A Brief History of the Vikings (19 page)

It did not come as any surprise to Crowbone that true resistance awaited further to the north, in Trondheim. Ahead of Crowbone’s arrival, assemblies met and decided that they would treat his attempt at conversion with the same indifference as they had that of Hakon the Good. Crowbone’s attitude demonstrates how little had changed. He was happy, he claimed, to sacrifice to the old gods with the people of Trondheim, as Hakon the Good had done so reluctantly in the past. But since Crowbone was a great king and this was an event of supreme importance, it would have to be the greatest sacrifice ever made in the region. The old gods, said Crowbone pointedly, were no longer happy with a few chickens, the odd dog and a couple of horses. The situation (presumably the blessing of his kingship and the brewing war with Denmark) required full-strength human sacrifice. But Crowbone wanted to take things even further. This time, he claimed, it would not
be enough to bump off a couple of slaves or prisoners-of-war, nor would it be acceptable to execute some criminals in the name of Odin. These sacrifices would require the noblest of blood, the deaths of leaders, not followers – and he proceeded to list the names of twelve of the most powerful men in the region. In a matter of moments, the assembly changed from discussion into standoff, with Crowbone’s warriors seizing twelve eminent hostages.

Further north, in the heartland of the Trondheim region, he faced a similar assembly of recalcitrant heathens. This time, one farmer in particular, Járnskeggi, whipped up the crowd into support of the old ways. Faced with greater numbers than in the last location, Crowbone feigned acceptance until he was inside the temple. Once inside, he personally smashed Thor’s idol, while his associates destroyed the other gods. In the riot that ensued outside, Járnskeggi was killed by Crowbone’s men. None stepped forward to take his place, and the remaining farmers accepted the decree of Crowbone that they would all be baptized and turn into good Christians. Just as extra insurance, he took many of their family members hostage, and threatened to kill them if anyone stopped behaving in a Christian manner.

The treatment received by Trondheim was a textbook case of Crowbone’s methods. He arrived with threats and destruction, and then, once consent was at least theoretically obtained, did what he could to make his reign appear to bring benefits. On the banks of the Trondheimfjord he founded a new town, first simply called ‘the trading place’,
kaupang
, but later known as Nitharos, and long after the Viking Age was over, as the
city
of Trondheim. The town would form a new centre for the Vikings in the outlying areas, a place for them to gather that had no association with the pagan assembly or temples of old. At its centre, of course, there would be a church.

The crucifix began to compete with the hammer of Thor as the must-have fashion accessory, and missionaries soon followed behind the trendsetters. In distant Iceland, for example, where missionaries had been visiting the remote communities since 980, the news of the conversion of Norway as a whole led many of the diehard heathens to believe they were missing out on something.
¹⁶
When Thangbrand, a Saxon priest in Crowbone’s retinue, was dispatched to Iceland to spread the word, many Icelanders began to seriously consider converting.
¹⁷
Others, however, spoke out against the Christians in the same manner as the Trondheimers of old. One Hedin the Sorcerer was slaughtered by Thangbrand the Christian soldier, along with all his retainers. A similar fate awaited Veturlidi the Poet, who composed a satirical verse about the missionary, for which he was cut down in front of his son.
¹⁸
Thangbrand met his match when his ship, the
Bison
, was wrecked on the eastern coast near Bulandness. There, he got into an argument with a devout heathen lady by the name of Steinunn, who asked him where his Christ was when Thor was causing his ship to be smashed on the rocks. According to Steinunn, Thor had challenged Christ to a fight, but Christ had not shown up.
¹⁹

Thangbrand eventually headed back to Norway around 999, leaving behind him a confused mix of Christian converts and zealous heathen resistance. Although many Icelanders had accepted Christ, there were still many like Steinunn. Thangbrand had killed a few himself, no doubt on the understanding that they could be better convinced by God himself, but he certainly could not kill them all. The Icelanders, let us not forget, were largely the descendants of those who had left Norway during previous troubles up to and including the imposition of the rule of Harald Fairhair. They were, to a large extent, like Trondheimers, but
difficult
.

