86209391 Jesch Judith Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age the Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic

Ships and Men in the LateViking Age:

The Vocabulary of RunicInscriptions and Skaldic

Verse

Judith Jesch

THE BOYDELL PRESS

Ships and Men inthe Late Viking Age

The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse

Ships and Men inthe Late Viking Age

The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse

Judith Jesch

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Judith Jesch 2001

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Ships and men in the late Viking Age : the vocabulary of runic inscriptionsand skaldic verse / Judith Jesch.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0–85115–826–9 (alk. paper)1. Inscriptions, Runic. 2. Viking ships. 3. Sailing – Terminology.

4. Boats and boating – Terminology. 5. Old Norse language – Glossaries,vocabularies, etc. 6. Old Norse poetry – History and criticism. 7. Scaldsand scaldic poetry – History and criticism. I. Title.PD2014.J47 2001623.8'0948'09021 – dc 21 00–066735

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Contents

List of figures ix

Acknowledgements xi

Abbreviations xiii

1 Introduction: Rocks and Rhymes 1The Karlevi stone 1Runic inscriptions, skaldic verse and the late Viking Age 6Literacy and orality 9The runic corpus 12The skaldic corpus 15

Verse in prose contexts 15Reconstructing viking verse 18The manuscript transmission 21Viking verse as a historical source 32

Semantic study of skaldic verse and runic inscriptions 33Skaldic vocabulary in context 33Runes and semantics 36Comparative angles 38

Sources and conventions 39Ships and men in the late Viking Age 42

2 Viking Activities 44Vikings 44

víkingr 44víking 54

Death and war 57‘He died’ 57Battles and raids 59The fall of warriors 62

Trade 63Pilgrimage 66

3 Viking Destinations 69‘East’ and ‘west’ 69The western route 70

‘West’ 70England 70Britain and Ireland 77Further west 78

The European continent and further south 80Saxony and Frisia 80Brittany and points south 83Normandy and southern Italy 85Africa 89

The eastern route 89‘East’ 89The Baltic area 90Russia 95Byzantium and Jerusalem 99Ingvarr’s expedition 102Serkland 104

Scandinavia 107Hedeby 108Denmark to Sweden 113Two more towns 116

4 Ships and Sailing 119Words for ‘ship’ 120

skip 120skeið 123snekkja 126dreki 127kn�rr 128Oak and pine 132Miscellaneous words 134Summary 136

Names of ships 136The ship and its parts 137

The hull 139The stems 144Inside the hull 150Rudders, oars and shields 154Masts, sails and rigging 160

In harbour and on land 166The vocabulary of sailing 171

Description and metaphor 171Preparing and launching 171

The ship in the sea 173Shipwreck and landing 178

5 The Crew, the Fleet and Battles at Sea 180Manning a ship 180

The owner 180The captain 181The crew 184

The fleet and the troop 187lið 187Compounds with -lið 190floti 195leiðangr 195The troop 198Units of the fleet 202Summary 203

Battles at sea 203Maritime warfare 203Place and time 206Preliminaries to battle 208Bringing the ships together 210Attack and defence 211Victory and booty 213Not like leeks and ale 215

6 Group and Ethos in War and Trade 216The group and its vocabulary 216

drengr 216félagi 232heimþegi 235húskarl 237gildi 239

The ideology of battle 243‘He fled not’ 243‘He fed eagles, ravens and wolves’ 247

The symbolism of battle: ravens and banners 252Murder and betrayal 254

Kinds of killing 254Treachery 255Loyalty 258

Treachery and politics 261

7 Epilogue: Kings and Ships 266From vikings to kings 266Royal and other ships in the eleventh century 269

After the Viking Age 270Conclusion 275

Works cited 277

Appendix I: The runic corpus 295

Appendix II: The skaldic corpus 301

Index of words and names 317

General index 323

List of Figures

1.1 The Karlevi stone. Öl 1. 3



1.4 Fragments of the so-called Ældste saga ‘Oldest Saga’ ofSt Óláfr. NRA 52, fol.2r.

23

1.5 Fragment of Fagrskinna. NRA 51, fol.1r. 24

1.6 Fragment of Kringla. Lbs frg 82, fol.1r. 25

1.7 Fragment of Egils saga. AM 162A � fol, fol.1r. 26

1.8 Fragment of Óláfs saga helga. AM 325 VII 4to, fol.2r. 27

1.9 Codex Frisianus. AM 45 fol, fol.36v. 30–31

2.1 The Fresta stone. U 260. 46

2.2 The Växjö stone. Sm 10. 47

2.3 The Härlingstorp stone. Vg 61. 55

2.4 The Råda stone. Vg 40. 60

2.5 The Mervalla stone. Sö 198. 64

2.6 Drawing by Aschaneus of the lost Stäket stone. U 605. 67

3.1 The Lingsberg stone. U 241. 71

3.2 The Yttergärde stone. U 344. 72

3.3 Detail of the Nöbbelesholm stone. Sm 101. 74

3.4 Map showing places in Britain and Ireland mentioned in the text. 75

3.5 Map showing places on the European continent mentioned in thetext.

79

3.6 The Grinda stone. Sö 166. 81

3.7 Map showing places on the eastern route mentioned in the text. 91

3.8 The Frugården stone. Vg 181. 93

3.9 The Veda rock. U 209. 97

3.10 The Lundby stone. Sö 131. 105

3.11 Map showing places in Scandinavia mentioned in the text. 108

3.12 Face A of the Hedeby stone. D 1. 110

3.13 Face B of the Hedeby stone. D 1. 111

3.14 The Forsheda stone. Sm 52. 115

3.15 The Sigtuna stone. U 395. 117

4.1 The Spånga stone. Sö 164. 121

4.2 The Ekeby stone. Ög 68. 125

4.3 The dragonhead terminal of the Oseberg ship (reconstruction). 129

4.4 Ship graffito from Christchurch Place, Dublin. 142

4.5 The stepped stem-post of the Skuldelev 3 ship. 146

4.6 The tingl of the Oseberg ship? 149

4.7 A frame from the Skuldelev 3 ship. 152

4.8 The ship’s vane from Heggen, Buskerud, Norway. 161

4.9 The osier ring from the Skuldelev 3 ship. 167

4.10 The anchor and chain from the Ladby ship. 169

5.1 The Svinnegarn stone. U 778. 182

5.2 The Näs rock. U 348. 183

5.3 The Kålsta stone. U 668. 191

5.4 Detail of the Skåäng stone. Sö 33. 193

5.5 Detail of the Karlevi stone. Öl 1. 200

5.6 Detail of the Sylten stone. Ög 155. 200

5.7 The Mejlby stone. D 117. 204

6.1 The Sjörup stone. D 279. 224

6.2 The Bjälbo stone. Ög 64. 228

6.3 The Landeryd stone. Ög 111. 231

6.4 The Århus stone. D 68. 233



6.7 The Törnevalla stone. Ög MÖLM1960:230. 242

6.8 The Gripsholm stone. Sö 179. 246

6.9 The Braddan stone. 256

x Figures

Acknowledgements

This book has its origins in, and owes much to the vision of, the legendary‘realia-project’, bequeathed to me by Peter Foote with the connivance of ElseRoesdahl. I hope they will forgive me if it has not turned out quite as they hopedit would. Four other kindly and silver-haired professors have given encourage-ment, practical support and scholarly advice over the years: Michael Barnes,Anthony Faulkes, the late Christine Fell, and Raymond Page.

My runic studies have benefited enormously from the privilege of being amember of the annual international workshop for field runologists. This hasprovided regular contact with Scandinavian runologists, and the opportunity tostudy many inscriptions in the company of wiser and more experiencedcolleagues – their numbers are not inconsiderable, so I shall have to stick to theprinciple of ‘ingen nevnt, ingen glemt’. I have also examined many runic inscrip-tions on my own, mainly on trips to Denmark and Sweden in 1993, and toSweden in 1994, and am grateful to the innumerable ministers, sextons, farmers,landowners, museum curators and other custodians of runic monuments who,sometimes unwittingly, permitted me to study many hundreds of these originaldocuments from the Viking Age.

On the skaldic side, I am grateful to all at Det Arnamagnæanske Institut,Copenhagen, and Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Reykjavík, for their hospitality onextended visits in 1992 and 1993, and shorter visits at other times, and to all atDen Arnamagnæanske Kommissions Ordbog for answering my lexicographicalqueries, especially Christopher Sanders who bore the brunt of my e-mails. Theintermittent Skaldic Study Group has also provided a useful forum for thediscussion of skaldic matters back home.

Other persons who have kindly answered queries, provided useful informationand discussed individual matters, are: Lesley Abrams, Björn Ambrosiani, MichaelAngold, Ole Crumlin-Pedersen, Anton Englert, Liesbeth van Houts, Amy Lightfoot,Lena Peterson, Charlotte Roueché, Katrin Thier, Alan Vince and Doreen Waugh.

Present and former colleagues in the School (previously Department) ofEnglish Studies at the University of Nottingham have all contributed to making acongenial working environment. I would in particular like to mention past andpresent members of the Old English Lunch Group, and the Norse and VikingSeminar: Jayne Carroll, Paul Cavill, the late Christine Fell, Kathy Holman,Richard Marsden, David Parsons, Betsy Springer, Tania Styles, Philip Tallon andThorlac Turville-Petre.

The research has been supported financially by both The Leverhulme Trustand The Arts and Humanities Research Board. I am grateful to both bodies fortheir generosity and to Leverhulme for the patience with which it has awaited theresult. The project has also benefited indirectly from the interest in and gener-osity towards Viking Studies at Nottingham of Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademinin Uppsala. Both the British Academy and the University of Nottingham havesupported my attendance at conferences, while Nottingham has been mostgenerous in its provision of time in which to think.

I wish to thank the following institutions for their kind assistance in providingme with photographs, and for granting me the permission to use these photo-graphs in this book: Riksarkivet, Oslo (figs 1.4, 1.5); Landsbókasafn Íslands,Reykjavík (fig. 1.6); Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Reykjavík (fig. 1.7); Det arna-magnæanske institut, Copenhagen (figs 1.8, 1.9); Antikvarisk-topografiskaarkivet, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm (figs 2.3, 2.6, 3.2, 3.8, 4.2, 5.3, 6.5,6.6, 6.8); National Museum of Denmark (figs 3.12, 3.13, 6.4, 4.10); Universite-tets Oldsaksamling, Oslo (figs 4.3, 4.6, 4.8); National Museum of Ireland (fig.4.4); Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde (figs 4.5, 4.7, 4.9).

Without Tom, and his feline assistants Mayo and Tasso, I might have writtenthis book more quickly. Yet I thank him for attempting to keep my feet on theground and for constantly reminding me that some things are more importantthan Viking Studies.

NottinghamJuly 2000

xii Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

For the abbreviations used in citing individual runic inscriptions and skaldicstanzas, see Appendices I and II.

AB Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum.AC Adémar de Chabannes, Chronique.AEW de Vries, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch.AnS Falk, ‘Altnordisches Seewesen’.ASC The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.ASCha Anglo-Saxon Charters on the World Wide Web.BACASSE The British Academy Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture in

England.BT Bosworth and Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary.CCS Caithreim Cellachain Caisil. The Victorious Career of Cellachan of

Cashel or The Wars between the Irish and the Norsemen in theMiddle of the 10th Century.

CJW The Chronicle of John of Worcester.CS Cecaumeni strategicon et incerti scriptoris de officiis regiis libellus.CV Cleasby et al., An Icelandic–English Dictionary.DR Danmarks runeindskrifter.EE Encomium Emmae Reginae.Eyrb Eyrbyggja saga.Fsk Fagrskinna.FskFJ Fagrskinna. Nóregs kononga tal.GA Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen.GB Lindqvist, Gotlands Bildsteine.GND The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic

Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni.Hák Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar.HANI Okasha, Hand-List of Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions.Hkr Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla.IEW Alexander Jóhannesson, Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch.ÍO Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon, Íslensk Orðsifjabók.KLNM Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder.Knýtl Knýtlinga saga.Lat Latin

LegS Olafs saga hins helga. Die ‘Legendarische Saga’ über Olaf denHeiligen (Hs. Delagard. saml. nr. 8II).

LNT Künzel et al., Lexicon van nederlandse toponiemen tot 1200.LP Finnur Jónsson, Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis.MED Middle English Dictionary.ModE Modern EnglishModIce Modern Icelandicms(s) manuscript(s)Msk Morkinskinna.NAVIS NAVIS database.NDEW Falk and Torp, Norwegisch–Dänisches Etymologisches Wörter-

buch.NGL Keyser et al. (eds), Norges gamle love indtil 1387.NIyR Norges innskrifter med de yngre runer.NN Kock, Notationes norrœnæ.NR Peterson, Nordiskt runnamnlexikon.Oddr Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar af Oddr Snorrason Munk.ODu Old DutchOE Old EnglishOEC Old English Corpus.OEN Old East NorseOGNS Fritzner, Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog.ON Old NorseONP Degnbol et al., Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog. Dictionary of

Old Norse Prose.Orkn Orkneyinga saga.ÓsH Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga. Den store saga on Olav den

hellige.OWN Old West NorseRGA Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde.SamRun Samnordisk runtextdatabas.Skjd Finnur Jónsson, Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning.SnEGylf Snorri Sturluson, Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning.SnESkskm Snorri Sturluson, Edda: Skáldskaparmál.SR Sveriges runinskrifter.SRR Peterson, Svenskt runordsregister.Sverr Sverris saga.TGT Third Grammatical Treatise.VEPN Parsons et al., The Vocabulary of English Place-Names.

xiv Abbreviations

1

Introduction: Rocks and Rhymes

. . . language is the archives of history . . .

EMERSON

The Karlevi stone

One of Scandinavia’s most remarkable monuments from the Viking Age stillstands today, in a field west of Karlevi, among the campsites and holidaycottages of the Swedish island of Öland. It was erected around the turn of the lastmillennium to honour an otherwise obscure Danish warrior and sea-captaincalled Sibbi. The memorial is in stone, its text is written in runes and formulatedpartly in verse. This rhyme on a rock is an important piece of contemporaryevidence for the Viking Age ethos of masculine achievement and how it wascommemorated.

The Karlevi monument is a nearly rectangular block of greyish stone, with arounded top, not quite a metre and a half high, neatly carved on three sides with along inscription in Danish runes. The inscription falls into two parts, clearly indi-cated by cross- or hammer-like marks at the beginning of each. From adjacentstarting points at the bottom of the stone, both texts proceed boustrophedon (‘asan ox turns in ploughing’) in different directions, the first going off to the rightand occupying three lines, the second going off to the left, occupying six lines.The first text explains why the stone is where it is. Although this part of theinscription is damaged, it is possible to reconstruct what it says, the first clausewith relative certainty, the second less so (Öl 1, see fig. 1.1):1

s-a... --(s)- (i)-- * satr * ai(f)tir * si(b)(a) * kuþa * sun * fultars * inhons ** liþi * sati * at * u * -ausa-(þ)-...

1 This is not the place to expand on the runological and philological problems posed by thisinscription, though one important crux needs to be noted here. The runes kuþa can beinterpreted in a number of ways. The word is either an oblique form of the adjective góðr‘good’ (as suggested here and in Moltke 1985, 320), or of the noun goði ‘(pagan) priest orchieftain’. The runes have also been read as (f)(r)uþa, an oblique form of the adjectivefróðr ‘wise’ (SR I, 25).

This stone is placed in memory of Sibbi the Good, Foldarr’s son, and hisretainer placed on Öland this memorial to honour the dead.

Not content with setting up a permanent memorial to his leader that stillstands a millennium later, the unnamed follower also commissioned (or perhapseven composed) a memorial verse to Sibbi, and this verse forms the second partof the inscription (see fig. 1.2):

fulkin : likr : hins : fulkþu : flaistr (:)* uisi : þat * maistar * taiþir :tulka þruþar : traukr : i : þaimsi * huki : munat : raiþ : uiþur : raþa: ruk : starkr * i * tanmarku --(n)tils : iarmun ** kruntar : urkron-tari : lonti

Folginn liggr hinns fylgðu,flestr vissi þat, mestardæðir dolga Þrúðardraugr í þessu haugi.Munat reið-Viðurr ráðarógstarkr í Danm�rkuEndils j�rmungrundarørgrandari landi.

Hidden in this mound lies one, an executor of the goddess of battles[valkyrie→warrior], whom the greatest deeds followed (most knewthat). No strife-strong god of the wagon of Endill’s wide ground[sea→ship→captain] will rule land in Denmark more faultlessly.

There are also letters and symbols carved on the back of the stone, though it isnot known whether these were carved by the same hand or at the same time asthe runic inscription. They are two cross- or hammer-like symbols not unlikethose which mark the beginnings of the two parts of the runic inscription, and theroman alphabet letters INONIN . . . EH (see fig. 1.3).

The Karlevi stone displays a mixture of cultural influences from all overScandinavia, and beyond. Its location is now Swedish, but the man beingcommemorated ruled in Denmark and was probably Danish. ‘Denmark’ in theViking Age and later extended into what is today southern Sweden, yet therune-forms and the style of the inscription are closest to those of Denmarkproper, rather than those of the ‘Danish’ areas of southern Sweden. The verseadheres strictly to the skaldic metre known as dróttkvætt, associated mostly withNorwegians and Icelanders, even if occasionally composed for Danish andSwedish kings. The poetic diction has parallels in both Old Norse and otherGermanic poetry (Olsen 1957; Jansson 1987, 134–6). However, the West Norseappearance of the verse might result from the accidents of literacy (it is possiblethat dróttkvætt stanzas were composed in Sweden and Denmark even thoughthey were never written down), and some of the linguistic forms in the verse textpoint to East Norse, for instance the monophthongisation evidenced in huki

(WN haugi). Jacobsen and Moltke concluded that the poet and carver (whomthey considered to have been the same person) was most likely to have been anIcelander who had learned rune-carving in Denmark or Sweden, and whose

2 Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age

Introduction: Rocks and Rhymes 3

1.1 The Karlevi stone (Öl 1), showing the prose memorial formula in the threelines on the right. Photo: Judith Jesch.

Image not available


1.2 The Karlevi stone (Öl 1), showing the six lines of the dróttkvætt stanza.Photo: Judith Jesch.

Image not available


1.3 The Karlevi stone (Öl 1), showing the roman-alphabet inscription on thereverse. Photo: Judith Jesch.

Image not available

language had been influenced by his stay there (DR, 473). Other explanations arepossible, beginning with the likelihood that the rune-carver and the poet weretwo different people.2 The roman-alphabet inscription, if it is contemporary withthe runes, hints at the new literacy that came to Scandinavia with the introductionof Christianity at about the time the monument was erected.

Whatever the precise ethnic, cultural and religious mix of commemorated,commissioner, carver and skald, the Karlevi stone epitomises in one monumentthe late Viking Age habits of commemoration, the deeds for which men werecommemorated, and the vocabulary in which this commemoration was formu-lated, that are the subject of this book. It also brings together the two majorbodies of evidence from the late Viking Age that provide the foundation for thisstudy: memorial inscriptions that survive in their original form on rune stones(‘the runic corpus’), and memorial and historical poems that were composed andperformed orally but are preserved mostly in later manuscripts (‘the skaldiccorpus’). This first chapter is devoted to the definition and exploration of thesetwo corpora, and an explanation of their uses for the study of ships and men inthe late Viking Age.

Runic inscriptions, skaldic verse and the late Viking Age

The aim of this work is to investigate the vocabulary and phraseology of whatmight be called the typically ‘viking’ aspects of the late Viking Age. Theseaspects are loosely defined as: ships and sailing, voyages abroad for both tradingand raiding, the organisation and hierarchy of ship’s crews, and the military andsocial ethos which lay behind or even which resulted from such activities. The‘late Viking Age’ is defined as c.950–c.1100. I aim to use methods which willrecognise and exploit the textuality of the linguistic sources containing the rele-vant vocabulary and phraseology, but to combine these with a historical concernfor relative chronology, regional difference and social context. In other words,this book is an attempt to write history through language. However, it is a workof neither history nor linguistics, but rather of philology in the old sense, of whathas been defined as ‘the search for correct historical understanding, built upon abroad linguistic and cultural interpretation of the past’ (Haugen and Thomassen1990, 36; my translation). It differs from history in its primary orientationtowards texts, rather than events, actions or processes, and from linguistics (or‘philology’ in the new sense) in its emphasis on language in the context of other


2 The word skald occurs in five runic inscriptions as the by-name of either the commissionerof the monument (Vg 4, N 239) or of the rune-carver (U 29, U 532, U 951). This is theusual word for ‘poet’ in OWN (Kreutzer 1977, 118–22) and might seem to suggest aconnection between poetry and rune-carving. However, none of these inscriptions is inverse and it is not certain that the runic word skald means ‘poet’.

human activities, rather than language as a system (Haugen and Thomassen1990, 29–31).3

To enable a ‘correct historical understanding’ of the Viking Age past, thestudy must be broadly-based and systematic, founded on a relatively large bodyof material which is considered in its entirety. Historical concerns require thisbody of material to be datable and localised, and not too chronologically orgeographically diverse. At the same time, it is helpful to have some varietywithin the material to provide an inbuilt control on results and to avoid conclu-sions that are too simple and unilluminating. These criteria are fulfilled by thechoice of two large and contemporaneous bodies of texts: runic inscriptions andskaldic verse from the mid-tenth to the turn of the twelfth century. Both of theseare verbal artefacts from the Viking Age, one written, the other originally oral,though surviving in written form.

The choice of dates is determined by the need to have a large body of materialfrom a reasonably restricted period of time. Although skaldic verse was probablycomposed and runic inscriptions were certainly cut before the tenth century, it isonly from the mid-tenth century onwards that we have a substantial amount ofmaterial in either corpus. In the case of the skaldic corpus, there is the addedadvantage that the poems dated to this period are easier to understand and arebetter preserved than the earlier poems, which are also more likely to bespurious. The cut-off point at the turn of the twelfth century coincides with theend of the Viking Age, but is also given by the material itself: there are radicalchanges in both skaldic verse and runic inscriptions from c.1100, although bothcontinue to be created well after this date. These changes are related to the social,cultural and historical changes that mark the end of the Viking Age at around thistime, such as the increasing influence of Christianity, the growth of manuscriptliteracy and the rise of monarchies.

The choice of both skaldic verse and runic inscriptions, rather than just one orthe other, is made for a number of reasons. It gives geographical coverage of bothEast and West Scandinavia, including the colonies in the west. The majority ofpreserved runic inscriptions from the late Viking Age originate in Sweden and,to a lesser extent, Denmark. Surviving skaldic verse from this period, however,was composed largely by Icelanders, performed mainly in Norway and the colo-nies, and preserved overwhelmingly in (later) Icelandic manuscripts. The twobodies of material complement each other in other ways. Semantically, runicinscriptions tend to be laconic but precise, whereas skaldic verse is slightly moreverbose but possibly less precise in its choice of words. Socially, the two bodiesof material represent different contexts. The skaldic poetry studied hereemanates from a restricted aristocratic and male world of kings, chieftains and


3 Frank (1997) argues wittily and persuasively that ‘philology’ in the ‘old’ sense is still verymuch alive; she is indeed a polished practitioner of it. My own experience in Britain ishowever that ‘philology is frequently understood to mean linguistics, especially historicalgrammar and the study of past forms of languages’ (Frank 1997, 490, citing the CollinsDictionary, which recommends abandoning the term!).

warriors, while the runic inscriptions reflect a wider cross-section of agrarianand mercantile, as well as military, society, though a few inscriptions undoubt-edly represent an aristocratic milieu.

But there are also significant areas of overlap between the two bodies of ma-terial which make comparisons possible. Both skaldic verse and runic inscrip-tions have as one of their main functions that of commemoration, of the dead, butalso of the living. Runic inscriptions are primarily memorial, in honour of thedead, but implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) also honouring the survivors.Skaldic poetry can praise either the dead or the living. In both cases, this basicverbal function of commemoration is accompanied by artistic embellishment: inskaldic verse this embellishment is poetical, while the rune stones use a mixtureof monumentality, iconography and occasionally poetry. Moreover, this interestin the commemoration of (usually) male achievement ensures that there is asignificant thematic overlap between the two types of sources which correspondswith the activities being investigated.

Both skaldic verse and runic inscriptions are generally neglected as historicalsources, sometimes with good reason. Neither can be described as straightfor-ward narratives and their potential for historical study is not at all obvious. Thus,in a survey for historians of Old Norse literature as source material, VésteinnÓlason (1987, 32, 34–6) mentions both runic inscriptions (very briefly) andskaldic verse (less briefly), but is rather dismissive of their potential as evidence.As vehicles of commemoration, both runic inscriptions and skaldic verse nat-urally give some basic facts about the activities for which the commemorated isto be remembered, or praised, but these are often hidden in a lot of verbiage inthe skaldic verse and are short on telling detail in the runic inscriptions. Theoverall message is positive in both cases, and may not be true. In this way, bothtypes of text are indeed inferior as sources for historical facts. However, I wouldargue that it is possible to tease broader historical meanings out of this recalci-trant material by the contextual study of its significant vocabulary, and this is themethod I propose to use here. This vocabulary needs to be studied as a broadsemantic field, or as a series of overlapping semantic fields, hence the restrictionto closely related topics. Some of the words discussed below have been studiedquite extensively, but never with a rigorous and systematic focus only on databletexts from a relatively short period of time. It has also not been usual to link awhole range of significant words, or to compare runic and skaldic material, yetthese links and comparisons are, I believe, the key to the ‘correct historicalunderstanding’ of this vocabulary.4

Words mean in context, and it is through the study of words in their contextsthat we can plot the nuances and changes of meaning that represent changes inboth material culture, and in the ideology and social structures of the Viking


4 There are signs of a welcome new interest in skaldic verse and runic inscriptions assources for social history, though such contributions have hitherto not been sufficientlysystematic or well-founded. Thus, Morris (1998) is very cavalier with the language of hissources and makes little mention of the vast scholarly literature on them.

Age. I agree with Page (1993, 150) that ‘in most cases only context can be a safeguide to meaning in a dead language’ and most of this work is an analysis ofwords in context. The context of any individual word is naturally first and fore-most the other words with which it makes up a text. But the wider context inwhich that text was produced is also an important part of its meaning. It is herethat the differences between the runic corpus and the skaldic corpus becomeapparent.

Literacy and orality

The Karlevi stone can be classified in either the runic corpus or the skaldiccorpus because it unites, in one monument, oral and literate ways of commemo-rating the dead. Its memorial formula in prose is paralleled in thousands of otherrune stone inscriptions from the Viking Age in which the dead are rememberedby their friends or family. This form of literate commemoration is known fromScandinavia both before and after the Viking Age, but the majority of thesurviving stones are from the late tenth and the eleventh centuries. On the otherhand, the verse part of the inscription could be said to be unique. Though thereare verses on other Viking Age rune stones, this is the only one in the metricallystrict, stanzaic and syllable-counting form known as dróttkvætt. Of the thousandsof dróttkvætt stanzas that do survive, none (other than Karlevi) is recorded in arune stone inscription, although a few are recorded in runes inscribed on smalldisposable objects which postdate the Viking Age. Other than these, thesurviving dróttkvætt stanzas are recorded predominantly in Icelandic manu-scripts, and in the roman alphabet, written in the thirteenth century or later. Aswill be discussed in more detail below, it is usually assumed that most of thesestanzas had an oral prehistory before they came to be written down, and that theywere remembered because they had a social and historical function of recordingachievement. The Karlevi stanza is thus the only written representative of thisgenre from a time when it otherwise still had only an oral existence.

The Karlevi stone as it stands today is paradigmatic of literacy rather thanorality.5 The orality of the past (before the invention of sound recording) is not


5 There is not room here for either discussion or full documentation of the various defini-tions and theories of orality and literacy. However, some very useful approaches from ananthropological perspective are outlined in Finnegan 1988 (see esp. chs 6 and 8 on interac-tions between orality and literacy). I have explored some aspects of runic literacy in Jesch1998a, with references to some studies of literacy in other cultures. A variety ofapproaches to the study of runic literacy can be found in Nyström 1997. Despite centuriesof scholarship on Old Norse-Icelandic manuscripts, relatively little of this is specificallyfocused on their evidence for literacy. Orality has been a much more popular topic in OldNorse studies, however, such studies tend to focus on Eddic poetry (see Harris 1985,111–26, for a survey, also Kellogg 1991 for a more recent account also exploring itsliteracy). Little has been written on the orality of skaldic poetry, despite clear internalevidence (Kreutzer 1977, 148–69) that it was a genre designed for public performance,

directly recoverable, and is only indirectly recoverable in so far as it was repre-sented by literate means. The Karlevi stanza, and all the dróttkvætt stanzaspreserved in manuscripts, may be based on oral texts which went before them,but no written text is purely a ‘representation’ of an oral text, a written form ofwhat was once spoken. There is always the possibility that the written text isnew, composed in the style of oral texts, rather than a verbatim record of anyparticular one. And even when the aim was to record the spoken word forposterity, any written text inevitably changes its oral source. These changescannot be reconstructed, since we do not have the oral text for comparison, butthey can be deduced. The words of the oral text may be preserved, but not thepauses, the intonation, the emphasis, the phrasing, or the speaker’s tone of voice.The written text might have features that are counterparts to some features of theoral text. Thus, it can be broken up by a variety of means into shorter segments(‘words’, or longer sequences). But the written text also acquires features notpossible in an oral text. A written text can be observed (although not ‘read’) all atonce, its length can be judged at a glance, whereas the oral text can only beapprehended sequentially, its length never certain until the end is reached. Mostimportantly, the written text has permanence in a way the oral text does not.Although oral texts can be remembered and repeated, writing allows utterancesto be repeated both frequently and exactly, and to be repeated in other times andother places. Thus the inscribed stone in the field at Karlevi allows endless repe-titions of its text in books about runes, or books about the Viking Age, like thisone, whereas it is highly unlikely that I would still be repeating its poem if it hadbeen preserved only in the oral tradition.

However, orality and literacy are not mutually exclusive categories. Whiletheir relative strength, and the nature and extent of their interactions, varied fromone period to another, and from one place to another, for most historical periodsthe two are closely entwined. Certainly purely oral societies once existed (andmay still do so), but they are difficult enough for us to imagine in the present, andimpossible to reconstruct in the past. Once literacy arrives in any society, it im-mediately affects oral communication by providing a means by which someaspects of orality can be preserved for posterity. There may not have been astrong desire to write down speech verbatim in the Viking Age and early MiddleAges, but it is clear that many written texts were based at least loosely on oralones (e.g. laws), and it will be argued below that skaldic poetry was an oral genrewhich was preserved in a form as near-verbatim as possible, in both the oral andthe written tradition. Thus, it is possible to use certain written forms to get anidea of what some oral forms were like. Writing enables the reconstruction ofsome of the orality of a partially-literate society.


though see the brief comments in Marold 1994 on poetry up to and including Sigvatr,Kuhn 1983, 244–7, and Gade 1995, 224–6, on metrical aspects of performance, and Gade1995, 21–7, on the saga evidence. I attempt to reconstruct the oral contexts of some poemsin Jesch 2000b and Jesch 2001c.

The runic inscriptions of the late Viking Age are a form of primary literacy.The rune stones are original and unique documents, specific to a particularmoment in a particular place and to particular people.6 Some are signed by thosewho carved them, and almost all mention individuals, sometimes relatively largenumbers of individuals, by name. It is possible to find traces of orality in some ofthe inscriptions and the minority of inscriptions which incorporate a versesuggest an earlier, or alternative, form of commemoration of the dead that wasoral (Jesch 1998a, 467, 470–71). However, the very fact that these verses can bedistinguished from the standard memorial formula shows that they belonged totwo different genres. As a whole, the inscriptions do not replicate any particularoral genre. They are a phenomenon of literacy, concrete as well as verbal, andthis is reinforced by the monumentality and decoration of the rune stones.

The surviving skaldic poetry of the late Viking Age, on the other hand, is aform of secondary literacy. Poems such as that fortuitously recorded on theKarlevi stone were originally composed, delivered and remembered in an oralcontext. Although orality is ephemeral, human beings have always practisedcertain types of orality that were designed to transcend ephemerality throughmemory, with poetry a notable example of this. In the absence of writing to lendpermanence to an utterance, the best way of ensuring the repeatability of thatutterance was to structure it in such a way that it was as memorable as possible.In dróttkvætt, with its strict metrical forms, we see a full realisation of this urgeto memorability. It is also, like the runic inscriptions, often specific to aparticular moment in a particular place and to particular people. Skaldic poetry,especially that in the dróttkvætt metre, can thus be seen as striving towards thecondition of literacy despite its origins in an oral context.

Skaldic and runic memorial are united on the Karlevi stone because they arefundamentally similar. Moreover, in presenting a written version of a skaldicstanza, the Karlevi inscription is a forerunner of later developments, in which therise of manuscript literacy in the roman alphabet provided a new method ofensuring the permanence of poetic utterances. The verbatim recollection ofdróttkvætt stanzas gave way to their verbatim recording in written form.

Rune stone inscriptions are primary sources for the study of the Viking Age inthe fullest sense. They are contemporary documents, usually unique, that survivein their original form, many of them still in their original location. The monu-ments have fulfilled their function of giving permanence to utterances and havesurvived for a thousand years and more, abetted by the durability of stone and inparticular of the granite from which so many of them were laboriously fash-ioned. The written versions of skaldic poems, on the other hand, are not originaldocuments, even when they survive in a unique manuscript. To call themcontemporary sources for the Viking Age depends on a process of argument. I


6 There are a few examples of more than one rune stone with the same (or nearly the same)inscription, e.g. the Jarlabanki memorials at Täby (Jansson 1987, 108), but these areexceptional.

believe that argument can be made, and will make it further below. But comparedto the runic corpus, the skaldic corpus (with the remarkable exception ofKarlevi) comprises imperfect written representations, at a remove of one orgenerally more centuries, of a potentially ephemeral oral genre, which hasundergone both oral and written transmission before reaching the written state inwhich it survives.

The ‘runic corpus’ and the ‘skaldic corpus’, as defined below, were created bya society in which both written and oral forms of commemoration were used, butat a time before the explosion of manuscript (and roman-alphabet) literacy fromthe twelfth century onwards. Each corpus can be dated to roughly the sameperiod in the late Viking Age, and together they provide our best textual andlinguistic evidence for that period.

The runic corpus

There are 6,081 inscriptions currently listed in the Scandinavian Runic Database(SamRun).7 Of these, 2,540 are classed as ‘medieval’, i.e. dated to after c.1100,while 155 are from before the Viking Age and written in the older futhark.8 Theremaining 3,386 inscriptions belong to the Viking Age, in that they are written inthe younger futhark, and are dated to before c.1100.

These runic inscriptions from the Viking Age are a various collection. Somemight be called casual inscriptions, fleetingly carved on materials that happenedto be to hand, sticks of wood, or pieces of bone, although the perishable nature ofthese materials restricts the number of such inscriptions that survive. Others areslightly less casual, but still often rather haphazardly inscribed on small, func-tional objects such as tools or containers of various sorts, or personal objectssuch as combs or brooches. Such objects are important evidence for kinds ofliteracy in the Viking Age, and the situations in and purposes for which writingwas practised (as is also true of similar objects, even more numerous, from themedieval period). However, some of these inscriptions are fragmentary orincomprehensible, and most are minimally informative, at least for the purposesof this study.

I have therefore chosen to concentrate on runic inscriptions on stone and witha monumental character, of which there are a little under 3,000 listed in the


7 The database is not a complete record of Scandinavian runic inscriptions, and probablynever will be, as new discoveries continue to be made. Some geographical areas (e.g. theBritish Isles) or types of inscription (e.g. those in the older futhark) are not fully covered atpresent. This study was based on the version of the database which was made available onthe web in February 1998, though I have attempted to update my comments on both the‘runic corpus’ in general and individual inscriptions using the revised version made avail-able in May 2000.

8 In the Scandinavian context, the word ‘medieval’ refers to the period after the Viking Age,and is normally used in that way in this work.

database.9 Most of these are free-standing, dressed stones which were firstcarved and then erected in the chosen spot. However, some 82 inscriptions havebeen carved directly into the living rock, or onto glacial boulders too large tomove, wherever there happened to be a suitably large and smooth surface, eithervertical or horizontal. While few of the erected stones have travelled far fromtheir original site, with the large boulders immovably embedded in the groundwe can be absolutely certain of their original location and orientation.

