Making Viking Age Irish Shoes 

I grew up in a Cree community in Canada and learned to make moccasins in school. I made a couple of notes while watching your video and maybe they might be helpful? Obviously, I cannot compare moccasins directly to Medieval Irish shoes but I noticed some things that deviated from the pattern/diagram you showed. First, for your mock-up, use a felted wool about the thickness of the leather you intend to use - it behaves more like leather and you can quickly baste it together to get an accurate fit. One important thing that I noticed is that your side seams are a bit low - almost as low as a welt on more modern shoes. Based on the pattern you showed, the top surface of the shoe should be cut smaller and the bottom pieces larger so that the bottom bit curves up the sides of your foot gradually falling down towards the toe. It is my understanding from making moccasins that raising the seam is important for less leaks while walking in mud and water, for wear (less strain on the seams) and for comfort so that you don't feel the seams as much as your feet flatten side to side when your weight is on one foot. Sorry if this has been obnoxious! What a cool project and what a wonderful way to learn more about Medieval foot bags, eh?

As someone who does modern Irish Dance, I learned, as a kid, that 'ghillies' are the black soft shoes girls wear. Now they are called 'pumps'. I can see a lot of similarities between your basic ghillie, the embossed shoe, and modern Irish ghillies. Thanks for the video!

Shoe making is one of my secret passions, so I really appreciate this video in that regard! Once again, we love Editing Jimmy's moxy!

In terms of shoe making similar to this kind surviving into more recent times have a peak at the pampooties made by the islanders on the west coast of Ireland up to at least the 1960s. Also, bog FTW for anaerobic preservation!

Jimmy explaining stitching: "It looks like -- " Lucas Films logo. Me: Odd of Jimmy to be so specifically partisan, but this is a hell of a way to introduce a cut to a diagram! Yoda appears on screen. WTF? Me: Oh right! Welsh Viking got monetization status! ... Stupid ads that allow my favorite creators to at least break even, and hopefully make a living wage at some point. : )

I like Vikings really bad, and somehow i stumbled over your channel, since then I’m enjoying your videos so much 😂🙏🏽 Keep up the great content and humor 🤞🏽

Cool. I just made some turnshoes with the little strap on top. They came out way big but they're nice. Thanks for the tips On to my second pair.

Editing Jimmy is a snarky bastard - exactly my kind of guy. 😂

My teenage sister walked in while I was watching this video and went "can you make those for me?" so I know what my next project is!

Oh man! Did you make your own nålebinding socks? Would love to see those. Also I think I might make some of the foot bags (pampooties?) to go over my pretty shoes.

I feel so bad for the people who had flat feet and had pain when walking

Thanks 😄

Thank you , I love this !

Just a quick note about Irish (Gaeilge), accents go in the opposite direction! So bróg(a) rather than bròg(a).

Seems to me that modern Irish dance ghillies are, generally, patterned off of this ancient style of footwear.

🌞

no hard sole. like a modern barefoot shoe... I want a pair.

interesting

One of the Irish words (focail Gaeilge) for Viking is 'Lochlannach' or pluralised 'Lochlanaigh', literally: 'lakers/ of the lakes' which sounds similar to the Welsh way of saying it: Lychlynwr. Mmmmhhhhh 🤔 I smell a possible cognate??

Wouldnt it make your feet wet?

I didn't see information about lasts. Do you not know about them, or not have access to woodworking? I'm working on some mideval lasts and shoes, and information is scarce.

In Morgan Donner's shoe making video, she used a peice of wood to roll up the thread and tighten it. Saves the fingers!

Footbags is a new shoe description I look forward to seeing on Clarke's advertising.

First we have Rachel Maksy with meatbags. Now we have footbags. I love costubers and their way with words. :)

My father was born in 1897 in Denmark. (Not so impossible, he was 52 when I showed up). They spun, wove, knit, tanned - basically, could make just about anything needed for food, clothing, furniture. I remember him telling me that nails were expensive - so the "old folks" always used wooden pegs. He was put to making pegs as a little kid. Starting with big ones for construction, working his way down to teeny ones for shoes or boots. Haven't thought of that for years ! I think wooden pegs in leather would be very efficient. Choose correct type of wood.

