn’t have much idea and relied mainly on gardening books written by “experts “ . Big mistake . Over a long and painful period I learned through my own experience what worked and what didn’t . Tried other peoples ideas and often discarded them , worked out methods of my own and even fashioned some of my own tools . I just went with what worked best , and getting back ,finally , to the original point am convinced that chopping blocks must go back a long long way .
I always wondered how they would cut and split the trees into firewood since they didn't use saws. It's a lot of work to cut through a tree trunk in order to chop it into lengths for splitting. And they needed a lot of wood.
Nice bit of work, may I suggest once chopped to fire wood your stack no longer cord wood. Stacking cord wood proper on a raised platform in the open for a year or two is a time honored way of seasoning timber for fire wood. Also like to point out that old traditionally built homes often had very large overhanging eves fire wood could be stacked against the south facing wall under the protection of the eves to finish drying for the following winter.
I would still call it cordwood, as a stacked 'cord' of firewood. Am I wrong? I'll be placing my seasoned firewood inside my house and under the eaves, this stack is for the green wood to dry out in the open with airflow from all sides
@@gesithasgewissa As you know a cord of fire wood is a measure if memory serves 8'x4'x4'. However cord wood is usually standard lengths of timber cut in preparation for firewood production. I think it is easier to pull timber out of a wood in lengths ready for it to be dried than cut and chop in the wood and carried out. I have done both cutting firewood in a dense woodland environ can be hazardous , pulling trees out almost whole ???? with tongues is hard work but less perilous. Anyway folk used to and still do buy cord wood it is cheaper but you then need to process it yourself. In a commercial woodland firewood is extracted during the thinning process in order to provide room for the selected trees to thrive of course this is different in coppice where management is on a shorter cycle.
@@davidprocter3578 Okay, that's fascinating and great information! By your argument, I agree, I should change the name, but it does rather roll off the tongue! It also links with the cordwood challenge videos on UA-cam relating to axe-only firewood processing. There's actually a place near me that sells firewood in larger lengths, as cordwood! Thanks for enlightening me
Did the Anglo-Saxons make leavened bread and if so, was it made consistently across the whole time they were on the isles or do we only have evidence of it after a certain point in time, assuming any evidence of such?
They did, and I believe so! Clay ovens are a relatively common find in Anglo-Saxon archaeology, which were most likely used for baking bread. I'm about to start building an oven this week, so hopefully you'll see some bread soon!
@@gesithasgewissa That's awesome! Have you considered using the community tab more often to let people know what you're working on? It would probably drum up a little more hype
We can learn a lot from these excellent videos! I was wondering what the trousers were made of. They look comfortable to work in. Was any sort of underwear worn during that period? If so, what was it made of and what form did it take? Thank you. Please continue your valuable work!
They are wool, and very comfortable. They're based on the Germanic Iron Age Thorsberg trousers which are cleverly cut to give some stretch. There's no evidence for underwear. Could have been anything from linen to loincloth to nothing. I don't wear any, hah!
Thank you! So that appeared to be a "cord" of wood, 8' x 4' x 4'. I've been looking on line to see how long a cord of wood lasts. It appears to be 6-12 weeks depending how long you burn your fire for. So a Saxon hut like this would consume let's say one cord over an average British summer of 4 months, and then (say) one cord every 2 months after that, which means 5 cords of wood per year, call it 6 to be on the safe side. Just guesstimates. And you would always burn last year's wood, or maybe the year before. So you might have 12-18 cords on the go. If you had a village of 50 dwellings...this is why coppicing was so important.
Nice calculations, I don't burn as much as that, but it's just me...perhaps a farmstead might! It still goes to show that yes, renewable timber from coppicing was absolutely vital. Thanks for sharing 😄
Late to that party but just wanted to let you know you have a huge fan here in Michigan. Acient living has always fascinated me mostly because there just wasnt much taught about it in school. I also learned from Jamie over at the British History Podcast part of the reason is the scribes only wrote about the royals and nobles with VERY little of anything about the common folk. I also have to agree i absolutely love the "mundane" subject of your videos, although to me the mundane is whats far more fascinating and relatable than hearing/seeing historical recreations of cultures of the royal/noble lives. With all that said i have to ask a somewhat silly question. Do you build all this for videos or are you living this life, even if temporary? Theres this part of me that hopes youre living it as i want to live it vicariously theough you. Id love to live off the land and detach from the consumerist society were stuck in now. Ok end ramble. Thank you for your content!
Thank you so much for your kind words of support! I live here when filming my videos, and actually that's pretty much all the time now as I am focusing on making these videos my livelihood. I spend most of my time here, it's a beautiful place with the wind in the hazels and birds singing out. ☺ It is also my dream to be living on the land and harmoniously with nature.
I was thinking that too. Given how the house has no insulation I would think you would have to burn through that pile in a week to keep warm. Assume that a person living there might have small children aswell.
How many of those stacks would you need to get through an entire winter and, why are they not placed closer to the dwelling? I used to heat a 2500 s/f house with wood in the Pacific NW. I recall splitting at least 1.5 cords of wood per winter for a conventional house.
At least a couple more, but I'm still getting started. The logs are stacked where they are felled because they still need 2 years to season. Once they are fully dry they will be stacked under the eaves or inside the house
Quite a bit more than this, that's for sure! There have been some experimental archaeological studies done on firewood consumption in Iron Age longhouses
@@gesithasgewissa when making firewood for wood burning furnace and for banking fires overnight we would generally keep the wood larger than an adult person's palm, and split once or quarter as necessary. Mostly mature tree trunks if quartered, main branches might get halved, but smaller did not even get split. Thus I see what you made as small wood only good to start a fire (aka Kindling). Some of the pieces looked about right to carve into wooden spoons
@@motagrad2836 This is a bit different...being used for an open hearth fire inside the house, I split it smaller so it burns more efficiently with less smoke.
Yes! It mainly needs to keep the rain away from the centre of the stack, the sides and ends of the stack need to be exposed for good airflow, and the firewood stack will still dry, even if the ends get wet and dry repeatedly. This wood is still green and seasoning remember. I store fully seasoned firewood inside the house where it stays completely dry.
Good luck with the fire wood, don't get hurt, and if we don't see you before then, Happy Samhain! (I'm not sure what the equivalent for the Anglo Saxons would be exactly, Wikipedia is not very helpful lol)
Thank you! I may make a video on Samhain celebrations, we'll see. They may well have called it the same, with so much contact with Romano-British and Celtic peoples.
Questions would it not be easier to use a wedge (and hammer) on the end of the wood to split it rather than an axe and less work? And maybe the thatch, if it was trimmed with an upward cut (unlike the downward stroke you used) the lowest part which can drip in the rain would be furthest from the wood. Have you thoughts on this? I do love the work you are putting in.