These approximately 3,000 rune stones form what is called ‘the runic corpus’in this work. The vast majority of them are memorial stones, commissioned byfamily or friends to honour, or at least remember, the dead, while a few havesome other function, such as the Hillersjö rock (U 29), which is also a documentof inheritance. Some stand in known burial grounds (e.g. U 356), or form part ofa funerary monument (e.g. the early Glavendrup, D 209), while others (such asKarlevi, Öl 1, discussed above) make specific reference to a nearby burial. But,on the whole, few are gravestones in this sense, or at least we can say that mostdo not have either a visible or a stated connection with the site where the deadperson was buried.10 In some cases it is made clear that the dead person wasburied elsewhere (e.g. Sm 101). U 135 makes reference to a mound made inhonour of the commemorated. However, U 136, which tells us that he diedabroad, suggests that this was a cenotaph rather than a grave mound. Many runestones are now located in or near churches, but it is likely that they were movedthere subsequently, from their original places, by the roadside, at a farmboundary, on an assembly-site or at a bridge.

The geographical distribution of this corpus is uneven, with the vast majority(over 2,700) located in the territory of present-day Sweden, including some 63from Skåne. The latter are edited in the Danish corpus (DR) because in theViking and medieval periods much of southern Sweden belonged to Denmark,and there are just 173 from the territory of modern Denmark (including a fewthat were found in what is today Germany). Norway has approximately 30Viking Age inscriptions on what might be described as memorial stones. The Isle


9 The number is difficult to determine exactly because of the slightly varying methods usedto identify the inscriptions in SamRun. I have counted all those which are dated to theViking Age, and for which the database describes the material/object (‘material/föremål’)as ‘stone’, ‘rock’ or ‘glacial boulder’ (‘[run]sten’, ‘berg[vägg/häll]’, ‘flyttblock’) andarrived at a total of 2,961. However, I know for instance that some of the Norwegianmemorial stones are not included in this total because the database either does not give fulldetails, or does not use any of the above terms. At the same time, choosing those inscrip-tions which are described as being on stone (‘sten’) will also bring up non-monumentalinscriptions on small objects such as the whetstone G 216, while not all inscriptions onrockfaces (‘berg[vägg/häll]’) are memorial inscriptions. However, the total of 3,000 is areasonable approximation.

10 A study of earlier records of rune stones suggests that many of them (at least in Uppland)were indeed placed in Viking Age cemeteries, which have disappeared with modern agri-cultural methods (Gräslund 1986–7, 250–59). However, this still does not demonstrate forcertain that those commemorated on these stones were also buried there.

of Man has 31 Viking Age rune stones, and there are smaller numbers fromEngland (four), Scotland (up to eight) and Ireland (one or two).11 Only two of thenine inscriptions known from the Faroes are dated to the Viking Age, and onlyone of these (FR 1) is a rune stone. While the ‘runic corpus’ is thus overwhelm-ingly Swedish, much of the Swedish material is formulaic and uninformative.Stones from Denmark in particular can have an importance out of proportion totheir number as they can be more informative in their inscriptions.

The chronological distribution of the runic corpus is also uneven. The largenumber of stones from Sweden, particularly the 1,277 from Uppland, skew thatdistribution towards the eleventh century, especially its second half, which is theperiod of the great rune stone fashion in that province. Some art-historicalstudies have even suggested that rune stones were being erected there well intothe first half of the twelfth century (Gräslund 1994), while other art historians arereluctant to stretch it quite so far: ‘the fashion of raising decorated runestoneshad died out certainly before c.1125 and probably before c.1100’ (Fuglesang1998, 208). Stones from further south in Sweden tend to be somewhat earlier(though still mostly in the eleventh century), those from Denmark earlier still.Denmark in particular has a number of memorial stones from the early VikingAge, or even before the Viking Age, called by Moltke (1985, 150) the ‘trans-itional inscriptions’. Many of these are in fact in the younger futhark, even if theypre-date the beginning of the Viking Age c.800 (Barnes 1998, 454). But what-ever the dating of these inscriptions, they have been excluded as too early for thisstudy concerned with the late Viking Age. The bulk of Danish rune stones arefrom the ‘great age of runestones’, which Moltke (1985, 184) dates to the period950–1025 (see also Stoklund 1991 on relative datings within these parameters).The Norwegian corpus, like the Swedish, seems to be concentrated in theeleventh century (see Spurkland 1995 on the problems of dating it). In the BritishIsles, the few surviving rune stones also seem to originate in the very late tenth orthe eleventh century, in so far as they can be dated (Holman 1996, 45, 204–6,210, 214, 278–9, 290), with the exception of the Isle of Man. Here, the tradi-tional dating is somewhat earlier, c.930–c.1020, based on art-historical criteria.This dating has recently been questioned and a slightly later range ofc.950–c.1025 suggested (Holman 1998).

The most generous date ranges for the corpus of Viking Age runic memorialstones selected for this study would give a two-hundred-year period ofc.930–c.1130.12 Both the earliest and the latest of these dates depend on art-


11 For the rune stones of England and Scotland, see Holman 1996, 28–43, 201–14, 246–7,273–80. Most of these are fragmentary and difficult to identify with certainty as VikingAge memorial stones. For the Irish stones, see Barnes et al. 1997, 53–9.

12 The Viking Age rune stones of Bornholm (D 369–72, 374, 376–95, 397–404, 406–9) areassigned a very wide possible date range of 1050–1150 in SamRun. If they were securelydated to the end of this period, this would extend the date range of the whole corpus some-what. The debate continues on the dating of the mainland Swedish stones, see Gräslund1998. However, the disagreement between Fuglesang and Gräslund largely concerns the

historical evidence, and are drawn from comparisons with decoration on otherobjects which are datable from archaeological contexts, as rune stones cannot bedated by scientific methods. However, both the earliest and the latest dates havebeen questioned (Holman 1998, Fuglesang 1998), and a slightly narrower daterange of c.950–c.1110 for the whole corpus would probably accord better withrunologists’ datings on the basis of runological, linguistic and to some extenthistorical criteria.

The skaldic corpus

Verse in prose contexts

With the exception of the Karlevi stanza, and some runic verses carved on woodfrom the twelfth century and later (e.g. N 171, see also Liestøl 1964, 25–8; Knirk1994), skaldic poetry is overwhelmingly recorded in Icelandic manuscripts. Wedo not know when skaldic verse was first recorded in manuscripts, as contempo-rary evidence is lacking. Magnus Olsen once suggested (1921, 166) that the lastsubstantial poem in the corpus, Mark I, was delivered by the Icelandic bishopJón �gmundarson to the Danish king Níkulás in both spoken and written form in1105. This is not implausible, as the poem appears to survive in its entirety (ornearly so) and its contents deal with church politics as well as King Eiríkr’sbattles, but I know of no evidence that would confirm this suggestion.

If the earliest written records of skaldic poems were just such notations inextenso, they do not survive to tell their tale. Unlike the anonymous Eddicpoems, with their mythological, legendary and gnomic matter, most of whichsurvive in a manuscript anthology from the thirteenth century, the poems whichare assigned to named poets and which we term ‘skaldic’ are not preserved fortheir own sake, nor in their entirety, but are recorded in a variety of prosecontexts with a variety of functions, usually in the form of individual stanzas orhalf-stanzas, or small groups of stanzas. Thus there are the occasional verseswhich embellish the sagas of Icelanders, many of which, scholars agree, may notbe as old as they pretend to be, or may not have been composed by the personnamed as their poet. More convincingly historical are the verses which form thebackbone of the kings’ sagas and which are frequently, though not always, citedas authorities for their accounts by the authors of these sagas. Finally, there arethe verses cited as examples by Snorri Sturluson in his Edda, particularly thesection called Skáldskaparmál, an exposition of poetic diction, and in similardidactic works.

Embedded in these prose works, then, is a vast corpus of verse in a variety of


relative dating of inscriptions which they would both still place within the eleventhcentury. None of the stones Gräslund (1994, 125) lists as ‘good examples’ of her Period 5(1100–1130) is actually used in this study, although they form a part of the corpus as awhole.

metres, but mainly dróttkvætt, purporting to be by a large number of poets, mostof whom can be located in a particular chronological and historical context. Ifthis chronology is taken at face value, we have a corpus ranging in date fromc.800 up to the time of the writing of the prose works in which it is preserved, i.e.from c.1200 onwards.13 Such a corpus of poetry, composed and preserved in theoral tradition until it came to be written down, would, if correctly dated andtherefore antedating other sources, be of unique value for studying early Scandi-navia. However, there are two main questions: Are the attributions correct? And,if they are, how well do the written texts of the thirteenth century and later repre-sent verses composed and transmitted orally, in some cases over several centu-ries?

The answers to both of these questions presuppose much work on the wholeskaldic corpus which is still being done, and they must therefore be tentative.Some points have however been clarified in a preliminary way. Thus, it ispossible to make a distinction between verse that was thought to be historical bythe historians and saga-authors of the thirteenth century, and verse which theydid not treat as having historical authority, without necessarily implying that itwas entirely fictional. This distinction is often made, but the classic statement isby Bjarni Einarsson (1972). The basis for such a distinction lies partly in explicitstatements by writers such as Snorri Sturluson on the historical value of oldpoems (Hkr I, 7; II, 422), and partly in the way such poems were actually used intheir texts. A generalisation that is a useful starting point for the study of skaldicverse is that, while some of the poems in the sagas of Icelanders may be as old asthey claim to be, they are unprovably so, and any historical study should concen-trate on the skaldic verse in the kings’ sagas and Snorri’s Edda (Foote 1978,57–8). It would be possible to contest the details of such a judgement, but this isa ‘pragmatic distinction’ between verse in the kings’ sagas and the poetic trea-tises that is ‘on the whole more likely than not to be correctly ascribed’, andverse in sagas of Icelanders and related texts which should be left out of thehistorical ‘canon’ in the absence of any clear indications as to its date andcircumstances of composition (Foote 1984a, 74).14 However, it is also possible totake a genre-based approach as exemplified in Fidjestøl’s Det norrøne fyrste-diktet (1982). He defined a corpus of compositions in praise of kings and jarls,regardless of the source in which they are preserved, and which might thereforeinclude sagas of Icelanders and Landnámabók, as well as kings’ sagas and thetreatises.

For this study, I have found it most useful to refine and combine these two


13 Skaldic verse continued to be composed in the thirteenth century and later, but such textsdo not concern us here, as the disjunction between its prose context and the supposedlyearlier verse is less significant or non-existent, and many of these poems are preserved aspoems, rather than as quotations in prose texts.

14 The ‘poetic treatises’ include the Edda of Snorri Sturluson and the Third and FourthGrammatical Treatises. In this study, given the further criteria for inclusion outlinedbelow, this means in practice SnESkskm and some stanzas from TGT.

approaches. All stanzas from the kings’ sagas, including lausavísur ‘freestandingverses’, qualify for inclusion in my corpus, even if they are not in dróttkvætt.15

Also qualifying for inclusion are stanzas from Snorri’s Edda and other treatisesas long as they are by the poets that are also cited in the kings’ sagas, or appear tobe of the same genre (i.e. poetry in praise of kings and jarls in dróttkvætt). Thelatter distinction can be arbitrary.16 The number of stanzas of poetry in praise ofkings and jarls preserved in the sagas of Icelanders is small, and sufficientlysimilar to the rest of this corpus to warrant inclusion.17 Elsewhere, I havediscussed some references to and examples of praise poems for Icelanders andstressed their similarities to the ‘mainstream’ praise poems (Jesch 2000a), but,like Fidjestøl, I do not include them in the corpus under discussion here which isrestricted to poems in praise of kings and jarls. However, I make an exception forArn IV and Arn VII,1, which are both preserved in SnESkskm, and for thatreason. The stanzas selected for the ‘skaldic corpus’ here reflect the observationsof Fidjestøl (1985, 320–24) that there is very little overlap between the kings’sagas and the sagas of Icelanders in the stanzas quoted, while Snorri’s Edda andsimilar treatises represent an intermediate group which overlaps with both.18

Within this selection, there is a further restriction in that only stanzas frompoems dated in Skjd to between 950 and 1110 are included, to match the range ofthe runic corpus. In practice, the starting-point is more like 980, as the poemsdated to the three previous decades include the ‘Eddic’-style praise poems suchas Eiríksmál, lausavísur by Eyvindr skáldaspillir, and other poems which turnout to contain relatively little of the vocabulary studied here. Nevertheless, these


15 The ‘kings’ sagas’ are defined (in some cases with reservations) as: Ágrip, Fagrskinna,Hákonar saga Ívarssonar, Heimskringla, Jómsvíkinga saga, Knýtlinga saga, Morkin-skinna, Óláfs saga helga (various versions), Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (various versions),and Orkneyinga saga. Some of these texts are (also) included in late compilation manu-scripts like Flateyjarbók and Hulda-Hrokkinskinna, which also cite quite a few stanzas notpreserved elsewhere (in the case of the latter often going back to an older version of Msk,see Louis-Jensen 1977, 93). Flateyjarbók includes some stanzas which undoubtedlybelong more to the sagas of Icelanders than to the kings’ saga tradition. Such stanzas areexcluded from the corpus though occasionally cited (see list of ‘other poems cited’ inAppendix II).

16 Thus, two stanzas by one Snæbjr�n preserved in SnESkskm (pp. 38, 81) contain someinteresting nautical vocabulary and appear to belong to the praise-poem genre but I have,with some hesitation, left them out because they really are impossible to date, nor is itclear whom they are praising.

17 Four stanzas or part-stanzas (Gunnl I; Gunnl II). I discuss these in Jesch 2001c. Egill Skal-lagrímsson’s praise poetry for kings and jarls does not quite make it into the corpus on thebasis of the datings given in Skjd, although Egill I, at any rate, would fit into the corpuseasily, Egill II somewhat less easily (though see Hines 1994–7). It is perhaps significantthat the earliest manuscript of an Íslendingasaga is of Egils saga (see below).

18 Which stanzas to include from Snorri’s Edda and which to leave out is necessarily an arbi-trary decision when they are by poets not otherwise known, and is based on Skjd’s equallyarbitrary dating of such fragments. In any case, many of these, though included in thecorpus, have not been used in this study extensively or at all, as can be seen from the indexof stanzas in Appendix II.

earlier poems are occasionally cited below.19 The vast majority of the skaldicstanzas studied here, especially those dealing with kings of Norway, in fact fallwithin the period 995–1103, identified by Krag (1995, 157) as a significantperiod within the history of Norway.

This selection process produces a corpus of 967 stanzas or part-stanzas. Whilethis is numerically smaller than the runic corpus, it is still a substantial body oftexts, and one in which the vocabulary and phraseology is much richer and morevaried than in the runic corpus.

Assuming, then, that these poems from the kings’ sagas and the treatisesinclude a sufficient number of correctly-attributed stanzas to validate generalisa-tions about the corpus, how can we tell that the recorded versions give a fairimpression of these originally oral compositions? Again, we can never be sure,but many scholars have thought this possible, even likely. Skaldic verse is char-acterised by complex metrical rules applied within a small poetic space: anychanges to the text may violate one or another of these metrical rules. This doesnot mean that the text is immutably fixed, only that, as Snorri himself recog-nised, kvæðin þykkja mér sízt ór staði fœrð, ef þau eru rétt kveðin ok skynsamligaupp tekin ‘the poems seem to me least likely to be corrupted [i.e. compared toother evidence, both oral and prose], as long as they are correctly composed andcarefully interpreted’ (Hkr I, 7). While this is not a cast-iron guarantee, it doesmean that our best chance of reconstructing Viking Age verse lies with skaldicverse rather than, for instance, Eddic verse with its looser structures.

Not all skaldic verses are necessarily what they claim to be, or what the proseauthors claim them to be. Nevertheless, it is clear that, taken as a body, theyprovide a useful source for the study of the Viking Age and beyond. Also, thedifficulties of the verse and its preservation are not evenly distributed. While itwould be a brave scholar who tried to make statements about the ninth, or eventhe tenth, century on the basis of verse purporting to be from that period, by theeleventh century the verse is copious and generally well-preserved, and is suit-able material for comparison with the runic corpus.

Reconstructing viking verse

However, an essential prerequisite to the use of such poems as sources for thelate Viking Age is an understanding of their textual transmission and therefore ofthe extent to which it is possible to reconstruct them from their recorded forms.While some small progress has been made in establishing a model for distin-guishing the reliably ancient verse preserved in thirteenth-century Icelandicprose texts, there has been less progress in setting out the principles for recon-structing such verse from the available sources.

Finnur Jónsson published a corpus in 1912–15 (Skjd), with both diplomatic


19 All poems assigned to the ‘skaldic corpus’ are listed in Appendix II. The index of stanzasthere indicates which stanzas were actually used in this study.

and edited texts of all known skaldic verse dated to the period 800–1400, organ-ised chronologically by poet. Since many of the longer praise poems arepreserved in more or less dismembered form, as individual stanzas scatteredamong their prose contexts, Finnur had to reconstruct these longer poems, assignsome unidentified stanzas to named poets and occasionally choose betweenpoets where there were two or more attributions for a stanza. Thus, while the ‘B’volumes of the corpus, containing Finnur’s edited (and often emended) textswith Danish translations at the bottom of the page, are obviously artificialconstructs, even the ‘A’ volumes, the diplomatic texts taken from the manu-scripts, show heavy editorial selection and reconstruction of poems and the workof individual poets. In the ‘A’ volumes, Finnur chose a ‘best text’ for each stanzaand provided variants from other manuscripts and texts in the apparatus (thoughthis is by no means complete, nor always consistent). Thus, any one of the longerpoems in his edition can have been put together from individual stanzaspreserved in a variety of texts and manuscripts. In the ‘B’ texts, Finnur does notalways follow the ‘best text’ of his ‘A’ version, but appears to choose freely andeclectically from the variants, and to emend on occasion. Although his procedureis not spelled out anywhere, it is clear that he used metrical and stylistic criteriaas well as following the presumed stemmatic relationships of the manuscripts.

Finnur Jónsson’s corpus is thus a curious combination of editorialapproaches: underlying the choice of ‘best texts’ is a set of assumptions about themanuscript relationships of the prose texts in which skaldic verse is preserved(Finnur was also an editor of several of these), but the reconstruction of indi-vidual poems and of the work of individual poets is an exercise in textual criti-cism that attempts to go back beyond these prose sources to the ‘original’ poeticcompositions. It is exactly this relationship between prose context and versesource that is the key to the editing of skaldic verse and which needs much morediscussion, not to mention theoretical underpinning.

Many of Finnur’s editorial decisions were criticised by Ernst A. Kock in hismonumental Notationes norroenae (NN), for reasons outlined in Kock 1938.Kock’s approach can best be described as textimmanent: any variant can be gristto his mill as long as it fits in with his metrical and stylistic criteria. Kock’sapproach is fairly systematic, based on close knowledge of the whole corpus, butin the end his texts are even more idealised than Finnur’s. Kock bends all stanzasalike to his method, which ‘must’ be ‘conservative’, ‘comparative’ and ‘in accor-dance with linguistic common sense’ (Kock 1938, 134; my translation), whileaccepting all of Finnur’s reconstructions of poems and identifications of poetsdespite criticising the details of the edited texts.

Bjarne Fidjestøl (1982) attempted a critical revaluation of Finnur’s criteria forreconstructing the praise poems for kings and chieftains (what he calls ‘fyrst-edikt’), based on specific statements in the prose texts which help to identify theconstituent stanzas of a poem, and the order of stanzas in the prose texts whichcan help to reconstruct their order in the original poem. Fidjestøl’s emphasis onthe prose contexts means that his book is only the first stage in a revaluation ofthe corpus, and it concentrates on the poems as larger units rather than on the


micro-problems of reconstructing individual stanzas, though he also discussesthese sporadically.

Russell Poole (1991), on the other hand, approached the reconstruction ofindividual poems from internal criteria rather than from the external witness ofthe prose context. He identified stylistic devices such as the use of the presenttense, or concatenation, and used them to group stanzas and to create, in somecases, previously unrecognised poems. However, without some methodologicaldiscussion about the appropriate methods for reconstructing skaldic poems inde-pendently of their prose contexts, there is the danger of a circular argument. Forinstance, while Poole saw the use of the present tense as an ‘accepted stylism’that has the effect of ‘running commentary’, he assumed that the basic mode ofskaldic poetry is narrative, and that those poems which use the present tense toindicate the ‘main march of events’ constitute a ‘special genre’ (1991, 24–56,195). However, for eleventh-century praise poetry at least, I have argued that theattempt to reconstruct the original poem as far as possible, and to locate it in itsoriginal historical context, can be more fruitful an approach to explaining thepoet’s use of tenses (Jesch 2000b).

Individual skaldic stanzas have also been edited as a part of the prose texts inwhich they are preserved. Here, one might think the question of reconstructionwas of less significance, since the job of the editor is presumably to arrive at thetext of the poem as included in the prose source, rather than at its hypothetical‘original’. And indeed, most editors try to avoid using variants from other texttraditions in their reconstructions of the verses in their prose texts, but this is notalways possible. So they turn to metrical, grammatical, lexical, stylistic, or othercriteria to reconstruct the verse texts, and such criteria may indicate the choice ofa variant from another prose text containing the verse in question. In Hkr, forinstance, Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson generally keeps the readings of Kringla and itscopies whenever they make sense, but occasionally departs from these evenwhen others have thought it possible to construe them (for some examples, seeJesch 1994–7, 3–5).

One of the few theoretical statements on the editing of skaldic texts is Poole’sstudy of Egill II. While less concerned with the poem performed by Egill himselfin York in the tenth century than, for instance, Hines (1994–7), Poole neverthe-less outlines an editorial method that would be a good basis for editing skaldictexts for those with a historical interest (even though he sees the role of the ‘the-orist of textual criticism’ primarily as aiding the ‘literary interpretation of atext’). He makes two important points that future editors should take to heart(Poole 1993, 80–81). The first is that not all texts are alike, and ‘text-criticalpractice must accommodate itself to the particular genre and sometimes even tothe particular work that it is currently scrutinizing’. Secondly, he stresses theimportance of giving the reader ‘access to the full paradosis’, that is to all thevariants in all the texts. To adapt his theory to the needs of historical studyimplies that, since not all skaldic verse is as ‘contaminated’ as the versions ofEgill II, ‘the rigour of stemmatic recension’ might be appropriate for other poetryeven if it is not for Egill’s ‘wild’ poem. Attention to the requirements of an


individual text means that it will often be possible to use textual criticism to‘reconstruct’ a Viking Age poem, particularly if it survives in several early manu-scripts, or copies of early manuscripts. Such a reconstruction of a Viking Agepoem should be accompanied by full information on what has been rejected inthat process of reconstruction. Knowledge of the changes that have been made totexts in the course of transmission is, paradoxically, an important aid to under-standing what was, and what was not, possible, or likely, in those texts in theirearlier, Viking Age, state.

The manuscript transmission

For any one skaldic stanza there is normally a gap of at least two hundred yearsbetween its supposed date of composition and the earliest surviving writtenversion. The oldest surviving manuscript containing skaldic verse is AM 673 b4to (c.1200), containing Plácitus drápa, not a part of the corpus being studiedhere (edited by Jonna Louis-Jensen in Tucker 1998, 89–124). The two oldestmanuscripts containing verse from the ‘skaldic corpus’ studied here have beendated to c.1225.20 Ágrip (AM 325 II 4to), a brief history of the kings of Norway,contains seven stanzas or part-stanzas, three of which are not recorded elsewhere(Oddm; AnonX I,B,4; Sjórs 1). The first of these, if correctly attributed, is tooearly for this study, the third is similarly too late. The other four stanzas are alsofound in other manuscripts (Sigv XI,12; Sigv XIII,28; AnonXI Lv,11; SteigÞ),but Ágrip is their earliest surviving written record.21 The fragments of theso-called Ældste saga ‘Oldest Saga’ of St Óláfr (NRA 52) contain eight stanzas,in whole or in part (Bersi II [here attributed to Óttarr]; Þorm II,10–11,15; ÓttII,1; Ótt IV,1; Hár 2; Þorf 1; see fig. 1.4). All of these are also recorded in othersagas of St Óláfr (notably LegS, with which these fragments have a close rela-tionship). Thus, only thirteen stanzas of the ‘skaldic corpus’ studied here arerecorded as early as 1225, which is 150–200 years after they were firstcomposed.

However, a large number of manuscripts from later on in the thirteenthcentury contain skaldic stanzas. Dated to c.1225–50 is the ‘Legendary Saga’ ofSt Óláfr (DG 8) citing 63 skaldic stanzas (listed in LegS, 238–43), includingsome not recorded elsewhere. Several manuscripts from around the middle of thethirteenth century are only fragments of texts which survive complete in latercopies or versions. Those containing skaldic verse are the earliest (Norwegian)manuscript of Fsk (NRA 51, see fig. 1.5) from c.1240–63 and the single leaf thatremains of the Hkr-manuscript known as Kringla (Lbs frg 82, see fig. 1.6) from


20 All manuscript datings are taken from the first volume (Registre/Indices, 1989) of ONP.This volume can also be used to trace the manuscript sigla used below, along with editionsand facsimiles of the texts.

21 Sjórs 1, if correctly attributed, would have been composed only a little over a centurybefore the writing of the manuscript. The other stanzas are 150–200 years older than themanuscript.

c.1258–64.22 The earliest manuscript of an Íslendingasaga with skaldic verse is afragment of Egils saga from c.1250 (AM 162A � fol, see fig. 1.7). From sometime in the second half of the thirteenth century (c.1250–1300), are both themain manuscript (Holm perg 2 4to, containing 212 stanzas) and two fragmentarymanuscripts (AM 325 VII, 4to [see fig. 1.8] and AM 325 XI 2 e 4to) of ÓsH.From the third quarter of the thirteenth century are two manuscripts of Oddr, AM310 4to (c.1250–75) and the fragmentary DG 4–7 (c.1270), as is Msk (GKS 1009fol., c.1275), citing 263 stanzas and source of many not known from elsewhere.From the fourth quarter of the thirteenth century (c.1275–1300) are a fragment ofEgils saga (AM 162A � fol), a version of Jómsvíkinga saga (AM 291 4to) andanother fragment of ÓsH (AM 325 XI 2 n 4to). There is thus a substantialamount of verse that survives in manuscripts written before 1300 (and muchmore, of course, in even later manuscripts).

Between them, the main manuscript of ÓsH (Holm Perg 2 4to) and Msk (GKS1009 fol.) cite 475 skaldic stanzas, with little overlap between them. Allowanceshave to be made for the fact that some of their stanzas are either too early or toolate for the corpus, and for some overlap with the stanzas that survive in otherearly manuscripts. But adding on the stanzas preserved in the other early manu-scripts, I would estimate conservatively that something like half the stanzas inmy corpus of 967 survive in manuscripts written before 1300. Thus, althoughKuhn (1983, 256) notes that there are very few thirteenth-century manuscriptscontaining dróttkvætt stanzas, the number of stanzas recorded in that century isnot inconsiderable. However, there is no stanza in the corpus for which the gapbetween its supposed date of composition and the earliest surviving writtenversion is less than 150 years.

Not one of the manuscripts listed above is thought to be an archetype, that isthe first written version of a text. Even Plácitus drápa is thought to have beencomposed up to fifty (or even more) years before the surviving manuscript(Tucker 1998, xcix–cii). All are copies of earlier manuscripts, and many arecopies of copies. Thus, the gap between the composition and the recording ofskaldic verse does not depend entirely on a century or two of oral transmission. Itis in part a gap in the written transmission, as we simply no longer have theearliest manuscripts in which skaldic verse was recorded. This means that text-critical reconstruction can narrow the chronological gap between compositionand recording, sometimes substantially.

However, the precise combination of oral and written transmission involved inthe preservation of skaldic verse can be difficult to reconstruct. Scholars havesome idea of the relative datings of the manuscripts concerned, and variousattempts have been made to reconstruct the influences of one text (if not neces-sarily of one manuscript) on another (see for instance the complex diagram in


22 The rest of Kringla burned in the Copenhagen fire of 1728, but can be reconstructed fromthe late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century copies made of it (Stefán Karlsson1976, 8–13).


1.4 Fragments of the so-called Ældste saga ‘Oldest Saga’ of St Óláfr (NRA 52,fol. 2r), with Þorm II,10 beginning in the second line of the top fragments andÞorm II,11 beginning at the very end of the third line of the middle fragments.Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo.

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24Ships and M

en in the Late V

iking Age

1.5 Fragment of Fagrskinna (NRA 51, 1r), showing ÞSkall 2 beginning in the middle of the second line from the bottom.Photo: Riksarkivet, Oslo.

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1.6 Fragment of Kringla (Lbs frg 82, 1r), showing Ótt III,11 and ÞSjár IIIbeginning in lines 13 and 18 of the lefthand column. Photo: Landsbókasafn Íslands,Reykjavík.

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1.7 Fragment of Egils saga (AM 162A � fol, 1r), with the large initials inthe bottom left margin showing the beginnings of Egill VII,14–15.Photo: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Reykjavík.

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1.8 Fragment of Óláfs saga helga (AM 325 VII 4to, 2r), showing Ótt II,7–11 andSigv I,6–12. Photo: Det Arnamagnæanske Institut, Copenhagen.

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Fidjestøl 1982, 10, summarising earlier researches). However, it is not clear thatit is possible automatically to apply any such stemma to the verses contained in amanuscript. In a brief outline of what a new edition of skaldic poetry should belike, Jón Helgason (1947, 130–31) assumed that the stemma of the prose workwas more important, though not necessarily decisive. Editors, whether of theworks of individual poets, or of the prose works containing skaldic stanzas, paylip service to the fact that ‘it cannot necessarily be assumed in every case that thetransmission of verses follows an identical path to that of the prose’ (Whaley1998, 5), but it is an aspect of manuscript transmission that deserves furtherinvestigation. Scribes appear to have been more likely to ‘correct’ their exem-plars in verse quotations than in the surrounding prose. But did they do thisbecause they knew the rules of skaldic verse and attempted, rather as moderneditors do, to reconstruct the verse? Or did they do it because the verses were stillknown in either the oral or the written tradition outside their prose contexts, andwere therefore available as sources for such correction? The answer to this ques-tion is likely to have been different at different times, also in different places andfor different scribes. Thus, Jonna Louis-Jensen has pointed out (1977, 152–5)that the compiler of Hulda-Hrokkinskinna attempted to improve the alreadycorrupt texts of the stanzas in his exemplar but, as his knowledge of skaldicdiction and metre was minimal, his ‘corrections’ are no more than superficialassociations that sound good but are often meaningless. In other words, he wasan incompetent editor of skaldic verse. The scribe of Kringla, on the other hand,has been described as ‘very perceptive’ and is suspected of ‘improving’ theverses of his exemplar extensively (Hkr III, xcv; my translation), perhaps thevery model of the modern skaldic editor.23 In this case, we will not know for sureuntil there is a proper critical edition of Heimskringla (Vésteinn Ólason 1988,132).

Anyone who has worked with skaldic poetry in its manuscript contexts soongets a sense that oral as well as written transmission is involved. One examplewill illustrate this. Codex Frisianus (AM 45 fol) is a manuscript dated to the firstquarter of the fourteenth century containing a text of Hkr. On fol. 36v, the scribestarted to write Hókr 8, which begins Hjalmfaldinn bar hilmi. Instead, he wrote‘Hialm falldínn hloð alldom’. Realising his mistake, he crossed out the last twowords and continued writing the correct ones ‘bar hílmí’ (see fig. 1.9). The linethat first suggested itself to his mind may have been the third line of Bbreiðv 6:jarnfaldinn hlóð �ldum, a stanza not in the corpus as it is preserved in an Íslend-ingasaga (Eyrb, 111). The first half of this stanza recalls Bj�rn’s youthful adven-tures with the Jómsvíkingar and in Sweden (compare Eyrb, ch. 29) in terms ofthe conventions of praise poetry (jarnfaldinn hlóð �ldum / Eirekr í dyn geira‘iron-enclosed [i.e. helmeted] Eiríkr [a Swedish king] piled up men [i.e. bodies]


23 Although Kringla is almost wholly lost (see previous note), it survives in a number ofgood copies which have not yet been fully utilised in editions (Vésteinn Ólason 1988, 136;Jesch 1998b, 112).

in the din of spears [battle]’), and contrasts them with his experiences on anIcelandic heath in winter, described in the second half of the stanza. This kind ofpastiche depends on the standard praise poem genre being well-known. It is notpossible to decide, on the basis of one line, whether the scribe of Codex Frisianusknew Bbreiðv 6 or not, but his momentary slip of the pen suggests that he hadlines of skaldic verse in his head as well as in his exemplar. This suggests that atleast the pastiches, and probably also the original praise poems, were still knownin Iceland in the fourteenth century.

The oral circulation of skaldic poetry is even more likely in the previouscentury, as has been demonstrated by Gísli Sigurðsson (2000) in a study of TGT,at least for the west of Iceland. He shows that Óláfr Þórðarson must have knownstanzas from the oral tradition as well as from the latest written works of histime, not least because two-thirds of his examples are not known from any othersource. As Fidjestøl has also shown (1985), the very fact that there is so littleoverlap between the stanzas cited in the poetic treatises and the kings’ sagassuggests the depth of the skaldic tradition in Iceland at this time. Authors orcompilers of both types of texts had a vast treasure trove of skaldic stanzas tohand, from which they could pick and choose the stanzas they needed for theirparticular purposes.

This treasure trove was both written and oral, although unravelling their rela-tive proportions in any detail is difficult and few attempts are totally convincing.The question of oral versus written transmission was discussed at length byFidjestøl, with rather uncertain results (1982, 45–60). He found a high degree ofstability in the corpus, with relatively few examples that could certainly beascribed to ‘munnleg variasjon’, variant words or lines that have entered a poemin the course of oral transmission and which result in variant readings in thewritten tradition when we have more than one version of a stanza. At the sametime there is certainly variation that seems to have arisen in the course of writtentransmission, but which cannot be dismissed as mere copying errors. On thewhole, it can be difficult to distinguish between ‘oral’ and ‘written’ variation,and, while the former is likely, the latter is certain, and the two often go together(Fidjestøl 1982, 51).

Fidjestøl’s analysis is based on a range of manuscripts from different times,and it is hardly unexpected to find textual variation in manuscripts that we knowwere copies, or copies of copies. Moreover, the evidence of two runic inscrip-tions with poetic texts that appear to be variants of poems preserved in theIcelandic manuscript tradition suggests that the inscriptions were copied from anoral rather than a written exemplar (Seim 1986, 36; see also Knirk 1994, who ismore cautious in his conclusions). At any rate, the runic texts are significantlydifferent from the manuscript versions in both cases.

Thus it remains difficult to say how accurately the poems recorded inIcelandic manuscripts of 1225 and later represent the poems that were actuallycomposed and performed in, say, the eleventh century, short of any dramaticdiscoveries of lost manuscripts. There is scope for further work in the close studyof the earliest manuscripts (though also of all the Hkr-manuscripts), and in the



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Introduction: Rocks and R

hymes

311.9 Codex Frisianus (AM 45 fol. 36v), showing the scribe’s correction in Hókr 8, nine lines from the bottom of theright-hand column. Photo: Det Arnamagnæanske Institut, Copenhagen.

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comparison of poetry in the surviving manuscripts with the stanzas or poeticquotations inscribed in runes on datable objects found in places like Bergen andTrondheim (e.g. Liestøl 1964, 19; Seim 1986; Knirk 1994). As these inscriptionsare rarely earlier, and then only slightly, than our earliest manuscripts, theKarlevi stanza remains our most important link with the eleventh century. Never-theless, it is my impression that the difficulties of reconstructing Viking Ageverse can be exaggerated and that, overall, the manuscript tradition provides afair representation of what that verse was like.

One of the benefits of a global study such as this one is that it lessens theburden of proof that need be placed on any one stanza or poem, by considering itin the light of a much more extensive skaldic tradition. There is safety innumbers and where a word can be shown to have the same, or a developing,meaning across a number of texts, we need not rely on just one of those texts todemonstrate that meaning. Quantity of material can cancel out uncertaintiesabout the evidence of any one part of that material. This is where I believe thesemantic study of skaldic verse can make a contribution when the mining of thecorpus for factual information has exhausted the available seams.

Viking verse as a historical source

The value of skaldic verse as a historical source is frequently asserted. There isalso a long list of historical studies of skaldic verse, occasionally reaching some-what negative conclusions about its value (e.g. Ashdown 1930; Bugge 1910;Campbell 1971; Johnsen 1916; Moberg 1941; Peters 1978; Poole 1987; Poole1991, 86–115). Many of these studies, explicitly or implicitly, interpret the versein tandem with, or heavily influenced by, their surrounding prose contexts, orwith other documents, especially some well-worn English ones, that record thesame events. The verses are studied with avowedly ‘historical’ aims, to squeezeinformation on events and actions from them. There have however been fewattempts to study the whole body of skaldic verse as a source in its own right andwith its own characteristics, with an open mind about the kind of informationthat might be gleaned from it (exceptions include Fidjestøl 1993; Foote 1978,1984; Malmros 1985).

