[4] The plates are moulds designed for production rather than display; by placing thin sheets of foil against the scenes and hammering or otherwise applying pressure from the back, identical images could be quickly mass-produced.

[2] The resulting pressblech foils would be used to decorate rich helmets of the sort found at Vendel, Valsgärde, and Sutton Hoo.

[5] Their fame derives from containing full scenes from mythology, unlike the fragmentary and degraded scraps of pressblech foils that are known.

[10] The left figure on the plate 618349_HST is particularly well known for its missing right eye, shown by a laser scanner to have been struck out, likely from the original used to make the mould.

[11] This recalls the one-eyed Norse god Odin, said to have given an eye to be allowed to drink from a well whose waters contained wisdom and intelligence,[12] and suggests that the figure on the plate is he.