I think a wedge and hammer would be fiddly with all these small pieces, and probably take much more time to set up each wedge and hammer stroke (especially given that the ends are axe cut and pointed rather than straight, which makes starting a wedge difficult). The axe is a simple 'place log and axe blow'. A wedge and hammer works well for larger, longer logs though, which are difficult to split with an axe. Water will most likely drip straight down from the ends of the bracken, no matter the angle of the eaves. With thatching, except in very heavy prolonged rain, only the top couple of inches get wet anyway, so the dripping will occur away from the logs. It mainly needs to keep the rain away from the centre of the stack, the sides and ends of the stack need to be exposed for good airflow, and the firewood stack will still dry, even if the ends get wet and dry repeatedly. This wood is still green and seasoning and will continue to lose moisture content even while getting wet and dry at the ends, as long as it is off the ground and not consistently wet by winter rain. Thanks for the questions!
@@gesithasgewissa Good points, but splitting wood if you have a large amount, a hard hole in the ground, would hold a long branch in place, and with a bit of practice a five foot length is not hard to split the entire length and once split is easy to break into shorter lengths for a fire. I did it using a concrete hole, so it would depend on how much was being cut, and having something that could hold the wood relatively tightly. And if we think of the skill needed to make long planks which were very commonly used and made, the skill would have to be learnt somewhere. A lot of old people like me from a ruralish backgrounds would remember how the preparation of firewood would often fall on the young men of the house, and could be seen as part of building skills for life.
@@newprimitiveart certainly, but that would be unlikely to work with the incredibly knotty, twisty and forked hazel I have set aside for firewood here. I saved the finer timber for woodworking projects and in that case I split and hew the boards into planks as you suggest. If you're interested in seeing that take a look at my videos here: ua-cam.com/video/ZVwO8N0ZM70/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/LLV0truGhy4/v-deo.html
@@gesithasgewissa A very skilled person can split wood, so it flows though knots, a much more skilled person than me. You are very right how a job is best achieved depends very much on context, However as your endeavour is to understand how things were done, not about the skills we have now, which we both might admit are not equal to what they might have had to survive in those times, I'd like to draw your attention to something. I don't like talking about warfare in the Anglo-Saxon period, as there is far too much attention on it in my opinion, but look at a shield, made up of layers of very thin planks of wood, virtually like modern plywood. how could that be achieved without saws, to split the wood into such fine layers, has to take immense skill, and as there are few complaints of the time of the Fryed not turning up without shields, as there are of not turning up with helmets, we might presume the peasanty could produce their own shields, consequently I would think they were very able and practiced at splitting wood rather than just chopping it. It is nice to converse with you, I value your input very much.
@@newprimitiveart Did you take a look the videos I suggested, I actually have planks set aside for a shield, which I'm hoping to start working on soon now that they are seasoned. I'm very much looking forward to working out how to carve a very thin (4-7mm) tapered and convex shield board ☺ I'm never doubting that the Anglo-Saxons knew how to cleave timber incredibly skilfully. I worked for a year as a shipwright rebuilding the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo longship (similar to a Viking ship) where we were cleaving huge 5 metre long oak trees up to a metre in diameter into halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths, and then hewing these into planks. This was certainly the way almost all planks were made in Britain during the Anglo-Saxon period. The trick is in selected the timber. You are unlikely to choose wood that is twisted and knotty to cleave into a shield board or ship's plank especially if you have the pick of the Early Medieval old growth Wildwood. You will be looking at the straightest grain, or the tree with a curve that best follows your desired shape. For the ship we looked at bark direction for twist in the tree and even used that to our advantage sometimes to produce the planks that twist up into the prow of the ship. I was simply explaining that, specifically in this context, I have set aside the most horrendously twisted, half rotted, knotty hazel trunks because they have little use other than firewood. In that case, it's definitely quicker to cut through the knots and split them as smaller pieces. That isn't to say that if I had larger, longer lengths of timber I wouldn't cleave them with wedges (but I would probably be cleaving them for planks, not firewood, if they were that nice!)
Hi, just went back in time with some of your videos…..so awesome what you are doing…I wondered some things…. Do you do all this by yourself? You are alone in the videos. How did you learn all the details of what you do and get it historically accurate? I mean, they didn’t write how-to books then I expect! Did you make your clothes? If so, how did you get the materials and knowledge? Do you live in your place you made? Thanks!
Hello, and thank you! I do all of this myself yes, the research, crafting, building, filming, editing. I sometimes have help from a good friend, and when I do, he is also in the video. You can see him in my video "FOREST TO FIELD" helping me dig my first vegetable garden. I'm entirely self taught, I've done a lot of Medieval style carpentry in the past and worked as a shipwright on a reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon longship. But I have been reading and researching on Anglo-Saxon life for five years or so, I read lots of archaeological reports and academic books when thinking about how to recreate objects and buildings as they might have been in history. There are no how-to-books, but there is lots of information out there on the archaeology, Medieval records of daily life, heritage and traditional crafts unchanged for centuries and so on. I use all of this to help me "interpret" the archaeology. That is what is meant by 'experimental archaeology.' I do make my own clothes, again based on throughly researched historical examples. I do buy the wool fabric and thread, but I have tried hand dyeing and would like to learn spinning and weaving in the future! I just taught myself again; always making things from a young age. You can find good tutorials for Medieval sewing, shoe making and other crafts online. That's how I started. (Although it did help that my mum is a textile artist!!) I live there when I am filming videos, yes. Thanks for the lovely questions, I hope this helps! My main advice is always to just try something! That's the best way to learn new skills I think.
@@gesithasgewissa thanks for the info, I wish I was young again like you and try something like this. It sure takes a lot of physical work, but good for the human body to move like this to live. I might try making some period clothing. I found your video making new pants. Where can you find the patterns for shirt, pants, maybe a tunic dress? What you do ties creativity and research and knowledge, but what is so great is to be able to get the satisfaction of experiencing simple sustenance in this bizarre world in which we live now. They seemed to have so much figured out then, but we still don’t, lol.
@@raduneacsu8382 It's a major passion of mine and it means I get to be outside, crafting things and learning historical crafts. Why not?! 😄I actually studied nature conservation at university, so not at all related to archaeology haha
@@gesithasgewissa In a way, you're using what you learned, especially with the coppiced hazel. Planning and utilizing what you have available to ensure there's enough resources available in the future for when times are tough, and using as much of what is available as possible in many different ways.
Thanks! I'm entirely self taught, before this project I had most skill in carpentry, working on Medieval woodworking projects, timber framing and ship building.
@@gesithasgewissa Fair play to you. My hat is off to you because you show competence in your abilities and are [seemingly] at ease in transferring understanding of the similarities found in a variety of jobs - thatching being just one case in point (and allowing me to believe there might be hope for me yet). By the by, will you be doing any period brewing (mead or ale) or food preservation (assuming you haven't already and I've just missed it)?