Admittedly, the corpus, as defined above, although substantial and datable,does have its limitations. The subjects that interested the skalds are few andpredictable: war, sailing and remuneration predominate, with topics like love andmore mundane matters largely restricted to the possibly spurious verses outsidethe corpus, and not especially frequent even there. The scholar searching forenlightenment about viking activities before 1100 will find that only certainaspects of that activity are illuminated, directly or indirectly, by skaldic verse.

As well as being circumscribed in subject-matter, skaldic poetry is an art-formthat does not give much away, with its brilliant formalism drawing attention fromthe message to the medium. In any case the message is generally cliché-ridden,repetitive and often deceitful. Even where skaldic verse attempts narrativity, itsmain tactic is to link a series of set-pieces (a classic example is Sigv I). But it is


possible to make a virtue of this skaldic failing. The elaborate static quality ofskaldic verse is both cause and effect of a largely nominal style, a discourse thatis rich in nouns and adjectives. The vocabulary of skaldic verse, with its manysynonyms and near-synonyms for both ships and men, deserves particular atten-tion.

Semantic study of skaldic verse and runic inscriptions

Skaldic vocabulary in context

Some general principles are needed before the vocabulary of skaldic verse canreceive this attention. The principles I suggest here arise out of my work on thevocabulary that is analysed at length in the following chapters. Some of this vo-cabulary has been extensively studied before, but most of these studies areetymological, comparatist and, often, decontextualised in approach. I wouldargue that there is much to be gained from a recontextualisation of semanticstudies and from a more precise application of the comparative method. As foretymology, I tend to agree with Fell (1986, 295) that it ‘may obfuscate discussionof meaning and translation’.

The importance of context in the study of older languages has been regularlystressed over the last forty or so years and, indeed, goes back to the totalisingmethods of the ‘old’ philology, which involved ‘scrutinizing words by using allclues given by the texts under investigation’ (Nickel 1966, 37; similarlySchabram 1970). This scrutiny, which is ‘operational’, another word for ‘conte-xtual’, involves procedures which ‘closely study occurrences of signifiers, inves-tigating particularly their frequency, distribution, collocability, and context’(Nickel 1966, 37–8). While etymology is less significant, it cannot entirely beignored, as ‘etymologically related lexemes are still semantically linked on asynchronic level’ (Nickel 1966, 40). Definition takes place ‘by means of typicalconditions of usage’, and a ‘lexicographical definition which includes suchtypical conditions of usage can give very much more information than the stan-dard dictionaries’ (Strauss 1985, 574, 577). I have attempted to apply theselinguistic methods to the study of skaldic vocabulary, which is why I have placedso much emphasis on a global study of the corpus, and why this book is arrangedas a narrative rather than as a dictionary.

A dictionary also suffers from its alphabetical arrangement, which separateswords of similar meaning, and sometimes even related words. A differentarrangement, in which words are grouped according to semantic fields, recog-nises the ‘basic premise . . . that to understand lexical meaning, it is necessary tolook at semantically related words, not simply at each word in isolation’ (Lehrer1985, 283). While each word has its own history, these histories are interrelated.Even in the relatively short historical period being studied here it is possible tosee the rise and fall of words relative to each other, and sometimes quite substan-tial changes in the meaning of individual words as other words muscle in on theirsemantic field.


I have set out the methodological requirements for a semantic study of skaldicverse elsewhere (Jesch 1993b), and here it is sufficient to summarise them. Twoare especially important: the recognition of the special nature of skaldic diction,and a close attention to all possible contexts.

The vocabulary of skaldic verse can operate on one of three levels. Manywords, even in the most intricate skaldic stanzas, will have a straightforwarddenotative meaning, that is their usual meaning as in everyday speech or prose.There is very little contemporary comparative material to determine thismeaning, however, although runic inscriptions are an important source.Secondly, other words will have a denotation that is limited to their use in poetry(these are usually called heiti). We can deduce this from the fact that the skaldshad so many synonyms for a few things, but also because such specifically poeticusages can be demonstrated elsewhere in Old Norse, or indeed in the otherGermanic languages. These first two levels can sometimes be difficult to distin-guish. The word ekkja demonstrably means ‘widow’ in other Old Norse texts, butwhen we come across it in a skaldic verse, we need to decide whether it may notinstead be used in the more generalised poetic sense of ‘woman’. The distinctionmay be important, for instance in the historical interpretation of Liðsm 8 (Poole1991, 113). Similarly, when discussing words for ships in chapter 4, I attempt todistinguish between words that were normally used for particular types of shipsand words that were restricted to the vocabulary of the skalds, though it is notalways possible to do so. Thirdly, many words in skaldic verse acquire a newdenotation when entering into the metaphorical collocations we call kennings.Thus, a ship can be called a ‘horse’ in the common kenning-type ‘horse of thesea’. It would, however, not be useful in this study to list all the instances where aship is called a horse, because this adds more to our understanding of kenningsthan to our understanding of ships.24 It is of course interesting to ponder the factthat horses are hardly ever called ‘ships of the land’ in Old Norse poetry, but suchspeculations are beyond the scope of this study. However, kennings are occasion-ally referred to where one of the elements in the kenning is a word also discussedin its own right. Although the kenning rarely contributes to an understanding ofthat word, it is useful to note such kennings to complete the record of its uses.

Synonymy can also be a problem. In dróttkvætt, with so many rules ofsyllable-counting, rhyme and alliteration, the skalds needed many synonyms forand variations on terms both for ships and for men, and the exigencies of skaldicmetre may not have allowed them to be too fastidious about their choice ofword.25 Again, I try to bring this out in the individual word-studies below, as it is


24 Such references can be traced in Simek 1982. For more on horses, see the forthcomingUniversity of Nottingham thesis by Betsy Springer on ‘The Horse in the Viking Imagina-tion’.

25 This is also a problem when translating, assuming the translator wishes to reflect thesynonymic variation in the original. When translating Gísl I,8 in ch. 2, for instance, Itranslate gramr as ‘prince’ and konungr as ‘king’ which may mislead the reader, since theyboth refer to the same person.

often possible to determine when a skald is driven by the need for a synonym andwhen he is using a word more precisely.

In theory then, any word in the skaldic corpus may or may not be used in its‘ordinary’ meaning, and it may or may not be used precisely. While preciseobservation is not normally thought to be a characteristic typical of skaldicpoetry, it has been noted that stanzas to do with ships and sailing are particularlynaturalistic, compared for instance to stanzas about war and fighting, which aremuch more conventional (Fidjestøl 1982, 206–9). It is also the case that thehistorical imperative behind skaldic praise poetry, the urge to make a record ofevents and places encourages another kind of precision, making it particularlyuseful as a source for battles, expeditions and campaigns, and especially theplaces where these happened (as demonstrated in chs 2 and 4). This precision oftime, place and event can also extend to the more descriptive passages associatedwith these events. The skalds are noted for their artifice, but many of them werealso quite capable of accuracy.

Despite the problems, the only way to determine the meanings available toany one word in the skaldic corpus, whether a technical term of shipbuilding orsailing, an indicator of social status, or a geographical designation, is to examinethe full range of its occurrences and to describe ‘the observed meanings bywords of the language of the investigator’ (Steblin-Kamenskij 1966, 24).

The contexts of any word in the skaldic corpus are important to this process,as the meaning of a word is not intrinsic but determined by its relationship toother words in the linguistic system. The most immediate context might be acompound word of which the word being investigated forms one element, andthese have to be considered in any discussion of that word. More important arethe immediate collocations of the word, the other words and phrases with whichit makes a statement, whether that is in a phrase, a clause or a sentence. In skaldicverse, with its fairly free word order and often multiple possibilities ofcombining lexical units, it is sometimes difficult to determine precisely whichcollocations the terms being investigated enter into, and the ambiguities mustoccasionally have been intended by the poet. Thus, recasting the stanza in prosemisrepresents the way skaldic poetry works, though it is an important first step inunderstanding it. Sometimes it is necessary to take the helmingr or half-stanza inwhich the term appears as the collocational unit. Very occasionally, a statementextends right the way through all eight lines of a skaldic stanza.

It is also important to consider the wider literary contexts in establishing themeaning of a word. First of these is the poem. A word may take on added signifi-cance when seen in the context of the poem as a whole, either because of repeti-tions throughout the poem or because of contrasts within the poem. Suchanalysis naturally depends on accurate reconstructions of the poems which arelargely constructs of modern philological techniques, as discussed above.However well-founded these reconstructions (and I believe many of them are),there must always remain some doubt about them, and I try to signal belowwhenever an interpretation depends on such a reconstruction.

Other poems can also form a context for an individual word. As a small,


professional class, most poets probably knew each other’s work well, and eitherborrowed from it or made use of formulaic expressions. Where identical, or evenvery similar, phrases or lines occur in the work of more than one poet, it isalways possible that the borrowing was in spite of, rather than because of, anyappropriateness of meaning. Again, the only antidote to such difficulties is tolook at overall patterns in the corpus without placing too much significance onany one example.

The saga or other prose text in which the verse is preserved is also an impor-tant form of context. The text-critical approach, outlined above, in which the aimis a text as close as possible to the original Viking Age composition, would seemto preclude any serious consideration of the prose context in which the verse isfound. However, it is a fact that skaldic verse is mediated to us throughthirteenth-century Icelandic prose texts and it is better to acknowledge this influ-ence and make allowances for it if necessary, rather than to pretend we are able toread the verse unmediated. Again, where an interpretation of a stanza depends onits prose context, I try to signal this below.

Runes and semantics

On the surface, there do not seem to be as many problems in establishing themeanings of words in the runic corpus as in the skaldic corpus, and a dictionaryof the Swedish Viking Age inscriptions has already been produced (SRR). Thereare of course many more problems of reading, interpretation and semantics in theless formulaic and more informal runic inscriptions of the medieval period (e.g.rune-sticks), or the usually brief and cryptic inscriptions in the older futhark(which seem to attract proportionally more attention from runologists than thelarge and relatively uncomplicated Viking Age corpus). But when hundreds,indeed thousands, of rune stones just say ‘X raised this monument in memory ofY’, the possibility of interesting variation is limited. Admittedly, there areseveral verbs that can be used to describe the action of erecting the monument, asurprising number of prepositions expressing ‘in memory of’, and some signifi-cant variation in the noun used to designate the monument itself (an example isthe common use of kross ‘cross’ rather than steinn ‘stone’ in the Isle of Man).The inscriptions are also invaluable to onomasts as they provide a vast databaseof Viking Age personal names and nicknames (see e.g. NR). But most of themshed little more semantic light on Old Scandinavian linguistic usage than that.

The formulaic nature of runic memorial inscriptions causes problems for asemantic analysis, as even those inscriptions that have text additional to thememorial formula provide relatively little in the way of immediate linguistic ortextual context. For instance, while seventeen inscriptions in Västergötland tellus that the deceased was a góðr drengr, only four (Vg 61, Vg 113, Vg 181, Vg184) give any further information that might help us to decide exactly what adrengr was, and none gives any real clues as to the semantic range of the adjec-tive góðr ‘good’ (was it just a term of approbation, or did it have some deepersignificance?). This relative lack of contexts means that the non-formulaic


vocabulary of runic inscriptions has had to be interpreted in the light of either thesubsequent history of Swedish (or the other languages, mutatis mutandis), or ofthe much more extensive medieval literature in Old Norse-Icelandic. Oddly,though, this has rarely meant a close comparison with the full range of theexactly contemporary skaldic corpus, which is why I have written this book.

I also believe it is possible to make much more of the limited contexts in theinscriptions themselves. Thus the runic vocabulary also needs to be recontextual-ised, as I have suggested above for skaldic vocabulary. For instance, in chapter 6I try at length to demonstrate how such a recontextualisation can suggest thevarious shades of meaning which the word drengr could have, in both the runicand the skaldic corpus.

Runology is sometimes seen primarily as a ‘philological’ discipline, using thisadjective, I suspect, in the ‘new’ sense (the study of language) rather than the‘old’ sense discussed above (a broad linguistic and cultural interpretation of thepast). The effect of this has been to focus runologists’ attention on runic inscrip-tions as language and, to some extent, as text. A recent attempt to definerunology (Peterson 1995, 41, 50) sees ‘språkvetenskap’ (linguistics, languagestudy) as its core, but acknowledges its ‘stort mått av tvärrvetenskap’ (largemeasure of interdisciplinarity). There is no doubt that recently runologists havebecome more interested in runes as writing, particularly since they representsuch a very different form of writing from the writing on vellum using the romanalphabet which was introduced to Scandinavia by the Christian church. Otheraspects of runic monuments are still however left to other disciplines. Thus theirdesign is the province of art historians, who sometimes ignore the texts, whiletheir distribution in the landscape is the province of archaeologists, who may notignore the texts, but often have a poor understanding of what they do or do notsay. Historians, as already noted, are interested in recovering events and actions,and may read more into runic inscriptions than the texts warrant. Clearly, allspecialists have an important contribution to make, but I think it is important forthe philologically-minded runologist (such as myself) to become at leastacquainted with other aspects of the monument than just its linguistic ones (seealso Lerche Nielsen 1997, 49). I have stressed above that runic inscriptions areoriginal documents from the Viking Age and as such all of their aspects deservestudy, not separately in different disciplines, but together. I have argued else-where (Jesch 1998a) that the materiality of rune stones is also a part of theirmessage. Sometimes the form, layout or location of the runic memorial affectsthe understanding of one or more words in the inscription. They certainly form apart of the context of these words, and I try to draw attention to this whenever Ithink it is the case in my semantic studies below (an example is the sequenceuikikr in Sm 10, discussed in ch. 2).


Comparative angles

In this study I have also occasionally found it useful to introduce comparativematerial from a few sources which also provide contextual clues, although thecontexts might be chronological or generic, rather than linguistic and textual.

While I have eschewed discussion of Eddic poetry in this study, I have madean exception for the poem known as Helgakviða Hundingsbana I (HHuI). Thisaccount of some significant episodes in the life of the legendary warrior-kingHelgi has many significant parallels with skaldic praise poems, as often noticedby scholars. Neckel (1908, 365, 421, 432–6) identified reciprocal influencebetween the HHuI poet and various skalds, locating the poem somewherebetween Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, his ‘skaldische hauptvorbild’, and Gísl Illugason,who used HHuI as a source. Jessen (1871, 59), on the other hand, saw Gísl as theauthor of the Eddic poem, while Bugge (1914) thought it had been composed byArnórr Þórðarson jarlaskáld. HHuI certainly has a range of nautical and militaryvocabulary that begs to be compared with the skaldic corpus, and I have notedinstances below where they have seemed interesting to me, although I have notattempted to do this systematically, nor to ‘solve’ the problem of HHuI in anyway.

I have also occasionally cited examples from Old English, especially theprose of the various versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Though superficialcomparisons are regularly made between the poems of the Chronicle and skaldicpoetry, I am less concerned with this than with identifying datable vocabularythat might reflect ship technology, military organisation or warrior ideology inthe eleventh century, when England was often ruled by a Scandinavian king andheavily Scandinavianised in some other ways.26 This is reflected in the ‘Scandin-avian’ vocabulary of many eleventh-century Chronicle entries, which have notyet, to my knowledge, been the subject of a comprehensive study. I have alsovery occasionally cited relevant vocabulary items from Old English poetry,mainly though not exclusively from the datable poems such as The Battle ofMaldon and The Battle of Brunanburh. On the whole, I believe that comparisonsbetween Old English and Old Norse poetry will be more rewarding when wehave better analyses of the vast body of Old Norse texts, and I have thereforeresisted the temptation to stray too far down the comparative path. However,some of the lexical items discussed below cannot be discussed without some ref-erence to Old English.

I should perhaps note that I also occasionally refer to both skaldic and runicexamples that are not in the respective ‘corpus’ where it has seemed illuminatingto do so. I do however always try to make clear when citing such extraneous ma-terial and to use it only to support an argument, not as the main pillar of one. Nodoubt there are also many other sources that could have been brought to bear on


26 For a detailed comparison between the Chronicle poems and skaldic poetry, see the forth-coming University of Nottingham thesis by Jayne Carroll.

the topics considered in this book. Norse loan-words into languages such as Irishand French spring to mind, as particularly relevant to nautical terminology.However, I have only one lifetime and feel that my competence is alreadystretched to the breaking point by what I have chosen to include in this study so,however regretfully, I must leave such fascinating topics to others.

Sources and conventions

The study of the runic corpus has been made much easier by the very useful aidsthat have emanated from Uppsala in recent years, especially the dictionary ofSwedish Viking Age inscriptions (SRR) and the database of inscriptions(SamRun), already described, which has made it possible to search for all occur-rences of a word. There is now also a provisional version of a dictionary ofpersonal names in the runic corpus (NR), and extensive bibliographical aids(Owe 1995 and the annual bibliographies in Nytt om runer, both also available onthe web).

The study of the skaldic corpus is much less well supported at present. For adictionary, we are still dependent on LP which, as is often pointed out, is itselfheavily dependent on the interpretations of skaldic stanzas in Skjd. Some parts ofthe skaldic corpus have received editorial attention since Finnur Jónsson. Morerecent editions of texts containing large numbers of skaldic stanzas have in manycases produced radically new interpretations of those stanzas though, as I havealready noted, these are more likely to be concerned with reconstructing the textknown to the saga author than that which issued from the mouth of the poet.Thus, Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson is an important, and largely unsung, editor ofskaldic verse in his edition of Hkr, while Anthony Faulkes’ edition of SnESkskmhas clarified many aspects of the stanzas recorded in that work. On the otherhand, Diana Whaley’s fine edition of the œuvre of Arnórr jarlaskáld (1998)emphasises what the poet composed rather than what saga authors thought hedid. Moves are afoot to re-edit the whole of the skaldic corpus on an internationaland collaborative basis. This will undoubtedly revolutionise skaldic studies andperhaps even provide the basis for a new Lexicon Poeticum, on the model ofONP.

But as such an edition (let alone such a dictionary) is still several years off, itis necessary to rely on Skjd as the basic edition of the skaldic corpus. This nat-urally has to be supplemented with consultation of the manuscripts, as Skjd A isnot always accurate, nor does it give ‘access to the full paradosis’ (Poole 1993,80), and also of any more recent editions of the poems, including critical editionsof the texts containing the poems. Kock’s edition of the skaldic corpus (1946–9),though frequently cited as if it were a better edition than Skjd, is mainly of use inidentifying the paragraphs in NN in which Kock discusses individual stanzas.His suggestions are often valuable, and frequently referred to below, but his post-humous edition has no value as a working text.

All references to ‘the skaldic corpus’ and ‘the runic corpus’ in this book are to


the limited selection as outlined in this introduction. It is important to note thatwhenever I refer to the number of occurrences of a word, it is always in ‘thecorpus’ as defined in this introduction.

The ‘runic corpus’ consists of the approximately 3,000 Viking Age memorialstones as outlined above, while the inscriptions actually referred to in this studyare listed in Appendix I, which also provides a key to the abbreviations andeditions. Runic texts can be found in the editions listed in Appendix I, which arealso the basis of the texts given in SamRun. I cite the texts from SamRun, givingthem, as is conventional for Scandinavian inscriptions, in bold type. With somehesitation, I have, for the sake of consistency, chosen to follow SamRun’s prac-tice of transliterating the fourth rune as o, even in Danish inscriptions, where it isotherwise normally rendered as �. I also follow SamRun in its simplified andword-processor-friendly system of representing the myriad forms of dividersthat are found in inscriptions and the various symbols used by editors to indicatelost, damaged or otherwise uncertain runes, though not bind-runes, or thoserunes that need to be read twice.27 When citing only a few words of a runicinscription, I do not always include the dividers especially if they are not relevantto the argument. When citing a whole inscription, however, I do include dividers,though not any indication of line-shifts. The index in Appendix I shows whichinscriptions are actually cited in this study. As indicated above, the number ofinscriptions with significant, non-formulaic, vocabulary is only a proportion ofthe ‘runic corpus’.

Quotations from runic inscriptions are unnormalised transliterations, whilethose from skaldic texts will normally follow the edition being cited, or will benormalised using the conventions of the Íslenzk fornrit series. The reason for notnormalising runic inscriptions is that these are singular, original documents fromthe Viking Age and reproducing them in transliterated form recognises this fact.Skaldic texts, on the other hand, have already undergone one transformation,from the written to the oral form, and most of them survive in more than onemanuscript, none of which is an archetype. There is thus no point in elevatingone manuscript text to a spurious authority by reproducing that rather than acritical text (as in done, for instance, in Lange 1989). All translations of bothrunic and skaldic texts are my own, unless noted otherwise. In my translations ofskaldic verse, I have adopted Whaley’s useful system (1998) of arrows to explainkennings in an economical fashion. All other translations are also my own,unless noted otherwise. Prose texts in ON are silently normalised when cited


27 The following should be noted in particular: round brackets () indicate a rune which isdamaged or incomplete but which can nevertheless be read; square brackets [] indicate arune or sequence of runes which can no longer be read but which are adduced from oldertranscriptions or drawings of the inscription; a hyphen – indicates a rune which can nolonger be read, but which can still be counted; an ellipsis . . . indicates one or more lostrunes which can no longer be read or counted or reconstructed from older sources. Furtherdetails on the conventions used in the database are available in SamRun.

from diplomatic editions, in other languages I cite texts in the orthography of theedition being used.

References to ‘the skaldic corpus’ are to the selection of texts listed inAppendix II, which also provides a key to abbreviations. Again, the index indi-cates which stanzas are actually cited in the chapters below, which is a higherproportion of the total corpus than in the case of the runic inscriptions. Individualstanzas are referred to by poet, poem and stanza number as in Skjd. Appendix IItakes some account of more recent work on the reconstruction of individualpoems (especially Fidjestøl 1982, Poole 1991, and Whaley 1998) and I attemptto make clear when I accept these suggestions and when not. However, with theexception of Liðsm, I still refer to all stanzas by the numbering given them inSkjd (as Fidjestøl does), for instance I do not adopt the numbering for Arnórr’sstanzas suggested in Whaley 1998. In the text, skaldic stanzas are generallyquoted in a normalised form that is most often that of the Íslenzk fornrit editions(where there is such an edition of the text containing the stanza in question). Igenerally choose one particular reading of a stanza (often, though not always,from an Íslenzk fornrit edition, or from SnESkskm) and cite all or part of thatstanza according to that reading. I do not normally cite variants and alternativereadings, except where they affect the interpretation of the vocabulary itemunder discussion, in which case I do try to outline the alternatives while makingclear which one I prefer. I normally give a source reference in the text when I citea whole or half stanza, but otherwise, and in any case, all stanzas can be traced inSkjd.

When discussing words as words, whether in skaldic or runic texts, I usenormalised OWN forms, to facilitate comparison between the two corpora, andbecause there is no other standard of normalisation that would accommodateDanish, Swedish, Norwegian and other runic inscriptions. This normalisationwill however take into account differing declensions (e.g. pl. drengjar in runicinscriptions, drengir in skaldic verse). Names will also be given in their normal-ised OWN form. For better or for worse, I have followed Skjd’s spelling of thenames of poets and LP’s abbreviations in Appendix II. Occasional minor differ-ences in the spelling of poets’ names and the titles of poems in my text originatefrom the editions being used and should not cause any major confusion.

In chapters 4–6, I attempt to document every occurrence of relevant words(though I may not have succeeded in this). In chapters 4–5 this is because the vo-cabulary of the skaldic and runic sources has been scantily or incorrectly utilisedin the study of late Viking Age ships and men, and a survey is badly needed.Most of the words discussed in chapter 6, on the other hand, have been muchdiscussed, but rarely with a full consideration of all the instances. In chapters4–5, I attempt to document all words relating to ships and their equipment, theircrews, and technical terms of sailing and maritime warfare, though there is a greyarea between ‘sailing’ verbs and more general verbs of motion, and betweenwarfare at sea and warfare in general. Also, there is some metaphorical vocabu-lary in descriptions of sailing and fighting, but less in the descriptions of shipsand their parts. In chapters 2–3, I have only sampled the skaldic vocabulary, but


do attempt to be comprehensive in discussing the runic vocabulary, which ispossible because the runic corpus, though large, is relatively limited in its vo-cabulary other than that found in the core memorial formula.

Ships and men in the late Viking Age

The core of this book is in chapters 4 and 5, where I survey the vocabulary ofships and their crews, of fleets and sailing and battles at sea. The urge to lookmore closely at these lexical sets came from the realisation of the enormouspotential of the skaldic corpus for the study of many different aspects of theViking Age, along with the observation that this source was not fully exploitedby Falk in his study of the language of ships and seafaring (AnS), a work stillmuch cited by archaeologists and others (and even translated into Swedishrecently), though it is nearly ninety years old. Falk’s relative neglect of skaldicpoetry was in part a result of his general disregard for chronology and sourcecriticism. To me, the skaldic corpus seemed to offer a real possibility of focusingon the Viking Age without projecting back onto this period the nautical develop-ments that took place in later periods and which are well-instanced in the sagasthat form the main basis of Falk’s study. A preliminary study of the potential ofskaldic poetry for nautical history was published by Foote in 1978. This coveredonly a few points to do with sailing, but was very influential on my own thinkingabout appropriate methods and material for such a study. Since Foote, onlyMalmros (1985) has followed in this vein of using the whole skaldic corpus as asource for nautical history. Although I disagree with many of her conclusions,and there is a fundamental difference between her historical and my philologicalapproach, her pioneering contribution deserves to be acknowledged.

Falk certainly used skaldic sources, though sparingly, but he neglected theevidence of runic inscriptions. Thus, it seemed to me useful to supplement thework of Falk, Foote and Malmros by considering the runic evidence for nauticalvocabulary. While there is not a great deal of it, it can sometimes be very signifi-cant (see e.g. the discussion of kn�rr in ch. 4, or the discussion of crew- andfleet-terms in ch. 5).

In many ways, then, this book was conceived as a project to rewrite AnS forthe twenty-first century, to complement the greatly increased (and continuallyincreasing) evidence that archaeology has provided for nautical history sinceFalk wrote, and in particular the intensive ship-archaeological research of thelast forty years or so. However, I soon realised that it was not possible to look atships without also looking at their crews, or without looking at the reasons forwhich those men set out in those ships. I am not a nautical historian, and mustalso confess to being a landlubber of the highest order, and did not wish to writea work of purely nautical interest. It seemed to me the most useful contribution Icould make would be to set the nautical vocabulary into a larger context, themore general one of ‘viking’ activity in all its aspects. So in chapters 2–3 I surveythe evidence the runic and the skaldic corpus provide for what this activity


consisted of and where it took place, while in chapter 6 I consider some of thesocial and military aspects of ‘viking’ activity. I have however avoided going toofar in the direction of writing a guide to ‘Viking warfare’ for two reasons. One isthat it would have involved bringing in a whole new range of archaeologicalevidence to do with weapons, fortifications and the like, which would stretch thebounds of an already overlong book. The second, and more important one, is thatI am not convinced that either the runic or the skaldic corpus provides muchuseful evidence for a general study of warfare (though I do consider sea-battlesin ch. 5). I have already noted above that, while the skalds are refreshingly andusefully naturalistic in their descriptions of ships and sailing, they are much lessso in their descriptions of fighting. There is certainly scope for a study of war inthe skaldic corpus, but it is debatable how much this would tell us about theactual practice of war, as opposed to attitudes to war (see for instance my studyof the ‘beasts of battle’, Jesch 2001d).

War was just one aspect, though clearly an important aspect, of the late VikingAge. Much of this warfare involved the use of ships, sometimes as troop-carriers,sometimes as warships equipped for fighting at sea. Ships could also be used fortrade or exploration, or sometimes all three. In the next two chapters, I surveywhat the skaldic and the runic corpus have to say about such ‘viking’ activitiesand where they took place.


2

Viking Activities

hydro-heroes . . . Valhalla bound

CALVERT

The modern term ‘Viking Age’ implies either an era associated with peoplecalled ‘vikings’, or one in which people engaged in an activity called ‘viking’,just as they practised chivalry in the Age of Chivalry, or enjoyed jazz in the JazzAge. But it is not as easy to define ‘viking’ as either jazz or chivalry. This chapteris an attempt to discover what was involved in ‘viking’ activity, or rather activi-ties, as indicated in the significant vocabulary of both the runic and the skaldiccorpus.

Vikings

The English word ‘Viking’ or ‘viking’ should not be confused with the ONword(s) from which it was ultimately borrowed, not least because the modernword is much commoner than its Viking Age predecessors and has developed alife of its own (Fell 1987). ON has two words, the masculine víkingr referring toa person, and the abstract feminine noun víking referring to an activity. Thesewords have been much studied in their various manifestations. Most such studies(e.g. Askeberg 1942, 114–83; Hellberg 1980; Hødnebø 1987), range widelyacross languages and centuries, and are often concerned with etymology and thesemantic development of the term. Fell (1986; 1987) considers, respectively, Oldand Modern English cognates. Here, I am concerned only with establishing indetail the uses and nuances of the words in a limited range of sources and duringa limited period of the Viking Age, as outlined in chapter 1.

víkingr

The noun víkingr (m., pl. víkingar), referring to a person, occurs in both runicand skaldic sources. An immediately interesting aspect of the runic evidence isthat it provides examples of Víkingr used as a personal name.1 This onomastic

1 Some scholars have doubted whether this name is etymologically identical with thecommon noun, see von Feilitzen 1937, 405, and references.

usage is attested in up to nineteen inscriptions. Although these examples repre-sent a small part of the runic onomastic pool, their chronological and geograph-ical range is wide.2 There are fifteen rune stone inscriptions in which acommissioner, the commemorated, a relative of the commemorated, or a rune-carver, is called Víkingr, representing fourteen individuals in all (see fig. 2.1).3 Inthree further inscriptions, the name in question is fragmentary or uncertain, but isalso likely to have been Víkingr (Sö 13, Sö 269, U 813).4 Finally, there is oneinscription where a sequence which can be interpreted as víkingr appears in anunclear context (Sm 10, see fig. 2.2).

On this stone from Växjö the memorial formula is complete and self-contained: -u(k)i reisti * stein * e(f)tir : kunar : sun : kirims ‘Tóki raised thisstone in memory of Gunnarr, son of Grímr’. The additional words uikikr andtyki appear in the centre of the design, and it is not certain in what order theyshould be read or how they relate to the main text. Both words run upwards fromthe lower part of the stone. As uikikr is to the left of tyki, it might be supposed itought to be read first, but the use of a divider after tyki suggests that the correctsequence is actually tyki x uikikr. It could simply be a repetition of the name ofthe commissioner (-uki), with an added appellative, specifying him as Tóki theViking (as it is taken in SR IV, 57). But the central text could also be interpretedas a rune-carver’s signature. Although it does not include a verb, that is notunparalleled, see Sö 266 and Sö 312. In this case it could even consist of twonames, with Víkingr the name of a man who helped Tóki produce the monu-ment. Gunnarr’s relationship to Tóki is not specified, and this makes it is lesslikely that he was a family member, as in the other examples discussed here, thansome kind of a comrade, whether in war or trade. Thus it is just possible that theappellative víkingr is used here in the same way as some of the in-group vocabu-lary (e.g. drengr, félagi) discussed in chapter 6 below. However, as such termsare overwhelmingly used of the commemorated in runic inscriptions, the Växjostone would be anomalous in using an honorific term to refer to the commis-sioner. Moreover, as will be seen below, there is no evidence, other than personalnames, of the use of the singular form at this period. Thus, the balance of prob-ability is that the central text tyki x uikikr represents two personal names, prob-ably of the men who carved the monument.

There are only three runic inscriptions which use víkingr as a common nounrather than as a personal name. These inscriptions are chronologically andgeographically diverse, and thus attest to the use of víkingr, or rather the plural

Viking Activities 45

2 There are no examples of the name Víkingr in the skaldic corpus, where personal names arerelatively rare. The name is attested in Norway, Sweden and Denmark after the Viking Age,and was exported to viking colonies in England (von Feilitzen 1937, 405). Fellows Jensen(1968, 338–9) lists examples of English place-names in Lincolnshire and Yorkshirecontaining the personal name Víkingr.

3 Ög 8, Sö 54, Sö 182, Sö 197, Sö 203, Sm 11, Vg 17, U 34, U 175, U 260, U 432, U 498, U649, U 681, U 802. The same individual is referred to in both Sö 197 and Sö 203.

4 On the oblique form uikika in Sö 269, see Otterbjörk 1983, 30.


2.1 The Fresta stone (U 260), with uikinkr, the name of one of thecommissioners, on the left towards the bottom. Photo: Judith Jesch.

Image not available


2.2 The Växjö stone (Sm 10), showing the word or name uikikr centre left.Photo: Judith Jesch.

Image not available

víkingar, in different parts of Viking Age Scandinavia, but despite this range theydo not present a very clear picture of what the word might mean.

The earliest example is on a stone from Tirsted on Lolland (D 216), probablyfrom the middle of the tenth century (Moltke 1985, 301), Denmark’s secondlargest rune stone, and one of its most obscure. The inscription appears to havebeen commissioned by two men to commemorate a relative who died in Swedenand ends with the runes aliRuikikaR. This is easily enough interpreted as ‘allvikings’, but how it relates to the rest of the text is much less certain. In as far aswe can decipher the context of this inscription, it appears to be military, but therelevant vocabulary is all conjectural and based on suggested corrections of thecarver’s supposed errors. Thus Moltke (1985, 300, Englished by Foote) suggeststhe following translation of the relevant part: ‘And he was then the terror (?) ofmen and he met death in Sweden and was the foremost of Fregge’s host; andthen: all vikings.’ Even if we accept these corrections and conjectures, it is not atall clear how the phrase ‘all vikings’ fits in.

The two Swedish inscriptions which use víkingar are more easily interpreted,although the exact reference of the word is no easier to pin down. A rune stonediscovered in 1988 in Hablingbo, on Gotland, which, like others on Gotland,adopts the characteristic shape of the picture stone (and can thus be dated to theeleventh century), was commissioned by two brothers to commemorate theirfather, of whom it is said that hn : uahR -istr : farin miþ uikikum ‘he had trav-elled to the west with vikings’ (G 370). Normally, travelling to the ‘west’ inSwedish runic inscriptions refers to viking raids on the British Isles, in particularthe campaigns that led to the accession of Knútr in the early eleventh century.However, because of the location of Gotland in the Baltic, it is equally possiblethat the deceased had travelled no further west than mainland Scandinavia, orDenmark (see ch. 3, below). In either case, the journey could have been under-taken for either war or trade, and there is no way of knowing which is meant inthis instance.

A large and elegant rune stone from Bro in Uppland gives more context forinterpreting the word, although not necessarily definitively (U 617). The inscrip-tion is long and relatively complex, and is related to others in the region whichcommemorate members of the same family (Jesch 1991, 58–9). The memorialwas commissioned by a woman to commemorate her husband, of whom it is saidthat saR x uaR x uikika x uaurþr x miþ x kaeti, literally ‘he was a guardof/against vikings with Geitir’. The statement is ambiguous, but is usually inter-preted to mean that �zurr was an officer, under Geitir, engaged in keeping watchagainst viking raiders, giving us ‘a glimpse of Swedish coastal defence organisa-tion’ (Jansson 1987, 91). However, v�rðr more properly means ‘guardian’ or‘protector’ and it would be most natural to follow those scholars (Askeberg 1942,122; Hellberg 1980, 55) who have taken víkinga as an objective genitive, indi-cating that which is guarded or protected. The only runic parallel to this phrase ison a fragmentary stone found in Giberga, Södermanland in 1942, containing thesequence kiarþu skibuarþ which is interpreted as gerðu skipv�rð ‘they didship-watch, they protected the ship’ (Sö FV1948:291), using v�rðr in the sense


of the action rather than the actor. In skaldic usage, v�rðr is most commonly usedof a person and normally collocates with one of three things: people, land, orobjects such as ships (Eskál III,1; Sigv I,8; Sigv III,13; Sigv VII,7; Sigv XII,6;Mark I,3,4). In all of these examples, the v�rðr is normally the guardian orprotector of, or possibly user of, these things, and the term comes to be usedfrequently for the king as guardian of his land and people. I have not found anyexamples where the genitive object refers to that which someone or something isbeing guarded against and thus it seems linguistically most likely that �zurr heldsome position of responsibility in a troop of vikings.

These last three inscriptions are thus the shreds of contemporary evidence thatpeople whom we might call ‘vikings’ also called themselves something similar.5

Not one is unambiguous, but the fact that these inscriptions can be read in thisway suggests that there was at least a possibility of the term víkingr being used ofone’s own group, apparently with approval. Presumably people in the VikingAge saw a connection between the common noun víkingr and the personal nameVíkingr (whatever etymologists might say about their different origins), and sothe use of the personal name provides additional evidence for the positive conno-tations of the noun. However, the surviving runic examples of the noun are all inthe plural form, and it may be that this implies some kind of distinction, but whatwe do not know.