Also the most basic shoes - the "footbags" - really look like the booties our shearer wears to keep from damaging the fleece while shearing since Icelandic wool felts very easily.

You have no idea how happy it makes me to see the textile impressions in those shoes! I'm an archaeology student in another part of the world where there are frustratingly few textile finds (who has, against all reason, decided to specialize in textiles) and we generally have to rely on textile and cordage impressions used to decorate ceramics for analysis. I wonder if the impressions on your shoes are clear enough to tell whether the final ply of the yarn used was S-twist or Z-twist? If so, I bet it would be a fun experiment to compare them with nalbinding impressions from the archaeological record!

Never Trust Editing Jimmy... I appreciate editing Jimmy Greatly. Glad to see i'm not alone in talking to items that arn't co-operating. Thank you for emphasising the differing pronounciations of gaelic. Tapadh Leat. Brogan Math.

2020: make whatever damn shoe you like.

If your mock-up looks like crap, make another one. Excellent advice for most things. Was another piece of leather ever sewn onto the bottom to add strength or durability? Very interesting video. I have some fairly large leather scraps downstairs, I may need to try something like this, if only to make myself a pair of Hausschuhe. Thanks for sharing. Take care.

Your "hot garbage" shoes are very inspiring and, as always, I appreciate the list of resources for further study. Do you plan on adding a strap to yours or just have the tongue loose? Also, the moldy boots look great for what they were pre-cleaning! That really sucks about the rust and rot

is there any evidence that they used a two needle on one thread technique it makes the stitching neater since you are using the one hole and making two stitches at the same

When I work with leather, I usually use two needles instead om going over one seam twice, if you do that you can tighten every seam when you make it. I've had great success sewing like that

Oh my giddy aunt! They have sock puppets so why not a shoe puppet? I was laughing so hard that the dog got up from his sleep and left the room. You are, by far, my favourite bright spot of the week. Thank you.

I was thinking, for thickness, strength and maybe warmth. Maybe two turn out shoes could of been worn together. Smaller fitted one then an outer one.

Interesting video, I hadn't run into your channel before and I've subscribed. Baile Átha Cliath is roughly pronounced: Baile = Bal-yeh Átha= Awe-hah (that accent over the 'a' is called a fada, and means you lengthen that vowel) Cliath= Clee-ah

The waxed linen thread makes a lot of sense. When you sew pointe shoe straps/ribbons you use dental floss because the wax protects it from shredding with the continued strain from use!

Editing Jimmy is such a scamp! Loved the video. True story, when my cat heard you speaking Welsh, she turned her head and listened.😊

What I'm hearing is that the Irish, unlike others of the era, made their shoes to last. As someone Irish, that tracks for me. :D

Kengät, in case you're after another word to add to your shoe-lexicon. Or skor, if you wanna go for the Swedish version :)

The problem I have with all shoes template is how to make the right proportion between the sole and the upper...I mean, I have a 42 size foot (im Italian by the way, so sorry for my english) how do I do the math for the upper? How do I mesure it? Are there any kind of pc programs for enlarge a shoe templete such as this to fit a 42 size sole? Thank you all for the answers

ive made 5 pairs of shoes 4 of which i am still using.... ironage, viking age shoes... my latest is a pair of ankle boots for a catelyn stark cosplay. And all of them are so comfortable. how ever I put sisal rope soles on the bottom of them as they are longer wearing and don't wear through. But thats me. I know its not fully accurate for viking age shoes but i like the added wear to the soles.... I use left over leather from an upholsterer. And they are all turn shoe style. Love making my own shoes.... I have known to wear them with my normal clothes too as everyone has their nose in their phones so much that people have no idea that you are wearing non modern shoes. lol

Great - now I need to either wait patiently for next years lambs to sell (if any sell for meat and not breeding) which I am NOT good at or see if our friends have any hides they tanned without fleece on. You are a bad influence (please note that is absolute sarcasm)! Also wanted to add - I had been wondering for a few months after watching a few other shoe videos that didn't mention type of leather if we could use our sheep after harvesting. Thank you for answering that question right off the bat.

