The firelight also had an unsettling effect that lent an otherworldly air to the lords of the hall. The poetry describes how they wore their helmets indoors, and the flickering orange flames of the hearth would have animated the covering of relief pictures on their tiny press-metal plaques. The warlords’ faces were veiled with a mass of moving figures, dancing in the shadows. Again by firelight, some of the helmet images could also be seen to lack an eye, an effect achieved by selectively omitting the reflecting gold foil backing of the cloisonné garnets on their features—a one-eyed lord for
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