Turning to skaldic verse, we find again that many of the examples are ambig-uous. The unambiguous ones however suggest that, in contrast to the runic ma-terial, víkingr in the skaldic material was a pejorative term applied to one’sopponents and would not normally be used of oneself or one’s own group. Theskaldic examples are like the runic examples in all being in the plural.

The pejorative usage is attested right through from the late tenth to the turn ofthe twelfth century, with seven clear instances of the word used to refer toenemies or opponents of the king or leader being praised, both at home andabroad. The víkingar in these stanzas are: the enemies of Eiríkr sigrsæli atFyrisvellir (ÞHjalt 2); the Jómsvíkingar at the battle of Hj�rungavágr (Þskúm;Tindr I,5); the (presumably Wendish) opponents of Eiríkr jarl during his raids on


5 Fell (1986, 313) has, I think, erroneously claimed that a comment by Adam of Bremendemonstrates that ‘the vikings called themselves wichingos’: pyratae, quos illi Wichingosappellant, nostri Ascomannos (AB, 440). The context is a description of Denmark, thewichingos are pirates who pay a tax to the Danish king in order to plunder ‘barbarians’, butwho occasionally also misuse this freedom to plunder their own people. It is the Danes ingeneral who call these pirates wichingos, not necessarily a term the latter use of themselves,thus Tschan (1959, 190) translates ‘These pirates, called Vikings by the people of Zealand,by our people, Ascomanni . . .’ The passage then goes on to describe various forms of crime(including betrayal of the king) and punishment current in Denmark. This usage seems tome to fit most closely the skaldic examples discussed below, and also from the eleventhcentury, where the king is shown punishing the perpetrators of internal disorder. We have toremember that the king of Denmark was one of Adam’s primary sources, and it is note-worthy that this is the only occurrence of wichingi in this substantial work, otherwise hetends to use Normanni to refer to Scandinavians of the viking persuasion.

Wendland (Edáð 5);6 the inhabitants of a stronghold at Hól conquered by ÓláfrHaraldsson (Sigv I,10); the ‘enemy within’ in a retrospective view of Óláfr’sreign, showing how he punished miscreants and wrongdoers (Sigv XII,6); and asimilar general reference to the enemies of Magnús berfœttr, probably abroad,possibly also at home in Norway (Bkrepp 3).7

There are four instances of víkingar where the interpretation of the stanza isdifficult and it is hard to be certain whether the word refers to ‘them’ or ‘us’,from the point of view of the speaking poet and his patron. Here, many skaldicinterpreters are influenced by their expectations that víkingar has some specificreference, possibly with implications of nationality, and also that it is generallypositive and would be used by the speaker of his own group. Each of theseambiguous examples presents a different problem of interpretation.

Despite Sigvatr’s unambiguous use of víkingar for óláfr’s opponents inBrittany (Sigv I,10), commentators have assumed that the word can refer to Óláfrand his men elsewhere in this poem. In an earlier stanza, víkingr appears in avery uncertain collocation, as it can be taken with a number of different words inits immediate context (Sigv I,3). The main question here is whether the víkingarare just an element of a kenning referring to the sea or ships, or whether the termis used specifically of Óláfr’s troop (and their ships).8 In the context, it doeshowever seem most likely that the víkinga skeiðar of the stanza are the ships ofÓláfr and his followers. Understanding the víkingar as Óláfr and his men in thisstanza then increases the temptation to read the sixth stanza in the same way(Sigv I,6). This describes Óláfr attacking London (Hkr II, 17–18):

Rétt es, at sókn en sétta,snarr þengill bauð Englumat, þars �leifr sótti,Yggs, Lundúna bryggjur.Sverð bitu v�lsk, en v�rðuvíkingar þar díki.Áttu sumt í sléttuSúðvirki lið búðir.


6 The location of these raids in Wendland depends on the prose context of the stanza, ratherthan on any evidence in the stanza itself. See Fidjestøl 1982, 111–14, for the reconstructionof this poem.

7 If we accept Fidjestøl’s reconstruction of this poem (1982, 150–52), the stanza comes at thetransitional point between ‘home’ and ‘abroad’, it might well have been the refrain. Thealliteration of with vítt perhaps suggests enemies abroad, in a kind of summary of Magnús’geographically wide-ranging campaigns (Jesch 1996, 120–21).

8 With some differences in detail, the former interpretation is favoured by J�n Helgason(1935–6, 263–4) and Kock (NN, 612), while Finnur Jónsson (Skjd B I, 213), BjarniAðalbjarnarson (Hkr II, 11), Fell (1981, 112) and Hellberg (1980, 45–6) all favour thelatter. No one manuscript has a completely satisfactory text of this stanza, and all editorsprint a reconstructed text using variants from different manuscript traditions.

It is correct that the sixth battle (was) where Óláfr attacked thebridges/wharves9 of London. The effective leader offered the EnglishYggr’s strife [battle]. Foreign swords bit, and vikings defended the ditchthere. Some of the troop had booths in level Southwark.

The first half of the stanza refers to Óláfr’s attack, and it seems logical for thesecond half to describe the defence, as suggested by the clear antithesis betweenthe verbs sótti and v�rðu. However, the second half mentions both a lið ‘troop’and some víkingar, and it is not clear whether these are the same group or not.10

For Hellberg (1980, 37), the conjunction en in l.5 is significant. Its meaning isadversative (‘but’), but it often means not much more than ‘and’.11 Hellbergprefers to take it as the latter here, so that, rather than introducing a new idea, theopponents, it introduces more information about the army in which Óláfr isfighting, who are defending themselves in Southwark. But Hellberg ignores theillogicality of the same stanza describing first Óláfr’s attack and then hisdefence, without any indication of what his opponents are up to in between.Also, his interpretation depends on the assumption that the word víkingar mustrefer to Scandinavians of some sort. I would instead suggest that the víkingar arethe inhabitants/defenders of London (the ‘English’ of the first half of the stanza)who resisted Óláfr’s attack, with only the last two lines referring to the retreat totheir base by Óláfr’s troop (the lið). Thus, two out of the three examples ofvíkingar in Sigvatr’s Víkingarvísur most likely refer to Óláfr’s opponents.

Another poem describing English battles is the anonymous Liðsmannaflokkr.


9 According to Fell (1981, 115), ‘the plural form here is used for the singular’ but she doesnot elucidate further. She also notes that ‘the meaning is evidently adopted from the OEcognate brycg’. The only other skaldic instance of bryggja with the meaning of ‘bridge’ (andalso plural) is Ótt II,7, referring to the same event and probably derivative of Sigvatr. Londonseems to have had only one bridge crossing the Thames at this time (see the maps in Clark 1989and Vince 1990), and the normal Old Norse meaning of bryggja ‘pier, wharf, landing-place,jetty’ should not be dismissed (Clark 1989, 24). As a great trading centre, London wouldhave had many such and some from this period are known archaeologically. Thus whileLondon Bridge can be traced to the early tenth century, there were wharves at Queenhithe(upriver of London Bridge) from the late ninth century onwards. The eleventh centuryseems to have been just when there was a spurt of new jetty-building (Vince 1990, 33–4,153), although the ‘busy waterfront’ may have been mainly a feature of the middle of thecentury (Vince 1990, 37, 106). Thus, the first jetty and revetment at St Magnus House(immediately downriver of London Bridge) are c.1020, while the first revetment at Bill-ingsgate Lorry Park is c.1039/40, and the major revetment at Billingsgate dates to c.1055 (Iam grateful to Alan Vince for explaining these matters to me). Townend (1998, 52) trans-lates literally (‘the bridges of Lundúnir’), but asserts (1998, 73) that the stanza records‘Óláfr’s attack on London Bridge’.

10 Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (Hkr II, 18) has the lið as the defenders (the víkingar who v�rðu þardíki), while Fell (1981, 115) seems to suggest that they are the attackers. Since búðir aretemporary structures, it seems most likely that they would be occupied by transientwarriors. However, this still leaves the status of the víkingar uncertain.

11 The main manuscript of Heimskringla, the mostly lost Kringla, probably had enn (ms. ‘e’ or‘e�’, judging from the copies in AM 36 fol. and AM 70 fol.), which could I suppose equallymean ‘still’.

Again, we have a description of a battle in which it is not entirely clear whichside is which (Liðsm 4; Poole 1991, 87):

Þóttut mér, es ek þátta,Þorkels liðar dvelja –s�usk eigi þeir sverðas�ng – í folk at ganga,áðr an ?hauðr? á heiðihríð víkingar kníðu –vér hlutum vápna skúrir –varð fylkt liði – harða.

Þorkell’s men did not seem to me, as I saw (them), to lose time in joiningbattle – they did not fear the ringing of swords – before the Vikingsfought a hard engagement on ?hauðr? heath; we encountered showers ofweapons; the warband was in battle formation.

This stanza comes in that section of the poem which, Poole (1991, 99) hasargued, is in praise of Þorkell the Tall. Thus, the víkingar, the lið, and thefirst-person plural verb forms would all refer to Þorkels liðar ‘Þorkell’s men’, ofwhom the speaker is one. However, the stanza is at the very least ambiguous, thevíkingar could also be the opponents who offer Þorkell and his men battle: Pooletakes the conjunction áðr at the beginning of line 5 as linking the twohalf-stanzas, but it could equally anticipate line 8 (giving ‘the warband was inbattle formation before the Vikings offered a hard engagement on ?hauðr?heath’), and thus emphasise the statement of the first half-stanza that Þorkell’smen did not delay in joining battle.12 It would also seem logical for there to besome mention of the enemy side before Þorkell and his men ‘encounteredshowers of weapons’. Even Poole (1991, 108) summarises this stanza as ‘theadvance of Þorkell’s army, the marshalling into battle formation, and the actualengagement with the enemy’. Thus it is quite easy to see the víkingar as theenemy here.

Yet another stanza using víkingar in the context of battles in England is fromÓttarr svarti’s Knútsdrápa. Again, most commentators have been misled by theirassumption that the term víkingar must have ethnic significance (Ótt III,5; Knýtl,106):

Gunni lézt í grœnni,gramr, Lindisey framða.Belldu viðr, þvís vildu,víkingar þar [ms. því] ríki.Bíða léztu í breiðriborg Heminga sorgir


12 There is a similarly ambiguous example (Hfr III,17) of áðr at the beginning of the secondhalf-stanza, which, in Skjd’s interpretation, anticipates a past tense verb later in the samehalf, though I suppose it could equally link back to the first half stanza.

œstr [ms œst] fyr Úsu vestanengst folk, Svía þrengvir.13

Prince, you caused battle to be promoted in green Lindsey. Vikingsdeployed power there as they wished [or, Those vikings who wishedresisted that power]. Oppressor of the Swedes, battle-enraged youcaused the English army/people to experience sorrows in broadHemingbrough to the west of the Ouse.

Both Finnur Jónsson (Skjd B I, 273) and Bjarni Guðnason (Knýtl, 106) under-stood lines 3–4 as referring to Knútr’s followers, thus the latter’s prose wordorder is Víkingar belldu viðr þar ríki, þvís vildu ‘vikings deployed power there asthey wished’, with a conjectural emendation of því to þar (as given above). Boththese scholars are forced into a rather strained interpretation of the sentencebecause of their assumptions about the word víkingar. In contrast, Kock (NN,2218) attempted to understand this stanza keeping the manuscript reading in line4, which might give a translation of lines 3–4 of ‘those vikings who wishedresisted that (i.e. your) power’. In this reading, the víkingar are the enemy, theengst folk of line 8, and the því in line 4 then refers deictically back to the firsttwo lines of the stanza, making for a (fairly) neat parallelism in the stanza: ineach half there is a place-name (with adjectival or adverbial expansion), a refer-ence to the king and what he did, and a reference to the enemy and what they did.Kock’s interpretation not only avoids emendation but also fits the meanings ofbella (viðr) better, as it often means ‘to oppose, resist’, referring to aggressionagainst, rather than on the part of, the person(s) under discussion.14 Hellberg(1980, 40) follows Finnur Jónsson in understanding bella ríki to mean ‘utövamakt, ha övermakten’, but again has to overinterpret to make the stanza meanwhat he wants it to. He concludes that the víkingar are Knútr’s followers,although he would not completely rule out Kock’s interpretation, but dismissesthe possibility that the víkingar are English peasants. Because Hellberg’s theoryis that víkingar are people from eastern Norway, he admits the possibility that inthis stanza it refers to such men among Knútr’s opponents in Þorkell’s army, butnot because he sees this idea of ‘opposition’ as central to the meaning of theterm, as I do. Although Hellberg sees a parallel with Ótt III,2 which mentionsKnútr’s Scanian and Jutish followers,15 it is made clear in that stanza that theyare his followers, thus the poet says that they út fylgðu þér ‘followed you abroad’(cf. also Ótt III,3), while each stanza from 4–8 names one or more groups of hisopponents. Thus, there is a strong case for accepting Kock’s interpretation oflines 3–4 and seeing the víkingar in stanza 5 as the opponents of Knútr.


13 Cited from Knýtl, 106. It is clear from the footnote that the editor (Bjarni Guðnason) intendedto print œstr in line 7, although he in fact prints œst. My translation represents his interpretationof the stanza with the alternative translation of lines 3–4 in square brackets reflecting Kock’sreading (NN, 2218).

14 Cf. Hildr; Hfr III,21; Sigv XIII,17. The supposed counter-example in Sigv III,6 occurs in anegative context.

15 However, he mistakenly calls it st. 4 (1980, 41).

There remain only two instances where there is a strong possibility that thepoet is using víkingar to refer to his own group, or at least to the followers of theking he is praising, who are Haraldr harðráði and his son Óláfr kyrri. In bothcases, the content of the stanza is relatively clear, but the interpretation of whothe víkingar are depends on the context of that stanza in the poem, which is muchless certain. A stanza by Valgarðr from a poem on Haraldr, preserved only inSnorra Edda, so that it is not certain what event it celebrates, describes an attackon a borgar virki ‘city’s fortifications’ (Valg 3). It contains the parentheticalstatement víkingar brutu fíkjum ‘the vikings destroyed rapaciously’ (discussedfurther below). On balance, it is most likely that here the víkingar are themembers of Haraldr’s army, attacking a foreign town or castle. Similarly, astanza from Steinn Herdísarson’s Óláfsdrápa seems to record one of the(successful) battles before Stamford Bridge, where Óláfr fought alongside hisfather (Steinn III,3). If so, it is most likely that the vikings wading in the blood ofmen in that stanza (víkingar óðu bragna blóð) are the victorious Norwegianarmy.

The skaldic evidence for the meanings of víkingr is by no means unassailable,nor does it all point the same way (as even Hellberg admits, 1980, 57). In the ma-terial presented above, there are seven clear instances where the meaning is‘them’, two fairly clear of ‘us’, and four debatable ones. Of the debatable ones, Ifind only Sigv I,3 convincing as representing the ‘us’ meaning, leaving a total often ‘them’ and three ‘us’. On balance, then, I would argue that the plural termvíkingar is used predominantly of opponents or enemies. It is certainly not thenormal word used by ‘viking’ in-groups of themselves. It may however bepossible to detect, in the last two examples discussed, a shift towards a romanti-cisation of the word in the later eleventh century which enables it to be used posi-tively of the speaker’s own group, not unlike that which we can detect in the wayit is used in later ON prose and in pastiche Viking Age poetry such as Egill VII,1.

víking

The evidence for the abstract noun víking (f.) is more limited than that forvíkingr, but provides a useful starting-point for the consideration of what ‘viking’activities were.

The word víking in fact occurs only three times in the runic corpus and once inthe skaldic corpus. The three rune stone inscriptions, two Danish (both actuallyfrom Skåne, D 330 and D 334) and one Swedish (Vg 61), commemorate menwho had been (and in two cases who had died) í víkingu ‘in viking’. The meaningof this word is not at all clear, though a certain amount can be deduced from itscontexts, including both other significant vocabulary in these inscriptions andthe nature of the monuments themselves.16 One of the Danish inscriptions (D


16 Hellberg’s attempt (1980, 81–4) to explain these instances away as representing a phrase ivighningu referring to heathen consecration is both orthographically unlikely and unconvincingbecause he ignores the collocations with other ‘viking’ vocabulary (see also Salberger 1981).


2.3 The Härlingstorp stone (Vg 61), showing the words i uikiku in the bottomright of the inner band. Photo: Harald Faith-Ell, Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet,Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

Image not available

330) needs to be partially reconstructed, so the immediate collocation of thephrase in question is conjectural: the commemorated men possibly váru víðaóneisir í víkingu ‘were far and wide unafraid in ‘‘viking’’ activities’. This clauseprobably refers to the commissioners of the monument as well as to thecommemorated, though this is not certain. The adverb suggests that ‘viking’ tookplace in a variety of places far from home, while the inscription also usesin-group vocabulary such as félagi and drengr (discussed in more detail in ch. 6),which can refer to both raiding and trading activities. The other Danish inscrip-tion (D 334) and the Swedish one (Vg 61) both commemorate men who died ívíkingu, the former in the north, the latter in the west (see fig. 2.3). Again, thecontexts could be expeditions of either raiding or trading (or both). Thus, thecommissioner of D 334 (here commemorating his brother) also commissionedanother stone (D 335) to commemorate a man who had owned a ship togetherwith him, and the two rune stones along with five non-inscribed stones and acenotaph make an impressive monument still in its original location at VästraStrö. On Vg 61 a mother remembers her son who died o uastruakum ‘on theways west’ and this must be seen in the context of a number of inscriptions fromVästergötland which commemorate men who died in the early eleventh-centuryScandinavian wars in England (Vg 20, Vg 187, see also Vg 197). Whatever theactivity of ‘viking’ was, it was clearly praiseworthy, at least at those times and inthose places where these three monuments were made. But as it was not a termused with any frequency, we cannot really say what activities it included.

The earliest occurrence of víking in skaldic poetry comes in a poem by thelatest poet in the corpus, Markús Skeggjason’s Eiríksdrápa, dated to shortly after1100 (Mark I,8a; Knýtl, 216):

V�rgum eyddi Vinða fergir.Víking hepti konungr fíkjum.Þjófa hendr lét þengill stýfa.Þegnum kunni ósið hegna.

The conqueror of the Wends destroyed outlaws. The king decisivelystopped víking. The ruler had thieves’ hands chopped off. He curbed therebellion of the landowners (þegnar).

Here, the activity of ‘viking’ is clearly something it was thought the Danish kingEiríkr ought to put a stop to, along with the doings of outlaws, thieves and rebel-lious landowners (for this pejorative use of þegn, see Jesch 1993b). In contrast tothe runic inscriptions, this single skaldic example does not suggest that ‘viking’activity was considered praiseworthy, strengthening the impression given by theways in which víkingr was used in the skaldic corpus, which were generally notcomplimentary, as discussed above.

Since neither víkingr nor víking helps define what exactly it was that men didabroad in the late Viking Age, it will be necessary to look at the evidence of othervocabulary in both the runic and the skaldic corpus.


Death and war

The runic inscriptions and the skaldic poems that form the basis of this study areboth texts in a commemorative genre: they honour the dead and record forposterity the achievements of both the dead and the living, in both cases mostly,though not invariably, men.

‘He died’

The vast majority of the inscriptions on rune stones commemorate one or morepersons who were deceased at the time the inscription was cut. Although there aresome thirty-two inscriptions (out of nearly 3,000 in the corpus) in which thecommissioner honours him- or herself while still alive, the majority of these alsocommemorate someone else, whom we can often presume, and is sometimesstated, to be dead. For example, U 133 was commissioned by a certain Guðlaug inmemory of her son Holmi and herself, and it is stated that han to a lankbarþal--ti

‘he died in Langbarðaland’ (on which place-name, see ch. 3). Much of thiscommemoration of the dead is fairly basic. Inscriptions on rune stones are, liter-ally, lapidary, and often do not give more than the basic information of thename(s) of the commissioner(s) and the commemorated, and most often the rela-tionship(s) between them. But a substantial minority do give further information,mostly about the deceased, and that can include a statement of where or how theydied. The standard commemorative inscription does not need to point out that thedeceased is dead – that is taken as given. The majority of peaceful deaths at homein old age, or deaths from disease or fatal accidents, are presumably hidden in thethousands of inscriptions which do not refer to the manner of death. But wherefurther information is given about the place or manner of death, it is usuallybecause that death took place abroad, or on an expedition of some sort.

There are various ways of saying ‘he died’ in the language of the runicinscriptions. One of these is the verb endas ‘meet one’s end, die’. This is used inup to twenty inscriptions, always in connection with death abroad or on an expe-dition. These collocations are expressed in the following ways. The verb can bemodified by an adverb such as austr ‘in the east’ (Sö 216, U 518). This adverbcan be made more precise by the addition of the name of a region or a group ofpeople, e.g. austr í Grikkjum ‘in the east among the Greeks’ (Ög 81, Sö 85, Sö148, Sö 345, Sö FV1954:22, Sm 46, U 136, U 518, Vs 1). Or the adverb can bemodified by some other significant phrase, e.g. austr at þingum ‘east in battles’(Sö 33). The location of death can be specified by a regional or place-name (Sö40, Sö 65, Sm 27, Sm 29, U 140, U 358, G 207). The verb can be followed by anadverbial phrase referring to a particular expedition, e.g. í Ingvars helfningi ‘inIngvarr’s troop’ (Ög 155, Sö 9).17

The verb faras ‘perish’ occurs in six runic inscriptions. In four of these (U


17 Sö 216 is fragmentary and may have had further information in addition to the adverb austr.On place- and regional names, see ch. 3. The words þing and helfningr are discussed in ch. 5.

201, U 349, U 363, U 1016), it occurs in the phrase faras úti, where úti implieseither ‘abroad’ or ‘at sea’, and quite possibly both. The other two inscriptions(Ög 145, Sö 335) both commemorate men who died in the east, the latter (andpossibly the former, too) with Ingvarr.

Similarly, the verb falla ‘fall (in battle)’, collocates almost exclusively withphrases indicating that the death took place abroad or on an expedition, with theonly exceptions being two fragmentary inscriptions in which it is not known howthe text continued after the verb fell (U 158, U ATA4909:78). The other instancesrefer to death as a member of an expedition led by a named leader (Ög 8, Sö 217,U 611, U 644) or in a particular place or region (Ög 81, Sö 126, ?Sö 130, Sö 171,U 346, U 356, U 374, U 616, N 239), while U 698 specifies both of these. A fullcomplement of indicators is given in Sö 338: han fial i urustu austr i garþum

lis furugi ‘he died in battle in the east in Russia, leader of the troop’.Another way of referring to the death of someone is the phrase týna aldri ‘lose

(one’s) life’ (Sm 5, Vg 187), used in both cases of men who died in England. Theexpression láta fj�r sitt ‘lose one’s life’, is used in Sö 174 of someone who waskilled (probably in battle) in Gotland.

None of these expressions makes clear that the deceased was put to death byanother human being, although the collocations strongly suggest that this was thecase (however, for Shepard 1982–5, 246, the verbs used in the Ingvarr stonessupport the assertion that most of the expedition died of disease). The verb drepa‘to kill’ is more informative on this score. Again, those who were ‘killed’ seem tohave mostly met their fate abroad, or on an expedition. The participle drepinn isfrequently followed by an adverbial phrase indicating the place (invariablyabroad) where the commemorated person was killed (D 380, Ög 81, Ög 104, Sö174, Sö 333, Vg 20, Vg 135, Vg 181, U 533, U 582, U 654, U 898). The remaininginscriptions are incomplete and so it is not known how the participle was modified(Sö 348, Sö ATA6163:61, Sö FV1948:291, U 324, U 577). Only one inscriptiondefinitely does not specify the location of the killing, but since it involves an accu-sation of treachery and the deceased is called a drengr, it is likely that the killingtook place among a band of men who had gone on expeditions together, even ifthey were not on an expedition at the time the killing took place (D 387, discussedin more detail in ch. 6). Similarly, where the verb drepa is used in an active form(‘X killed Y’), two of the four instances are at the hands of foreigners (U 258, G138), a third also involves an accusation of treachery between félagar (U 954,discussed further in ch. 6), and one is too fragmentary to reconstruct (Sö 351).

A more neutral verb, not necessarily implying violent death, is deyja ‘to die’.This occurs up to twenty-four times in the runic corpus. Two of these inscriptions(U 243, U 613) refer to people who died í hvítaváðum ‘in (the) white clothes (ofbaptism)’, and two refer to people who died young (U 29, G 111), the latter awoman (U 112 also refers to the death of a woman). The others mostly record thedeaths of men abroad, or at home of men who had been abroad.18


18 Abroad: D 37, ?Sö 164, Sö 173, Sö 179, ?Sm 48, U 73, U 133, U 141, U 154, U 180, U 283,U 446, U 1048, Vs 5, G 220. At home: U 1016, G 136. Uncertain: D 68, Sö 170.

There is a similar range of usage for the phrase verða dauðr ‘become dead,die’, the most common way of saying ‘he/she died’ in the runic corpus. Thisoccurs fifty-three times in the corpus referring to deaths abroad, but can also beused for deaths at home (Sö 55 [of someone who had been abroad], U 170),deaths í hvítaváðum ‘in [the] white clothes [of baptism]’ (U 364, U 699, U 896,U 1036), while in three instances the manner or location of death is not specified(D 66, Ög 184, Ög HOV32). On the other hand, the adjective dauðr on its own isnot linked with viking activities abroad, although in some cases this may only bebecause the inscription is fragmentary.19

The fact that most of those whose death is specifically referred to in theirmemorial inscription died abroad can be put down to the necessity of recordingand broadcasting a death in which there was no body, and no funeral at home(with possible implications for inheritance). It is highly improbable that thebodies of those who died in the far-flung regions of Russia, or in England, oreven nearer to home, would be brought back to Scandinavia, though see the dis-cussion of Sm 52, below (see also Wulf 1997 on deaths by drowning). But astudy of these references has also shown that ‘viking’ activity brought with it aconsiderable risk of unnatural, violent or premature death. Some of these deathsmay well have been due to disease or accident while travelling, although theinscriptions are silent on these subjects. But an important cause of death in thecourse of ‘viking’ activity was the active agency of another human being, eitherin a brawl, or in a full-scale battle.

Battles and raids

The word orrosta ‘battle’ (f., pl. orrostur) occurs four times in the runic corpus,in three of which the commemorated died in the battle (D 380, Sö 338, Vg 40;possibly also in Sö 126). Vg 40 goes on to specify that this was iR bþiþus

kunukaR ‘when kings fought’, which may have been in Scandinavia rather thanabroad (see fig. 2.4). This could have been a naval encounter, as was the battle atUtlängan (the southernmost island off Blekinge) mentioned in D 380. The wholeexpression þo kunukaR barþusk ‘when kings fought’ is also used on D 66, andjust the verb berjask in N 252, which may refer to the battle of Bókn betweenErlingr Skjalgsson and King Óláfr, although this is impossible to prove (NIyRIII, 254–8).20 Sö 338 refers to a battle in Russia and similarly, in Sö 126, twodaughters commemorate their father who trauh orustu i austru[i]hi ‘did battleon the eastern route’ before his death.

Battles can be implied without being actually identified as such. Thus, twoinscriptions in Skåne note of the commemorated that he fló eigi at Upps�lum‘fled not at Uppsala’ (D 279 and D 295). The former goes on to state that an ua

maþ an uabn a(f)þi ‘he struck while he had weapon’, making clear that this was


19 D 6, D 110, Sö 15, Sö 122, Sö NOR1998:23, Sm 16, Sm 28, U 620, G 270.20 The extremely fragmentary M 2 also appears to contain the verb berja ‘to strike, fight’.

a battle, though we no longer can identify the occasion. (These inscriptions arediscussed further in ch. 6).

Less formal raids are indicated by inscriptions such as Sö 106 and Sö 166,both of which indicate that the commemorated attacked borgir ‘towns,fortresses’ abroad. The verbs used to describe these attacks are brjóta ‘to breakdown, destroy’, berja ‘to strike’, and sœkja ‘seek, visit, attack’, making clear thatthese trips to defended sites were not tourist visits.21

The skaldic corpus is not single-minded about commemorating death, sincemany of the poems were in honour of living rulers, while even those in praise ofthe dead tend to concentrate on their achievements in life rather than theirmoment of death. Yet because of its preference for describing battles, the skaldiccorpus also has a much richer vocabulary of death, which it would take far toolong to examine in every detail. However, it is possible to draw some parallelswith runic usages.

Thus, the skaldic corpus has a number of examples of berjask used in phraseslike the runic examples discussed above. An unidentified event is described as


2.4 The Råda stone (Vg 40). Photo: Judith Jesch.

21 The interpretation of the final part of Sö 106, firþ han ka(r)saR kuni alaR as ‘he knew allthe journey’s fortresses’ (SamRun) is, unfortunately, impossible to substantiate.

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þars flotnar b�rðusk ‘where (sea)men fought’ (Sigv XI,3), while the battle offRauðabj�rg is þars jarlar b�rðusk ‘where jarls fought’ (Arn V,20). This type ofphrase is also used of Hákon’s battle at Fitjar (ÞSjár II,1), and occurs in HHuI,53and in non-canonical skaldic verse (AnonXI D-o-v,3). It seems to be a formulaicway of referring to a major battle on land or at sea. The urge to record a historicalevent is further indicated by the fact that several of the examples also name theplace where the battle happened (ÞSjár II,1; Arn V,20; AnonXI D-o-v,3).

Orrosta occurs in the skaldic corpus especially in poems by Sigvatr, mainly insummarising the careers of his heroes. Thus, in keeping track of Óláfr’s youthfulencounters, the poet stops at the ninth one to say nú hefk orrostur níu talðar ‘nowI have enumerated nine battles’ (Sigv I,9). These battles are of various kinds, andare referred to by a variety of words and phrases throughout the rest of the poem.In summarising Óláfr’s career after his death, Sigvatr notes that he háði tjogufolkorrostur ‘held twenty major battles’ (Sigv XII,22), while the battle ofStiklestad is called an orrosta (Sigv XII,15). Óláfr’s opponent Erlingr átti fleiriorrostur ‘had more battles’ than any other lendr maðr ‘aristocrat’ (Sigv VII,10),perhaps by way of establishing him as the next most powerful man to the kingwho killed him in his final battle. In Sigv XI,9, the poet replies to accusationsthat he attempted to stop King Magnús holding a folkorrosta ‘major battle’ inSogn. Another of Magnús’ battles is called an orrosta in ÞjóðA I,8, the onlyother occurrence I have found in the corpus.

The word borg ‘fortified place, town’ (f., pl. borgir) also appears in theskaldic corpus for towns and other defended sites attacked by vikings. Óláfrattacked a gamla borg ‘ancient stronghold’ somewhere in southern Europe (SigvI,13). In two stanzas by Óttarr it appears as an element in the Englishplace-names Kantaraborg and Hemingaborg, where it is in both cases aScandinavianisation of the OE place-name element burh (discussed in ch. 3).Both names are modified by the adjective breiðr ‘broad’, suggesting certainlythat Óttarr liked an easy alliteration but possibly also that large towns were stillan imposing sight to Scandinavians. Óttarr addresses his patron Óláfr and tellshim tókt breiða borg Kantara ‘you captured broad Canterbury’ (Ótt II,10), whileKnútr makes the English bíða sorgir í breiðri Hemingaborg ‘experience sorrowsin broad Hemingaborg’ (Ótt III,5).

An unnamed place, which could be anywhere, as the stanza survives only inSnESkskm and is therefore difficult to place (Fidjestøl 1982, 144), receives theattentions of Haraldr harðráði: bjartr brími sveimaði of borgar virki ‘the brightfire hovered over the defences of the town’ (Valg 3). The stanza contains theparenthetical statement víkingar brutu fíkjum ‘the vikings destroyed rapa-ciously’, in which we have to understand the ‘defences’ as the object. FinnurJónsson (Skjd B I, 360) adds a pronoun to his translation to make this clear. Theexamples of brjóta in LP demonstrate that, although this verb can be used imper-sonally in a passive sense (in these instances the logical subject is the same as thegrammatical object), there are no other examples in skaldic poetry of the verbused absolutely, with a subject but no object. The verb is also associated withattacks on foreign towns in Ótt II,7 (London) and, as we have seen, Sö 106


(where the object is similarly borg). While Faulkes (1987, 144) followed FinnurJónsson in his translation of this stanza in Snorri’s Edda, he has since suggestedan alternative reading of the stanza that would provide brutu with the objectborgar virki ‘the city’s fortification’ (SnESkskm, 218). Haraldr is also celebratedfor having taken eighty borgir in Serkland, the Islamic world (ÞjóðA III,2; seefurther on this name below), while Þorfinnr jarl attacked borgir in England (ArnV,17).

A more peaceful event is when Sigvatr remembers tying up his ship inRúðuborg, Rouen (Sigv V,1), to its arm enn vestra ‘western arm’ (discussed inch. 4, below). Similarly, B�lverkr describes Haraldr’s approach to Constanti-nople in which many ships skriðu at h�um armi borgar ‘glided to the high arm ofthe borg’ (B�lv 2). In an eyewitness description of the burning of Hedeby, thespeaker says he stood á borgar armi ‘on the arm of the borg’ (AnonXI Lv,7), oneend of the semicircular rampart around the town that is still visible. In all theseinstances, borg refers to the defensive structures of the town, whatever form theymay have taken.

These quotations show that the defended towns of Europe and further awaywere still a magnet for viking raiders in the eleventh century, even at a time whenthe Scandinavians already had towns of their own. By around 1100, it can beseen that towns are significant in more than one way, they become centres of reli-gious as well as secular and economic power, as illustrated in two contrastingstanzas by Markús Skeggjason. On his expedition against the Wends, King Eiríkrattacks them í borgum ‘in towns’ (Mark I,19), which the saga-author (Knýtl, 224)interprets as í borgum eða kast�lum ‘in towns or castles’. But on his pilgrimageto Jerusalem, Eiríkr is repeatedly honoured by and met with religious proces-sions carrying reliquaries, treasures and crosses ór borgum stórum ‘from largetowns’ on his way (Mark I,29).

The fall of warriors

In the skaldic corpus, falla is by far the most common verb to describe the fall ofwarriors in battle, and a few examples will suffice here. In a stanza eulogisingErlingr Skjalgsson, Sigvatr states simply, Erlingr fell ‘Erlingr fell’ (Sigv VII,6).In a stanza addressed to Magnús, but recalling the example of HákonAðalsteinsfóstri, Sigvatr identifies the latter as sás fell á Fitjum ‘he who fell atFitjar’ (Sigv XI,4). Other heroes whose notable deaths Sigvatr describes simply,using this verb, are Bj�rn stallari and, of course, St Óláfr himself (SigvXII,18,21). It is also the verb used when warriors declare they would rather diethan yield: Magnús lézk fúss falla . . . eða eiga Danm�rk ‘declared himself eagereither to fall or to own Denmark’ (Arn III,5); Haraldr’s liðsmenn kuru allir meirheldr falla of fylki an vildi grið ‘troops all chose much rather to fall around theleader than they wished (to have a) truce’ (Arn VI,15). The warriors who fall inbattle can be on board ship as much as on land: herr fell á þiljur ‘the army fell onthe deck-planks’ (Arn V,7).

Other verbs are used far less frequently. Farask is used of the death of


(enemy) warriors in Steinn III,4. The unmarked verb deyja, relatively common inthe runic corpus, hardly occurs in the skaldic corpus. Hallfreðr uses it in summa-rising Óláfr Tryggvason’s viking career in Britain and Ireland, he lét eyverskanher ok Íra deyja ‘caused the army of the Isles and the Irish to die’ (Hfr II,9),undoubtedly because it provided him with a useful rhyme for eyverskr ‘of theIsles’, an important word in this stanza which ranges right across Britain andIreland. Sigvatr uses deyja to express his lifelong loyalty to Magnús: vildak meðþér lifa ok deyja ‘I would wish to live and die with you’ (Sigv XI,18). Thecommon runic collocation, verða dauðr, also found in ON prose (OGNS) doesnot, as far as I have been able to discover, occur in the skaldic corpus, althoughboth the noun dauði and the adjective dauðr do occur, in a large variety ofcontexts.

Drepa ‘to kill’ is also not common in the skaldic corpus, perhaps because itwas too bald a statement to make in a genre which preferred periphrastic ways ofindicating that one person has killed another. Sigvatr seems to have used it whenhe wanted to make a point. Thus, both the verb drepa and the noun dráp are usedof the killing of Erlingr Skjalgsson in a sea-battle against King Óláfr, in twostanzas which also refer to this event as frændsekja and ættvígi, both ‘kin-slaughter’, tál ‘deceit’, and morð ‘unlawful killing’ (Sigv VII,7,8; discussedfurther in ch. 6). Otherwise, I have found drepa in only two stanzas, Ótt III,3referring to Knútr’s killing of English royals on his way to the throne, and MarkI,20 describing Eiríkr’s campaign against the Wends.

