Craft Fair Necklace

The gold part is somehow knitted; the artist said it was a Viking technique for making sword grips, and she showed me a dowel covered with a netting of wire that was a work in progress, and that I couldn't make heads or tails out of--but here is a closeup of the necklace side pieces:

The artist is Susan Stockton, www.laskey.com/pandapurses.html