A Brief History of the Vikings (33 page)

7
Myres,
The English Settlements
, p.16.

8
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, ‘Arthur’ notes that Arthur first appears in the writings of Nennius, who appears to have confused and conflated earlier accounts that explicitly refer to Ambrosius.

9
Julian,
Works of
, Loeb Classical Library, 1, XXXIV, pp.89–91.

10
Brønsted,
The Vikings
, pp.36–7.

11
Wawn,
The Vikings and the Victorians
, p.3.

12
McEvedy and Jones,
Atlas of World Population History
, p.52, adds that of that number: ‘. . . perhaps half lived long enough to tell their
children how they sailed with Ragnar Lothbrok, Rollo, or Sveyn Forkbeard.’

13
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.261 and 267.

14
Griffith,
The Viking Art of War
, p.48.

15
Kennedy,
The Court of the Caliphs
, p.173.

16
Ibn Battúta,
Travels
, p.292 and 371n.

17
These incidents are respectively from
Gisli Sursson’s Saga
, CSI II, p.31;
Grettir’s Saga
, CSI II, p.66 and
Valla-Ljot’s Saga
, CSI IV, p.133.

18
Haywood,
Historical Atlas of the Vikings
, p.45, notes that women played a much larger role in the settlement of Iceland and Greenland, as these were relatively peaceful ventures.

19
McEvedy and Jones,
Atlas of World Population History
, p.52.

1
In summer 2003, I swam in the evening Baltic with a Dane and a Swede, listening as they argued over which of the lights above us was Thor’s Hammer – one was convinced it was the
bright
one, Venus, the other the
red
one, Mars; a nearby Finn then unhelpfully suggested it might be the
other
one, Sirius. See Ogier, ‘Eddie Constellations’ for an excellent appraisal of the work undertaken so far in the field. The most promising answer currently lies in the possibility of finding cognate constellations among the Sámi. See Sommarström, ‘Ethnoastronomical Perspectives on Saami Religion.’

2
Heimskringla
, p.6.

3
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.323; Sawyer,
Kings and Vikings
, p.131.

4
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, ‘Sampo’.

5
Davidson,
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
, p.97.

6
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, pp.36–8. There is much more on these lines, and I have ignored several controversies within modern Viking studies, most notably the precise identity of the Geats, and whether or not they may have instead been the Jutes, a people of Jutland, north Denmark.

7
Saxo Grammaticus,
History of the Danes
, II, p.2.

8
Price,
The Viking Way
, pp.106–7.

9
Or so claims Orchard,
Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend
, p.188.

10
Griffith,
Viking Art of War
, p.135.
Saga of Grettir the Strong
, CSI II, p.76. Duelling was eventually banned to prevent thugs from stealing whatever they wanted and using trial-by-combat as their get-out clause.

11
Price,
The Viking Way
, pp.338–9.

12
Heimskringla
, p.12. It has been pointed out to me that the wealth found in the tombs of young Vikings may have been regarded as a type of compensation for dying
too
young, rather than a celebration
of dying at the right time. Although this may be the case, it is not the spin put on it by the skalds. Edward James, personal communication.

13
This possibility is all the more obvious in those places where Christmas is still called Yule in local languages – e.g. Sweden (
Jul
) and Finland (
Joulu
).

14
A cursed sword, however, would only bring tragedy, as in the case of Legbiter, in the
Saga of the People of Laxardal
, CSI V, p.41; or Greysides, in
Gisli Sursson’s Saga
, CSI II, p.2.

15
Davidson,
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
, p.49.

16
Nesheim, ‘Eastern and Western Elements in Culture,’ p.108.

17
Davidson,
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
, p.56. As with the Viking Age itself, we must also bear in mind that Strabo was referring explicitly to a
comitatus
or war-band – a sector of barbarian ‘society’ more likely to have a war-god as its patron.

18
Ibid., pp.174–6.

19
Ibid., p.169.

20
The Jotunheim range was officially named as late as the twentieth century, after being called Jotunfjell (Giants’ Fells) since 1822. It is, however, mentioned in the sagas under that appellation. The prevalence of goat-herding in the region helps explain many of the Thorstories about goat husbandry and his quarrels with ‘giants’.

21
Davidson,
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
, p.76.

22
Ibid., p.83.

23
Price,
The Viking Way
, p.57.

24
For example, even though such parallels have been discussed in some scholarly circles since 1877, it was not until 1999 that DuBois published
Nordic Religions in the Viking Age
, a landmark work on the previously under-researched areas of connection between the Vikings and the Finnish/Sámi peoples to their immediate east.

25
Mundal, ‘The Perception of the Saamis,’ p.112.

26
Heimskringla
, p.173.

27
Compare this to the gods of Finland, who are often physically weaker than the heroes.

28
Davidson,
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
, p.189.

29
Ibid., p.184.

30
See also Davidson,
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe
, p.166, for the tale of another guardian with a similar name, Mimir, this time shielding wisdom itself from unwelcome thieves.

31
Saxo Grammaticus,
History of the Danes
, p.75.

1
Swanton, the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
, p.57n regards the original manuscript’s ‘Jan’ as a transcription error for ‘Jun’. Haywood’s
Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age
prefers 7 June as the date of the sack of Lindisfarne, p.122.

2
This omen was reported sometime later by Alcuin, a native of Yorkshire who feared that the Viking raids were the punishments of an angry God. Brønsted,
The Vikings
, p.32.

3
Simeon of Durham,
A History of the Kings of England
, p.43. Danger of further raids eventually caused Lindisfarne to be abandoned, and the last monks moved to Durham in 875.