I imagine the "Welsh were barefoot barbarians" mob would argue that the lack of Welsh Viking era shoe finds is due to the fact that the Welsh were... barefoot barbarians! Not surprised at all that the cultures around the western edges of the British Isles had similar shoes - the Irish Sea and Minch were a significant sea-road, from what I've read, and the people of Wales would have traded more easily with Dublin than with London or York. I've seen people sewing medieval shoes with two needles, to pull the seam as tight as possible with each stitch. Is there a reason you didn't? Those pampootie (sp?) things look like a good quick and dirty option for a child. Is there any evidence that children wore these in the early medieval period? EDIT: another couple of words for shoes for your collection - *schoenen* (Dutch) and *skuon* (Frysk).

I’m still using my first set of shoes, made back in 2016 (being disabled I don’t walk all that much) and they are definitely “hot garbage” 🤣 another awesome video!

I’m a professional shoemaker and pretty new to historical shoes. I think too often too professional and I’m surprised how easy shoes were made. Thanks for your research and this video. It was very informative! :)

I have wondered if leather shoes are slippery as they are flat underneath? Especially on wet grass and similar slippery surfaces.

thanks for the video, it was very interesting! I tried making a pair of 14th century shoes this summer and they have... some issues. I wasn't clear on how much seam allowance was needed, so I added way too much, and so the shoes are a bit big. However, I was quite pleased at how fast they were to make. A note on the video - I would have liked to see you put the shoes on your feet, even just a picture to see how they fit. Maybe you could post a picture to instagram? And I look forward to a review to see how they wear over a few months.

Inspiring video! Thank you! I recently watched a shoe-making video by Morgan Donner where she used boar hair instead of needles ("felting" the threads to them on both ends) in order to not get the bulky section of the needle eye with the double-layered thread. It also facilitated to work the holes from both sides at the same time using only one thread. I don't know if this technique dates back to the Viking period, though.

Modern people: Men can NOT weat high heels! They are for wemen! All of medival Europe: SHOE is SHOE!

Thank you for sharing! The reason we don't have many northern European finds as my ancient history teacher told me is because wet damp areas destroy archeological areas. The only reason we know so much about Egyptians is only because the dry sand perserves archeological stuff better. Horray for: illustrations, tapestries,stone carvings, metal, and bog bodies that survived ♥ !

Love the shoes, planning on making my partner and my child each a pair of slippers for Yule and will be using some of this as inspiration. Love your little addition at the end.my coworker is currently questioning my sanity for how I laughed

I love the Jimmy commentaries, both filming and editing Jimmies! Highlight of this one is the Shan't! :) It suddenly occurred to me when you were talking of gendering that a lovely pair of red shoes would be fab. What colors did leather get tanned/dyed in during the Viking periods? You have mentioned you would experiment with natural fabric dying, would you mind chatting with us about the range of colors other materials were made in? Also decorations? Gold and presumably silver for metals, but what about carved wood. Would the wood (haha) be painted? Were things like coral and mother of pearl inlaid? This is at least three videos worth of questions I suspect, but I always appreciate your thorough research and matter of fact delivery of the evidence! :)

The worlds most mediocre icelander gives you blessing.

sál þin ert mjög gott þú ert goðan maður sverd hefur fyrir þér vinur min fyrir myndir þinn su myndir er skritilega gott! ég er gladur, þú er vel! og óvinnur þinn fallið í berg

really cool detail about the sock impression! I would say you could almost recognise the nalbinding stitch (york?) from those marks. Do you know of any specific finds that have these?

Did the vamp line serve a purpose structurally, or just decorative?

I cam here to gauge how hard it would be to make a better early period shoe for my garb, and I came away discovering that the spring boots I bought from the cheapo shoe store closeout a few years ago are almost exactly anglo-norse footwear by accident. :D That's one less thing I need to make myself! Thanks!