Finally, andask ‘breathe one’s last, die’, which has the same general meaningas, but a different etymology from, runic endas ‘meet one’s end, die’, tends tooccur in non-military, even Christian contexts. Thus the newly-convertedHallfreðr is happy to die if he knows his soul is to be saved (Hfr V,28) and inÞloft III,7 it is used of the death of Óláfr, in a context emphasising the salvationof his soul. In ÞjóðA II,4 it is used of the death of Magnús, who did not die inbattle, though he was on an expedition to Jutland at the time (Hkr III, 105) and,according to Adam of Bremen (AB, 338), he died on board ship (obiit innavibus).

Trade

Not all viking voyages had killing as their sole, or even main, purpose, althoughincidental death could happen at any time. The runic corpus in particular can besqueezed to provide some evidence of expeditions with other aims, though thisevidence is limited and depends to a large extent on how the texts are interpreted.A lengthy article by Düwel (1987) examines the whole body of runic inscriptionsfor indications of trade. In some cases, these indications are quite strong. Thus,when Sö 198 states that the commemorated uft siklt til simk(a)(l)(a) t(u)ru[m]

knari um tumisnis ‘often sailed in a rich/splendid kn�rr around Domesnes tothe Semigallians’ (see fig. 2.5), the word kn�rr, the naming of the destination andthe route, the repetition of the action, and the use of the adjective dýrr ‘splendid’


(perhaps referring to the load rather than the ship) are taken by Düwel (1987,319) as indicators of regular trading voyages, rather than any other sort of expe-dition. However, none of this is decisive. The ship-term kn�rr could, in certaincircumstances (and especially in runic inscriptions), be used of expeditionaryships (see ch. 4), the adjective dýrr could refer to the ship itself rather than itsvaluable load, and the route could be a profitable one (which would be why thecommemorated kept going back to it) for raiding as well as trading. As Düwelconcludes in another context, ‘[i]n der Regel ist es schwierig, zw[ischen]Kriegsfahrt und Raubwiking auf der einen und H[andel]s-Unternehmen auf deranderen Seite zu unterscheiden’ (RGA XIII, 577).

The clearest reference to trade is provided by a rune stone from the very endof the Viking period from Stenkumla church on Gotland (G 207). The inscriptionis only partially preserved, and it is not clear who sunarla sat miþ skinum ‘inthe south sat with skins’, i.e. traded furs (although it is likely to have been thefather commemorated by the same three sons in G 208). This trader died at

ulfshala, which has been identified with Ulvshale on the island of Møn inDenmark, on a trade route to western Europe (SR XII, 208–9).

Runic inscriptions on objects other than rune stones are also relevant to thestudy of trade (Düwel 1987, 323–4), even though they do not form part of thecorpus discussed here. Thus, a copper box from Sigtuna, which may be from theViking Age, records that its owner fik af simskum moni skalaR þis[aR] ‘got


2.5 The Mervalla stone (Sö 198). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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these scales from a Semigallian/Samian man’ (U FV1912:8).22 Scales forweighing silver were the most important equipment of a merchant, and many areknown from the Viking Age.

Otherwise, the best evidence for organised trading in the runic corpus comesin the four inscriptions which mention gildar (m.pl., sg. gildi), or ‘guild-brethren’, members of a guild which could have any purpose, but most likely hadtrade as its aim. These inscriptions consist of two from Östergötland, in whichgroups of men commemorate their gildi (Ög 64, Ög MÖLM1960:230) and twofrom Sigtuna, in Uppland, in which groups of Frísa gildar ‘members of theFrisian guild’ commemorate one of their number (U 379, U 391). These fourinscriptions have much in common, despite the geographical distance betweenthem, and provide an insight into groups of men who organised to carry ontrading activities. However, they probably provoke more questions than theyanswer. They will be discussed in more detail in chapter 6.

The skaldic evidence for trade is slightly more substantial. Arnórr refers to akaupf�r ‘trading voyage’ that he undertook in a knarri (Arn II,2), but does notsay where they went or what kind of trading was involved (the word knarri isdiscussed below, in ch. 4).

An obscure lausavísa by Sigvatr apparently refers to the tax or landing-fee(landaurar) paid to the Norwegian king by Icelandic traders (Sigv XIII,4). In thestanza, Sigvatr asks the generous man (the king) to give (back) halfa landaura afknerri ‘half the landing-fee from the kn�rr’ and he contrasts this request forfeldar ‘sheepskins’ with his previous receipt of gold from the king. Here, kn�rrclearly refers to a trading-ship (although see further discussion of this word inch. 4). Snorri concocts an anecdote (Hkr II, 55–6; it is not in ÓsH) to explain thestanza. Both Sveinn jarl and King Óláfr had each taken half the landaurar fromthe Icelandic merchants in Niðaróss who, caught in the dispute between the tworulers, ask Sigvatr to intervene on their behalf. The stanza is the poet’s request tothe king. The details of the anecdote are a bit unclear, and Snorri does not saywhat the outcome of the request was, although in the next chapter, Sveinn drivesÓláfr out of Niðaróss. Although the context is obscure, the significant vocabu-lary in this stanza (landaurar, feldr and kn�rr) does outline the situation ofIcelandic trade in the towns of Norway which is so often described in the sagasand regulated in the medieval laws (Gelsinger 1981, 61–84). However, I wouldsuggest that Snorri has misplaced the stanza, and that it was actually composedin connection with the agreement between King Óláfr and the Icelanders(preserved in written form in Grágás and summarised in Ari’s Íslendingabók,with slightly differing details) which included a stipulation that Icelandersshould pay landaurar (NGL I, 437–8; Gelsinger 1981, 71–5).

In a famous stanza describing his emotional reaction to Óláfr’s death, Sigvatrstates that vask fyrr kenndr á kn�rrum ‘I was previously known on knerrir’, Sigv


22 The land of the Samians is the peninsula between Kurisches Haff and Frisisches Haff inPrussia, while Semigallia is an area south of the Gulf of Riga (see Maps 1, 3 and 4 inChristiansen 1980a).

XIII, 26), to explain his familiarity with the cliffs of Norway, which used to seemto him to smile, but are now much gloomier that the king is dead. Taking this inconjunction with the stanza just discussed, we can interpret kn�rr as ‘trading-ship’ here, and assume that Sigvatr travelled regularly on trading-voyages, mostprobably coming in to Norway from Iceland.

Words compounded with the element kaup- also indicate mercantile activity.Niðaróss, now Trondheim, was also known as the kaupangr m. ‘market(-place)’.It is not clear whether this word is used as a proper name or an appellative inSteinn III,10 and Mberf 6 (Skjd, for instance, capitalises the first of these but notthe second), although the latter is more likely (Lockertsen 1999). Gísl I,8describes the favourable conditions created by Magnús berfœttr for merchants(kaupmaðr m., pl. kaupmenn), who wished to sell their wares at beach-markets(Msk, 306):

Gramr vann g�rvan,en glatat þjófum,kaupm�nnum frið,þanns konungr bœtti,svát í Elfiøxum hlýddiflaust fagrbúiní fj�ru skorða.

The prince made peace for the merchants, which the king improved, andhe flattened thieves, so that it was possible to prop the beautifully-prepared ships with axes on the shore at Götaälv.23

The compound kaupskip ‘merchant-ship’ is used by Óttarr (along with kn�rr) todescribe the ships in which Óláfr Haraldsson returned to Norway from England(Ótt II,13), although it is not clear whether this was as a passenger on atrading-voyage, or whether Óláfr had acquired two ships that had previouslybeen used for trading.

Pilgrimage

It should not be forgotten that the age of raising rune stones in Sweden was alsothe great age of its conversion to Christianity. Although most voyages took placefor military or mercantile purposes, some people travelled for religious reasons.One or two rune stones may provide evidence of pilgrimage. On U 136, a womancommemorates her husband, is suti iursalir auk antaþis ubi kirkum ‘who‘‘sought’’ Jerusalem and died up in Greece’. The verb sœkja (lit. ‘seek’) canmean ‘attack’ (as it does in Sö 166 and N 184), or it could just mean ‘visit, travelto’, and it is difficult to decide which is meant in this case, though, given theother runic examples, the former is more likely (see also ch. 3 for a military


23 The ‘prince’ and the ‘king’ are both Magnús.


2.6 Drawing by Aschaneus of the lost Stäket stone (U 605). Photo:Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

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expedition to Jerusalem led by Haraldr harðráði). Better evidence for pilgrimageis provided by U 605, although it is now lost and is known only from a drawingsee fig. 2.6). This is one of the small group of stones commissioned by someonein their own honour, here apparently a woman who uil austr fara auk ut til

iursala ‘wishes to travel east and out to Jerusalem’, and presumably arranged theerection of the rune stone in case she never came back. A woman, at any rate,would presumably only make the arduous journey to Jerusalem for religiousreasons.

The effects of the new Christian religion are particularly keenly felt in thepoetry of the eleventh century (Paasche 1914, 11–55), showing, in particular, ‘anew concern for the inner life of humanity’ (Fidjestøl 1993, 115). The skaldiccorpus provides examples of both kings and poets on pilgrimage. It is well docu-mented in other sources that Knútr went to Rome, and this journey is alluded toin Sigvatr’s Knútsdrápa: farlystir kómu fylki hafanda staf ‘urges to travel cameover the leader who had a (pilgrim’s) staff’ (Sigv X,10) and he is said to havemetinn feril fetum suðr ‘measured the way south with his feet’ (Sigv X,11).Sigvatr was in Rome (presumably on pilgrimage) when Óláfr was killed atStiklestad (Sigv XIII,25). Eiríkr Sveinsson also went on a pilgrimage to Romeand Bari, visiting helga dóma ‘holy relics’ s�l at bœta ‘to cure his soul’ (MarkI,11–12). Later, he set out for Jerusalem (friði tryggða byggð Jórsala ‘thepeace-secured settlement of Jerusalem’) because he fýstisk læknask en iðri s�r‘was eager to doctor his inner wounds’, at grœða s�l ‘to heal his soul’, andbecause he vildi �ðlask bjart líf ‘wished to achieve a bright [sinless] life’ (MarkI,28).

Whether they called themselves víkingar or not, the people who engaged inthe activities just outlined, of raiding, trading or even pilgrimage, travelledthroughout Scandinavia and much of the then-known world. In the followingchapter, I outline the destinations to which men travelled in their ships in pursuitof these aims.


3

Viking Destinations

. . . afar henceSeek out a foreign fastness.

POUND

There is a large number of place-names, from Scandinavia and elsewhere, in therunic and the skaldic corpus, which collectively give a useful indication of thegeographical range of activity in the late Viking Age, although by no meansevery place vikings went to is mentioned. Here I aim to survey the material inorder to provide at least a partial geographical context for the ‘viking’ activitiesdiscussed in this book.1

‘East’ and ‘west’

The range of viking activities is summed up in U 504, in which a son commemo-rates his father who uas uistr uk ustr ‘was west and east’. Similarly, in Sö 173,the commemorated father hafþi ystarla u(m) uaRit lenki ‘had long been in thewest’, although he and his son tuu austarla meþ inkuari ‘died in the east withIngvarr’. In Vg 197, a group of brothers commemorate two of their number, oneof whom uarþ tu(þ)r uestr en anar au(s)tr ‘died in the west and the other in theeast’. Most trips abroad from Scandinavia were figured as going either ‘west’ or‘east’, although in strict geographical terms, ‘south-west’, ‘south’ and ‘south-east’ would be more appropriate. It is a commonplace of histories of the VikingAge that geography determined destination, so that Swedes went east, Danessouth and Norwegians west, but the evidence, from the late Viking Age at least,shows that things were more complicated than that.

1 Some surveys of foreign place-names in Old Norse sources include Ekwall 1928; Jansson1954b; Munch 1845–60; Metzenthin 1941; Taylor 1955. There is an extensive survey ofrunic evidence for ‘il tema del viaggio’ in Cucina 1989.

The western route

‘West’

The adverbs vestr ‘in the west’ and vestarla ‘out in the west’ occur in sometwenty runic inscriptions, without any further geographical indication.2 Simi-larly, Vg 61, discussed above, notes that the deceased uarþ tuþr o uastruakm

‘died on the west-ways [á vestrvegum]’. In three inscriptions, the adverb vestr isfollowed by á Englandi ‘in England’ (Sö 166, Sm 104, Gs 8). It is likely thatvestr means ‘England’ in the other inscriptions as well, since their distributioncorresponds fairly closely with those which mention England (without using theadverb), discussed below. A probable exception is G 370. Gotland’s location inthe Baltic means that, geographically, the whole of Scandinavia is included in thedirection ‘west’, as well as the British Isles, while neither the adverb vestr northe name England appear otherwise in any other Viking Age inscription fromGotland.

The skaldic uses of vestr ‘west’ and vestan ‘from the west’ bear out thesuggestion that vestr usually means England, or more generally Britain andIreland, although this is to be expected in texts in praise of subjects who aremostly Norwegian and Danish. Thus, the skalds use vestr of Knútr’s raids onEngland (Ótt III,2; Hallv 2), Haraldr’s expedition of 1066 (AnonXI D-o-v,8) andMagnús berfœttr’s expedition to the British Isles in 1098 (Kali; Þham I,2).Vestan is used of kings and chieftains returning to Scandinavia from the BritishIsles (Sigv X,7,8; Ótt II,13; BjH 4; Steinn III,6), and once, in the less-commonmeaning ‘in the west’, of Óláfr’s subjection of the Northern Isles (Ótt II,19).However, the adverbs could of course also be used with a more local reference,in either a Scandinavian context (Sigv III,19; ÞjóðA I,24; ÞjóðA IV,19; Halli 1),or an English one (Ótt III,5).

England

Some thirty runic inscriptions mention England by name. Most commonly, thesecommemorate men who died in or on their way to England.3 Others state that thedeceased had been to England (Sö 55, Sö 207, Vs 5, Vs 18, Gs 8), but did notnecessarily die there. Some of these say hann vas farinn til Englands ‘he trav-elled to England’, an expression which gives rise to the by-name Englandsfari‘England-traveller’, found in two inscriptions (U 978, U 1181). Some give


2 D 3, D 266, Ög 68, Ög FV1970:310, Sö 14, Sö 53, Sö 62, Sö 106, Sö 137, Sö 159, Sö 164,Sö 173, Sö 260, Sö 319, Sm 51, Vg 197, U 504, U 668, G 370. Ög 83 appears to give aplace-name after the adverb vestr, but the text is not at all clear. In Sö 196, both vestr andaust- appear to have a local reference.

3 ?D 6, Ög 104, Ög FV1950:341, Sö 46, Sö 83, Sö 160, Sm 5, Sm 27, Sm 29, Sm 77, Sm101, Vg 20, Vg 187, U 539, U 616, U 812, Vs 9, N 184.

Viking Destinations 71

3.1 The Lingsberg stone (U 241). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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3.2 The Yttergärde stone (U 344). Photo: Harald Faith-Ell, Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

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details of what the deceased did in England: kialti skifti ‘divided up payment’(Sö 166); tuknuts kialt ‘took Knútr’s payment’ (U 194); hafþi . . . tuh kialtakit

‘had taken two payments’ (U 241; see fig. 3.1); hafiR . . . þru kialtakat ‘hastaken three payments’ (U 344; see fig. 3.2).4 The context for these is the wars inEngland which eventually led to Knútr’s accession to the English throne in 1017.Knútr is even mentioned by name in some inscriptions (Ög 111, ?Sö 14, U 194,U 344, N 184), while U 344 mentions two other viking leaders, Tosti and Þorkell(on the identification of these, see Jansson 1966, 12–13).5

The names of places in England are less well represented in the runic corpus,but occur three times in the context of recording the burial place of someone whodied in England and whose body was not brought home. D 337 notes of thecommemorated that þeR likia i luntunum ‘they lie (buried) in London’, and it islikely the fragmentary D 6 made a similar statement about the deceased, that he a

enklanti i skiu -uilis ‘rests in England at Skía’, although it is not possible toidentify this place. Similarly, Sm 101 says that the deceased’s brother lagþi han i

stenþr . . . a haklati i baþum ‘laid him in a stone coffin in England at Bath’,correctly using the plural form of this name (i.e. ‘Baths’; see fig. 3.3), as in OE(VEPN, s.v. bæð).

The skaldic corpus has fewer references to ‘England’, but many more refer-ences to English places (see fig. 3.4). These place-names have recently beensurveyed and analysed by Matthew Townend (1998). Here, it is sufficient tosummarise his findings as they relate to this work, and to discuss briefly thenames not covered in his book.

Those names discussed by Townend which come from the skaldic corpus asdefined here are mainly from stanzas listing the battles fought in England byÓláfr Haraldsson and (especially) Knútr Sveinsson. Óláfr’s campaigns took himto: Hringmaraheiðr (Sigv I,7; ÞKolb III,12; Ótt II,9), the name of a heath, thefirst element of which survives in ‘Ringmere Pit’, near Thetford in Norfolk;Kantaraborg (Sigv I,8; Ótt II,10), Canterbury; Lundúnir (Sigv I,6; Ótt II,7),London; Nýjamóða (Sigv I,9), a lost Newmouth on the Suffolk coast; andSúðvirki (Sigv I,6), Southwark in London.6 Knútr’s campaigns (sometimes


4 Sm 104 is too fragmentary to deduce what it says happened in England.5 In Ög NOR1997:28, Knútr is apparently the name of a father being commemorated and so

extremely unlikely to have been the king of England. In any case, the monument (of the‘Eskilstunakista’ type) is from a later date.

6 The long vowel in Súð- is required by the rhyme, although the ON suðr ‘south’ normallyhas a short vowel, while the OE s��, with the same meaning, had a long vowel. Townendproposes two explanations, either that ‘Sigvatr is prepared to alter the expected form of aplace-name for a purely metrical reason’ (1998, 74), or that ‘the English first elementappears to have been reproduced rather than the Norse cognate substituted’ (1998, 97). AsTownend notes, most of the manuscripts also lack the expected -r, except the Fsk group,which have reinterpreted the name correctly, but at the expense of the rhyme. It seems tome more likely that Sigvatr, hearing the OE form, misinterpreted the first element asequivalent to ON súð ‘planking’ and the place-name therefore as meaning something like‘wooden, planked fortification’ rather than ‘southern fortification’. I owe this suggestion toPeter Foote. The ON word súð is discussed further in ch. 4.


3.3 Detail of the Nöbbelesholm stone (Sm 101), showing theplace-name baþum, ‘in Bath’. Photo: Judith Jesch.

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3.4 Map showing places in Britain and Ireland mentioned in the text. All place-names are given in their modern forms. Chris Lewis, Cartographic Unit, School ofGeography, University of Nottingham.

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together with other leaders such as Eiríkr jarl Hákonarson and Þorkell inn hávi)took him to: Assatúnir (Ótt III,8), which Townend identifies with Ashingdon inEssex; Brandfurða (Ótt III,7), Brentford in Middlesex; Danaskógar (Ótt III,8), theForest of Dean; Hemingaborg (Ótt III,5), traditionally identified with Heming-brough in East Yorkshire (an identification apparently accepted in Townend 1998,87, but not in his discussion of the name on pp. 34–6); Lindisey (Ótt III,5),Lindsey, one of the three Ridings of Lincolnshire; Lundún(ir) (ÞKolb III,11;Liðsm 10; Knútr is called Lundúna gramr ‘prince of London’ in BjH 4), London;Norðvík (Ótt III,9), Norwich; Skorsteinn (Ótt III,6), Sherston in Wiltshire; andSteinn (Liðsm 8), Staines in Middlesex. There is also a possible place-name inLiðsm 4 (Townend 1998, 33). Also in the corpus is Jórvík (Sigv X,1), York. Thecorpus includes river-names: Fljót (Hallv 3), the Humber; Temps (Liðsm 5,9; ÓttIII,10), the Thames; Thesa (Ótt III,6), the Tees; and Úsa (Ótt III,5; Arn VI,9;Steinn III,2), the Yorkshire Ouse. It also mentions two names of peoples, or inhab-itants of particular districts: Norðimbrar (Hfr II,8; Ótt III,6), the Northumbrians;and Partar (Sigv I,8), as yet unexplained (though see Poole 1980).

Townend does not discuss Hrafnseyrr (Steinn III,5), identified as the lostRavenser, in Holderness, East Yorkshire (Smith 1970, 19). This was the placefrom which the remnants of Haraldr harðráði’s army, led by his son Óláfr kyrri,departed from England after losing the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066.Although Óláfr is mentioned in ASC 1066D, the place from which he left thecountry is not.

Townend’s survey also omits any discussion of the name ‘England’ itself,which occurs at least eight times in the skaldic corpus. Sveinn Forkbeard is cele-brated as having reddened swords Englandi ‘in England’ (Þjsk II). The speakerof Liðsmannaflokkr contrasts the lot of the stay-at-home with the warriors whocarry shields upp á Englandi ‘ashore in England’ (Liðsm 3). Æthelred is enn�rva þengill Englands ‘the generous king of England’ (Gunnl I). Sigvatr callsKnútr allvaldr Englands ‘ruler of all England’ (Sigv XIII,19), while Hallvarðrstates that Knútr ræðr einn Englandi ‘rules England alone’ (Hallv 6). Haraldrharðráði recalls sailing norðan fyr England sunnan ‘from the north, south ofEngland [through the Channel]’ (Hharð 16). At Stamford Bridge, he was facedby �flugr herr sunnan of England ‘a mighty army from the south of England’(Arn VI,12). In Þorkell Skallason’s stanza on the betrayal of Waltheof byWilliam the Conqueror, the poet regrets that síð mun létta . . . manndráp áEnglandi ‘it will take some time for the killings in England to cease’ (ÞSkall 2).Together, the runic and skaldic instances provide useful evidence both of theconcept of ‘England’ and of the disyllabic form of the name England in theeleventh century. The English sources from this period still use the compoundEngla-land ‘land of the Angles/English’.7


7 According to OEC, the only occurrence of the form Englond (there are none of England) isin the lost English version of a charter of King Æthelstan which many scholars think is afabrication (ASCha, S 391) and where it occurs alongside the form Engelond. Examples of

The skaldic corpus also contains many instances of Englar ‘English’, usuallyin generalised references to opponents (Hfr II,8; ÞKolb III,12,13; Sigv I,9; SigvXII,19; Ótt II,9; Arn V,16; Steinn III,13), though Knútr is of course konungrEngla ‘king of the English’ (Ótt IV,2). The adjective en(g)skr ‘English’ alsoappears, referring to the enemy army (Ótt II,11; Ótt III,5) or the landscape(ÞKolb III,9).

Britain and Ireland

There are no certain references in the runic corpus to anywhere in Britain andIreland other than England, though the Scandinavian runic inscriptions found inthese islands, predominantly outside England, testify by their very existence to arange of Scandinavian activities here, in the Viking Age and after (surveyed inHolman 1996). While it has been suggested that the death of a warrior recordedin Ög 81 as a tuti means ‘in Dundee’, this seems unlikely (Jansson 1987, 90).

The skaldic corpus preserves quite a few insular place-names, along with thenames of the various inhabitants of Britain and Ireland, subdued or ruled by theall-conquering Scandinavians. Most frequently mentioned are the Skotar ‘Scots’(Hfr II,8; Arn V,7,11,14; Bkrepp 6; Gísl I,9), followed by the Írar ‘Irish’ (Sindr5; Hfr II,9; Ótt IV,2; Arn V,10) and the Bretar (probably) ‘Welsh’ (Hfr III,11),also in the adjectival forms írskr (Glúmr II,2; Arn V,14) and brezkr (Hfr II,9; ArnV,14). Þorfinnr, Earl of Orkney, has a brezk skj�ld ‘Welsh shield’ (Arn V,10). Inthe context (in which he is reddening points in the blood of the Irish andburning), it seems unlikely that this is because such shields were particularlyvalued, and more likely that it was war-booty. Liðsmannaflokkr records thesound of the sword ringing á brezkum brynjum, on the mail-coats worn by theopponents of the Scandinavian attackers (Liðsm 8). Poole (1987, 292–8) hassurveyed the evidence for the meaning of brezkr and concludes that it can eitherrefer to modern Wales, or to the Britons of the Strathclyde region. The evidenceis particularly strong that the poet of Liðsmannaflokkr meant ‘Welsh’, and itseems reasonable to take this meaning for the other instances listed above.

Other groups of people mentioned are kumrskar þjóðir (Hfr II,9) ‘Cumbrianpeoples’, referring to the Strathclyde Britons, rather than Cumbria as we under-stand it today; Manverjar (Bkrepp 7), ‘dwellers in the Isle of Man’; mýlsk þjóð‘people of Mull’ (Bkrepp 6) ; eyverskr herr (Hfr II,9), ‘army of the island-dwellers’; meyjar suðr í eyjum (Bkrepp 6), ‘girls in the southern islands(Hebrides?)’; eybúar (Ótt IV,2), ‘inhabitants of the (Northern?) Isles’;Hjaltlendingar (Ótt II,19) and Hjaltar (Arn V,10,22), both ‘Shetlanders’. Thetwo opponents encountered by Magnús berfœttr in the Menai Strait in 1098 arevalskir jarlar, in this context, ‘Norman earls’ (Gísl I,10), although Hugh, Earl ofShrewsbury, and Hugh, Earl of Chester, were well-established in England. The


Engla-land and Engla-lond are however numerous. According to MED (s.v. Engelond),the disyllabic form is first recorded c.1300. See also Wormald 1999a, 371.

other examples of the adjective valskr refer to swords (Sigv I,6; Arn III,9; ÞhamI,4) or to a helmet (Sigv XIII,5). Frankish swords were particularly prized in theViking Age, and it is likely that is what valskr means in these instances.

Arnórr mentions the countries of Skotland (Arn V,9; also Glúmr I,2), andHjaltland ‘Shetland’ (Arn V,18). The Eyjar ‘Islands’ in Arn V,24 encompasseither both Shetland and Orkney or, more likely, just Orkney. Other place-namesmentioned in the skaldic corpus are (roughly in geographical order, in an arcfrom Ireland to eastern Scotland, see fig. 3.4): Dyflinn ‘Dublin’ (Arn V,23; Mberf6); �ngulsey ‘Anglesey’ (Gísl I,11) and �ngulssund ‘Menai Strait [i.e. the straitby Anglesey]’ (Bkrepp 9); M�n ‘Isle of Man’ (Hfr II,8; Arn V,15); Sanntíri‘Kintyre’ (Bkrepp 7); Íl ‘Islay’ (Bkrepp 7); Sandey ‘Iona’ (Bkrepp 7); Ívist‘North Uist’ (Gísl I,9); Tyrvist ‘Tiree’ (Bkrepp 6); Skíð ‘Skye’ (Bkrepp 6; GíslI,9); Vatnsfj�rðr ‘Loch Vatten’ (Arn V,12); Ljóðhus ‘Lewis’ (Bkrepp 5); Ekkjall‘River Oykell’ (Arn V,9); Torfnes ‘Tarbat Ness’ (Arn V,9).8

Arnórr jarlaskáld’s Þorfinnsdrápa further provides examples of place-namesfrom the Northern Isles: Dýrnes ‘Deerness’ (Arn V,6); Sandvík ‘Sandwick’ (ArnV,8); Rauðabj�rg (possibly) ‘Roberry (on South Walls)’ (Arn V,20);Péttlandsfj�rðr ‘Pentland Firth’ (Arn V,21); Þursasker, probably in Shetland,though it is difficult to identify where (Arn V,23).9

Further west

Iceland, whose poets composed most of the texts in the skaldic corpus, andwhose historians and scribes ensured its preservation for posterity, scarcelyfigures in it. This is partly a result of the selection of that corpus, since theIcelandic sources about Iceland, the Sagas of Icelanders, the Bishops’ Sagas, andthe Sturlunga compilation, which contain verses with such content, have notbeen included, for reasons explained in chapter 1. We get a few hints of thestance of the Icelandic poets, but no suggestion of viking activity any furtherwest than Ireland.

On his voyage east to Sweden, Sigvatr boasts of augun þessi íslenzk hinsv�rtu ‘these black Icelandic eyes’ (Sigv III,15), his own, naturally, which haveshown him the way. His nephew Óttarr calls King Óláfr stjóri markar íslands


8 On the identification of the names in Bkrepp, see Fidjestøl 1982, 150–52. It has beensuggested that Vatsfj�rðr might be Waterford in Ireland rather than Loch Vatten on Skye(Crawford 1987, 74, 233). On Tarbat Ness and Oykell, see Fraser 1986, 26, 31. Whaley(1998, 238) suggests that Ekkjall refers to the Dornoch Firth, rather than the River Oykell,which flows into it, presumably because Tarbat Ness is a promontory at the entrance to thefirth.

9 For the suggestion that Rauðabj�rg, the site of an important sea-battle, was Roberry onSouth Walls, see Taylor 1938, 364. This, although admittedly right on the Pentland Firth,is a very minor place-name, and I would prefer to think the battle took place off Roeberryon South Ronaldsay. This farm is placed atop a red headland looking out over the shelteredWidewall Bay, an ideal site for a naval battle, and it is not too far from the Pentland Firth.However, it has to be admitted that there is no shortage of red cliffs in Orkney, andMarwick (1952, 177) is skeptical about the derivation of this name.

(Ótt IV,1), which is generally interpreted (LP; LegS, 138) as a kenning meaning‘ruler of the icy land of the forest [i.e. Norway]’, though there is surely at least adouble entendre here. The term Íslendingar ‘Icelanders’ is famously concealedin Eyv III,14, the poet calling them álhimins lendingar ‘eel-heaven’s-landers’, inwhich the eel’s ‘heaven’ is ‘ice’.

The runic corpus is similarly reticent on the westernmost parts of the vikingworld, with only the enigmatic whetstone from Timans (G 216, not a part of thecorpus) recording the name islat along with other geographical designations, in acontext that we can no longer reconstruct. The runic inscriptions found in thewestern colonies testify to the export of this script there from the Scandinavianhomeland, though very few of them are from the Viking Age and none are tradi-tional memorial stones such as those of the Scandinavian homeland. Of the nine


3.5 Map showing places on the European continent mentioned in the text. Allplace-names are given in their modern forms. Chris Lewis, Cartographic Unit,School of Geography, University of Nottingham.

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currently known runic inscriptions from the Faroes, only two are from the VikingAge, and only one of those is a rune stone (FR 1), though with a somewhat enig-matic text. The 39 inscriptions from Iceland and the 92 inscriptions from Green-land listed in SamRun are all coded ‘M’, meaning they are from after 1100.

The European continent and further south

The kinds of viking activities on the European continent that are so well knownfrom sources like the Frankish annals were concentrated in the ninth century, andhad died down before the period being considered here. However, theplace-names found in both the runic and the skaldic corpus demonstrate thatvikings still turned their attention southwards in the eleventh century (see fig.3.5).

Saxony and Frisia

One runic inscription (Sö 166; see fig. 3.6) commemorates a man who had both‘divided up payment’ in England and ‘attacked towns’ a sahkslanti ‘in Saxland(Saxony)’, the area just south of the Danevirke, now in northern Germany andmarking the southern border of Scandinavia. Eiríkr’s Danish kingdom is fyrSaxland norðan ‘to the north of Saxony’ (Mark I,25) and its border is Saxa merki‘marker of the Saxons’ (Mark I,13).

The name of Frisia, Frísland, occurs in the runic text on a silver neck-ringfound on the island of Senja in northern Norway, in which the first-personspeaker notes that furu- trikia frislats a uit ‘we visited Frisia in a drengr-likefashion / the drengir of Frisia’ (N 540). I have discussed this inscription at lengthelsewhere (Jesch 1997; see also Samplonius 1998), concluding that it could referto either raiding or trading activities. If it records trading activities, it should beseen in the light of the Swedish inscriptions that mention Frísa gildar (discussedin ch. 6). If the speaker is boasting of having raided in Frisia, it should be seen inthe light of the skaldic (and other) evidence for raids in this area in the earlyeleventh century (discussed further below). The incomplete sequence [f]ris on awooden plane found in Dublin (IR 6) may also have something to do withFrisians, though the context is quite unclear (Barnes et al. 1997, 25). Neither ofthese inscriptions is a part of the runic corpus, not being memorial stones, thoughboth are probably to be dated to the eleventh century.

Both Saxar ‘Saxons’ and Frísir ‘Frisians’ are identified as opponents of ÓláfrTryggvason on his foreign expeditions (Hfr II,6). As Fidjestøl (1982, 215) pointsout, however, Hallfreðr’s use of people-names rather than country-names, letalone more specific place-names, suggests a general knowledge of viking geog-raphy rather than a precise knowledge of Óláfr’s expeditions. In the followingstanza (Hfr II,7), Óláfr is depicted fighting Valkerar ‘people from Walcheren (inHolland)’ and Flæmingjar ‘Flemings’. Frisians are also mentioned as Knútr’sopponents at the battle of Brentford in Middlesex (Ótt III,7). Whether Óttarr had



3.6 The Grinda stone (Sö 166). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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any real information on this, or was more concerned to find the appropriatehalf-rhyme and alliteration is difficult to say, though this poem is generally ratherprecise in its information. Poole (1987, 274) suggests the Frisians might havebeen innocent traders on the Thames caught up in the fighting.

There is some evidence for viking raids on Frisia in the late tenth and, particu-larly, the early eleventh century, although it is not often discussed (for instanceBlok 1978 covers only the ninth and early tenth centuries). The fullest treatmentis still that of de Vries (1923, 305–8), who summarises and discusses a numberof continental chronicles which attest to such raids in the first decade of theeleventh century.10 The problem seems to be how many raids there were, andwhen and where they took place. The sources all refer to two raids, but givedifferent dates, and there is also some discrepancy over whether the raids weredirected at Tiel or at Utrecht, or both. Either there were just two raids in subse-quent years, which are variously given the dates of either 1006 and 1007 or 1009and 1010, or there were two sets of two raids in these years, or possibly even justtwo raids, not in subsequent years, in 1006–7 and 1009–10. I am not competentto solve the problems of these chronicles, and in any case they do not have thekind of detail that would enable us to link these raids to any events known fromother sources, although scholars have attempted (Johnsen 1916, 9–10; de Vries1923, 304) to make such a link with the Norse accounts of Óláfr Haraldsson’syouthful expeditions, in particular as recounted in Sigvatr’s Víkingarvísur.

Óláfr Haraldsson raided extensively on the continent, and many place-names,most of them insecurely identified, or not at all, are documented in this poemabout Óláfr’s youth. The most commonly accepted suggestions for identifyingthese places are summarised in Fell (1981), though it has to be said there is roomfor more work here, and there may still be information buried in continentalsources unfamiliar to scholars of Scandinavian studies. The sequence of stanzasin this poem is fixed by the numbering of the battles in the poem, but the identifi-cation of the places concerned is often difficult, and not helped by the fact thatthe prose contexts in which the stanzas of the poem are preserved do not alwaysagree in their identifications of the locations. Thus, Óláfr is described as fightinga battle fyr hári Kinnlimasíðu ‘off high Kinnlimasíða’ (Sigv I,5). The only prosesource to locate this place is Snorri’s saga of St Óláfr (ÓsH, 41; Hkr II, 13),which says it is in Frísland ‘Frisia’. LegS (42) implies that it is in England, whileFsk (167) calls the place Kinnlimafj�rðr and does not say where it is (althoughÓláfr goes ‘west’ from there to England); neither of these two actually cites thestanza. Following Snorri, then, modern scholars have located the place in theNetherlands, despite the fact that it is described as ‘high’, and this is explained aseither a misunderstanding or poetic license by Sigvatr who, after all, had not


10 Thus, the Annales Colonienses have an attack by piratas on Tiel in 1006. The ChroniconTielense has an attack a piratis & Danis on Tiel in 1007. Both Anfrid and Sigebert ofGembloux note attacks by Normanni on Tiel in 1009 and on Utrecht in 1010. TheChronicon Egmondanum has Nortmanni burning Utrecht in 1010. Alpertus of Metzdescribes at length (but does not date) an attack by Normanni on Tiel.

been there. They identify it with Kennemerland, a coastal district in NorthHolland, just north of Amsterdam (e.g. Hkr II, 466). Samplonius (1998, 93), whorolled down the sand dunes there as a boy, testifies that they can be both steepand high. Of course, we should not take everything the poet says literally, and itis true that the impression of height is reinforced in this stanza by the descriptionof the enemy riding ‘down’ to meet the attackers (herr reið ofan), which mightwell refer to the sand-dunes. But height is relative, and I find it difficult tobelieve that any Norwegian or Icelander would describe anything in the Nether-lands as ‘high’. It is also possible to question the identification on philologicalgrounds. Apart from the superficial similarity of the first element, it is hard to seehow the early forms of this place-name, Kinhem, Kinnin, Chinheim (LNT, 204),which clearly involve the second element ODu -hem, and which ON speakersshould have recognised as equivalent to their -heim, would give the Norse formKinnlima-, even if we accept that the descriptive suffix -síða ‘stretch of coast,bank of a river’ was added by the poet or other Norse speakers. Here, I believesome diligent searching by place-name experts might well turn up some plau-sible alternatives, possibly even in England.