It's based on the Högom tunic from Sweden, dated 5th-6th century. I also have the more simple white under tunic which is based on the Bernuthsfeld tunic pattern, dated 7th-8th century
Oh!!...oh!! This is the guy who can do EVERYTHING...right? I remember watching him before & he was like a Blacksmith, Carpenter, Weaver, Tanner, Leather Worker, Metallurgist, Chemist, Ceramicist, Potter, Iron Worker, Mold Maker, Caster ......he did EVERYTHING!!! O.K....ok...let me see ALL the other things he can do......this is going to be good!!
Are we sure they chopped firewood. Seems labor intensive in a time before saws. And if you had a hazel coppice you wouldn't even need to chop wood, standing deadwood can be broken by hand.
They would definitely be chopping firewood, hazel coppice is coppice because it is regularly cut. If they aren't cut they become over-stood and underproductive, not producing nearly enough deadwood naturally for the cooking and heating needs of a large hall and farmstead. I imagine they would supplement with foraged deadwood as they went, but coppicing along with firewood processing dates as far back as the bronze age or even neolithic.
@@gesithasgewissacoppicing was as much for deer food as for hazel rods. I think it would be far too useful during this era to be burnt as fuel anyway.
@@ddoherty5956 Coppice coupes are traditionally fenced or hedged off with wattle or brash, as deer browsing ends up stunting regrowth or even killing the stool altogether. We know that coupes were in use in the Medieval period as there are laws stating the number of large standard oaks required to be left per coupe. Granted this may have been less of a problem with regular hunting, but deer weren't intentionally 'managed' as game or a hunting resource until the Later Saxon and Norman periods. Coppicing hazel for firewood doesn't exclude the use of hazel rods as these would be thinned out as the stems grew over the course of the cycle. Hazel may not have been the first choice as firewood, but ash and oak were coppiced too. Hazel's all I got for now though so hazel's everything to me, hazel house, hazel furniture, hazel wattle, hazel firewood 😎
You're absolutely right! This was recycled cordage that had already been used, so it was a bit old and frayed already. It will actually stay quite dry under the bracken though, so it won't deteriorate much even as it is
@@gesithasgewissa And I was wondering how cold can it get in Britain (even if the temperature is probably not the same as in the 500's) because it does not sound easy at all to keep warm a house that has a hole in the wall for smoke with just an open fire... It would be really nice you come back in the winter and measure how warm you can get in a pit house, it would give a good impression on ancient living conditions!
@@jean-philippeboivin8604 In winter, with the fire going, it's warm enough to be very comfortable, but the heat doesn't last and once the fire goes out it cools down very quickly
We just had an all day storm of 40 mph winds, and so far so good. The hairy bracken fronds sort of knit together and don't blow away very easily. I could always make some wooden ridge crosses like on the main house to help weight it down if needed.
Interesting you chose hazel but say nothing about its burning qualities- something people were very aware of until recent times. Suspect ash would have been the firewood of choice as it is abundant and burns when still green.
Cutting a log into short segments with an axe seems like so much work, and a significant fraction gets turned into chips. Every time I think about it, I feel an uncontrollable urge to design a system for burning much longer pieces. But medieval people were just as smart as we are and they didn't do that. So.... what am I missing?
Well, the chips can just as easily be gathered up and burn really nicely, but you're right, it's not ideal! The Anglo-Saxon longfire, common in a longhall, could accommodate longer pieces. But that's probably only worth it with lots of people gathered round. Theud Bald has a great video on a firewood chopping method that reduces waste, which I'd like to try this winter: ua-cam.com/video/KnJlkVjNbNs/v-deo.html
This is my emotional support Anglo-Saxon
Hahaha! At your service, my friend
Real
In addition to putting together a formidable wood storage system, you’ve created a cozy habitat for all sorts of creatures. Well done!
So true! Thanks for watching!
👍👌👏 A lot of work is done calm, peaceful and, most important, without talking. The sounds of nature and work is all I need to really enjoy a video like this. A lot of channel owners seem to like hearing themselves talking and they usually do it way too much. This channel reminds me of my most favourite = Primitive technologies (Mr. Plant, NZ).
Thanks a lot for making teaching explaining recording editing uploading and sharing.
Best regards luck and health in particular.
Thank you, I'm glad you appreciate it! Primitive Technology is a huge inspiration for me
Dear @@gesithasgewissa
You're welcome, it's my pleasure.
Thanks for replying and especially for giving a heart to my comment. I always and totally appreciate both very much. 2) Yes, I can understand that. Mr. Plant is quite an inspiration and the legitimate father of nearly all similar channels. Unfortunately a lot try and tried to copy him. A lot used even heavy machines (discovered after going to their locations after some months). I was so glad that Primitive Technology started to upload again after he had stopped for quite a while. Please keep your honest and inspiring videos coming, Sir. I hope that your yet still very underrated channel grows fast.
Sincerely yours.
I bet that the firewood pile will be a cozy nest to some woodland critters this winter too. If I were a little fox or squirrel, that would make a cozy getaway.
Haha cute, that's so true! They're very welcome
Laying in bed with a horrendous ear infection and this is exactly what I need right now….. so calming…… I love watching these types of vids when I’m not well. The sounds more so than the visuals make my mind slow down so I don’t focus on the pain…..thank you for your healing content.
Happy to hear that my video has brought you some comfort. Wishing you a fast return to health!
Ouch hope you get better soon!
Hope you recover soon. Ear infections SUCK! ❤
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@@angelcollina❤❤❤❤
This is one of my favorite videos yet. It's something SO SIMPLE, just getting and protecting firewood, but I think that's the reason that it's so nice. The mundane stuff from then is so relaxing and charming now, especially considering the gorgeous nature it takes place in. (I love the more involved stuff too of course!)
This also has my favorite background sound of all of them because it's got wind, water, rain, and the sound of the anglo-saxon stuff you're doing all in the same video! I'm probably going to use this video as background noise while I work on stuff now.
And daggonit, I don't recognize the purple or pink flowers! 😂 My best guess for the purple would be some sort of sage but I'm pretty sure I'm way off the mark
Ah I'm happy to hear it! I was worried it would be a bit TOO mundane, but I'm glad it's appreciated for it's peacefulness 😄 and sweet, it does make a beautiful ambience to work to.
The pink flowers are willowherb, otherwise known as fireweed. They grow prolifically over here, especially on recently cleared ground!
Love this one. Reminds me of being a kid in rural PNW 20, 25 years ago. Splitting & stacking wood under a tarp. Firewood is an important resource for many people even today.
Cool! Glad you enjoyed it
Yep. I've just got mine cut and stored. Been gathering since late spring.
Gotta wait for fire season restrictions to ease here in the south side of Oregon. We let our logs season whole, but maybe next month I'll drag them to the road and split them.
I absolutely love your channel!! As an author of medieval fantasy stories this is such insight for the way most (though not exactly all) European peoples worked on and lived the land after Rome fell. Thank you once again and I pooo forward to more!!
