Atheling's Viking Mercenaries/Gall-Gaedhill

[Atheling]

Another gem of a find from cleaning out my Gmail account! (At least for me)

This unit was put together to represent Viking Mercenaries or Norse-Irish Gall-Gaedhill way back in the early 2000's! I thought the pictures long lost (the unit was sold on). The unit contains a few simple conversions such as the guy with his foot on the casualty and a few arms were rearranged (they shouldn't be hard to spot!) in order to add a couple of Dane-axes.

As usual, there are more pictures and waffle on my Just Add Water  blog here:
https://justaddwater-bedford.blogspot.com/2022/11/vikings-from-1066-and-all-that-wab.html

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Amazing unit - really well painted.

[OB]

Very nice as ever.  Gall-Gaedhill means Foreign Irish in case anyone was wondering.

[Atheling]

Thanks guys.

Very nice as ever.  Gall-Gaedhill means Foreign Irish in case anyone was wondering.

Thanks OB, that's interesting..... For some reason I was thinking that it might have been the root of Gallowglass which shows how much I know; and how little Gaelic (ie none) I understand.

I had no idea Gall-Gaedhill meant Foreign Irish.

All I knew was that Gall-Gaedhill was the name of a Mercenary unit in the WAB Shieldwall supplement.

[OB]

No problem and you were sort of on the right lines. 

Gall is foreign so Gall -óg meaning young- laoch meaning warrior or champion.  So foreign young warrior, Gallóglaoch anglicised as Gallowglass.

In both cases the fellows in question spoke Irish and followed Irish legal and cultural forms.

[Atheling]

No problem and you were sort of on the right lines. 

Good to know that I wasn't completely off 

Gall is foreign so Gall -óg meaning young- laoch meaning warrior or champion.  So foreign young warrior, Gallóglaoch anglicised as Gallowglass.

This might be difficult to do over the net but how would one pronounce Gall-Gaedhill and Gallóglaoch. It would be nice to be pronouncing the names correctly for once.

In both cases the fellows in question spoke Irish and followed Irish legal and cultural forms.

Thanks again OB.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Great work as always mate!

[OB]

Too tricky for me to accomplish properly I think. 

But Gall as Gaul is close and Gaedhil as Gael or Gwael like wise. The fada, ó,  over a letter means it is pronounced long.  That probably doesn't help much.

If you want to get an idea of how Irish sounds this song is good and you can hear Gall and oglaoch pronounced albeit separately.

[Atheling]

Great work as always mate!

Thanks mate.

Too tricky for me to accomplish properly I think. 

But Gall as Gaul is close and Gaedhil as Gael or Gwael like wise. The fada, ó,  over a letter means it is pronounced long.  That probably doesn't help much.

If you want to get an idea of how Irish sounds this song is good and you can hear Gall and oglaoch pronounced albeit separately.

I've got a better idea now, so yeah, it helped 

[Eoin OCnaimhsi]

That was a lovely looking unit. You should reproduce it now with some new conversions. There must be numerous new plastics and metals suitable for the job.

[Atheling]

That was a lovely looking unit. You should reproduce it now with some new conversions. There must be numerous new plastics and metals suitable for the job.

Funny you should say that as I've been considering doing just that.

Many of the models (about half?) are no longer available and I'd like the uni9t to keep the Hiberno-Norse flavour so maybe a mix of Footsore, Gripping Beast and Crusader- all have very nice Irish ranges  with the first two having specific Hiberno-Norse ranges.

I'll get to it!

[cadbren]

I had no idea Gall-Gaedhill meant Foreign Irish.

These guys also colonised SW Scotland which is named after them - Galloway.

[Atheling]

These guys also colonised SW Scotland which is named after them - Galloway.

Yep, as was the case in England too.

You have got me thinking about what miniatures I could use to represent the unit, more or less as a copy of what I produced all those years ago. I'm open to ideas if you have any (please)?