You might think the new shoes are hot garbage, but I think they look awesome!! You’ve got me beat as I haven’t made any shoes. XD I’m probably a looooong way away from making historical reproduction turnshoes, but I am planning on making some more modern shoes for wearing around the house (especially for winter!) Since there doesn’t seem to be holes in the sides, what about ties going through the tongue, then wrapped around the ankle to secure it? Just speculating! lol

Editing Jimmy, thank you for letting us see the person behind the curtain. Thank you for making these videos.

The Scots sheep shearers still wear those same shoes today. They’re older than just a millennia, and until we started beating our bodies up on concrete pavement those shoes worked great.

The Shan't popping up on screen got to me. I laughed so hard I disturbed my cat who was in my lap having a nap. Thank you for both the amusement and the information.

There is a resemblance between the pampooties and eastern woodland moccasins in North America.

If the Welsh haven't suffered enough they don't even get their own medieval shoes. Awesome video! I'm going to try out making my own shoes.

"is shoe" it definately is. Fab video as always!

Save the Planet! Make yourself some natural leather hide shoes.

You forgot "skor".... Then again, Hershey's did too, and called their toffee bars "shoes" instead of "brittle", which I am assuming makes more sense for a hard sweet haha..... Anyway, good video on the shoes!

Now I want to try and make my own ghillie dance shoes for myself

I cant imagine that the tongue would have been left loose.......it’s a tripping hazard for one thing, and at the very least it’s unnecessary work for no perceivable benefit. So yeah I think a thong would have been threaded thru to help hold the shoe on. That was a fun exploration of “foot bags” which is a phrase I never thought I’d use, but there you go....btw, please feel free to tell me to mind my own beeswax, but you look tired. Hopefully that’s cos of good stuff and not bad (or it could well be myopia on my behalf....I’m old lol)but in either (any?)case....please take care of yourself. This concern is purely selfish on my part.....I look forward to these little interludes each week and want you to be able to continue them for some time, thank you lol.

Reminds me of my G-ma sewing slippers for grandchildren's' Christmas presents.

How cool! I want to make my own shoes now! I would have loved to see how they look on feet and such. Give them some life and all that.

The museum of archaeology is like my favourite place ever. I spent probably a worrying amount of time in there staring at the bog bodies as a kid :D. It really is an awesome visit though if anyone is visiting Dublin in more normal times, and the pre-christian gold is incredible

They must have been popular. Parts of Irish shoes turned up in an 8th century well in the Frisian terp-village of Westergo, the Netherlands. Frisian sailors/traders came almost everywhere and had noses for fashion, slaves and fancy shoes included.

Thanks, this was really interesting. Only shoe making experience I've had was helping out for a couple days in Colonial Williamsburg. Wasn't terribly good at it, and was demoted to stitch work on corsets, lol. The shoes you made were great, and in case of zombie apocalypse, I now know how to make a simple, totally effective shoe. Thanks again!

Wa-ha-ha ha!!! I used to have a pair of sliced pampooties! I loved them sooooo. They were lovely grey leather, -- sniff -- and one day, one of my dogs ate one of my shoes. "SOB"

Have you tried collaborating with Weaver Leathercraft for this kind of video?

I found this very interesting. One area I'm curious about and would love to look more into one of these days is more about the tools they used. Did they use lasts? If so, what did they look like? What other tools do we know they used for making such shoes? I really want to make a pair of those... what did you call them? Pamputees? I've been afraid of making shoes, but I think that is totally doable! Maybe it will give me the confidence to move on to something nicer. That brings up something else I want to research. What colors they would have died, and how? Could I dye my pamputees a good purple? Man you are giving me lots of things to look into. Thanks for that. It is a little overwhelming sometimes when I watch something and come up with 100000 more questions, but I'm serious, thanks! I may not look into all of it anytime soon, but if I look into just ONE things, then its awesome!

I made two pairs of those pampooties (whatever they're called) when I was 17! They were amazing. I mean made with bad modern leatherlike and all, but I wore them to a presentation I had to do with a friend (who the second pair was for) in high school. About like historical clothing and we wore cloaks with pennanular brooches and stuff. It was more about shape than material I'll admit. I should see if I still have them somewhere

Well, now I know what I'd like to make this winter!