That's great to hear! I'm glad my videos are an insight and inspiration
@@gavenace3667 I'm working on a medieval fantasy book set in England myself and have been thinking that about this channel since I found it! It gives me an idea of some of the day to day stuff I wouldn't have thought to include, which is really useful
@@fallonfireblade4404 That awesome and I wish you the best of luck!! If you’d like to exchange contact information and share ideas and whatnot about writing let me know!
I work as a chimneysweep, and I do my own firewood to burn in the winters. I do it with a chainsaw and an axe, and i have a modern effective fireplace. It always amazes me how incredibly much time effort people in the past must have put in to making firewood, given the lack of machine tools, proper fireplaces and insulation in their houses. I just cant see how they had enough hours on the day to get the equation together. I amazes me.
It would have been a huge part of daily life, no doubt! Although, given the open smoke holes, these houses weren't likely very warm no matter how large you built the fire. Hearth fires were used for cooking and heat when gathered around close, but most people had daily work to get on with which kept them warm.
Well im not entirely convinced by that. I doubt there would have been much outdoor work to do in the dead of winter. Freezing cold, dark for much of the day and snow and ice covering the land. Iether way, the amount of firewood needed must have been staggering. Im convinced you would burn through that stack in less then a week if you tried to live there during the coldest part of winter.
@@isakjohansson112 I lived in this house last winter, I'm just answering based on my own experience living in a Medieval setting ☺
Yes ofcourse, I do realise that. Interesting, thats like experimenting arkeology. So how cold was it and how much firewood did you have to burn?
@@isakjohansson112 Pretty cold, not much warmer than outside with fire out, but it got cosy enough with the fire going. I probably burned about the size of this stack, plus a similar volume of smaller sticks and kindling, as I was busy out coppicing and building during the day, and only had the fire going to cook in the evenings and sometimes the morning. I suppose that could be different if there were more people on the farmstead, with some weaving and cooking all day next to the fire. Although most excavated weaving huts show little evidence of hearth fires.
I love how there's always a breeze blowing. It must be very refreshing when you're working so hard.
It's quite a windy spot, a small hollow stream and meadow in a larger range of hills. My girlfriend and I have affectionately named the land Windhazel!
I am also a living history interpreter but not as far back as you. I must say you are very good and way ahead of my efforts.
Congratulations and keep at it because there is a lot to learn from you.
This is about the use of the bracken fern. I once did a scout in Northern Michigan, USA mostly in a pine forest in the fall of
the year. I usually make a bed of hard wood leaves to lie on to protect me from convection and the hard ground. Being in a
mostly pine wood I did not have that convenience. So using what I had at hand I cut a bunch of
bracken fern and made a pallet of sorts. By morning the fern had stuck together and could be
moved as one unit just be pulling on a corner. It did not soften the ground, but no moisture came
up to bother me throughout the night and it did somewhat block the cold. That was something I
stumbled upon by accident. It was a good place to sit in the early morning next to the campfire
and drink my tea. Stay at it, good stuff. YHS, campdog
Thank you for the kind words and for sharing your experience, that's great!
Thank you once again for sharing your experience with us. A special insight into life long ago as I suddenly became hungry and went into the kitchen for something to eat and then returned to your video, realising that the people of the past wouldn’t have the luxury of having a good larder necessarily. They would have to work hard for their food, maybe foraging, setting traps, planting a garden, very dependent upon the environment. Not like ourselves where we can go shopping having the world as our larder. You give me an insight into a lost life where survival is fragile and finally balanced and even now we shouldn’t take things for granted. Nature is fraught with danger and your videos remind me of that, thank you.
Absolutely, we are very lucky to live in the time that we do!
Thank you for this moment of nature
Glad you enjoyed it!
Who could imagine that a video of a man chopping and stacking firewood would become a spiritually healing balm for the soul? This is such a beautifully crafted video, from the natural setting to the structure which you have personally crafted by hand from the elements of said natural setting, making it as much part of that setting as the trees and shrubs.
How many of us these days take the time to watch and listen to the rain for more than a brief moment, truly take in the majesty of a simple rainfall, especially in such an unspoiled setting? Thank you for taking the time to make these videos and share them and your experience. I could watch them for hours; however, I realize the great amount of work and effort which goes into video production, so am very grateful for the minutes provided. Again, thank you.
Beautifully written, and you've captured why this project means so much to me. Thank you for your kind words and support Mark!
I always take care to really have time and peace for your videos so that I can deeply enjoy the unique atmosphere and the educational and beautiful images. Thanks!
Thanks for watching! I'm glad they bring you peace
All the end of season chores; they seem never-ending but are so invigorating & satisfying when accomplished. Thanks for sharing.
So true!
a brave and wonderful guy, wish you good health and luck! thanks for inspiring so many people about courage! keep it up! 🎉❤ 9:9
Thank you very much!
@@gesithasgewissa like idol ☺️🌹☺️
Wow!! ; ) you did something for your wife , family.. all the little things all set up 😊
Lots of little jobs to do on a farmstead!
Iam from far north eastern part of india called nagaland, our forefathers lived exactly the same way.
We were also ruled by the British may be that's why our way of living resembled to that of yours.
I enjoyed watching your videos. Keep on.
Interesting! Glad you're enjoying the videos
Such a lovely spot you're sitting on🌳🌻!! And how appropriate we got to see the roof already at work😁
The house looks nicely seasoned, like it's been there for ages, well done you!
Thank you, the house is really settling in to the land 😄
I LIKE your recent projects. This one took lots of material, labor, and patience. The result is handsome and it taught me new things about cob fireplaces.
Thank you so much!
This is an absolutely fabulous series documenting the project. Thank you.
Thanks for watching!
So timely. I just finished stacking my 3 cords of oak firewood and split a bunch of kindling. Feels good to be prepared for the winter here in the central Sierra of California. Fun watching someone else do it! 😊
❤❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉
3 cords of oak! Nice!
Awesome, thanks! Your videos are a healing balm!
That's good to hear!
it was cool to see you bucking firewood with an axe,i use to do that as a kid,well done
It's great fun! Thanks David
Well this firewood already kept you warm before it was in the fireplace great vid
Indeed!
You get warm gathering it, hot sawing and chopping it and then you can get toastie burning it. Beats flipping a switch anyday😊
@@maggietaylor9713 and you get warm again cleaning the fireplace
Nice to keep these skills alive.Well done from Scotland.
Thank you! Greetings from a southerner!!
I know ads are inevitable, but they do destroy the uniquely soothing flow of these videos.
These videos wouldn't exist without UA-cam's adverts, they are my main income source!
It's soo soothing. I know all these plants, I've played with them since childhood, know how they feel and imagined my worlds with them. It feels like my childhood fantasies came alive. To see that it has in fact been used for thousands of years. I might have been born in the wrong time ;)
It's comforting to think that our ancestors walked this very same earth, touched the very same trees and drank from the very same springs!
Still in awe of your skills. I split and stacked two cords of quartered logs, and it felt like a lot longer than the lovely job you made if it. I must say I'm looking forward to seeing what happens on the Gewissae borderlands this winter.