The next four stanzas of Víkingarvísur describe battles fought in England, andthese English sections of the poem have been much discussed by scholars, whilethe place-names mentioned have already been noted above. Much less work hasbeen done on the remaining stanzas which describe a series of battles Óláfrfought elsewhere in Scandinavia and on the European continent. Most of thesecontain troublesome place-names, and although they have tentatively been iden-tified, these identifications are mostly conjectural.

Brittany and points south

The first of the ‘European’ stanzas of the poem describes an attack í f�grumHringsfirði ‘in lovely Hringsfj�rðr’ on a h�tt ból á Hóli . . . víkingar �ttu ‘highdwelling in/on Hóll, vikings owned (it)’ (Sigv I,10). The prose sources havenothing to say about the geographical location of this except that Snorri specifiesthat Óláfr went suðr um sjá ‘south across the sea’ from England (Hkr II, 22) toget there. While ‘lovely Hringsfj�rðr’ sounds almost Scandinavian, scholarshave nevertheless concurred that this stanza refers to an attack on Dol in Brittany.The similarity (if that is what it is) between Hóll and Dol would not be sufficientgrounds for this assumption,11 but here we do have some important evidencefrom the Gesta Normannorum Ducum by William of Jumièges. According tothis, Duke Richard II of Normandy called in two Scandinavian kings, named as


11 The manuscripts of both this stanza and the equivalent prose (in texts which do not cite thestanza) differ on the form of this name (see Skjd A I, 226; FskFJ, 142; LegS, 56), though inthe stanza the oblique form Hóli (rather than Hœli) is substantiated by the rhyme. Eithercould be understood descriptively: a hóll m. is a ‘rounded hill’, while a hœli n. is a ‘place ofrefuge’ (LP). The plural form in Snorri’s prose (á Hólunum, Hkr II, 22) may be influencedby the use of this name for the famous Icelandic bishopric at Hólar.

Olaf and Lacman, to come from abroad to help him in a feud with Count Odo ofChartres. After a nasty trick in which they trapped the Bretons by diggingdisguised trenches into which their horses fall, we are told that they ‘laid siege tothe town of Dol, and having captured it, they set fire to it and burnt it after havingkilled all its inhabitants including Salomon, guardian of the place’ (GND II,26–7). They then went to Rouen to be fêted by Richard. According to the latesteditor of the text, William has here confused two events, the invasion of Brittanyin 1009 and Óláfr’s visit to Normandy in 1013/14, on his way back to Norway(GND II, 24–5). The only serious, but unconvincing, attempt to question thistraditional identification with Dol has been by Staffan Hellberg (1980, 37–8),who does not see it as a place-name at all. The weakness of his interpretation isthat it is subordinated to an overarching theory that the word víkingr in VikingAge texts refers to a man from eastern Norway. This theory is, I think, untenable,as discussed in chapter 2. There is nothing in the stanza to prevent the identifi-cation of Hóll with Dol (which was indeed a high, fortified site, and is picturedas such in the Bayeux Tapestry, see Wilson 1985, pl. 20–21, p. 215) although itwould be useful if a place-name specialist could find some explanation for theform of the name.

The next stanza is more problematic. Again using the fine old principle ofvague similarity, scholars identify the place name Gríslupollar (Sigv I,11) withCastropol, in Asturia, on the north coast of Spain, and Fell (1981, 119) suggeststhat the earl Viljálmr was invented (she does not say by whom) from theplace-name Viljálmsbœr also mentioned in the stanza, which she suggests is acorruption of the nearby place-name Villamea (also Johnsen 1916, 16). Elisabethvan Houts, however, has revived (1984, 118) a suggestion originally made byMunch (see Johnsen 1916, 16) that this stanza reflects an attack on Aquitaine,then ruled by William V, as related by Adémar of Chabannes, although he doesnot name the viking leader (AC, 176). Adémar goes on to say that the vikingsperformed the same trick that William ascribed to them in Brittany, of diggingtrenches for their opponents’ horses to fall into. This similarity can be interpretedin several ways. I am not competent to decide whether there might be a direct lit-erary connection between Adémar (writing before 1034) and William (writing inthe 1070s). If not, it might have been a literary motif used independently by thetwo chroniclers, or indeed it might really have happened in both places. If so, thiswould suggest that the same viking troop, having tried the trick once and found itsuccessful, used it again. This may be a small additional piece of evidence to linkSigvatr’s stanza with Aquitaine rather than Spain, though it still leaves unsolvedthe problem of identifying the location of Gríslupollar.

The other place-names in Víkingarvísur are probably even more tenuouslyidentified. In Sigv I,12, Óláfr’s twelfth battle at Fetlafj�rðr, it has beensuggested, was in the fjord by Flavium Brigantium, now Betanzos, southeast ofthe Galician seaport La Coruña. As Johnsen admits (1916, 17), there is littlesimilarity between the names. There is also no other evidence in this half-stanzato help locate the spot, although the prose sources helpfully envisage this battleas vestr ‘west’ of the previous one.


In Sigv I,13, Seljupollar is slightly more convincingly identified as a bay bySil (Cilenorum aqua), now Guardia, at the mouth of the river Miñho in the north-west of Spain.12 There are records of plundering activity in this region in thisperiod (Johnsen 1916, 17).

The prose sources agree that Óláfr then went up into France, as he komsunnan upp at Leiru ‘came from the south up to the Loire’, to Varrandi, identi-fied as a bœr ‘settlement, town’ fjarri sjá á Peitulandi ‘far from the sea in Poitou’(Sigv I,14). The directions are clear enough in this stanza, but there is a problemwith identifying the place. The name appears to be identical to Guerrande insouthern Brittany, which is unfortunately neither far from the sea nor in Poitou. Ithas been suggested that the mistake is Sigvatr’s (Johnsen 1916, 19), whoconflated Ólafr’s activities in the Loire/Poitou area on the return journey with anotherwise unmentioned raid in Brittany, presumably on the way south.13 Óttarralso refers to Óláfr’s destruction of Peita ‘Poitou’ and, more improbably, to raidsin Túskaland ‘Touraine’ (Ótt II,12).

Short of as-yet-unmade discoveries in southern sources, or a closer study ofthese place-names by onomasts with the right linguistic background, in the endwe have to rely on the saga-writers to interpret the overall course of Óláfr’s expe-ditions. As Fell (1981, 121) has pointed out, they all mention a battle at Karlsá,probably Cadiz (Johnsen 1916, 18), which is not recorded in the survivingstanzas of Sigvatr’s poem, and show Óláfr attempting, though not succeeding, tosail through the straits of Gibraltar, so clearly they thought Óláfr had been‘somewhere on the west coast of the Iberian peninsula’ previously.

Normandy and southern Italy

Van Houts (1984, 117–19) has argued that William of Jumièges, along withsome other Norman writers of the period, had access to Scandinavian sources.She noted that William has Sveinn Forkbeard visiting Richard II in Rouen in1003 and making a pact of mutual assistance with him. William is also the onlysource to assert that Óláfr Haraldsson was baptised in Rouen just before hisreturn to claim the throne of Norway. Finally, like many others, she draws atten-tion to the fact that Óláfr’s chief poet, Sigvatr Þórðarson, visited Rouen with hisfriend Bergr in about 1024. She concludes that ‘[d]uring their visit they mightpossibly have told their version of the story of Olaf’s Viking career, a versionwhich might have lingered on in Normandy until the time of William of


12 The reading Sæliuvallum in LegS, 58, can probably be explained as a copying error,influenced by the fact that this stanza describes an assault on a borg ‘fortified site’.However, LegS (almost certainly wrongly) assumes that the stanza describes two differentraids, and locates the ‘ancient fortress’ in western France.

13 Locating these events is further complicated by LegS’s curious placement of them,disconnected from the previous ones, and by the fact that the writer says Óláfr went, not toPoitou, but til Væini (p. 62). Johnsen (1916, 19) has suggested this is either a misreading ofPeitu, or a form of Vilaine, a river in Brittany. The Vendée, south-east of the mouth of theLoire, has also been suggested (LegS, 62).

Jumièges’. This conclusion is at least relatively cautious, compared to the verywild assertion of Lauren Breese (1978, 241) that ‘in 1025 a visiting skald enter-tained the court of Richard II with verses not likely sung in Old French’. Thestanza in question (Sigv V,1) says no such thing, though it does link in an inter-esting way with recent archaeological work in Rouen, as discussed in chapter 4.

Snorri says that Sigvatr was in Rouen on a kaupferð ‘trading voyage’, butgives no further details (Hkr II, 271). Certainly there is nothing in the survivinghalf-stanza to suggest raiding. It is almost too neat to see the end of the VikingAge, at least for this part of the continent, in the contrast between Óláfr’s earlyraiding voyages and this trading visit by his skald. Musset (1954) propounded atheory in which the first three decades of the eleventh century show a transitionfrom ‘Scandinavian’ to ‘French’ Normandy. This was based on a small numberof finds of Norman coins of this period in which there appears to be a markedshift from finds mostly in a northerly direction (in Denmark, the British Isles,etc.) to a southerly direction (in central France, Italy and even Constantinople),reflecting the reorientation of trade routes and what Musset describes as aprocess by which Normandy is detached from ‘le monde nordique’ and reat-tached to ‘le monde latin’, though the current numismatic situation suggeststhings are not quite so clear-cut. However, the process is just as neatly illustratedin another section of Adémar of Chabannes’ chronicle (AC, 177–9). Adémarbegins by describing an attack by Normanni supradicti ‘the previously-mentioned Northmen’, and their attack on Ireland. But later on in the chapter, thesame word Normanni is used of ‘Normans’, the followers of Richard II, in thecontext of his attack on Apulia in 1017. These are what David Bates (1982, 241)called ‘the beginnings of a substantial exodus towards southern Europe’ whichhe sees as resulting from ‘the collapse of an order which these relations with theScandinavian world had in some part upheld’.

From the Norman point of view, this period may well be the end of the Scan-dinavian connection. But turning to southern Italy in the eleventh century, wefind Scandinavians still engaging in ‘viking’ activities there, though from adifferent direction. Indeed, Adémar’s account of Richard’s expedition to Apuliahas him come out the worse from an encounter cum gente Russorum ‘with thepeople of Rus’, as a result of which many of the Normans were taken away toConstantinople and imprisoned there (AC, 178). In this encounter, the two typesof Normanni come together, for the ‘Rus’ here are Varangians, mercenarysoldiers (often of Scandinavian origin) employed by the Byzantine emperor.Both the runic and the skaldic corpus provide evidence for this Varangianactivity in southern Italy, called Langbarðaland. Although the same name as‘Lombardy’, this runic name does not refer to the northern Italian region as weknow it, but was used either as a general name for the whole of Italy or, morelikely, for Longobardia, that part of southern Italy that was under Byzantinecontrol in the eleventh century (SR VI, 199).14


14 The earliest Scandinavian evidence I have found for the use of ‘the land of theLangbarðar’ to mean ‘Italy’ is in Plácitus drápa 55, when St Eustace’s wife asks to be

The name occurs in three or four runic inscriptions (Sö 65, ?Sö FV1954:22, U133, U 141) and collocates with the adverbials austarla ‘in the east’ in Sö 65,and i austruiki ‘on the eastern route’ in Sö FV1954:22 (though in this the nameis fragmentary and therefore uncertain). This suggests that the men who went toLangbarðaland did so via Byzantium, as soldiers of the Emperors who made warin southern Italy on and off during the eleventh century, especially in the 1030sand 1040s, although there is evidence of Varangian activity there from at least1009 until the Eastern Empire finally gave up its hold on Italy in 1071 (Blöndaland Benedikz 1978, 51–111). Thus, from the viking point of view, this namereally belongs with the eastern European names discussed below, althoughbecause of the Norman connection, it also links with this section. It can alsooccasion misunderstanding, in both medieval and modern accounts.

Haraldr harðráði was a well-known Varangian, and he also campaigned álandi Langbarða, according to a fragmentary and poorly-provenanced couplet(ÞjóðA III,5). These lines are preserved only in a very late saga-compilationcalled Hulda-Hrokkinskinna, but may go back to an earlier version of Msk(Fidjestøl 1982, 40, 134). It is useful to see this stanza together with Ill I,3, alsopreserved in Hulda-Hrokkinskinna, and in Flateyjarbók, in which it is said thatHaraldr gekk opt á frið Frakka fyr óttu ‘often disturbed the peace of the Franksbefore dawn’. The saga-writers (and some modern scholars following them)understood both Langbarðaland and Frakkar in the senses they had by the thir-teenth century, namely ‘Lombardy (in northern Italy)’ and ‘Franks, Frenchmen’,and assumed that Haraldr had passed through western Europe on his way toByzantium. Although neither stanza provides much immediate context, the otherstanzas of Illugi’s poem are informative: they refer to Haraldr’s austrf�r ‘journeyeast’ (Ill I,2), and sunnl�nd ‘southern lands’ and Mikjáll, Haraldr’s employerEmperor Michael IV (Ill I,4). Thus, ‘the Langbarðaland of the poem was theSouthern Italian district which formed the Byzantine province of Longobardia,and . . . the Frakkar were the French Normans who were disputing this veryLangbarðaland in Southern Italy’ (Blöndal and Benedikz 1978, 56).

Bari, in Apulia, was often at the centre of this struggle but, by the end of theeleventh century, it is becoming more closely associated with Rome, as when theDanish king Eiríkr Sveinsson makes a pilgrimage til Róms ‘to Rome’, but alsoseeks out relics út frá Rómi ‘outside of Rome’ (Mark I,12). These relics út í B�r‘out in Bari’ (Mark I,11) were those of St Nicholas, which the men of Bari hadbrought back from Myra in 1087 and re-enshrined in a new church there(Blöndal and Benedikz 1978, 111–12). The cult of St Nicholas was particularlypopular with Varangians, and it is characteristic that Eiríkr’s brother and


taken home Langbarða til jarðar ‘to the ground of the Langbarðar’. This poem ispreserved in a manuscript dated to around 1200, and none of the prose versions or theirLatin source have this name at this point, although it is clear that Italy, or more specifically,Rome, is meant, cf. the Latin ego de terra Romanorum sum (Tucker 1998, xciv, cxxi,58–9).

successor was called Níkulás.15 But Eiríkr’s journey to Bari was not by theeastern route, he seems to have walked to Rome via Venice, the balkat friðlandFeneyjar ‘fenced protected land of Feney’ (Mark I,10). Similarly, the fact thatEiríkr is said to have received gifts from Frakklands stýrir ‘the ruler of France’and a ríkr keisari ‘powerful emperor [probably the German emperor]’ (MarkI,26) suggest that he took the western route to Jerusalem (Knýtl, cxli).

Sicily is mentioned four times in the skaldic corpus and Haraldr’s campaignthere, on the same expedition that took him from Byzantium to Longobardia,between 1038 and 1041, was clearly a high point in his career.16 Haraldr himselfremembers sailing fyr víða Sikiley ‘along wide Sicily’ (Hharð 4). As Sicily isroughly triangular, with its base along the sailing route into and out of the innerMediterranean, this stanza describes fairly accurately Haraldr’s arrival from theeast. Sicily is also described as sléttr ‘smooth, flat’ (ÞjóðA III,2), in the contextof Haraldr fighting a battle there. At first sight, the poet appears ill-informed,perhaps because he had not been present (this section of the poem is in a narra-tive style, telling of Haraldr’s achievements in a retrospective way, thus the firsthalf of this stanza tells of his campaigns in Serkland, linked to the second half bythe conjunction áðr ‘before’). However, Sicily is mostly a plateau between 150and 580 metres above sea level, so in a sense Þjóðólfr was right. B�lv 4 describesa battle Haraldr had fyr sunnan Sikiley, which could mean either ‘in the south ofSicily’ or, more usually, ‘to the south of Sicily’. Despite the second line b�rðrenndusk at j�rðu ‘the prows ran to the ground’ which appears to describe theships landing, the stanza is best understood as an account of a sea-battle, off thecoast of Sicily. The landing could have taken place after the battle, or the linemight mean the ships ran close to shore and the battle took place just off shore.17

Another poet may be referring to the same occasion when he says that suðr varðSikiley um síðir auð ‘in the south, Sicily was eventually made empty [devastated,depopulated]’ (Valg 1).18


15 Cormack (1994, 137–8) surveys the Norwegian and Icelandic evidence for the venerationof St Nicholas from the mid-twelfth century. Although the name is first recorded in Icelandat that time, there is evidence for it earlier in mainland Scandinavia, for instance on theViking Age rune stones U 347 and U 631, as well as numerous medieval inscriptions.

16 In the summary of Haraldr’s Byzantine career in CS, 97, Sicily is identified as his firstcampaign there, though Kekaumenos may have been misinformed. I am grateful toCharlotte Roueché for allowing me to see her forthcoming translation of this text.

17 This stanza is extremely difficult to construe, and none of the efforts published so far isentirely convincing (Skjd B I, 355–6; NN, 1793; Blöndal and Benedikz 1978, 68).

18 If the adverb suðr is construed with the verb verða, as here (see also NN, 806; SnESkskm,105), this could mean that only the south of Sicily was devastated. It is also possible toconstrue it with the verb halda (Skjd B I, 360; Blöndal and Benedikz 1978, 68; Faulkes1987, 150), so that the stanza says that Haraldr took his troop south. This not onlysyntactically less likely (disrupting an otherwise perfectly straightforward third line), butalso factually less likely, given that Haraldr was approaching Sicily from the east.

Africa

The next stanza of B�lverkr’s poem describes Haraldr sailing in difficult condi-tions Blálands á vit ‘to visit Africa [lit. ‘Blue-land’, or land of ‘blue’ people]’(B�lv 5). This name appears in twelfth- and thirteenth-century skaldic verse (LP)and, frequently, in prose (OGNS). Blöndal interprets the stanza as implying ‘thatthe Byzantine navy had to fight Arab pirates in the passage between Sicily andAfrica’, while interpreting the statement that the j�furr Affríka ‘prince of theAfricans’ could not hold his country against Haraldr’s onslaught (ÞjóðA III,3) asreferring to an Arab leader in Sicily (Blöndal and Benedikz 1978, 60–61, 66).However, ‘prince of the Africans’ seems an odd way to refer to a leader of theSicilian Arabs, and it would be equally possible to interpret the two stanzastogether as indicating a raid, perhaps both brief and unofficial, by Haraldr on thecoast of North Africa. Þfisk 2 notes that Haraldr once destroyed blámanna fj�rvi‘the lives of ‘‘blue’’ people’ with arrows.

The eastern route

‘East’

The adverbials austr ‘east’, austarla ‘in the east’ and í austrvegi ‘on the easternroute’ occur in some twenty inscriptions without any further geographical indi-cation of where the person(s) concerned died, or went.19 A further twelveinscriptions add that the individual concerned died with a named leader, mostlyIngvarr, with some inscriptions specifying a destination for this expedition.20

These adverbials can be modified by the mention of specific regions in the east,all discussed further either above or below: í Grikkjum ‘in Byzantium’ (Ög 81,Sö FV1954:20, Sm 46), á Langbarðalandi ‘in southern Italy’ (Sö 65, ?SöFV1954:22), í Garða/G�rðum ‘in Russia’ (Sö 148, Sö 338, U 209, U 636, Vs1).21 The woman who uil austr fara auk ut til iursala ‘wishes to travel east andout to Jórsalir (Jerusalem)’ (U 605) intended a pilgrimage to the holy city.

With its largely Norwegian-Icelandic point of view, the skaldic corpus usesaustr for a much broader geographical range of places than the runic corpus.Thus, Sigvatr describes a journey he made on behalf of King Óláfr austr tilSvíþjóðar ‘east to Sweden’ (Sigv III,1), as á austrvega ‘on the routes east’ (SigvIII, 21). This ‘Swedish’ usage of austr is common in skaldic stanzas (e.g. SigvIX,1; Sigv XII,8; Ótt I,2; Þham I,4), and it is also used of Óláfr’s youthful raiding


19 D 108, Ög 30, Ög 145, Sö 33, Sö 34, Sö 92, Sö 126, Sö 179, Sö 216, ?Sö 308, ?Vg 135, Vg184, Vg 197, U 153, U 154, U 283, U 366, U 504, U 898, Vs FV1988:36. On the ratherobscure Scandinavian runic inscriptions found in Eastern Europe, see Kuzmenko 1995.

20 Ög 8 (not Ingvarr), Sö 131, Sö 173, Sö 281, Sö 320, Sö 335, U 439, U 644, U 654, U 661,U 778, U FV1992:157, Vs 19. Serkland is mentioned in Sö 131 and Sö 281, and Eistalandin U 439.

21 In Sö 121, the text following the adverbial austr is impossible to make sense of, though it islikely to have been the name of a region, as it begins with i : ‘in’.

in the Baltic and Finland (Sigv I,3, Ótt II,4,6). But Norwegian kings also spenttime in the ‘east’ proper, in Russia and Byzantium (Glúmr I,3,5). The phraseaustr í G�rðum ‘east in Russia’ that is common in the runic inscriptions alsooccurs a few times in the skaldic corpus (Hfr II,2; B�lv 1; Mark I,4). Similarly,the phrase austan ór G�rðum ‘from the east, from Russia’ is used of Scandina-vian kings returning from that part of the world, Magnús Óláfsson (SigvXIII,27), Haraldr harðráði (ÞjóðA III,8; Valg 5) and Eiríkr Sveinsson (Mark I,5).Magnús’ return from there, in particular, was so well known it was sufficient tosay he came austan ‘from the east’ (Arn II,5,6; Arn III,2; ÞjóðA I,1), thoughsince he returned to Norway via Sweden, austan is actually ambiguous (ArnIII,3; ÞjóðA I,3). Further east, austr is used of Haraldr’s Byzantine adventures(ÞjóðA III,6), also called austrf�r ‘journey east’ (Ill I,2).

The journey west to England in 1066 is described using the adverb austan‘from the east’ (ÞjóðA IV,27; AnonXI D-o-v,8) and, similarly, the return journeyto Norway is austr ‘east’ (Steinn III,6; also in Mberf 6, returning from Ireland).An Icelandic perspective is revealed when Norwegians are called austmenn‘easterners’ (Þfagr 8), as very commonly in ON prose (OGNS). The anonymouspoet who boasted that he knew alla allvalda austr ok suðr of flausta setr ‘all therulers east and south of the seat of ships [sea]’ (AnonXI Knútr) was referring tomost of the known world beyond the viking areas of Scandinavia and the BritishIsles.

The Baltic area

The nearest regions of the eastern route were the countries on the south and eastshores of the Baltic sea, and several of these are mentioned in runic inscriptions,described below in roughly geographical order from south to north (see fig.3.7).22

The secondary inscription on the Alstad stone (N 62) records the death of aman i uitahol(m)(i) ‘in Vitaholmr’, on his way to Russia (see also below). It hasbeen conjectured that this otherwise unidentified place-name has some connec-tion with the Witland, on the east side of the mouth of the River Vistula (NIyR I,155–7), that is mentioned by Wulfstan in the late ninth century (Lund 1984, 23).There may or may not be some connection between this and the place calledVindau, on the coast of Kúrland, directly opposite Gotland (SR XI, 271), which isprobably mentioned in G 135, in which it is said of the commemorated that he--rþ tauþr a ui(t)au ‘died in Vindau’.

The Mervalla inscription (Sö 198) has already been mentioned, commemo-rating a man who uft siklt til simk(a)(l)(a) . . . um tumisnis ‘often sailed to theSeimgalir . . . around Dómisnes’, probably on trading voyages. Dómisnes is theScandinavian name for the headland projecting into the Gulf of Riga from thesouth, while the Seimgalir are the inhabitants of Semigallia, the plains around


22 There is a useful description of this region in Christiansen 1980a, 6–47.


3.7 Map showing places on the eastern route mentioned in the text. Allplace-names are given in their modern forms. Chris Lewis, Cartographic Unit,School of Geography, University of Nottingham.

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the Western Dvina as it flows towards the Gulf of Riga. This region may alsohave been the origin of the man who gave the Sigtuna scales-box to its ownerDjarfr (see ch. 2).

North of Semigallia, along the east coast of the Gulf of Riga, was Lífland,‘land of the Livs’, later Livonia, which is mentioned in one or two runic inscrip-tions. U 698 commemorates a man who ut fai aliflainþi frai. . ., which has beensomewhat conjecturally reconstructed as ‘died abroad in Lífland, in Freygeirr’slið (?)’, although as the stone is lost, the reading is more than a little uncertain. InSö 39 a man records the death of his brother, who trukn-þi [a] lflanti ‘drownedin Lífland’, perhaps on the sea-voyage there, across the Gulf of Riga, rather thanin Lífland itself.

The country north of Livonia is Estonia, or Eistland, ‘land of the Ests’, alsomentioned in one or two inscriptions.23 In Vg 181, a father commemorates hisson who uarþ trbin i estlatum ‘was killed in the Eistlands’ (see fig. 3.8). Thiscountry might also be the one meant in U 439, in which two sisters commemo-rate their father, who ‘steered a ship east with Ingvarr’, followed by the runesaskalat-, which might be interpreted as á/í Eistaland. As the stone is lost, thereading is very uncertain, particularly since Ingvarr’s expedition is usually asso-ciated with places much further east, such as Serkland (see below). But, if theconjecture Eistaland is correct, it is possible that the father died on the other sideof the Baltic and never made it any further. Shepard (1982–5, 243–4) attempts tolink this inscription with the reference to an expedition to Semigallia in Yngvarssaga. However, these two regions are clearly distinguished in the inscriptions,and it is preferable to see this as the first death en route to points further east.

Connections with Estonia are further suggested by the name Eistfari‘Estonia-traveller’ which occurs in one runic inscription (Sö 45). This appears tobe a man’s name, since it is preceded in the inscription by another name(Guðfastr), and the following verb is in the plural, though since the two namesare not joined by ok ‘and’, it is also conceivable that Eistfari is Guðfastr’s nick-name, and that the plural form of the verb is a carver’s error. The runic corpuscontains a few names in -fari which must originally have been nicknames, e.g.Víðfari ‘Far-traveller’ in Sö 256 and U 616, or Sæfari ‘Sea-traveller’ in U 454.But where the first element is a people- or place-name, the compound is morelikely to be a nickname than a given name, compare the two examples ofEnglandsfari already mentioned (U 978, U 1181) and one or two of Grikkfari‘traveller to the Greeks [i.e. Byzantines]’ (?U 270, U 956). In either case, Eistfariwould have been a transparent compound at the time, and provides someonomastic evidence of Estonian links, along with names such as Eistr, Eisti andEistulfr, also recorded in the runic corpus, although these do not necessarily indi-cate anything more than that the names were fashionable at the time.

The northeastern part of Estonia was known as Virland (cf. Estonian Viru,


23 There is an ethnographic description of Estland and its inhabitants in the ninth century inWulfstan’s account (Lund 1984, 23–5).


3.8 The Frugå stone (Vg 181). Photo: Harald Faith-Ell, Antikvarisk-topografiskaarkivet, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

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Virumaa), mentioned in three runic inscriptions, though these provide only twoexamples, since U 346 and U 356 have texts that are almost identical, and whichindicate that Ragnfríðr was commemorating her son Bj�rn, who ‘fell in Virland’(U 346 fil a urlati, U 356 fil a uirlanti). In U 533, also commissioned by amother commemorating her son, we are told that han uas tribin a uirlanti ‘hewas killed in Virland’.

The land of the Tavastians, Tafeistaland, in middle Finland, is mentioned inGs 13, where it is said of the commemorated that h-n uarþ tauþr a tafstalonti

‘he died in Tafeistaland’. This inscription is somewhat problematic, since it isnot entirely clear what the brothers were up to in Finland, and it has beenclaimed that the inscription includes the word leiðangr (discussed in more detailin ch. 5). But Finland was an obvious destination for an expedition fromGästrikland, one of the most northerly regions in Sweden in which runic inscrip-tions are found. Finnland, meaning the southwestern part of modern Finland(Jansson 1954b, 47–8), is also mentioned in U 582 as the place where thecommemorated was killed.

Not one of these place-names just listed is mentioned in the skaldic corpus inthe same form, or even in skaldic poems outside the corpus, althoughYnglingatal 25 does mention Estonians. Despite the saga account of his visit toKúrland, the coastal region south of Dómisnes, not even Egill’s poetry providesany relevant place-names, unless we believe that the Vína in Egill VII,10 is theDvina (cp. Glúmr II,5) rather than whatever river was nearest the battle ofVínheiðr (which may or may not have been the battle of Brunanburh). However,other names from the Baltic region do occur in the skaldic corpus.

The Baltic region most often mentioned there is the land of the Wends,Denmark’s nearest neighbours to the east. The great opponents of Wends in thepoems of the corpus were two Norwegian kings and a jarl, Hákon Sigurðarson,Óláfr Tryggvason and Magnús góði, and the Danish king Eiríkr Sveinsson. Thus,Vinðr are among the many peoples killed by Óláfr Tryggvason (Hfr II,4), and heis opposed by Vinða skeiðr ‘ships of Wends’ assisting Eiríkr at Sv�lðr (Hókr 7).Both Óláfr and Hákon jarl are called Vinða myrðir ‘murderer of Wends’ (EskálIII,24; Hfr III,7; Hókr 6), and Hákon is opposed by Wends at Hj�rungavágr(Eskál III,28; Tindr I,4), assisting the Danes.

Magnús carried herskj�ld til Venða grundar ‘war-shield to the ground of theWends’, where he caused Venða sorg ‘sorrow of the Wends’ (Arn II,11), some-thing they will always remember (Arn III,8). Arnórr also mentions moreprecisely that Magnús raided Jóm (Arn II,12; Arn III,8), the base of thelegendary Jómsvíkingar a half-century previously (and possibly the Iumnedescribed in AB, 252). But Magnús also fought the Wends in Denmark, atSkotborgará and Heiðabýr (Arn II,13; ÞjóðA I,6–7; Þfagr 1; see also Okík I,1),discussed further below.24 A battle at Ré (Arn III,9) has been identified with theisland of Rügen, though the evidence is sparse (Hkr III, 46).


24 Haraldr harðráði is also called Vinða mýgir ‘oppressor of Wends’ (Þfisk 3), but the

Eiríkr Sveinsson of Denmark is celebrated as an enemy of the Wends (MarkI,5,8) and Markús describes his expedition to Wendland in some detail. Thecause of the expedition is that the Wends þorðu at halda veldi þats buðlungr átti‘dared to hold the realm owned by the prince’ in contravention of a treaty (MarkI,15). Thus, Eiríkr sailed his ships in hard weather fyr Vinða g�rðum ‘off thedwellings of the Wends’ (Mark I,16). There is a great land-battle and the enemyis chased off, causing sorrowful hearts í Vinða byggðum ‘in the settlements of theWends’, when Eiríkr burns their halls (Mark I,22). The Wendland expedition isrounded off in a stanza which makes great claims for Eiríkr’s right to rule there:the Vinðr flýðu undan ‘Wends ran away’ and Eiríkr now again rules the land thatfyrr lá und Sveini ‘previously was subject to Sveinn’ (Mark I,23), not his fatherbut his great-grandfather Sveinn Forkbeard (Knýtl, xii).

Óláfr Haraldsson’s youthful viking adventures, recounted in Sigvatr’sVíkingarvísur, extended to the eastern Baltic. His second battle was í eyddriEysýslu ‘in devastated Eysýsla’ (Sigv I,2, see also Ótt II,6), where theplace-name represents the Baltic island of Ösel, just north of Dómisnes and at theentrance to the Gulf of Riga. Presumably, it was laid waste as a result of hisbattle, rather than before. The next stanza states clearly that Óláfr was fightingagainst Finnlendingar ‘Finlanders’ (Sigv I,3), so it is a reasonable assumptionthat the place in which he did so, Herdalar, is in Finland, though the location hasnot been identified. In the same stanza, the poet describes Óláfr’s ships sailingaustr ‘east’: Bálagarðssíða lá brimskíðum at barði ‘Bálagarðssíða was beforethe prow of the sea-skis [ships]’. This is usually explained as the southwest coastof Finland, though on rather flimsy, not to say non-existent, grounds.

Eiríkr Hákonarson, who raided extensively in Russia (see below), may alsohave turned his attention to the Baltic. Edáð 8 says that he fór herskildi of allarSýslur ‘went with war-shield through all the Sýslur’, which Snorri (followed bymodern scholars) interprets as um alla Aðalsýslu ok Eysýslu ‘through all ofAðalsýsla and Ösel’ (Hkr I, 339–40), where Aðalsýsla is the Estonian mainland(Hkr I, 373). This may just be Snorri’s conjecture. The word sýsla means ‘dis-trict’, and could be used in this stanza as an appellative in the plural. The firsthalf of the stanza has Eiríkr fighting with Gautar ‘people from Götaland’, and itis rather a jump from Sweden to Ösel and Estonia.

Russia

Once across the Baltic, viking voyagers had a number of routes and destinationsopen to them, some near and others much further away. Þóraldr, the Norwegianwho died at Vitaholmr (see above), was miþli u(i)taulms auk karþa ‘betweenVitaholmr and Garðar’ (N 62), or on his way to the Garðar (m. pl.), the‘multi-ethnic trading and handicraft centres’ (Noonan 1997, 144–5, see also map


authenticity of this stanza is doubtful (see further below), and there is no other evidencethat Haraldr was active in the Baltic region.

on p. 136) found along the Russian rivers and through which Scandinavianstraded with the Islamic world. Garðar is used as a name for the whole region inwhich these towns were found, which is perhaps best called ‘European Russia’and defined as ‘the entire area between the Arctic and the Black seas andbetween Poland and the Urals’ (Noonan 1997, 134). Although this tradingactivity was slowing down in the eleventh century when the bulk of our runic andskaldic evidence is from, Scandinavians were still active in this region, if only asmercenaries in either Russia or Byzantium (Shepard 1982–5, 223–31, Noonan1997, 154–5).25

The name Garðar occurs in eight or nine runic inscriptions (Öl 58, Sö 130, Sö148, Sö 338, U 209, U 636, ?Vs 1, G 114, N 62). Four of these indicate that thedeceased died there,26 and since Sö 130 (probably) says that he ‘fell’ there, whilethe commemorated of Sö 338 fial i urustu austr i garþum lis furugi ‘died inbattle east in Garðar, leader of the troop’, it is very likely that the men commem-orated in these inscriptions were active as mercenaries for the rulers of Novgorodand Kiev, particularly Iaroslav, ‘the last great patron of the Varangians among theRus’ (Franklin and Shephard 1996, 201). On the other hand, Þorsteinn,commemorating his son in U 209, kaubti þinsa bu auk aflaþi austr i karþum

‘bought this farm and earned the money east in Garðar’, and may have beenactive in trade (although presumably mercenaries were also well paid), theprofits of which he ploughed back into a good life at home in Uppland. Theinscription is carved in an embedded rockface and still testifies today to thefinancial origins of the farm at Veda (see fig. 3.9).

Further testimony to Scandinavian activities, possibly of a financial nature, inRussia comes in the form of a rune stone raised in Russian territory itself. Exca-vations on the island of Berezan, near the mouth of the Dniepr as it flows into theBlack Sea, revealed ‘the gable-stone of a coffin’ with an inscription in Scandina-vian runes: krani kerþi half þisi iftir kal filaka sin ‘Grani made this sarcoph-agus in memory of Karl, his partner’. The implications of the term félagi forwhat kind of venture they were partners in will be discussed in chapter 6. But thestone is testimony to the wide-ranging activities of Scandinavians in the east, asis the now-illegible inscription on the lion from Piraeus, now in Venice (Jansson1987, 62). Also in this southern region lay Wallachia, referred to in one runicinscription (G 134) which states that the deceased was betrayed by blakumen

(possibly) ‘Vlachs, Wallachians’ on an expedition (this inscription is discussedfurther in ch. 6).


25 It may be that the Garðar were only three: Hólmgarðr (Novgorod), Kœnugarðr (Kiev, thename is recorded only in later sources) and Miklagarðr (Constantinople), ‘the beginning,the central point, and the end of the Austrvegr’ (Melnikova 1996, 15).

26 These are the three from Södermanland, and Vs 1, if, as I think likely, the sequencekarusm is a misspelling of karþum rather than a representation of the name of the verydistant Khorezm in Central Asia, from which Arab merchants travelled to ‘the Bulgharmarkets on the middle Volga’ (Noonan 1997, 138; see also Franklin and Shephard 1996,64).