4
Melvinger,
Les Premières Incursions des Vikings en Occident d’après les sources arabes
, p.90. Bregowine: ‘de crebris infestationibus improborum hominum in provinciis Anglorum seu Galliae regionis,’ and Dicuil ‘causa latronum Nortmannorum.’
Galliae
could be a reference to Wales, rather than France.

5
Ibid., p.91.

6
Swanton, The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
, pp.54–55n.

7
O’Donoghue,
Old Norse-Icelandic Literature
, p.8. The apparent disparity between the written forms is because most extant works in Anglo-Saxon are in the Late West-Saxon dialect, and not in the northern variants that were closer to Norse.

8
Alliott,
Alcuin of York
, p.19.

9
Brønsted,
The Vikings
, p.141.

10
Magnusson,
Vikings!
, p.38.

11
Complete Sagas of Icelanders
, vol. V, p.398.

12
Erik the Red’s Saga
, CSI I, p.2; for the etymology, see Magnusson,
Vikings!
, p.189. Technically,
knorr
applies to any ship in Old Norse, but the term has come to be used by modern marine archaeologists to refer specifically to the merchant class of vessel. Other translations for this most charming of terms include CSI’s ‘Shipbreast’, and ‘prow-tits’, from an adviser who would doubtless prefer to remain anonymous.

13
Haywood,
Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age
, p.132.

14
Tale of Hromund the Lame
, CSI V, p.351.

15
Saga of Grettir the Strong
, CSI II, p.76.

16
Saga of the People of Laxardal
, CSI V, p.47.

17
Olkofri’s Saga
, CSI V, p.237. See also Price,
The Viking Way
, p.395.

18
Brønsted,
The Vikings
, pp.143–6.

19
Heimskringla
, p.49; Magnusson,
Vikings!
, p.52.

20
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.99.

21
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, ‘Denmark’.

22
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.109.

23
Haywood,
Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age
, p.193. Note that books on the Vikings published before the 1990s tend to assume that the Trelleborg forts were constructed by Svein Forkbeard to train his British invasion force, but that recent dendrochronological analysis of the timbers has now proved otherwise.

1
Saga of the People of Laxardal
, CSI II, p.2.

2
Richards,
Blood of the Vikings
, p.72.

3
Ibid., p.88.

4
Magnusson,
Vikings!
, p.159.

5
Ibid., p.160.

6
Haywood,
Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age
, p.194. It would be entertaining to believe that this devilish woman would find God and become Aud the Deep-Minded in old age – the dates do almost match but it seems unlikely.

7
Haywood,
Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age
, p.194. The story is suspiciously similar to that of the retaking of the Theban acropolis by the Sacred Band under Pelopidas in 379
BC
.

8
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.207.1 have heavily simplified events here, as whole books have been written about the confused Olafs and Ivars of rival accounts.

9
Supposedly they were the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok, who may have been the same Ragnar who attacked Paris in 845. But the stories of Ragnar Lothbrok are so confusing that entire books have written about them. See Smyth,
Scandinavian Kings in the British Isles 850–880
.

10
Magnusson,
Vikings!
, p.130; Griffith,
The Viking Art of War
, pp35–36.

11
Abels,
Alfred the Great
, p.113.

12
Ibid., p.149.

13
Magnusson,
Vikings!
, p.143.

14
Abels,
Alfred the Great
, p.176.

1
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.89n.

2
Heimskringla
, p.61.

3
Ibid. However, some of the Icelanders’ claims may have been rooted more in their dismay at their loss of independence to Norway in the thirteenth century when the sagas were composed, rather than actual origins in dissent against Harald.

4
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.91.

5
Magnusson,
Vikings!
, p.59.

6
For example,
Egil’s Saga
, CSI I, p.38.

7
Ibid.

8
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.231.

9
Heimskringla
, p.80.

10
Orkneyinga Saga
, translated by Palsson and Edwards, p.28. The same story is told in
Heimskringla
, p.83.

11
Orkneyinga Saga
, p.31.

12
Notably, Harald Bluetooth’s wife was also called Gunnhild; see Adam of Bremen, p.56.

13
Heimskringla
, pp.88–90.

14
Ibid., p.93.

15
For a detailed account of the historical sources for the reign of Hakon, see Jones,
History of the Vikings
, pp.191, 121–122n. Perhaps the most important is the
Bersöglivísur
or
Plain Speaking Verses
of the eleventh century Sighvat Thordarson, which echo (and may have in fact informed)
Heimskringla’s
claims of Hakon’s good reputation.

16
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.119.

17
Heimskringla
, p.110.

18
His funeral lay,
Hákonarmål
, survives, and praises its subject as a defender of the old ways; see Haywood,
Encyclopaedia of the Viking Age
, p.89.

1
Heimskringla
, p.250. Viking swords have been found as far east as Kiviniemi, in Karelia. See Huurre,
9000 Vuotta Suomen Esihistoria
, p.134, for likely distribution of communities during the Viking Age as shown by the locations of burials and cremations.

2
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.247n.

3
Jutikkala and Pirinen,
History of Finland
, p.35.

4
Jones,
History of the Vikings
, p.25. It was even discussed as such in the court of King Alfred the Great. People were helped in making this assumption by the earlier writings of Tacitus, who had claimed that the region was ruled by women.

5
Duczko,
Viking Rus
, p.66. To the Vikings, Ladoga was probably Lake Nevo, cognate with the river that led from it, the Neva, which would later be the site of a famous battle, and in turn lend its name to the prince Alexander Nevsky.