Was hael!
Thank you! That's a serious amount of work, more than I've got here, for sure. It looks a lot quicker with the editing haha. Was hæl to you!
Fabulous video. Brings back memories of stacking the excess hay in the field and building a cover just like this to protect the hay during the winter...it smelt of summer when we opened it to use. Thankyou and good work ,as always.😊
That's great, I'd like to do a proper hay rick too!
Know what you mean about the smell of the hay . I can remember it from my time on the farm as a youngster , cutting open a hay bale on a cold winter morning and suddenly getting a strong whiff of a hay field in summer . Mind you , the hay had to be good quality for this to happen .
@@gesithasgewissayes I remember a few years ago seeing small hay ricks in Serbia . The builders started off with a pole in the ground about twelve foot high then wrapped the hay around it in a circle keeping the sides vertical ,eight or ten feet in diameter ending in a cone shape at the top which in most cases were then thatched, although a few modern types were using plastic sheets . So you finished up with a tall thin stack with a pointy top which had a small surface area relative to the volume that got rained (and snowed ) on . The pole was there to give the structure some stability , although many of the stacks had timber poles leaning against them for extra support .
Lovely, tranquil video as always! I so look forward to these updates. I'd really enjoy seeing more of the inside of your house; it would help me to imagine what it might have been like to like there. Please keep the videos coming!
Thank you! My next video will be showing the interior of the house, as I'm building an oven, looking forward to sharing it with you all
Splitting wood quites the mind! Nice video!
Thank you!
How long will thatching last before it rots?
At least as long as the firewood needs to season. My last bracken shelter built this way is over two years old and still waterproof
What a beautiful autumn day, and what a nice fresh autumn activity!
Lots of autumnal weather rolling in at the moment! It's quite welcome for now
@@gesithasgewissa Enjoy it while it lasts!
Lots of hard work to prepare for the future.
Yes indeed, the Medieval equivalent of investment 😄
2:58 Classic wiggle test followed by the slap-smack of approval.
The time old, tried and tested, wiggle and smack, quality assured 😄
Winter is coming! ;) Great job my brother.
May the Gods always protect You!
Thank you friend, and blessings to you too!
Gorse would be a good source of wood gathered in winter and burns exceptionally hot compared to other timbers and renews itself quickly.
That's cool, thanks for sharing! If only I had some gorse nearby
Harikulade hala daha eski yeteneklerimizi uygulayabilmeniz gerçekten çok güzel yerinde ve başarılı
Thank you!
Somehow the roof over the wood reminds me of a monk’s tonsure. 😄 Thank you for this content, it’s soothing.
Hahaha, I like that analogy!
We Built the World.
Anglo Saxons. Keep it alive!
Thanks for watching!
Great video as usual it must have been a stressful time making sure you had winter fuel and food to last the the hard times, I've been reading about what we used to eat and was surprised to find Hawthorn was an important source of nutrition being known as bread and cheese in Victorian times, also 'fruit leathers' mashed fruit and berries spread out on a frame and dried they would last for months.
Very true! I love hawthorn berries, they're a great snack. It would be fun to do some dried and preserved fruits next year, when I have somewhere good to store them
Always a good day to see one of your videos come up in my notifications! Great job as always!
Glad to hear it, thank you!
Merci. Cest tellement apaisant.
Nature, histoire et artisanat, ma chaîne préférée sur youtube ❤
Glad to hear it! Thanks for watching
Always entertaining! Great job
Thank you!
What a fantastic channel! You're an amazing person.
Wow, thank you!
@@gesithasgewissa Thank YOU. I can't express how fantastic is this combination of your skills and the specific historical context that I know nothing about! Please recommend books/reading and keep up the amazing videos, you're the best thing in here. 🙌
Loved it. Have any bees moved into the skeps?
Not this year, unfortunately. But I'll be trying again in the spring!
I was wondering how you are faring given the recent floods; hope all is alright elsewhere, and so happy to see the house doing well--all dry inside, I gather?
The alternating direction on the ends of the stack is brilliant! Such a simple solution, such excellent results. We forget how clever humans have always been, then something like this reminds us.
Here's to keeping dry and warm.
I thank you for your kind thoughts ☺All is well! The house is completely dry, no flooding on the land since I cleared the drain under the road, and so far so good. Thanks for watching
Good to see you chopping the wood the way you did, I recently, for a game I was a historical consultant for, researched if medieval people were using wood blocks to chop wood on the way we did much later and couldn't find any evidence for it, so weird when you just assume something was done the way it was done for ever and then discover that they didn't :)
Exactly, axe cut wood doesn't have nice neat ends to put up on a block!
But as they say absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence . For example ,I was amazed to read recently that no one is exactly sure where the battle of Agincourt took place , because there is no archaeological evidence to indicate it . I do a lot of hedge laying in the winter and also cut my own firewood and bean sticks . I mainly use a saw of one sort or another but when I do have to do any chopping would always use a block . It’s. More effective than if you have your work piece laying on the ground which always has a bit of give on it and so absorbs some of the impact. I think by a process of elimination people will find a way eventually of doing any task in the most effective way available in their given circumstances
@@barkershill Very true, but till we find that evidence, it's best not to do or show it.
I chop wood, I've done living history, to us with our modern brains it makes more sense, but sawing wood was less common back then and precisely because we are so used to it it's too tempting to assume our ancestors did it that way as well.
We still need to try and prove it or admit we just don't know.
I've been looking at medieval illustrations and am yet to find evidence of anyone using a block for chopping wood.
@@fakehistoryhunteragree with you about medieval illustrations being a good source of reliable information about how things were actually done at that time and far better than some modern film makers idea of how things were . And no ,saws were not much used until recent times , the chain saw pretty much within my lifetime , but I reckon that anyone chopping wood day in day out would soon find the most effective way of doing it which I have to say is often on a chopping block . About twenty years ago I became a self employed gardener, didn’t have much idea and relied mainly on gardening books written by “experts “ . Big mistake . Over a long and painful period I learned through my own experience what worked and what didn’t . Tried other peoples ideas and often discarded them , worked out methods of my own and even fashioned some of my own tools . I just went with what worked best , and getting back ,finally , to the original point am convinced that chopping blocks must go back a long long way .
Really cool shelter and so simple. Also some excellent axe work as always!
Thank you very much! I love bracken, it's so versatile
Getting Ready
Winter is coming 😉
@@gesithasgewissa making winter clothing next?
@@SternenruferinPatchouli1 Actually, yes! 😃
I always wondered how they would cut and split the trees into firewood since they didn't use saws. It's a lot of work to cut through a tree trunk in order to chop it into lengths for splitting.
And they needed a lot of wood.
Absolutely, it would have been a huge part of daily life!
Nice bit of work, may I suggest once chopped to fire wood your stack no longer cord wood. Stacking cord wood proper on a raised platform in the open for a year or two is a time honored way of seasoning timber for fire wood. Also like to point out that old traditionally built homes often had very large overhanging eves fire wood could be stacked against the south facing wall under the protection of the eves to finish drying for the following winter.
