Anglo-Saxon glass drinking-horn, VII c. Excavated in Rainham, London
Drinking horns are attested from Viking Age Scandinavia. In the Prose Edda, Thor drank from a horn that unbeknown to him contained all the seas. They also feature in Beowulf, and fittings for drinking horns were also found at the Sutton Hoo burial site. Carved horns are mentioned in Guðrúnarkviða II, a poem composed about 1000 AD and preserved in the Poetic Edda:
On the horn’s face were there All the kin of letters Cut aright and reddened, How should I rede them rightly? The ling-fish long Of the land of Hadding, Wheat-ears unshorn, And wild things inwards.