What a great video! I did some googling and have cut out my first mock-up in cotton batting and it was a bit big but the next iteration should be spot on. My leather is about the same thickness as yours and so when I find my last (made ages ago from wood) I’ll be stitching up a pair. They’ll be great for this Viking cooking competition I’m going to attend in Lithuania this summer. Thank you SO much for the inspiration.

I love that style and the decoration is lovely! I really didn't need a new project, but I may have found one anyway.

Possibly a silly question but: I suffer from lymphoedemia and was intending to ask a cordwainer in Dublin to make me a pair of shoes that will fit me properly and fasten (vitally important when getting on and off trains or buses). Does anyone know if this style of shoe (knew I'd seen a video on them somewhere but it's taken me weeks to find exactly who posted it originally because I'd forgotten) would also work with something like a 1" - 1.5" wedge heel (can't go flat comfortably) and a cross bar fastening. I liked the style the first time I saw this video, it's much nicer than many - most - of the other mediaeval/viking shoes that can be found on RU-vid, and it's Irish which fits with living in Dublin. But this is a lovely shoe to look at and it also looks very comfortable to wear, even in modern times. Just not sure about whether a heel would work, and I need the slight platform heel. Also, the Irish/Norwegian boots you show, do they fasten with laces at the front or side because a style like this would be ideal for winter. Again made by a professional. Any advice would be gratefully received. Many thanks and a great video as always.

Pampooties

Outstanding! When the zombies come I'm going to absolutely ready. Thank you Jimmy.

I can't believe that anyone could wear nallbinding socks!!! Hand knitted socks feel like cheese graters on my feet, which is a bit of a shame as I am a knitter.

As someone who's getting ready for Vikings season this year in Canada and the first year where I'll actually have a tent and everything else along with hopefully some shoes as soon as I can get some leather so thank you for showing me how to make shoes in a video that actually makes sense

If needed, you can easily add arch support inserts. Either loose or cemented in as necessary. Also, if dealing with sharp gravel, an extra layer of leather glued in will help protect your feet. Neither of these will show so will pass the inspectors.

Thank you for the video, I watched the video last night. So I had to make a pair of the pampaputis lol awesome shoe.

Hi - if you sew with two needles with a needle either end of the thread (and you can double the thread too) - that is Tunnel stitching. I would also suggest that you get some nice flexible Calf Skin at least 3mm thick for your next attempt. Similar to how you might make a Roman single layer thickness sandal. It will sew up more successfully too with thicker leather. That will add some decent thickness under the sole of your foot. Also, tack sew your shoe pattern together to start with with single knots in key spots. Remove them as you go along. I would never suggest they were waterproof. They keep the worst of the grit and mud out. Dampness will creep through. Interestingly, in an emergency, you can wear your pampootie around your other shoe rather like a galosher especially if a line of sewing has burst... Iron corrosion and leather 'kills' the leather. It will just harden and snap bits off.

Awww yeah!!! New content from Jimmy!! Thanks as always!!

Well that sorts it. I’m going to see if my fiber working friend will trade a pair of nålbind socks for a pair of shoes! Thanks Jimmy!❤️

Brill shoes 👏👏. Your inspiring me to have a go. Thanks 🌼

Did you use the running stitch because it was authentic to the piece or out of simplicity's sake?

The leather working videos I’ve watched (thanks RU-vid algorithm and my own distractability) show them running both laces through in opposite directions at the same time as they sew. Having never worked with leather at all myself, I don’t know if that would help the evenness of the stitching, but it might help? Anyway, yours, even your first one, look a lot better than anything I could come up with, so kudos to you. I especially like the embossing on the leather. It looks great!

Have you ever tried making or wearing bast shoes? Either alone or as overshoes?

My mom from Alabama used to say pick your brogans up

You know these look like the super expensive vivo barefoot shoes

I've been wanting to work with leather but it seems so hard! xD You've definitely inspired me. I would have liked to see how they look on

Awesome video!

Fascinating stuff. I hope they work well for you!