I would still call it cordwood, as a stacked 'cord' of firewood. Am I wrong? I'll be placing my seasoned firewood inside my house and under the eaves, this stack is for the green wood to dry out in the open with airflow from all sides
@@gesithasgewissa As you know a cord of fire wood is a measure if memory serves 8'x4'x4'. However cord wood is usually standard lengths of timber cut in preparation for firewood production. I think it is easier to pull timber out of a wood in lengths ready for it to be dried than cut and chop in the wood and carried out. I have done both cutting firewood in a dense woodland environ can be hazardous , pulling trees out almost whole ???? with tongues is hard work but less perilous. Anyway folk used to and still do buy cord wood it is cheaper but you then need to process it yourself. In a commercial woodland firewood is extracted during the thinning process in order to provide room for the selected trees to thrive of course this is different in coppice where management is on a shorter cycle.
@@davidprocter3578 Okay, that's fascinating and great information! By your argument, I agree, I should change the name, but it does rather roll off the tongue! It also links with the cordwood challenge videos on UA-cam relating to axe-only firewood processing. There's actually a place near me that sells firewood in larger lengths, as cordwood! Thanks for enlightening me
Thanks!
Thank you so much!
Another great video! Thanks for sharing! I noticed an error in the description paragraph 5 "...was timber consuming to make..."
Oo good spot! Thank you
Did the Anglo-Saxons make leavened bread and if so, was it made consistently across the whole time they were on the isles or do we only have evidence of it after a certain point in time, assuming any evidence of such?
They did, and I believe so! Clay ovens are a relatively common find in Anglo-Saxon archaeology, which were most likely used for baking bread. I'm about to start building an oven this week, so hopefully you'll see some bread soon!
@@gesithasgewissa That's awesome! Have you considered using the community tab more often to let people know what you're working on? It would probably drum up a little more hype
The Britains would have learned the art of making leavened bread from the Romans so it is entirely likely they did so during the period he depicts.
Great work as always
Thank you!
Might the thatch not blow away without lashed poles et.? 😀👍
All the fronds of hairy bracken knit together into one big mass, so it should be fine 😃
@@gesithasgewissa Felted!
We can learn a lot from these excellent videos! I was wondering what the trousers were made of. They look comfortable to work in. Was any sort of underwear worn during that period? If so, what was it made of and what form did it take? Thank you. Please continue your valuable work!
They are wool, and very comfortable. They're based on the Germanic Iron Age Thorsberg trousers which are cleverly cut to give some stretch. There's no evidence for underwear. Could have been anything from linen to loincloth to nothing. I don't wear any, hah!
@@gesithasgewissa Think yourself lucky you aren't allergic to wool!!!😳
Thank you!
So that appeared to be a "cord" of wood, 8' x 4' x 4'.
I've been looking on line to see how long a cord of wood lasts. It appears to be 6-12 weeks depending how long you burn your fire for.
So a Saxon hut like this would consume let's say one cord over an average British summer of 4 months, and then (say) one cord every 2 months after that, which means 5 cords of wood per year, call it 6 to be on the safe side.
Just guesstimates. And you would always burn last year's wood, or maybe the year before. So you might have 12-18 cords on the go.
If you had a village of 50 dwellings...this is why coppicing was so important.
Nice calculations, I don't burn as much as that, but it's just me...perhaps a farmstead might! It still goes to show that yes, renewable timber from coppicing was absolutely vital. Thanks for sharing 😄
This is great.
Thank you!
would it be useful to leave the wood a bit under the rain first, to wash off the tannin before drying it ?
Not that I know of, but then hazel doesn't have much tannins anyway!
Great video❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉
Thank you!
3:03 *slap slap* "Yep, that isn't going anywhere"
Heheheh. *slap* "this baby can fit so many logs"
@@gesithasgewissa Hahaha!
Late to that party but just wanted to let you know you have a huge fan here in Michigan. Acient living has always fascinated me mostly because there just wasnt much taught about it in school. I also learned from Jamie over at the British History Podcast part of the reason is the scribes only wrote about the royals and nobles with VERY little of anything about the common folk.
I also have to agree i absolutely love the "mundane" subject of your videos, although to me the mundane is whats far more fascinating and relatable than hearing/seeing historical recreations of cultures of the royal/noble lives.
With all that said i have to ask a somewhat silly question. Do you build all this for videos or are you living this life, even if temporary? Theres this part of me that hopes youre living it as i want to live it vicariously theough you. Id love to live off the land and detach from the consumerist society were stuck in now.
Ok end ramble. Thank you for your content!
Thank you so much for your kind words of support! I live here when filming my videos, and actually that's pretty much all the time now as I am focusing on making these videos my livelihood. I spend most of my time here, it's a beautiful place with the wind in the hazels and birds singing out. ☺
It is also my dream to be living on the land and harmoniously with nature.
Roughly how much firewood would be needed for a whole winter? I can't help but think several stacks like that if it's a particularly bad winter...
More than this, definitely. I'm just getting started, hah!
I was thinking that too. Given how the house has no insulation I would think you would have to burn through that pile in a week to keep warm. Assume that a person living there might have small children aswell.
How many of those stacks would you need to get through an entire winter and, why are they not placed closer to the dwelling? I used to heat a 2500 s/f house with wood in the Pacific NW. I recall splitting at least 1.5 cords of wood per winter for a conventional house.
At least a couple more, but I'm still getting started. The logs are stacked where they are felled because they still need 2 years to season. Once they are fully dry they will be stacked under the eaves or inside the house
I wonder just how much wood each household would need to get through a typical winter. Heating and cooking, with the fire going almost 24 hours a day.
Quite a bit more than this, that's for sure! There have been some experimental archaeological studies done on firewood consumption in Iron Age longhouses
Making either kindling or wood for carving 😊
Firewood, yes!
@@gesithasgewissa when making firewood for wood burning furnace and for banking fires overnight we would generally keep the wood larger than an adult person's palm, and split once or quarter as necessary. Mostly mature tree trunks if quartered, main branches might get halved, but smaller did not even get split.
Thus I see what you made as small wood only good to start a fire (aka Kindling).
Some of the pieces looked about right to carve into wooden spoons
@@motagrad2836 This is a bit different...being used for an open hearth fire inside the house, I split it smaller so it burns more efficiently with less smoke.
Where do you film these majestic place? In Uk or Germany something, it's nearly October, doesn't get colder around there?
I filmed this in mid-September, but it's still only around ten to fifteen degrees celsius here. I am based in South West Britain
@@gesithasgewissa don't let the cold get you my friend, your video is great
Looking great, but will this little roop keet the wood dry? 🤔
Yes! It mainly needs to keep the rain away from the centre of the stack, the sides and ends of the stack need to be exposed for good airflow, and the firewood stack will still dry, even if the ends get wet and dry repeatedly. This wood is still green and seasoning remember. I store fully seasoned firewood inside the house where it stays completely dry.
