Tortoise brooches were used by Viking women to fasten their apron dresses/hangerocks while they wore them. However, they also had a decorative function besides a practical one. Viking women also used their tortoise brooches as a place to hang everyday objects, so they were at hand.
Depending on your preference, you can keep your tortoise brooches plain, decorate them a little, or go all out and richly embellish them.
Strings of Beads
A common way to decorate tortoise brooches was to hang strings of beads between them. You can attach just one string to your brooches, or three, or even more. In the Viking Age, these beads were generally made of glass, amber, and yet. Sometimes they were made of metals like bronze or silver.
One way to attach these strings is simply by fastening them directly to the brooches, by securing them to the pin, or by tying the strings to a small ring and sliding that onto the pin.
If you want to attach multiple strings, you can also attach them to a jewelry divider and then attach the jewelry divider to the brooches.
Practical Everyday Objects
Contrary to what they do in most modern pop culture, Vikings cared a lot about personal hygiene. It was common for women to carry items like nail cleaners, ear spoons, and small combs on their tortoise brooches.
Other everyday objects they attached to their brooches were small knives, keys, sewing equipment, tweezers, etc.
These items could be hung directly on the brooch on a chain that ended in a small hook. Or by attaching those chains to a jewelry divider and affixing the divider to one of the brooches.
See here our tortoise brooches.
You can find our personal hygiene articles here.
And our historical sewing supplies here.