Back in Norway, Crowbone hit the Icelanders where it hurt.
After allowing them to enjoy relatively free trade for two years, he closed the ports of Norway to heathens. Icelanders found their newfound trading route cut off, and with it the bulk of their contacts with Europe – Trondheim was the point of departure for most vessels heading for Iceland. Crowbone did not merely enforce his will indirectly; his men seized ships with Icelanders on board, and held any prominent Icelanders hostage. Possession of a ship fit to travel to Norway was a likely sign of a man being high indeed in Icelandic society, and Crowbone found himself with relatives and associates of many of Iceland’s most powerful families. Crowbone sent word back to Iceland that if the families wanted to see their sons and cousins again, then it was time to welcome Christ into their lives. If they resisted again, he promised maimings and executions.
²⁰

News of Crowbone’s behaviour caused exactly the upheavals he had hoped for. The growing Christian faction in Iceland immediately redoubled its efforts at conversion. Resistance to missionaries dropped drastically when preachers were backed by the threat of harm to loved ones. Some strongholds clung even harder to their heathenism, but there was enough discord for the already Christianized areas to seriously consider forming a breakaway society – holding their own Christian assemblies. The prospect threatened to divide Iceland along sectarian lines, and to destroy the democratic system that had endured for a generation. A boatload of Icelandic Christians reached Norway, its passengers intent on pleading with Crowbone for more time. They would do what they could, they said, to persuade their more reluctant fellow islanders. Crowbone gave them a little more time, but he knew that he was winning. Iceland could not survive without the shipping link to Norway.

There are some who claim that Gotland, with its hoards of silver, is the treasury of the Viking Age. But it is Iceland that preserved the most valuable relics of all – the words of the Vikings themselves. Cut off from Europe by long distances across treacherous seas, the colonies of Iceland first became a haven for fugitives, both well-intentioned and criminal. In the centuries after the Viking Age, the isolated Icelanders chronicled the activities of the Viking Age in the many sagas that are our main literary source for the period. The conservative, exclusive society of Iceland maintained heavy restrictions on change, leading to a homogenous population and a language that has changed little from the medieval Norwegian tongue spoken by the original settlers. The precise identity of the original settlers, however, is more problematic.

According to the ancient Greek writer Pytheas, six days’ sail north of Britain, mariners would reach the Arctic island of
Thule. There, the local inhabitants lived a peaceful farming life, and drank a beverage made from grain and honey – a forerunner perhaps of Viking mead. Pytheas paints a bleak picture of life in the frozen north, claiming that the barbarian farmers of Thule brought their harvest indoors so that they could thresh their grain out of the wet, sunless weather. Considering that Pytheas’s other descriptions of the far north include what appear to be several descriptions of the Baltic, it is likely that the Thule to which he referred was a location somewhere on the coast of Norway. For some, however, his comments are the first known reference to Iceland.
¹

Although popular wisdom credits the Vikings with the discovery of Iceland, that distinction belongs to the Irish. It was, after all, Irish monks that explored the coasts of Ireland and Scotland right round to luckless Lindisfarne, in search of remote places to set their hermitages and monasteries. As part of the contemplative life, some of the early Christians ascetics would set out in wickerwork boats clad in skin, or
curachs
, in search of a ‘desert in the ocean’. It was the ultimate leap of faith, a ‘wandering’ or
peregrinatio
, in which the monks would steer a course into the unknown, trusting in God to bring them to a safe landfall. Such blind sailing may indeed have brought monks to Ireland in the first place, from Gaul.

It is likely to have been Irish monks, sailing into what they believed to be open sea, who first witnessed the
hillingar
effect, the ‘uplifting’ or ‘looming’ of an arctic mirage. When significantly colder air underlies a layer of warmer air, as can happen at northern latitudes particularly in the summer months, objects on the ground can be refracted so that they appear higher than they really are. Distant ships may appear to float inverted in the air, and distant lands may suddenly become visible, even though they are over the horizon. Although Iceland lay beyond the normal range of ships of the pre-Viking
period, its phantom image may have encouraged early sailors to seek it out.