@@gesithasgewissa Good to know, thanks for the reply.
Neat video!
Thanks!
Good luck with the fire wood, don't get hurt, and if we don't see you before then, Happy Samhain! (I'm not sure what the equivalent for the Anglo Saxons would be exactly, Wikipedia is not very helpful lol)
Thank you! I may make a video on Samhain celebrations, we'll see. They may well have called it the same, with so much contact with Romano-British and Celtic peoples.
The Christian Anglo-Saxons would've celebrated All Saint's Day
@@merchantofgoop In the late 7th century, both Christianity and pagan beliefs were practiced in Somerset
Questions would it not be easier to use a wedge (and hammer) on the end of the wood to split it rather than an axe and less work?
And maybe the thatch, if it was trimmed with an upward cut (unlike the downward stroke you used) the lowest part which can drip in the rain would be furthest from the wood.
Have you thoughts on this?
I do love the work you are putting in.
I think a wedge and hammer would be fiddly with all these small pieces, and probably take much more time to set up each wedge and hammer stroke (especially given that the ends are axe cut and pointed rather than straight, which makes starting a wedge difficult). The axe is a simple 'place log and axe blow'. A wedge and hammer works well for larger, longer logs though, which are difficult to split with an axe.
Water will most likely drip straight down from the ends of the bracken, no matter the angle of the eaves. With thatching, except in very heavy prolonged rain, only the top couple of inches get wet anyway, so the dripping will occur away from the logs.
It mainly needs to keep the rain away from the centre of the stack, the sides and ends of the stack need to be exposed for good airflow, and the firewood stack will still dry, even if the ends get wet and dry repeatedly. This wood is still green and seasoning and will continue to lose moisture content even while getting wet and dry at the ends, as long as it is off the ground and not consistently wet by winter rain.
Thanks for the questions!
@@gesithasgewissa Good points, but splitting wood if you have a large amount, a hard hole in the ground, would hold a long branch in place, and with a bit of practice a five foot length is not hard to split the entire length and once split is easy to break into shorter lengths for a fire. I did it using a concrete hole, so it would depend on how much was being cut, and having something that could hold the wood relatively tightly. And if we think of the skill needed to make long planks which were very commonly used and made, the skill would have to be learnt somewhere. A lot of old people like me from a ruralish backgrounds would remember how the preparation of firewood would often fall on the young men of the house, and could be seen as part of building skills for life.
@@newprimitiveart certainly, but that would be unlikely to work with the incredibly knotty, twisty and forked hazel I have set aside for firewood here. I saved the finer timber for woodworking projects and in that case I split and hew the boards into planks as you suggest. If you're interested in seeing that take a look at my videos here:
ua-cam.com/video/ZVwO8N0ZM70/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/LLV0truGhy4/v-deo.html
@@gesithasgewissa A very skilled person can split wood, so it flows though knots, a much more skilled person than me. You are very right how a job is best achieved depends very much on context, However as your endeavour is to understand how things were done, not about the skills we have now, which we both might admit are not equal to what they might have had to survive in those times, I'd like to draw your attention to something.
I don't like talking about warfare in the Anglo-Saxon period, as there is far too much attention on it in my opinion, but look at a shield, made up of layers of very thin planks of wood, virtually like modern plywood. how could that be achieved without saws, to split the wood into such fine layers, has to take immense skill, and as there are few complaints of the time of the Fryed not turning up without shields, as there are
of not turning up with helmets, we might presume the peasanty could produce their own shields, consequently I would think they were very able and practiced at splitting wood rather than just chopping it.
It is nice to converse with you, I value your input very much.
@@newprimitiveart Did you take a look the videos I suggested, I actually have planks set aside for a shield, which I'm hoping to start working on soon now that they are seasoned. I'm very much looking forward to working out how to carve a very thin (4-7mm) tapered and convex shield board ☺
I'm never doubting that the Anglo-Saxons knew how to cleave timber incredibly skilfully. I worked for a year as a shipwright rebuilding the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo longship (similar to a Viking ship) where we were cleaving huge 5 metre long oak trees up to a metre in diameter into halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths, and then hewing these into planks. This was certainly the way almost all planks were made in Britain during the Anglo-Saxon period.
The trick is in selected the timber. You are unlikely to choose wood that is twisted and knotty to cleave into a shield board or ship's plank especially if you have the pick of the Early Medieval old growth Wildwood. You will be looking at the straightest grain, or the tree with a curve that best follows your desired shape. For the ship we looked at bark direction for twist in the tree and even used that to our advantage sometimes to produce the planks that twist up into the prow of the ship.
I was simply explaining that, specifically in this context, I have set aside the most horrendously twisted, half rotted, knotty hazel trunks because they have little use other than firewood. In that case, it's definitely quicker to cut through the knots and split them as smaller pieces. That isn't to say that if I had larger, longer lengths of timber I wouldn't cleave them with wedges (but I would probably be cleaving them for planks, not firewood, if they were that nice!)
Hi, just went back in time with some of your videos…..so awesome what you are doing…I wondered some things….
Do you do all this by yourself? You are alone in the videos.
How did you learn all the details of what you do and get it historically accurate? I mean, they didn’t write how-to books then I expect!
Did you make your clothes? If so, how did you get the materials and knowledge?
Do you live in your place you made?
Thanks!
Hello, and thank you! I do all of this myself yes, the research, crafting, building, filming, editing. I sometimes have help from a good friend, and when I do, he is also in the video. You can see him in my video "FOREST TO FIELD" helping me dig my first vegetable garden.
I'm entirely self taught, I've done a lot of Medieval style carpentry in the past and worked as a shipwright on a reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon longship. But I have been reading and researching on Anglo-Saxon life for five years or so, I read lots of archaeological reports and academic books when thinking about how to recreate objects and buildings as they might have been in history. There are no how-to-books, but there is lots of information out there on the archaeology, Medieval records of daily life, heritage and traditional crafts unchanged for centuries and so on. I use all of this to help me "interpret" the archaeology. That is what is meant by 'experimental archaeology.'
I do make my own clothes, again based on throughly researched historical examples. I do buy the wool fabric and thread, but I have tried hand dyeing and would like to learn spinning and weaving in the future! I just taught myself again; always making things from a young age. You can find good tutorials for Medieval sewing, shoe making and other crafts online. That's how I started. (Although it did help that my mum is a textile artist!!)
I live there when I am filming videos, yes. Thanks for the lovely questions, I hope this helps! My main advice is always to just try something! That's the best way to learn new skills I think.
@@gesithasgewissa thanks for the info, I wish I was young again like you and try something like this. It sure takes a lot of physical work, but good for the human body to move like this to live. I might try making some period clothing. I found your video making new pants. Where can you find the patterns for shirt, pants, maybe a tunic dress? What you do ties creativity and research and knowledge, but what is so great is to be able to get the satisfaction of experiencing simple sustenance in this bizarre world in which we live now. They seemed to have so much figured out then, but we still don’t, lol.