To reach the Black Sea by the river route, viking voyagers had to pass the fear-some Dniepr rapids, the Norse names of which are recorded in ConstantinePorphyrogenitus’ De Administrando Imperio (Blöndal and Benedikz 1978,9–12; Svane 1989, 21–2; Franklin and Shephard 1996, 92, 113), written c.950.One of these rapids is called Aeifor and this name appears to be recorded on atenth-century rune stone from Gotland (G 280; see Krause 1952). Four brotherscommemorate someone called Hrafn, whose relationship to them is not speci-fied. It is said of all of them that they kuamu uit i aifur ‘got far to Eifur’. Theinscription also mentions that they placed stones for Hrafn suþ fur. . . ru-s-aini

‘south of Rufsteinn’, presumably also a place in that area.In the eleventh century, Novgorod had replaced Ladoga as the main centre of

power in north-western Russia, and this is reflected in the runic inscriptions, inwhich the only other specific place-name from this region mentioned isHolmgarðr, lit. ‘island-enclosure’, originally the Swedish name for Goro-dishche, situated on an island, later transferred to the nearby ‘new town’Novgorod (Franklin and Shephard 1996, 40, 130). Three inscriptions commemo-rate men who died there, including the fragmentary G 220. In Sö 171, thecommemorated Sigviðr was a skaiþaR uisi ‘ship’s captain’ (see ch. 5), who [fial

i h]ul(m)karþi ‘fell in Holmgarðr’, and he too may have been a mercenary. In U687, Spjallboði uaR tauþr i hulmkarþi i olafs kriki ‘died in Holmgarðr inÓláfr’s church’, which presumably means that he was buried there, in a churchdedicated to St Óláfr (d.1030) and frequented by the Scandinavians ofNovgorod.


3.9 The Veda rock (U 209). Photo: Judith Jesch.

Image not available

Garðar also occurs in the skaldic corpus with the same meaning as in therunic inscriptions, in a number of stanzas to do with the various Norwegian kingsand jarls who spent time in the east as exiles, or who raided there. The rathercolourful account given in the sagas of Óláfr Tryggvason’s youth, whichincluded some time at the court of Vladimir, prince of Kiev, and raiding on hisbehalf, is hardly substantiated by, but referred to fleetingly in, Hfr II,2, in whichÓláfr is said to have reddened weapons austr í G�rðum.27 Eiríkr Hákonarson, onthe other hand, fór eyða land Valdamars ‘went to ravage Vladimir’s land’, andthe poet tells him that brauzt Aldeigju . . . komzk austr í Garða ‘you destroyedLadoga . . . you went east to Garðar’ (Edáð 6), an expedition that may bedetected in the ‘traces of the violent destruction of Staraia Ladoga’s defence walland a conflagration around the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries’ (Franklinand Shephard 1996, 169).

Óláfr Haraldsson also spent time in exile in Russia, as it was rather unkindlyput in a poem in praise of his opponent Kálfr Árnason: vígmóðr bróðir Haraldsvarð at vitja Garða ‘the battle-bold brother of Haraldr [harðráði] had to visitGarðar’ (BjH 3).28 Óláfr’s young son Magnús went into exile in Russia with hisfather in 1028, and stayed there after the king’s return to Norway and death at thebattle of Stiklestad in 1030. The sagas tell us that, tired of the Danish ruleimposed by Knútr and carried out by his son Sveinn and his mother, the EnglishÆlfgifu, some Norwegian nobles went to Russia to fetch Magnús back toNorway in 1034, when he was still only ten years old. Magnús’ return fromRussian exile is mentioned in a number of skaldic stanzas, with the name Garðarin one (Sigv XIII,27) and the adjective gerzkr ‘from Garðar, Russian’ used ofequipment and weapons on his ship in two more (Arn II,4,9). Arnórr’s prayers toGod, whom he calls v�rðr Girkja ok Garða ‘guardian of the Greeks and ofGarðar’ (Arn VI,19), on behalf of Haraldr harðráði, may allude to his hero’sadventures in those two regions: according to the sagas, Haraldr also went toRussia after the battle of Stiklarstaðir. Haraldr’s own gamanvísur ‘pleasure-stanzas’ (Hharð 3–7) use as their refrain the couplet Þó lætr Gerðr í G�rðum /gollhrings við mér skolla ‘Yet the goddess of the gold ring [= woman] in Garðarkeeps her distance from me’. This refrain has nothing to do with the stanzas itaccompanies and is no more than an oblique reference to Haraldr’s sojourn inRussia.

King Eiríkr Sveinsson of Denmark is also said to have been austr í Garða‘east in Garðar’ (Mark I,4), returning ór G�rðum austan ‘west from Garðar’ inthe following stanza (Mark I,5). This expedition is presented as visits to therulers (foldar v�rðu) of the region, who give him gifts. As this theme of recogni-tion and gifts from foreign potentates is prominent later in this poem (Mark


27 The occurrence of the same phrase in Hfr II,1 is almost certainly a scribal borrowing fromArn III,1 (Whaley 1998, 183–4).

28 A possibly spurious stanza by the king himself (Ólhelg 11) refers to Garðar, in the contextof the marriage of Ingigerðr, the Swedish princess Óláfr had hoped to marry, to Jarizleifr,or Iaroslav the Wise, son of Vladimir.

I,26,29), too, there may be a certain amount of hyperbole involved, particularlyas Eiríkr is said to have become popular of Austrveg allan ‘throughout the wholeof the eastern way’. The saga-author explains that Eiríkr cleared the region ofheathens, so that Christians and merchants could travel through it freely (Knýtl,212), but there is no evidence for this in the surviving stanzas and it may be theprose author’s conjecture (Knýtl, cxli).

Byzantium and Jerusalem

Better-known than the Scandinavian mercenaries in Russia are the mercenariesworking for the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople, known as the ‘VarangianGuard’ and made up of warriors of many nationalities, including Scandinavians.The runic corpus has many instances of the name the Scandinavians had for theByzantine Empire: Grikkland, Grikk(j)ar ‘(land of) the Greeks’.

Grikkland occurs in three inscriptions (U 112, U 374, U 540), the second andthird of these both indicating that the commemorated had died out there. In U112, Ragnvaldr, ostensibly commemorating his mother, boasted of himself thathe had been a griklanti uas lis forunki ‘in Byzantium, was leader of the lið’.The meaning of the word lið is discussed in more detail in chapter 5, but it islikely that Ragnvaldr was boasting of a high position in the Varangian Guard,perhaps leading a ship-borne troop that he had brought with him from Sweden.

Some twenty-four inscriptions indicate that the man being commemorated‘was’ or ‘died’ í/með Grikk(j)um ‘among the Greeks’ or went out til Grikk(j)a ‘tothe Greeks’.29 They rarely specify what it was he did out there, but many of thesemen are likely to have been active in Byzantium as mercenaries.

It is clear from several inscriptions that a voyage to Grikkland could beextremely profitable. Thus, two inscriptions (Sö 163, Sö 165) indicate that thecommemorated gulli skifti ‘divided gold’ among the Greeks. Düwel (1987, 353)has suggested that this expression is the eastern equivalent to those in which thedeceased is said to have ‘taken’ or ‘divided’ a payment in England, where theword used is gjald (cp. Sö 166 kialti skifti ‘divided payment’, see also U 194, U241, U 344). The source of these payments is less clear but, since the ‘western’inscriptions indicate they were payments by war-leaders, it is likely that the samewas the case in these ‘eastern’ examples.

There were consequences for inheritance when men died abroad in Byzan-tium, as detailed in the inscription on the paired rune stones U 72–3. The inscrip-tion is commissioned by two brothers to commemorate the sons of their sister,and goes on to explain that hon kam þeira at arfi in þeir brþr kamu hnaa at


29 Ög 81, ?Ög 94, Sö 82, Sö 85, Sö 163, Sö 165, Sö 170, Sö 345, Sö FV1954:20, Sm 46, Vg178, U 73, U 104, U 136, U 140, U 201, U 358, U 431, U 446, U 518, U 792, U 922, U1016, U 1087. The nominative form krikiaR is recorded only in G 216 (not in the corpus),in an obscure context with other geographical names, from the second half of the eleventhcentury. On this kind of use of the name of the inhabitants of a country rather than acountry-name, see Jansson 1954b, 34.

arfi . . . þir to i kirikium ‘she inherited from them and the [i.e. her] brothersinherited from her . . . they [her sons] died among the ‘‘Greeks’’ ’. What is notclear is whether the inheritance included any cash the younger brothers hadearned out in Byzantium, perhaps brought back by their comrades, for the inheri-tance could just have been a matter of the farm they inherited from their father,which could not go directly to his wife while there were living children. There ishowever a clear example of money from the east going to the voyager’s heirs inU 792, in which a son commemorates his father thus: far aflaþi uti kri[k]um

arfa sinum ‘he earned money out among the ‘‘Greeks’’ for his heir’.Trade was another possible source of money in the east. In U 1016 one of the

sons being commemorated by his father died at home, but had in his lifetime‘steered a kn�rr’ (see ch. 4 for further discussion of this ship-term) and kuam hn

krikhafnir ‘he arrived in ‘‘Greek’’ harbours’. The plural form of this last wordsuggests a trading voyage to several markets. The element Grikk- also occurs inthe nickname Grikkfari given to Ketill (probably, U 270) and Viðbj�rn (U 956).

The names Gríkland and Gríkir or its metathesised variant Girkir occur in theskaldic corpus,30 particularly in stanzas relating Haraldr harðráði’s notablecareer in Byzantium (on which see CS, 97; Blöndal and Benedikz 1978,54–102),31 as captain of the Varangian guard in Constantinople or Miklagarðr(the name is recorded in B�lv 2). As already noted, Arnórr’s invocation of Godas v�rðr Girkja ok Garða ‘guardian of the Greeks and Russia’ (Arn VI,19) in apoem in praise of Haraldr probably alludes to his adventures in these tworegions. However, God is also called gætir Gríklands ‘protector of Gríkland’ in acouplet (Þloft I), probably a refrain, which is all that survives of a lost poem onKnútr, with no similar implications about Knútr’s career.

The Emperor Michael V, stólþengill Gríklands ‘throne-prince [i.e. emperor]of Byzantium’ (ÞSkegg) and both stólþengill and stillir Girkja ‘emperor’ and‘ruler of the Byzantines’ (ÞjóðA III,6), had his eyes put out by Haraldr after thesuccessful uprising of 1042, as these stanzas make clear. According to the formerstanza, Haraldr náði enn gørr handa glóðum ‘acquired even more hand-embers[gold]’ as a result (on this event, see Blöndal and Benedikz 1978, 88–96).32 Hewas also apparently the agent of punishment by hanging of those Varangianswho had remained on the emperor’s side, so that eru Væringjar færi ‘theVarangians are fewer’ (Valg 4).

Haraldr is proleptically called Bolgara brennir ‘burner of Bulgars’ in ÞjóðA


30 On the forms of these names, see Jansson 1954b, 34–5.31 CS is an important near-contemporary source for Haraldr’s career, written by

Kekaumenos, a retired Byzantine general writing in the 1070s. Charlotte Roueché ofKing’s College London is preparing an edition and translation, and there is a preliminaryaccount of the text and its author in Roueché 2000.

32 The reading of this stanza is that of Hkr III, 86. For some alternatives, see Blöndal andBenedikz 1978, 94. Stólþengill might be a corruption of an Old Russian term (Blöndal andBenedikz 1978, 5), but is perfectly transparent as an ON compound, with the first elementstóll m. ‘throne’.

III,1, a stanza about his assistance to Óláfr at Stiklarstaðir. This most likely refersto the revolt of Delianus in Bulgaria in the summer of 1040 (Blöndal andBenedikz 1978, 74), which Kekaumenos (CS, 97) says Haraldr helped theEmperor to put down.

Earlier in his Byzantine career, Haraldr had gone on an expedition to Jeru-salem, as outlined in two stanzas by Stúfr who, according to Snorri (Hkr III, 83),had his information from the king himself. Thus, Haraldr fór ór Girkjum leggjaund sik Jórsali ‘went from Byzantium to subjugate Jerusalem’, which hemanaged to do in such a way that the land remained óbrunnin ‘unburned’ (Stúfr2). The expedition is figured as one of punishment for the treacheries and crimesof the inhabitants (Stúfr 3; Hkr III, 84):33

Stóðusk r�ð ok reiði,rann þat svikum manna,Egða grams á ýmsumorð Jórðánar borðum.Enn fyr afgørð sanna,illa g�t, frá stilliþjóð fekk vísan váða.[the last line is part of a refrain]

The advice and words of anger of the prince of Agder are firm on eitherside of the Jordan; that brought the treacheries of men to an end. Thepeople again got certain trouble from the ruler for (their) proven trans-gression, (their) wicked disobedience.

The suggestion that Haraldr conquered Palestine for the Emperor seems unlikely,and it has been claimed that the poet misunderstood what the king had said abouthis expedition, and that what he had in fact done had been to provide a protectiveescort for pilgrims to Jerusalem (Blöndal and Benedikz 1978, 64–5). This mightat any rate explain why the land was not burned, or otherwise devastated, and thepoet’s claims could be seen as an exaggerated way of saying that Haraldrcontrolled routes through Palestine, including the crossing of the Jordan.34

The Danish king, Eiríkr Sveinsson, went, for quite different reasons as wehave already seen, at kanna friði tryggða byggð Jórsala ‘to get to know thesettlement of Jerusalem, secured by peace’ (Mark I,28). On this same journey(c.1102–3), Eiríkr continued to Constantinople, where he was welcomed andreceived gifts af harra sj�lfum í Miklagarði ‘from the ruler himself in Constanti-nople’ (Mark I,30). These gifts consisted of a large amount of gold, some royalrobes and fourteen warships. The Emperor at the time was Alexius I Comnenos,a ruler of ‘prudence and financial acumen’ and it is possible that these payments


33 Msk and Fsk have a slightly different text, but with essentially the same message.34 On two runic inscriptions that mention Jerusalem, see ch. 2. The Timans whetstone (G

216) has the name iaursaliR in the context of other names, but its significance is not clear.

to Eiríkr were in fact by way of payment and outfitting of a fleet for those of hisfollowers who ‘entered the Imperial service as Varangians’ (Blöndal andBenedikz 1978, 135–6).

Ingvarr’s expedition

An expedition to the east that stands out because it is extensively commemoratedin the runic corpus (and even found in fictionalised form in a romantic Icelandicsaga, Yngvars saga víðf�rla) was that led by a certain Ingvarr, to the east and toSerkland, probably ending in 1041 (Shepard 1982–5, 255–8). Whateverhappened on this expedition, it seems to have been something of a disaster, sinceso many of its members, including its leader, never returned, and it is thesemembers that are commemorated in a large number of inscriptions from theMälar valley region, predominantly in Södermanland and Uppland. The inscrip-tions can be identified by their mention of the leader of the expedition, Ingvarr.

Although a name Ingvarr occurs in some forty-four inscriptions in all in thecorpus, only those in which a person of this name is neither the commemoratednor related to the commemorated (with one exception, see below), can be consid-ered ‘Ingvarr’-stones. Thus, although in Ög 30 a certain Sigsteinn commemo-rates ikuar sun sin han uarþ austr tauþr ‘Ingvarr, his son, he died in the east’,the deceased just happens to have the same name as the more famous Ingvarr,and happens to have died somewhere in the east, but not necessarily on Ingvarr’sexpedition. Only on the Gripsholm stone (Sö 179) does Ingvarr’s name occur in afamily context (though see also discussion of Sö 279, below). The inscriptionwas commissioned by a woman, Tóla, commemorating sun sin haralt bruþur

inkuars ‘her son Haraldr, brother of Ingvarr’. From this formulation, it is likely(though cannot be proved) that the two men shared a father, but not a mother,although it is also possible that the word ‘brother’ is used metaphorically and thatthey were ‘brothers in arms’. The inscription goes on to describe, in anoften-quoted poetic statement, what the brothers did (presented here in normal-ised form and set out in lines of verse):

Þeir fóru drengilafjarri at gulliok austarlaerni gáfu,dóu sunnarlaá Serklandi.

They travelled in a drengr-like35 fashion, far for gold, and in the eastgave (food) to the eagle, died in the south in Serkland.

Although rather a simple little verse, this commemorative stanza is metricallyregular (equivalent to Old Icelandic fornyrðislag) and even uses the poetic


35 See ch. 6 for further discussion of this word.

conceit by which warriors are said to ‘feed the eagle’ or other beast of battle (seech. 6).

Some twenty-odd stones state that the commemorated travelled out or died onthis expedition, most commonly using the phrase með Ingvari ‘with Ingvarr’.36 Afew indicate more specifically that this was in ‘Ingvarr’s troop’: í Ingvarshelfningi (Ög 155); í lið(i) Ingvars (Sö 254, U 778, ?U 837). A fragmentaryinscription (Sö 277) almost certainly contains the phrase Ingvars manna ‘ofIngvarr’s men’, and is likely to belong to this group, though the context of thisphrase can no longer be reconstructed.

The exact number of inscriptions associated with Ingvarr’s expedition cannotbe determined for certain. Above are listed twenty-one likely and two possibleexamples. There are a further three which may also belong in this category,because, although they are fragmentary, they are similar in phrasing to thosewhich are better preserved. Thus, Sö 96 currently ends han uaR fa. . . and hasbeen compared to Sö 105 and Sö 107 which both state of the deceased that hannvar farinn með Ingvari ‘he went away with Ingvarr’.37 Ög 145 contains thephrase hilfnai (a)(u)str, which has been interpreted as (í) helfningi austr. This isa candidate for inclusion because the only other runic occurrence of this noun(discussed further in ch. 5) is in the nearby Ingvarr-stone Ög 155. Finally, thesadly fragmentary Sö 279 contains two significant sequences, suggesting thatthis might be a memorial to Ingvarr himself. The inscription commemorates. . .uni aimunt. . ., probably ‘. . . son of Eimundr’. In the Icelandic Yngvars saga,the hero’s father is indeed known by this name. The inscription concludessunarla a se(r)kl. . . ‘in the south in Serkland’, reminiscent of the formulation ofthe Gripsholm inscription quoted above. If these three inscriptions are included,this gives a total of twenty-six stones now known and associated, with greater orlesser degrees of certainty, with Ingvarr’s expedition. Larsson (1990, 46–57,107) has only twenty-five because he did not yet know of the latest Ingvarr-stone(U FV1992:157), found in 1990 during road-building at Arlanda airport (andnow on display in the terminal there). No doubt further Ingvarr-stones will bediscovered, and it is likely that some of those of whom it is only said that they‘died in the east’ also perished with Ingvarr.

Many attempts have been made to reconstruct what happened on Ingvarr’sexpedition and when it happened, using a range of written sources, most of themnot contemporary with the rune stones (for brief surveys with references toearlier studies, see e.g. Ruprecht 1958, 55–6; Larsson 1990, 106–14). Shepard


36 Sö 9, Sö 105, Sö 107, Sö 108, Sö 131, Sö 173, Sö 281, Sö 287, Sö 320, Sö 335, U 439, U644, U 654, U 661, U 1143, U FV1992:157, Vs 19.

37 It is possible that Sö 108 was also intended to end in this way. Brate reads han : uaRi : faru(SR III, 80), but the short vertical cut he reads as i looks much more like a divider, and Icould not see any trace of ‘nedre punkten i det följande kolon’ which Brate thought hecould find. The rune which Brate reads as u admittedly does not look much like in, butneither does it look like the carver’s other us: the curved branch may represent the carver’sattempt at a bind-rune of i+n after he realised he had missed out the n.

concludes from a study of the saga and the runic inscriptions that most of theparticipants died of disease (1982–5, 246, see also his ‘reconstruction’ of theevents, pp. 272–3). Fuglesang (1998, 206) attempts an art-historical dating of theinscriptions and concludes they were carved ‘around 1000–25’, suggesting ‘thatthe late Icelandic texts be disregarded’. To pursue these questions would be to gofar beyond the parameters of this work. But it should perhaps be stressed morethan it has been hitherto that the inscriptions, taken together, refer to both aneastern (austr/austarla: Sö 131, Sö 173, Sö 179, ?Sö 281, Sö 320, Sö 335, U 439,U 644, U 654, U 661, U778, U FV1992:157, Vs 19) and a southern (sunnarla:Sö 179, Sö 279) destination for the expedition. This accords well with Shepard’sreconstruction in which the first stage of the expedition was to Russia, althoughthe ultimate goal was ‘booty from the Moslem littoral of the Caspian Sea’(1982–5, 271).

Serkland

The name Serkland is strongly associated with Ingvarr’s expedition in the runiccorpus, where it occurs five times. As we have seen, it is used in the Gripsholminscription to indicate the death-place of Ingvarr himself, as possibly also in Sö279. Sö 131 says of the commemorated that he fur austr hiþan miþ ikuari o

sirklanti likR sunR iuintaR ‘went east from here with Ingvarr, in Serkland liesthe son of Eyvind’ (see fig. 3.10). Sö 281 also associates Ingvarr and Serkland,though it is fragmentary, so the exact context is unclear. U 785 commemoratessomeone who uarþ tuþr a srklant- ‘died in Serkland’, though there is nomention of Ingvarr on this more-or-less complete rune stone.38 The etymology ofthis name is uncertain, with the two most popular explanations being that itmeans ‘land of the Saracens (Muslims)’ or that it derives from Lat. sericum ‘silk’and designates those regions producing silk (Shepard 1982–5, 235). Also uncer-tain is the geographical area it is supposed to represent. Ruprecht (1958, 55)suggested that this gradually expanded throughout the Viking Age, so that in theearly Viking Age it referred to the area south of the Caspian Sea, in the lateViking Age it referred to all the Islamic areas beyond Russia, and for thesaga-writers it also included North Africa, though what his evidence was forthese assertions is not entirely clear. The Caspian region is favoured by mostscholars as the destination of Ingvarr’s expedition, though some suggest that hisband fought in Byzantine service in Syria or eastern Asia Minor, as did theNorwegian king Haraldr harðráði (Shepard 1982–5, 222–3, 234–8). Serklandhas also been explained as derived from the name of the city of Sarkel and itssurrounding region in the territory of the Khazars, northwest of the Caspian Sea(Jarring 1983).


38 The name also occurs (in the form serklat) on the Timans whetstone (G 216), from thesecond half of the eleventh century, but what the reason was for noting this and the othernames in the inscription, we do not know.


3.10 The Lundby stone (Sö 131). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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Serkland and its inhabitants the Serkir also appear in the skaldic corpus, inconnection with Haraldr’s Byzantine adventures. His court poet alludes to thisperiod in a formal praise poem, Sexstefja, when he states that Haraldr wasSerkjum hættr ‘dangerous to the Serkir’ and that átta tøgu borga má segja teknaá Serklandi ‘eighty towns can be said to have been taken in Serkland’ (ÞjóðAIII,2). Admittedly, the description Serkjum hættr appears in the second half ofthe stanza, leading some commentators to surmise that the poet ‘called Sicily‘‘Serkland’’ because it was occupied by Saracens’ (Shepard 1982–5, 236). Butsuch phrases are frequently used of kings, often referring back to earlierepisodes, and here it makes a link between the two halves of the stanza, but doesnot necessarily imply that Sikiley was the same as Serkland.

The other three stanzas that mention Serkland occur in an anecdote preservedin Msk, 247–50, in which the king, the court poet and a Norwegian fisherman viein the extempore composition of poetry. Haraldr remembers how long ago fjarrifóstrlandi rauðk branda í Serkja garði ‘far from my homeland I reddened swordsin the enclosures of the Serkir’ (Hharð 15). Echoing the king’s stanza in thecontrast between recent battles against Danes and long-ago battles further away,Þjóðólfr also notes that the king setti merki niðr á sléttu Serklandi ‘placed hisbanner down in flat Serkland’ (ÞjóðA IV,13). The king criticises Þjóðólfr’sstanza and praises the fisherman’s verses, especially the final stanza (perhapsbecause it echoes his own). In this, the fisherman recalls his fighting fyr sunnanSerkland ‘in/to the south of Serkland’ (Þfisk 3). This seems unlikely if Serklandis (in) North Africa, for there is no evidence that Haraldr went any further souththan the African coast, if indeed he did go as far as that. Aside from the fact thatthese stanzas embellish an anecdote, and that they might be suspected of havingbeen made up precisely to do that, there are other suggestions that these versesare spurious. Both Hharð 15 and ÞjóðA IV,13 sound as if they could be derivedfrom ÞjóðA III,2 (cp the latter’s borga á Serklandi with í Serkja garði in Hharð15, and its í sléttri Sikileyju with á sléttu Serklandi in ÞjóðA IV,13). As requiredby the anecdote, there are also similarities between Hharð 15 and both Þfisk 3and ÞjóðA IV,13, as noted above.

Probably we can only rely on the ‘official’ stanza (ÞjóðA III,2) which, as wehave seen, imagines the Serkland campaign as just before the Sicilian one. Thisdoes not, however, mean they need have been geographically (or even tempo-rally) close: this part of Þjóðólfr’s poem is summary and retrospective, andscholars have not, to my mind, placed sufficient emphasis on the conjunction áðrthat divides the two halves of the stanza (e.g. Shepard 1982–5, 236), as notedabove. The stanza tells of two discrete campaigns. The one to Serkland can beidentified by comparison with Byzantine sources that tell of wars in Asia Minorduring the early years of Emperor Michael IV. It is most likely that ÞjóðA III,2records Haraldr’s involvement in the ‘fighting against Arabic pirates off AsiaMinor, and . . . wars in the Arab sector of Asia and Syria’ (Blöndal and Benedikz1978, 63). The most plausible explanation for Serkland in the skaldic corpus,then, is that it accords with the second of Ruprecht’s suggested meanings, thelate Viking Age designation of the Islamic and Arab areas beyond Russia.


However, it is not incompatible with Jarring’s explanation (discussed above),which seems etymologically the most plausible, though he does not consider theskaldic evidence. But Snorri, like other saga-writers, understood Serkland toinclude Africa, indeed he believed it was the Varangians’ name for Africa(Affríká, er Væringjar kalla Serkland, Hkr III, 74). He (or his predecessors)deduced this from the fact that ÞjóðA III,2 links Haraldr’s expedition to Serklandwith that in Sicily, and because the next stanza of this poem calls an opponent ofhis Affríka j�furr (discussed above).

Haraldr was certainly right to describe Serkland as fjarri fóstrlandi ‘far from[my] homeland’. Wherever it was exactly, it represents the furthest eastern andsouthern limits of viking activity at the very end of the Viking Age.

Scandinavia

Both the runic and the skaldic corpus contain large numbers of Scandinavianplace-names which have not, to my knowledge, been systematically studied intheir own right as a body of contemporary evidence (though see von Friesen1930 on farm-names in Uppland). To do so here would far exceed the scope ofthis chapter, but at least some of these places must be mentioned, since much ofthe ‘viking’ activity discussed in subsequent chapters occurred in Scandinavia.‘Viking’ activity is occasionally defined as that which took place by Scandina-vians outside Scandinavia (Jesch 1991, 8), but the vocabulary studied in thiswork does not easily admit of such a distinction. Sailing, raiding and trading inthe Scandinavian context in the late tenth and the eleventh century are recordedin just the same terms as those activities elsewhere. The most importantsea-battles of the period (and the place-names associated with them) arediscussed in chapter 5. Here I consider some other significant places in Scandi-navia, in roughly geographical order counterclockwise from south to northwest,concentrating on a few that are interesting or problematic in some way, or thatoccur in a range of sources (see fig. 3.11).

As the skaldic corpus is largely concerned with making war (or other vikingactivities) in Scandinavia, it would be tedious to list all the Scandinavianplace-names occurring in it here, though a few examples are discussed below,mainly some which are also recorded in the runic corpus. It may, however, beuseful to list those runic inscriptions which refer to battles or other vikingactivity at particular places, often obscure and not always certainly in Scandi-navia, some of which are also discussed below. Otherwise, discussions of theplace-names and of possible events with which they can be related can be foundin the commentaries on these inscriptions in the corpus editions. The phrase varðdauðr is modified by a prepositional phrase containing a Scandinavianplace-name in D1, D3, D 117, D 216, D 259, Sö 16, ?Sö FV1948:289, Sm 52, U375, U 539, Nä 15. In D 334 (an inscription from Skåne) the same phrase ismodified by the adverb nur ‘(in the) north’. Similarly, the phrase varð drepinn ismodified by a phrase containing a Scandinavian place-name in D 380, Ög 81, Sö


174, Sö 333, U 582. Other significant vocabulary modified by a phrasecontaining a Scandinavian place-name is falla (Ög 81, N 239); endas (SöFV1959:266, U 518); deyja (U 180); drunkna (U 214); taka gjald (U 614).

Hedeby

On the southern frontier of Scandinavia, the town of Hedeby was an importanttrading centre and its region an important link between all of Scandinavia, theBaltic, and central and western Europe (Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 30–48,203–5). Its origins are Saxon and Frisian, but eventually the Danes pushed theirborder further south and gained control of the town, while the Swedes also had astrong interest in it because of its commanding position on trade routes. Towards


3.11 Map showing places in Scandinavia mentioned in the text. All place-namesare given in their modern forms. Chris Lewis, Cartographic Unit, School ofGeography, University of Nottingham.

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the end of the Viking Age, the main activities of the town were gradually trans-ferred to the north bank of the Schlei, where the present town of Schleswig is(the relative positions of the two are clearly illustrated in a photograph in Clarkeand Ambrosiani 1991, 58). The end of Hedeby is symbolically marked by Wreck1 found in the harbour there. Only part of the ship survives, and the charredstrakes show that it was burned to the waterline. Since this happened between990 and 1010, it is unlikely to have been a pagan ship-burial, such as thatdescribed in the beginning of Beowulf. The favoured interpretation is that theship was used as a fire-ship in an attack on the town. It was set on fire when thewind was from the right direction, and allowed to drift into the harbour and setalight any of the wooden structures on the shore with which it came into contact(Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 94–5). Although we cannot trace this specific event inthe sources, both the runic and the skaldic corpus refer to raids on Hedeby.

Two of the five runic inscriptions that mention Hedeby are from Hedebyitself. D 1 is a rune stone discussed extensively elsewhere in this book, as it has aplethora of ‘viking’ vocabulary: stýrimaðr, drengr, félagi, heimþegi (see chs5–6). The inscription was commissioned by one of King Sveinn’s retainers inmemory of one of his colleagues ias uarþ tauþr þo trekiaR satu um haiþabu

‘who died when drengjar besieged Hedeby’ (see figs 3.12 and 3.13).39 D 3 alsomentions the town, and here it is the king himself who commemorates one of hisretainers ias uas farin uestr ion nu uarþ tauþr at hiþabu ‘who had travelledwest but now died at Hedeby’, perhaps in the same siege, since runologically theinscriptions appear to be contemporary. The King Sveinn mentioned in theseinscriptions has been identified either as Sveinn Forkbeard, with the siege ofHedeby his capture of the town in 982 (Moltke 1985, 200), or as Sveinn Úlfsson(better known to Danes and others nowadays as Svend Estridsøn), who repelledan attack by Haraldr harðráði in 1051, discussed below (DR, 8–9). The latestexpert runological opinion would date the two Hedeby stones to the 980s, inother words to Sveinn Forkbeard’s time (Stoklund 1991, 293). Thus, it is notpossible to link the inscriptions to the fire-ship attack by Wreck 1, which wasconstructed around 985 and used as a ship for between five and twenty-five yearsbefore being used in the attack on the town (Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 94).

Hedeby is also mentioned in D 63, but since so little is left of the inscription, itis impossible to say whether there is any connection between this memorial fromthe other end of Denmark and the events recorded in D 1 and D 3, although theinscriptions do appear to be contemporary (Stoklund 1991, 292). The town isalso mentioned in a Swedish runic inscription in which a mother commemoratesher son who (t)o i haiþaby ‘died in Hedeby’ (U 1048). This inscription ishowever from a much later period (late eleventh or even early twelfth century),as indicated partly by the poor-quality ornament on the stone. Wessén argues that


39 The spelling haiþabu on this stone (see top centre of Face B) has given rise to the modernname Haithabu, used for the Wikingermuseum Haithabu, and regularly by Germanarchaeologists of the Viking Age town (e.g. Jankuhn 1986).


3.12 Face A of theHedeby stone (D 1).Photo: Erik Moltke,National Museumof Denmark.

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3.13 Face B of theHedeby stone (D 1).Photo: Erik Moltke,National Museumof Denmark.

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the place-name refers to the town of Schleswig rather than Hedeby, since thestone must date from the time when the former had taken over from the latter asthe centre of activity (SR IX, 311). It is interesting, at any rate, that the old namewas still in use at this time.40 Finally, the name also occurs in Sö 16, now sadlyfragmentary, but which stated that the deceased unR tauþr ‘died’ and then laterin the inscription comes the name [iþaby] (known only from early drawings ofthe stone). As this stone should be considerably earlier than U 1048, but laterthan the Danish ones, it may well represent some attack on Hedeby in the earlyto mid-eleventh century, but the details are too vague to make any link withattacks recorded in skaldic verse.

The earliest reference to Heiðabýr in the skaldic corpus is in Hfr II,5. Asusual, Hallfreðr is maddeningly vague, but he notes that Óláfr Tryggvason killedwarriors í Danm�rku fyr sunnan Heiðabý ‘in Denmark, south of Hedeby’, whichat least indicates that this region was considered to be Danish territory at thetime. Snorri tries to identify the battle in question as one which Óláfr fought withhis brother-in-law, a Wendish king (Hkr I, 262–3), but this is probably just guess-work, or creative reconstruction (Fidjestøl 1982, 107–9), as the other sagaswhich cite this stanza do not provide any sort of historical context (Fsk, 142;Oddr, 247). However, the association with Wends is probably correct, as Hedebywas a frontier area where many different groups mixed and, occasionally, fought.Thus, as has already been noted, Magnús góði fought the Wends in the region,apparently both fyr sunnan Heiðabý ‘south of Hedeby’ (ÞjóðA I,6) and fyrnorðan Heiðabœ ‘north of Hedeby’ (Þfagr 1), unless one of these poets isconfused, but these were not attacks on the town itself. Adam notes that MagnúsHeidibam appulit ‘landed in Hedeby’ and that his battle was in campestribusHeidibae ‘in the plain of Hedeby’ (AB, 320).

An attack on the town may have been made by Haraldr harðráði, as describedin an anonymous stanza (AnonXI Lv,7) attributed to menn Haralds ‘Haraldr’smen’ (Hkr III, 114–15):

Brenndr vas upp með endumallr, en þat má kallahraustligt bragð, es hugðak,Heiðabœr af reiði.V�n es, at vinnim Sveini,vask í nótt fyr óttu,gaus h�r logi ór húsum,harm, á borgar armi.

All of Hedeby was burned from end to end in anger, and that can becalled a bold deed, in my opinion. It is to be expected that we will


40 Adam of Bremen uses both names, Heidiba and Sliaswich/Sliaswig, suggesting that thechange of name was relatively recent (AB, 228, ?236, 270, 434) in the 1070s when he waswriting.

cause Sveinn grief; in the night before dawn I was on the arm of thefortification, a high flame gushed from the houses.

The sagas that preserve this verse (Msk, 164; Fsk, 257–8; Hkr III, 114–15) asso-ciate it with a stanza, recalling apparently the same event, from Þorleikr fagri’spoem on Sveinn Úlfsson (Þfagr 6) in which the poet, with his Danish perspec-tive, is naturally critical of the attack. Whoever does not know getr fregna . . . hvéheiptgjarn konungr hefr árnat til Heiðabœjar ‘may ask . . . how the enmity-eagerking [Haraldr] has betaken himself to Hedeby’, also called þengils bœr ‘theking’s [Sveinn’s] town’. This action is described as þarflaust ‘unnecessary’, andthe year in which it happened as ár þats �n of væri ‘a year one should be with-out’.

The archaeological evidence suggests that activity in Hedeby was dying downfrom around the year 1000, though there are some finds in the southern part ofthe harbour from the first half of the eleventh century. Crumlin-Pedersen (1997b,43) suggests ‘that the old derelict harbour at Hedeby was only used for laid-upships’ and that Haraldr’s attack is likely to have been on Schleswig. However, thedescription in AnonXI Lv,7 of the burning town viewed from borgar armi ‘thearm of the fortification’ does sound more like Hedeby than Schleswig, at leastuntil we know more about what form (if any) Schleswig’s fortifications took inthis period. Either Hedeby was still worth attacking around 1050, or this anony-mous stanza has been wrongly contextualised in our medieval sources. The latteris entirely possible. The medieval authors of the kings’ sagas, faced with ananonymous stanza in which the only identifiable points were the place-nameHeiðabýr and the personal name Sveinn would naturally link this stanza to thebetter-provenanced stanza from Þorleikr fagri’s poem on Sveinn Úlfsson, whichalso mentions the place-name. It is not at all certain that this link is correct, and itmay very well be that AnonXI Lv,7 celebrates some other attack in whichHedeby itself was burned, perhaps even during the reign of Sveinn Forkbeard,the only other Sveinn associated with the town. And, it might be noted, if wedissociate the two stanzas, it is not at all clear that even Þfagr 6 refers to asacking of Hedeby rather than some other action of aggressive intent. The prosesources seem to represent various attempts to make sense of a sequence ofstanzas in which the actual events are not entirely clear (some of these stanzasare discussed further in ch. 5).