When Viking sailors ‘discovered’ Iceland, the Irish were already there. The sagas of Iceland’s colonization, written long after the event, attempt to revise history to exclude the Irish presence. Norse tradition tells of the legendary Gardar the Swede, who sailed west from the Scandinavian mainland, hoping to reach the Hebrides, where he expected to pick up his wife’s inheritance. Gardar was blown far off course in a gale, missed the Hebrides by miles, and reached the easternmost part of Iceland – tellingly, this is exactly where two communities of Irish monks were trying to eke out an isolated existence. Rather kindly for the sake of prosperity, Gardar then sailed clockwise along the coast of the ‘new’ land, all the way around to the secluded cove of Husavik (‘Houses-bay’) on the northern shore. After a winter at Husavik, Gardar then supposedly completed his circumnavigation of the island, which he modestly named Gardarsholm, before heading back to civilization.

If Gardar truly had relatives and colleagues in the Hebrides, then his accidental trip to Iceland probably owed more to stories heard from the Irish and those who associated with them. The tale of his journey seems to exist for one reason only, as a means of retroactively crediting a Norseman with the first circumnavigation of the island, and thereby its ownership.
²
Gardar supposedly spread the word about his discovery, but even so, the next Viking arrived in Iceland by crashing into it. His name was Naddod, and he was supposedly a Viking of some high standing, forced to leave his native Norway for reasons undisclosed. Hitting a storm somewhere off the Faeroes, Naddod and his crew were blown to Iceland’s eastern coast, once again, close to the sites of earlier Irish settlement. Naddod, it is said, put ashore with his men and
climbed the hill of Reydarfjall, hoping to see the smoke of cook-fires, or some other evidence of human habitation. Conveniently for later claimants, Naddod and his men reported no sign of human life whatsoever, and set off back to the Faeroes amid a punishing snowstorm. Unhappy with their experience, they chose to call the putative Gardarsholm by a new name – Snowland.

Despite such unpromising beginnings, the place soon attracted another sailor, this time intentionally. Floki Vilgerdason later gained the name Raven-Floki for his legendary assistants – a trio of ravens cast out from the ship, whose flights were closely watched for signs of land sighted. The first raven, set free early in the trip, turned and flew back to the Faroes. The second, released later, returned to Floki’s ship, unable to find another place to land. The third (and we may wonder why the second raven was not reusable) flew ahead of his ship, confirming that land lay beyond the horizon. Like so many other sagas, the tale of Raven-Floki seems too neat to be taken at face value – with its avian navigational aids, it bears too close a resemblance to the story of Noah. However, other elements of the Raven-Floki tale ring true, such as the miserable time he had once he arrived.

Raven-Floki and his fellow Vikings eventually made landfall in the north-west of the island, and spent the summer clubbing seals and netting fish. They were obviously planning on staying for the long haul, since they had brought a considerable amount of livestock with them. But they were fooled by the deceptive Arctic summer – on a coast warmed by the Gulf Stream, and with long days to offset the cold latitude, Raven-Floki’s group made poor preparations for the turn of the seasons. When the autumn arrived, its severity took the Vikings by surprise. Raven-Floki’s livestock all died, supposedly for lack of fodder. After a bitter winter, Raven-Floki decided to
return home, but was forced by spring storms to put back to land and wait another year. When he did finally make it back to Norway, he had nothing positive to say about his trip at all, and gave the place of his torment the name it bears today – Iceland.

Despite such unpromising beginnings, Iceland was colonized. Perhaps it was thanks to Raven-Floki’s more positive associate Thorolf, who claimed that Iceland’s pastures were so rich they dripped with butter. Possibly there were other pressures, political and logistical, that led large numbers of colonists to arrive between 870 and 930. Iceland’s sagas of settlement mention good Vikings wrongly accused of crimes, or fleeing the land reforms that accompanied Harald Fairhair’s consolidation of power in Norway. The age of the great land-rush to settle Iceland is also roughly contemporary with Viking difficulties elsewhere – defeats in France, Ireland and Scotland, and internal strife in the Orkneys, for example. Iceland was a chance for a new beginning, a fresh start far from the warring troubles of Old Europe. In later generations, the descendants of the first settlers would mythologize their arrival as a triumph of liberty, telling tales remarkably similar to those of later colonists who would flee further west on the
Mayflower
.