Would love to see some inside videos with the fire going, especially on the rainy days. Always great to watch when you post a new video. Thanks!!
@@ironcladranchandforge7292 I'm building an oven this week, so you'll see the finishing of the interior very soon!
@@gesithasgewissa -- Excellent, can't wait!!
very cool
Thank you!
This is awesome i love your project but i still don't understand why you started it. Just passion? Could it be a project for university?
It's valid either way I'm just curious
@@raduneacsu8382 It's a major passion of mine and it means I get to be outside, crafting things and learning historical crafts. Why not?! 😄I actually studied nature conservation at university, so not at all related to archaeology haha
@@gesithasgewissa In a way, you're using what you learned, especially with the coppiced hazel. Planning and utilizing what you have available to ensure there's enough resources available in the future for when times are tough, and using as much of what is available as possible in many different ways.
@@gesithasgewissa ok thanks! Keep posting and I'll keep watching!
You've developed a lot of skills. How many did you possess before you embarked on this project?
Thanks! I'm entirely self taught, before this project I had most skill in carpentry, working on Medieval woodworking projects, timber framing and ship building.
@@gesithasgewissa Fair play to you. My hat is off to you because you show competence in your abilities and are [seemingly] at ease in transferring understanding of the similarities found in a variety of jobs - thatching being just one case in point (and allowing me to believe there might be hope for me yet).
By the by, will you be doing any period brewing (mead or ale) or food preservation (assuming you haven't already and I've just missed it)?
Whens the water wheel being rolled out? Im sat here thinking hydro power 😉
Believe me, I'm thinking the same thing!! It's definitely a potential project
@@gesithasgewissa trip hammer? blacksmithing, cordage making, etc.
When it rains, what did they use for rain coats?
Heavy wool cloaks, for the most part!
I've been wondering watching this, what's the pattern for your wool tunic, it looks very complex by comparison to later era tunics
It's based on the Högom tunic from Sweden, dated 5th-6th century. I also have the more simple white under tunic which is based on the Bernuthsfeld tunic pattern, dated 7th-8th century
Oh!!...oh!! This is the guy who can do EVERYTHING...right? I remember watching him before & he was like a Blacksmith, Carpenter, Weaver, Tanner, Leather Worker, Metallurgist, Chemist, Ceramicist, Potter, Iron Worker, Mold Maker, Caster ......he did EVERYTHING!!! O.K....ok...let me see ALL the other things he can do......this is going to be good!!
Hahaha, jack of all trades 😄
Nice vid, where did you get your axe?
It's an old french felling axe, I chose it for its similarity to Anglo-Saxon examples in shape, size and weight
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
And how much bracken could ya get while whackin', if all you're whackin' is bracken?!
@@gesithasgewissa😂
How much firewood would you need for the winter?
At least twice this amount here!
Are we sure they chopped firewood. Seems labor intensive in a time before saws. And if you had a hazel coppice you wouldn't even need to chop wood, standing deadwood can be broken by hand.
They would definitely be chopping firewood, hazel coppice is coppice because it is regularly cut. If they aren't cut they become over-stood and underproductive, not producing nearly enough deadwood naturally for the cooking and heating needs of a large hall and farmstead. I imagine they would supplement with foraged deadwood as they went, but coppicing along with firewood processing dates as far back as the bronze age or even neolithic.
@@gesithasgewissacoppicing was as much for deer food as for hazel rods. I think it would be far too useful during this era to be burnt as fuel anyway.
@@ddoherty5956 Coppice coupes are traditionally fenced or hedged off with wattle or brash, as deer browsing ends up stunting regrowth or even killing the stool altogether. We know that coupes were in use in the Medieval period as there are laws stating the number of large standard oaks required to be left per coupe. Granted this may have been less of a problem with regular hunting, but deer weren't intentionally 'managed' as game or a hunting resource until the Later Saxon and Norman periods. Coppicing hazel for firewood doesn't exclude the use of hazel rods as these would be thinned out as the stems grew over the course of the cycle. Hazel may not have been the first choice as firewood, but ash and oak were coppiced too. Hazel's all I got for now though so hazel's everything to me, hazel house, hazel furniture, hazel wattle, hazel firewood 😎
@@gesithasgewissa 👍
The tarred cord is a bit of a waste for a temporary structure (historically), no? Why not a withy or something cheap
You're absolutely right! This was recycled cordage that had already been used, so it was a bit old and frayed already. It will actually stay quite dry under the bracken though, so it won't deteriorate much even as it is
How does the pit house not fill with water? Is it just good house/entrance orientation positioning ?
The roof has a large overhang and the pit is above the water table ☺
@@gesithasgewissa And I was wondering how cold can it get in Britain (even if the temperature is probably not the same as in the 500's) because it does not sound easy at all to keep warm a house that has a hole in the wall for smoke with just an open fire... It would be really nice you come back in the winter and measure how warm you can get in a pit house, it would give a good impression on ancient living conditions!
@@jean-philippeboivin8604 In winter, with the fire going, it's warm enough to be very comfortable, but the heat doesn't last and once the fire goes out it cools down very quickly
You growing competition braken there? 🤣🤣🤣
It's pretty damn tall huh?!
@@gesithasgewissa 🏆 shame you can't eat it 🤣
Ура ролик
😄
Shoe tutorial?
That'll be coming soon, as my current pair are wearing through 😄
Could we please get a full clothing tutorial/explanation video ?
Yes, more clothing videos are coming soon!
How wind resistant is the temporary roof?
We just had an all day storm of 40 mph winds, and so far so good. The hairy bracken fronds sort of knit together and don't blow away very easily. I could always make some wooden ridge crosses like on the main house to help weight it down if needed.
Interesting you chose hazel but say nothing about its burning qualities- something people were very aware of until recent times. Suspect ash would have been the firewood of choice as it is abundant and burns when still green.
I didn't necessarily *choose* hazel...it's about all I've got in my hedgerows and woodland, apart from blackthorn 😄
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Hi!
Cutting a log into short segments with an axe seems like so much work, and a significant fraction gets turned into chips. Every time I think about it, I feel an uncontrollable urge to design a system for burning much longer pieces. But medieval people were just as smart as we are and they didn't do that. So.... what am I missing?
Well, the chips can just as easily be gathered up and burn really nicely, but you're right, it's not ideal! The Anglo-Saxon longfire, common in a longhall, could accommodate longer pieces. But that's probably only worth it with lots of people gathered round. Theud Bald has a great video on a firewood chopping method that reduces waste, which I'd like to try this winter: ua-cam.com/video/KnJlkVjNbNs/v-deo.html
It's so wet there they say those ferns are still alive
Bracken turf roof, haha!
How do you get the thorn in your name to work?
I didn't have any issues with it, just pasted it in when creating my name
@@gesithasgewissa ok