Denmark to Sweden

Both Magnús and Haraldr attacked other parts of Denmark, especially the islandof Fyn, as summed up of Magnús in Arn III,18: Enn rauð hringserks lituðr fr�nmerki á Fjóni ‘Again [or, ‘further’] the colourer of the mail-coat reddened brightbanners on Fyn’ (see also ÞjóðA IV,7). Similarly, Haraldr rauð frána egg á Fjóni‘reddened the bright blade on Fyn’ (Arn VI,1; see also ÞjóðA IV,3, Valg 7), sothat the Fjónbyggvar ‘inhabitants of Fyn’ diminished. Poets gloried in listing theDanish places that received visits from these two warlike kings: Þjólarnes near


Denmark’s largest river, the Gudenå (Grani 2); Þjóð ‘Thy(holm)’ (Stúfr 6);Falstr ‘Falster’ (Stúfr 5); Selund ‘Sjælland’ (Valg 6); Hróiskelda ‘Roskilde’(Valg 8); Skáney ‘Skåne’ (Arn III,16, ÞjóðA I,24, ÞjóðA IV,4,8, Valg 6) and itscapital Lund (ÞjóðA IV,24). Inhabitants who suffered their raids were: theFalstrbyggvar ‘inhabitants of Falster’ (Arn III,17); Selundbyggvar ‘inhabitantsof Sjælland’ (ÞjóðA III,23); m�rg Selunds mær ‘many a girl from Sjælland’ (whohad to run to Hringstaðir ‘Ringsted’, ÞjóðA I,17); indeed all the Eydanir‘island-Danes’ (Arn VI,8), as well as the Sk�nungar ‘inhabitants of Skåne’ (ArnIII,13, ÞjóðA IV,5). According to Adam, Haraldr omnia Danorum maritimaferro vastavit et igne ‘devastated all of coastal Denmark with sword and fire’ andfought Sveinn throughout both of their lives (AB, 342).

Skåne is mentioned in one runic inscription, Sm 52, in which the two sonscommemorating their father give quite a lot of information about his end: es

uarþ tuþr o skonu (n) karþstokum auk furþu o finhiþi ‘who died in Skáney inGarðstangir and (they) brought him (home) to Finnheiðr’ (see fig. 3.14). Theseplaces can be identified as Gårdstånga, about 10 km northeast of Lund, andFinnveden, a district in Småland, also mentioned in Sm 35 and U 130 (SR IV,160). Although there have been attempts to link this inscription to Knútr’s warswith Óláfr Haraldsson and the Swedish king Anund Jakob in 1025–6, theevidence is really too slight, though the date of the inscription would fit well withthis period (SR IV, 161). The fact that the sons brought their father home toSmåland is noteworthy, though what their reasons were for undertaking thisjourney with their father’s body (the distance is over 200 km as the crow flies) isimpossible to say. The more usual pattern is represented in the Karlevi stone (Öl1), which states that the commissioner placed the stone at u (at ey), meaningeither ‘on the island’, or ‘on Öland’ (which means ‘island-land’). This is amemorial to someone who died and was buried far from home, as both therune-forms and the text show that the commemorated, Sibbi, was Danish.

A much-discussed set of inscriptions from Skåne commemorate an other-wise-unidentified battle at ubsalum, presumably the famous political and reli-gious centre of Uppsala in central Sweden. Their runological dating iscomparable to the Hedeby stones, at least approximately (Stoklund 1991, 292),so that they can be dated to the last two decades of the tenth century. Unfortu-nately, we know too little about Scandinavian history in this period to pinpoint anexact event in which men travelled from Skåne to take part in a battle inUppland. Both D 279 and D 295 commemorate, respectively, Ásbj�rn andÁskell by stating that sá fló eigi at Upps�lum ‘he fled not at Uppsalir’, and theformer adds an ua maþ an uabn a(f)þi ‘he struck while he had a weapon’. Bothare partially in verse (Hübler 1996, 132–4) and contain significant vocabularywhich is discussed further in chapter 6.



3.14 The Forsheda stone (Sm 52). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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Two more towns

A place-name in Uppland which occurs in both the runic and the skaldic corpusis Sigtuna, reflecting its growing importance as a mercantile, political and reli-gious centre in the eleventh century (summarised in Clarke and Ambrosiani1991, 76–9; see also AB, 474). The name is also recorded, though usually inabbreviated form (STUNE, SIHT, SIN, ST, SITUN), on some of the coinsminted in the town (Malmer et al. 1991, 11, 13, 17, 21). Some of these suggestthat a singular form of the place-name (Sigtún) was in use, as possibly in Valg 5below, while the runic inscription and the other skaldic stanzas use a plural form(dat. Sigtúnum), as in the modern name. Various references to the place-name arecollected and discussed in Strid 1989, though he does not discuss the apparentalternation between singular and plural forms. Although the place-name appearsin LP as either n.sg. Sigtún or f.pl. Sigtúnir, strictly speaking the recordedsingular forms are compatible with either n. or f. Sigtún, while the plural formsare similarly compatible with either n. Sigtún or f. Sigtúnir, since only the acc.sg.and the dat.pl. forms (which do not help to distinguish n. from f.) are recorded inthe runic and skaldic sources.

U 395 is unfortunately fragmentary, so we cannot really know in what contextthe statement -(i)m hna firþi til sihtunum ‘who brought her to Sigtún(ir)’belongs (see fig. 3.15). The suggestion that, in this inscription, ‘a man commem-orates his wife’ (B. Sawyer 1994b, 175) is possible but unprovable. The town ismentioned in three skaldic stanzas, all in connection with the return of Norwe-gian kings from the east. Both Arn III,2 and ÞjóðA I,2 show the young kingMagnús góði arriving by ship from Russia to Sigtuna. Arnórr states that brúnveðr ‘sharp weather’ (i.e. a stiff wind) carried the young king at Sigtúnum ‘toSigtún(ir)’, while Þjóðólfr notes that his men hlóðu húnskript í Sigtúnum ‘tookdown the sail in Sigtún(ir)’, as they approached the town (see ch. 4). Magnús hadpolitical reasons for returning to Norway via Sweden (see e.g. Jesch 1994b), andHaraldr also seems to have needed to make friends with the Swedes on his returnfrom Russia (see ÞjóðA III,8). Valgarðr tells Haraldr sáttu Sigtún, þás sædríf létti‘you saw Sigtún, when the sea-spray lessened’ (Valg 5).

The town of Niðaróss ‘(at the) mouth of the river Nið’, modern Trondheim,was referred to by the appellative kaupangr ‘market(-place)’, as discussed above(ch. 2). Although the town-name as such does not appear in the skaldic corpus,the river-name does, in contexts which suggest the importance of the town onthat river.41 Thus, we see Óláfr sailing his fleet out of the Nið (Sigv X,3) towardsDenmark, while the arrival of Knútr into the Nið with his fleet (Þloft II,6) signalshis conquest of Norway. The Nið was also the starting point for Haraldrharðráði’s expeditions (Arn VI,16; Msk, 280):


41 Despite the translation ‘Trondhjem’ in Skjd B I, 300, the name Þrándheimr in Þloft III,2refers, not to the town today called Trondheim, but to the region around it (modern Trøndelag),as indicated by the phrase ráða byggðum later in the stanza (see also Lockertsen 1999).


3.15 The Sigtuna stone (U 395). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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Vítt fór v�lsungs heiti.Varð marglofaðr harðasá’s skaut ór Nið nýtlanorðan herskips borði.

The name of the V�lsung [prince] travelled widely; he who compe-tently launched the plank of the war-ship southwards [lit. ‘from thenorth’] out of the Nið was very highly praised.42

There is a particularly attractive description of Haraldr’s fleet sailing out of theNið in a stanza from a set of verses on this subject by Þjóðólfr (ÞjóðA IV,19; HkrIII, 142):

Slyngr laugardag l�ngulið-Baldr af sér tjaldi,út þars ekkjur lítaorms súð ór bœ prúðar.Vestr réð ór Nið næstanýri skeið at stýraungr, en árar drengja,allvaldr, í sjá falla.

On Saturday the fleet-lord throws off the long tarpaulin, where splendidwidows gaze on the planking of the dragon [ship] from the town. Theyoung ruler steered the brand-new warship west out of the Nið, and theoars of the warriors fall into the sea.

The specific vocabulary of ships and sailing that is evident here is replicated inmany other stanzas in the corpus, and will be the subject of the next chapter.


42 It is, of course, necessary to sail north (and then west, as in ÞjóðA IV,19, below) to get out ofthe Nið, but Haraldr’s overall direction was southwards to Denmark.

4

Ships and Sailing

And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea.

MELVILLE

Our image of the Viking Age is dominated by the viking ship. Some of the mostspectacular archaeological finds of the period are of whole or partial ships,whether from burial mounds (Oseberg, Gokstad) or dredged out of harbours(Skuldelev, Hedeby). The archaeological finds symbolise the importance ofships to the viking project – Scandinavian success in raiding, trading and settle-ment depended on their skill in building and sailing ships. Research into theviking ship has gone beyond the recovery, preservation and reconstruction of thefound ships into the recreation of viking ships using new materials but often theold methods, copying the surviving originals. Such artefactual and practicalresearch has made use of knowledge gained from the later Scandinavianboat-building tradition, but has not neglected philological evidence. However,this philological evidence has been used eclectically, so that saga descriptionsand modern terms from Icelandic or the mainland Scandinavian languages havebeen given equal weight (Foote 1978, 61). The post-Viking Age material is sorich, the Viking Age evidence so meagre, the continuity of boat-building tradi-tions so strong, that it has seemed (and probably is) justified to use the evidencein this unchronological way. But to my knowledge there has not been a compre-hensive study of nautical terminology closely focused on the Viking Age linguis-tic evidence. Falk’s classic study (AnS) ranges more widely than that in itscoverage, making extensive use of saga-evidence, limited use of skaldicevidence, and none at all of runic evidence. And since he wrote in 1912, there is awealth of new archaeological evidence and experience to which this material canbe linked.

This chapter will provide an exhaustive account of the linguistic evidencefrom skaldic poetry and, to a lesser extent, from runic inscriptions, relating to theconstruction and use of ships in the late Viking Age. The aim is not to deny theimportance of later linguistic evidence, or evidence from other language groups,or indeed the evidence of the ships themselves over the last thousand or moreyears. Rather, the aim is to present as fully and as clearly as possible the nauticalterminology of the Viking Age as it survives in sources that are indisputably or

arguably from that period (as outlined in ch. 1), and to show what deductionsabout that terminology and its semantic range those sources enable us or, equallyimportantly, do not enable us, to draw.

Words for ‘ship’

skip

The most common word for a waterborne vessel of a certain size, with cognatesin all the Germanic languages, is skip (n., pl. skip). This is the unmarked termused in countless sources throughout the Viking Age and up to the present day.With kn�rr, it is the main term used in the runic corpus, and it is relativelycommon even in the skaldic corpus, where the exigencies of rhyme and metre, aswell as the preference for a more colourful vocabulary, otherwise caused thepoets to use a wide range of synonyms.

There is not much to be gleaned from the occurrence of the word in six, orpossibly seven runic inscriptions, most of which will be discussed in othercontexts below.1 In three of these (D 68, D 335 and U 778) the man beingcommemorated is said to have owned a ship, in two (U 439 and U 778), he is saidto have ‘steered’ his ship east with Ingvarr, and in Sö 164, which is in a kind ofverse, the commemorated is given a heroic cast by the statement that he stuþ

trikil(a) i stafn skibi ‘he stood like a drengr in the stem of the ship’.2 This runestone also depicts a ship, with a cross as its mast (see fig. 4.1). Although anumber of rune stones have ship designs, this is the only one to make referenceto a ship in the text as well as in the iconography.3

In the skaldic corpus, the word skip occurs in thirty-five stanzas.4 Theinstances are spread over a range of poems, and occur in a variety of contexts,describing sea-battles, warships sailing out on raids, and sailing for other


1 D 68, D 335, Sö 164, U 439, U 778, U FV1946:258, and possibly D EM1985:265.2 Hübler (1996, 110) goes against the communis opinio that this is in verse, preferring to

classify it as deliberately alliterative prose. On the uses of drengr/drengila see ch. 6.3 However, in the late-twelfth-century N 527 the text accompanying the ship-graffito

includes the word kn�rr. Rune stones from the corpus that depict a ship are: D 77, D 119, D220, D 258, D 271, D 328, Farsø (D EM1985:253), Ög 181, Ög 224, Ög MÖLM1960:230,Sö 122, Sö 154, Sö 158, Sö 164, Sö 351, Sö 352, Vg 51, U 370, U 979, U 1052, U 1161, Vs17. Vg 119 is too early for the corpus. Stones depicting ships which are discussed in therunic editions but which do not now have runes and may never have had runes are:Hørdum (see Moltke 1985, 275), Långtora kyrka (described in SR VIII, 402), U 1001. Thedistribution of ship-pictures corresponds to the distribution of rune stones, with a slightoverrepresentation in Södermanland, similar to its overrepresentation of stonescommemorating people who had been abroad (Varenius 1992, 98) and of stones withpoetic inscriptions. For the Gotland picture stones, see GB I, 62–74, and Varenius 1992,51–85.

4 Sigv II,3,6,7,8; Sigv III,10; Sigv VII,1; Sigv XIII,19,23; Ótt II,4,9; Ótt III,1; J�k 1; Hallv3; Þloft II,3; Arn II,11; Arn V,7; Hharð 18; ÞjóðA I,2,4,15,22; ÞjóðA III,16; B�lv 8; Valg5,10; Þfagr 4,5,8; Steinn I,2; Steinn II; Steinn III,5,14; AnonXI Lv,6,16; Mark I,16.

Ships and Sailing 121

4.1 The Spånga stone (Sö 164). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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reasons. Thus, skip is used in stanzas on the battle of Nesjar, between ÓláfrHaraldsson and Sveinn jarl Hákonarson, of Sveinn’s ships (Sigv II,3,6,7,8). Thesame poet uses it of Óláfr’s ships in describing the battle in which ErlingrSkjalgsson is killed (Sigv VII,1) and in a lausavísa complaining that Knútr couldget more men and bigger ships than Óláfr by paying for them (Sigv XIII, 19).Óttarr uses it of the raiding ships of both Óláfr (Ótt II,4,9) and Knútr (Ótt III,1).It is used of Knútr sailing to victory in England (Hallv 3). Arnórr uses it in thecontext of Magnús’ expedition to Wendland (Arn II,11) and of the battle atDeerness between Þorfinnr jarl and Karl Hundason (Arn V,7). ÞjóðólfrArnórsson uses it four times in his Magnússflokkr, describing the young Magnús’journey from Russia, his leading of a fleet to attack Denmark, and twice in hissea-battle with Sveinn Úlfsson at Helganes (ÞjóðA I,2,4,15,22). It is used of theships on both sides in various encounters between Sveinn and Haraldr harðráði(Þfagr 4,5,8; Steinn I,2; Steinn II), in describing a battle between Sigurðrullstrengr and Steigar-Þórir (AnonXI Lv,16) and of Eiríkr’s expedition toWendland (Mark I,16). It is used in stanzas describing or recalling both gentleand hard sailing at sea (B�lv 8; Valg 5,10). And it is used non-specifically in avariety of contexts by a number of poets.5

This shows that, as we would expect, poets did not choose the word skip tosuit a particular context of meaning. Instead, they chose it for metrical reasons.Leaving aside those stanzas which are not in dróttkvætt,6 there are twenty-oneoccurrences of the monosyllabic skip (sg. or pl.), and nineteen of these occur inthe fourth syllable of the six-syllable line, where the poet would need a shortsyllable if the word occupying that position was a noun, according to ‘Craigie’sLaw’ (Craigie 1900, 343–6).7 All except two of these nineteen occur ineven-numbered lines; the two exceptions (Sigv III,10 and Arn V,7) are both inthe first line of the stanza with the word skip alliterating. Where skip- occurs inan inflected case, so that it is disyllabic, it always occupies positions 3–4 in aneven-numbered line.8

Skip also appears as an element in compound words in both corpora. In tworunic instances it is the first element, of skibuarþ ‘ship-watch’ in SöFV1948:291 (discussed in ch. 2) and of skibliþ ‘ship-troop’ in U 348 (discussedin ch. 5). In the skaldic corpus, on the other hand, skip occurs only as the secondelement of a compound, with the first element specifying in more detail the kindof ship meant. The most common compound is herskip ‘warship’, with ten


5 Sigv III,10; Sigv XIII,23; J�k 1; Hharð 18; AnonXI Lv,6.6 Þloft II,3; Arn II,11; Hharð 18; Mark I,16.7 For discussions of the metrical implications of Craigie’s Law, see Kristján Árnason 1991,

120–23, 139–43, and Gade 1995, 29–36. The stanzas with skip in position 4 are SigvII,3,6,7,8; Sigv III,10; Sigv VII,1; Sigv XIII,19,23; Ótt II,4; Ótt III,1; Hallv 3; Arn V,7;ÞjóðA I,2; B�lv 8; Valg 5; Þfagr 4,8; Steinn III,14; AnonXI Lv,16. The exceptions areÞjóðA I,15 and Steinn II.

8 Ótt II,9; J�k 1; ÞjóðA I,4,22; Valg 10; Þfagr 5; Steinn I,2; Steinn III,5; AnonXI Lv,6.

examples (at least half of those by Arnórr).9 Other examples include two oflangskip ‘longship’ (ÞKolb III,10 and Halli 1), and one each of kaupskip ‘mer-chant ship’ (Ótt II,13) and the nonce-formation (and pejorative) hlœgiskip ‘ridi-cule-ship, wretched craft’ (Sigv III,2). Again, it can be noted that, in the elevendróttkvætt examples, the monosyllabic element -skip invariably occurs inposition 4 of the line, while the disyllabic (because inflected) -skip- invariablyoccurs in positions 3–4. Compound words are often difficult to fit into the linesof skaldic poetry, but just as the poets found skip(-) useful in positions 3–4, theycould also use compound words with this element to fill up their line, and even tobear the alliteration. The five occurrences of compounds with -skip(-) inodd-numbered lines all participate in the alliteration.10

It is often asserted that langskip is a translation of Latin navis longa and that itmeans ‘warship’ (AnS, 100–101) and today we often assume that ‘longships’ are‘viking’ ships. There are descriptive references to the length of ships (see dis-cussion below) and, of course, some ships were long, so that the adjective langrcan be found modifying a variety of ship-words: skip (ÞjóðA I,4), lung (HfrIII,14, apparently a loan-word from Old Irish long, itself from Latin navis longa,AEW), borð as a pars pro toto for ‘ship’ (Steinn III,11), and the ship-kenningsæmeiðr ‘sea-tree’ (Sigv I,1). Fell (1981, 110) says of langr sæmeiðr that it ‘is aplay on langskip, longship’, but it is hardly more than a straightforward adjective+ noun (like the other examples), except that here the noun is a simple kenning.The very variety of these collocations shows that any kind of ship could be longand that ‘longship’ is not a technical term. It is salutary to note how infrequentlythe compound word langskip is used in Viking Age sources (as opposed to thesagas, for instance), even if both the surviving examples do place the word in amilitary context. Nor did the word have any especially Scandinavian associa-tions: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refers to the langscipu that King Alfred hadbuilt as a defence against viking ships (ongen ða æscas, ASC 897A).

skeið

The most frequently-used word (more common than skip) for a ship in theskaldic corpus is skeið (f., pl. skeiðr or skeiðar),11 occurring in at least forty-ninestanzas.12 The word is almost always used of ships either on the way to or in the


9 Hfr II,1; Hár 1; Arn II,4,17; Arn III,1; Arn VI,16; Arn VII,2; ÞjóðA IV,22; Valg 11; MarkI,30. The two lines of Hfr II,1 containing this word are identical to two lines in Arn III,1,and have probably erroneously found their way from Arnórr’s stanza into a stanza laterattributed to Hallfreðr (Whaley 1998, 183–4).

10 Hfr II,1 (if this is not the same as Arn III,1, see previous note); Sigv III,2; Arn III,1; ArnVII,2; Valg 11.

11 Both plurals are attested and confirmed by the metre, e.g. in Sigv III,9 and Sigv VII,2(Whaley 1998, 210).

12 Sindr 2; Tindr I,4,5,10; Hfr III,6; Edáð 7; Hókr 2,6,7,8; ÞKolb III,1,2,4,9,13; Ólhelg 9;Sigv I,3,5; Sigv II,7,9; Sigv III,9; Sigv VII,1,2,3; Ótt II,15; Ótt III,1; Arn II,4,7,10; Arn

thick of battle and clearly connotes a warship. There are only two examples ofskeið used in a peaceful, or at least non-military, context (Sigv III,9; Arn II,4),while an anonymous stanza makes an explicit contrast between a sea-battle on askeið and the life of the landlubber being served leeks and ale by a maiden(AnonXI Flokkr). What is less clear is whether skeið referred to a particular type(rather than function) of ship. Falk (AnS, 104) assumes it is synonymous withlangskip, though that is not much help in this context, as we have just seen.13

Etymology is not much help either. Foote and Wilson (1974, 236–7) note thatskeið means ‘either ‘‘that which cuts through the water’’ or ‘‘a piece of woodlong and sword-shaped’’: either description would be appropriate’ (similarlyAEW), while Falk (AnS, 105) would prefer to link it to skeið ‘race(-track)’ andunderstand it as a navis cursoria. However, the occasional collocation can giveus some idea of the characteristics of skeiðar. They are described as langar ‘long’(Tindr I,4) and súðlangar ‘with long strakes’ (ÞKolb III,1),14 but they need notall be the same length (m�rg misl�ng skeið ‘many a skeið of varying length’,ÞKolb III,9). They can be mævar ‘slender’ (ÞKolb III,4). As warships, they are(há)brynjaðar ‘armoured (at the oarports)’ (ÞjóðA IV,22; B�lv 2).15 They can beheavily laden, hlaðnar, with armed men (B�lv 8).

The word skeið is borrowed into English (and used of English ships) duringthe Anglo-Saxon period. Thus, King Æthelred ordered ships to be made in all ofEngland, with each district of 310 hides to provide a scegð (ASC 1008E)16 andthe word appears (also in the compound sce[i]gðmann) in a number of othersources from the late tenth or early eleventh century (Harmer 1989, 266–7; Fell1986, 311–13).

Skeið even appears two, or just possibly three, times in the runic corpus. In theTryggevælde inscription (D 230), it refers to the monumental ship-setting ofwhich the rune stone is a part.17 In Sö 171, the commemorated was a skeiðar vísi


III,13; Arn V,6,12; Arn VI,3; ÞjóðA I,12,24; ÞjóðA III,8; ÞjóðA IV,9,18,19,22; B�lv2,5,8; Valg 1,6,9,10; Halli 2; AnonXI Flokkr. In the case of Ólhelg 9, the word occurs inmost of the manuscripts which have this stanza, but the manuscripts in one branch have aform of the stanza without this word (Fidjestøl 1982, 67–8). See also n. 18, below.

13 Whaley (1998), who otherwise translates words fairly consistently, illustrates the problemby translating skeið variously as ‘galley’ (pp. 163, 231, 272), ‘longship’ (p. 210), and‘ship’ (pp. 149, 157, 244).

14 Also ÞjóðA IV,18: although strictly speaking here the l�ng súð collocates with dreki, thisship is also called a skeið in this stanza.

15 The traditional interpretation of this word envisages armouring in the form of iron plateson the prow (AnS, 38; LP); for the suggested alternative, see under the discussion of hár,below.

16 The Latin version of the Chronicle (F) glosses this word as unam magnam nauem quæAnglice nominatur scegþ (ASC I, 138n.).

17 An afterthought on Tryggevælde is Falk’s only acknowledgement that some of thevocabulary in which he is interested can be found in runic inscriptions (AnS, 118).Elsewhere (AnS, 104) he claims that the word skeið is not recorded in Old Swedish or OldDanish. Twenty-odd years later, he is better informed (Shetelig and Falk 1937, 373), butKisbye (1982, 48) still does not know of the Swedish example(s).


4.2 The Ekeby stone (Ög 68). Photo: Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

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‘captain of a skeið’. The collocations suggest a warship, for ‘he fell in battle (han

fial) in Holmgarðr’. It has also been claimed that Ög 68 contains the word skeið(e.g. SR II, 70). The runes read han x uas x uesteR x tauþeR x i x uereks x ?ai?i

‘he died in the west in Væring’s(?) ?ai?i’. To make the last word skaiþ wouldinvolve reading s twice (across a word divider), assuming the two worn runes arek and þ, and ignoring the final rune (see fig. 4.2, an old photograph taken before1961 when the stone was still outdoors, and in which the worn runes have beenpainted as k and n). From my own examination of the inscription, the two wornrunes look much more like original m and n, but what word this hypotheticalmaini might represent is another question (SamRun gives this sequence as(k)ai-i). Two other inscriptions which say that the commemorated died on a ship(Sö 49 and U 258) both use the expression á knerri, and á would seem to be themost appropriate preposition in this context, while í would be more likely to beused with a word meaning ‘troop, army, expeditionary force’ (see the discussionof lið in ch. 5).

snekkja

Eight skaldic stanzas (seven of them dating to the mid-eleventh century) use theword snekkja (f., pl. snekkjur).18 The etymology of this word is uncertain, as is itsconnection with the clearly related OE snacc (ASC 1052C,D; 1066D,E).19 It isusually assumed (e.g. Hkr I, 159) that the main distinction between a snekkja anda skeið was that the former was smaller, but such contrasts are based on the proseinformation of the sagas. Using this prose information, Falk (AnS, 102) defines asnekkja as a twenty-bencher (with a bench equivalent to a pair of oars, seebelow). This is too precise and is contradicted by the evidence of ÞjóðA I,2 thatthe snekkja in which Magnús returned from Russia was a þrítøgt skip ‘ship ofthirty benches’. In three stanzas (ÞKolb III,2; ÞjóðA IV,22; B�lv 2) snekkja isused in a catalogue of ships, among knerrir and skeiðar, among herskip andskeiðar, and among skeiðr and beit, respectively. In these stanzas, the poets aretrying to give an impression of a large fleet composed of various types of shipsand use the different words, probably not very precisely, to create this impres-sion. Nevertheless, the fact that skeið occurs in all of these catalogues withsnekkja suggests that there was a recognised distinction between the two types,and this is supported by a stanza from Arnórr’s Þorfinnsdrápa (Arn V,6).


18 ÞKolb III,2; Arn V,6; Arn VI,4; Arn VII,2; ÞjóðA I,2; ÞjóðA IV,22,23; B�lv 2. It alsooccurs in Sindr 7, from a poem which probably just qualifies for the corpus if correctlyattributed: it appears to be about the living Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri and he died in 960/61.The mss of ÓTr have skeiðum, giving a not inconceivable rhyme (Kristján Árnason 1991,99–100). Kuhn (1983, 263) also thinks the original had skeiðum.

19 In a forthcoming University of Münster doctoral thesis, Katrin Thier suggests the Norseform represents an original borrowing from West Germanic, with snekkja a secondaryformation. The Germanic root would be *snak- ‘a sharp protuberance, nose’ (AEW).

Describing Þorfinnr’s brave attack, with five ships, on Karl Hundason, witheleven ships, the difference in numbers is presumably compounded by the differ-ence in ship-sizes: while Karl has skeiðar, Þorfinnr has only snekkjur.

dreki

Another image we have from the Viking Age is of the dragon ship, or the shipwith a carved dragon’s head on the prow. The word dreki (m., pl. drekar)‘dragon’ is used of a ship in only seven stanzas.20 Many writers assume dreki wasa technical or semi-technical term for the ‘biggest warships of all’ (Foote andWilson 1974, 237; Simek 1982, 39) and that it was broader than a skeið (AnS,104; Simek 1982, 35). Falk (AnS, 107) suggests that the term was originally thename of a particular ship, and compares the use of Ormr ‘worm, dragon’ as aship’s name. Certainly the different etymology of dreki (compared to other shipwords which are originally descriptive of their shape or actions) seems signifi-cant. While it is possible that the term was used in the late Viking Age of particu-larly large and ornate ships, such as those belonging to Haraldr harðráði, it isworth noting that the poets also call these same ships skeið (ÞjóðA IV,18,19;Valg 6,9,10). It is more likely that calling a large warship (with or without adragonhead prow) a ‘dragon’ is a poetic conceit rather than a terminustechnicus.21 Þjóðólfr Arnórsson uses both naðr ‘snake’ and ormr of Haraldr’sdreki (ÞjóðA III,13; ÞjóðA IV,18,19,21; see also Arn VI,2).22 Other poets makethe comparison without using the word dreki: sævar naðr ‘sea-snake’ (Edáð 3);læbaugs eik ‘oak of the ring of poison [serpent]’ (Hár 2). Some poets, havingchosen to call a ship a ‘dragon’, develop the metaphor by referring to differentparts of the ship in terms of the beast’s anatomy: Haraldr’s ormr has a fax ‘mane’(ÞjóðA IV,18), the prow of Haraldr’s ship is an orms munnr ‘dragon’s mouth’and it has a golden red skolpt ‘forehead’ (Valg 10), similarly Magnús berfœttr’sdreki has golden hausar (‘heads’, lit. ‘skulls’, Gísl I,16) and braut hrygg ‘brokeits back’ (Gísl I,15) when sailing in rough weather. Haraldr’s naðr is ramsyndr‘strongly swimming’ (ÞjóðA III,13). This is entirely in keeping with the poetichabit of comparing ships to various kinds of animals, primarily in kennings.

Gísl’s description (I,16) of Magnús berfœttr’s dreki, using the plural formhausar ‘skulls, heads’ of its stems, led Falk (AnS, 40) to speculate whether theship had two dragonheads, one at each end, or even whether it had a tail at oneend and two heads at the other, although this seems unlikely (Simek 1982, 19).The Bergen seal from 1299 (illustrated in Varenius 1992, 124) shows a ship witha dragonhead at either end, as do several of the ships on Viking Age rune


20 Sigv X,8; ÞjóðA III,12; ÞjóðA IV,18; Valg 10; AnonXI Lv,4; Gísl I,15,16.21 Extreme examples of the literary use of dragons (among other fabulous creatures) in

describing Scandinavian ships occur in EE, 12, 20.22 Both Hallfreðr and Halldórr ókristni use naðr/Naðr for Óláfr Tryggvason’s ships, both

called Ormr, but here it is a play on that name, rather than a synonym for dreki (seediscussion of ships’ names, below).

stones.23 Some dragonhead prow-ornaments are known archaeologically, themost notable example being the fragmentary spiral ornament carved with asimple dragon’s head on either side from Oseberg (Brøgger et al. 1917–28, I,334–8, III, 24–6; see fig. 4.3).

The word dreki for a ship derives from this practice of placing carveddragonheads on ships, and is part of a group of words from the same semanticfield used by poets of such ships, but there is no evidence that it was a technicalterm for any particular type of ship.

kn�rr

Arguably a different type of ship altogether was the kn�rr (m., pl. knerrir), aterm used by archaeologists (often in the modern Scandinavian form knarr, e.g.Bill 1997, 190) to denote the broader type of ship that could both sail across theocean and carry a heavy cargo, such as Wreck 1 from Skuldelev 1 or Wreck 3from Hedeby.

It is significant that kn�rr, like the generic skip, appears in runic inscriptions,and it appears just as frequently, in six inscriptions, all from Södermanland andUppland.24 The collocations in these inscriptions indicate a range of possiblemeanings. Two of the inscriptions refer to the death of the commemorated onboard a kn�rr. Sö 49 just says han uarþ tauþr o kniri ‘he died on a/the kn�rr’without stating what he died of, it could have been in battle, or in a shipboardaccident (Düwel 1987, 326). A violent death is indicated in U 258 where it issaid of the commemorated that on trabu nurminr o kniri asbiarnaR ‘Norwe-gians killed him on Ásbj�rn’s kn�rr’. The mention of Norwegians might suggesta sea-battle between Norwegians and Swedes (SR VI, 327, 428), but it couldequally have been a merchants’ brawl on a trading voyage (Düwel 1987, 326).Trading is the more likely context for the poetic Sö 198 h[n] uft siklt til

simk(a)(l)(a) t(u)ru[m] knari ‘he often sailed to Semigallia in a splendidkn�rr’. Düwel (1987, 319) assumes kn�rr is a ‘Lastschiff’ and takes the namingof the destination, the repetition of the action and the use of the adjective dýrr‘splendid’ (referring to the load rather than the ship) as further evidence of thisinscription as a ‘Zeugnis zum Handel’. Although we might note that the adjec-tive dýrr can be used of a ship or part of a ship in skaldic verse (ÞjóðA III,9 andB�lv 8), on the whole Düwel must in this instance be right. Two further inscrip-tions (U 654 and U 1016) refer to the deceased’s skills in steering a kn�rr. Düwel


23 Ships with dragonhead stems at both ends are illustrated on D 271 and D 328. The ships onD 258 and U 979 also have or had dragonheads, but not enough of the illustration ispreserved to determine whether this was true of both ends. A tenth-century (non-runic)hogback from Lowther in Westmorland depicts a ship with ‘zoomorphic stem and sternposts’ (BACASSE II, 130).

24 Sö 49, Sö 198, U 214, U 258, U 654, U 1016. It also occurs in the twelfth-century graffitoN 527, outside our corpus. U 214 is included because SamRun dates it to the Viking period,c.1100, although Düwel (RGA XIII, 578) brackets it with N 527 as twelfth-century.

interprets these two inscriptions differently (1987, 319–20, 325–7). U 1016 is‘zweifellos’ evidence of trade, as the deceased travelled regularly to the harboursof ‘Greece’, or the Byzantine Empire, but died peacefully at home, while U 654commemorates someone who died in the east with Ingvarr, and therefore theword kn�rr must refer to a warship. However, it might just be that therune-carver needed an alliterating word (is kuni ual knari stura) in this poetic,or at least stylised, inscription. The last runic example (U 214) is slightly laterthan the others and unusual in being in rhyming, rather than alliterative verse. Itcommemorates a man who drowned in Holms haf (either the sea around Born-holm, or the Gulf of Finland) when his kn�rr sank. Jansson (SR VI, 328) andDüwel (1987, 325) have diametrically opposed views on whether the word heremeans ‘warship’ or ‘trading ship’, but I cannot see that there is any evidence


4.3 The dragonhead terminal of the Oseberg ship (reconstruction). Photo: EirikIrgens Johnsen, Universitetets Oldsaksamling, Oslo.

Image not available

either way. On the whole, it is safest to assume that, in Viking Age Sweden atleast, a kn�rr was just another word for skip, a type of ship that could be used oneither a raiding or a trading voyage, and indeed it is likely that many Swedishvoyages in the Baltic and to the east at this time had elements of both.

The skaldic evidence is a little more one-sided. The standard example for themeaning ‘warship’ for kn�rr is Hkv 7, which refers to Haraldr hárfagri’s ships asknerrir. This text (if correctly attributed) is too early for the corpus that forms thebasis of this study, its authenticity can be doubted, and its preservation andtextual status are complicated (Jón Helgason 1968, 10–15; Fidjestøl 1997,70–71, 79–81). In the corpus, the word kn�rr occurs only occasionally and atfirst glance can apparently mean either an ocean-going cargo ship or a warship.One example of the latter has already been noted (ÞKolb III,2). This catalogue ofEiríkr jarl Hákonarson’s fleet uses three different words (snekkjur, knerrir andskeiðar) to suggest the variety of that fleet, and the poet could have used an unex-pected ship-type to suggest the scope of Eiríkr’s operations in his attack onEngland. The only other unequivocal skaldic example of a kn�rr in a battlecontext is in a lausavísa (Vígf II) looking back on the battle of Hj�rungavágr.This stanza has a rather odd use of the word drengr to refer to the speaker’sopponents (see ch. 6), and its authenticity may also be doubtful on other grounds,so it is unwise to place any emphasis on its evidence.

In the other skaldic stanzas in which kn�rr occurs the context is not a militaryone, and it is likely that the poet’s choice of a word with a non-military connota-tion was deliberate. Sigvatr uses kn�rr in two lausavísur (Sigv XIII,4,26), bothreferring to his personal affairs and memories and implying a context inIcelandic trading (discussed in ch. 2). Óttarr, describing Óláfr Haraldsson’sreturn to Norway from raiding in England in two ships, calls those ships knerrirand explicitly equates them with kaupskip ‘merchant ships’ (Ótt II,13), perhapsto obviate the impression that the king-to-be was raiding his own country.25

When incorporating this stanza into Heimskringla, Snorri obviously felt thestrangeness of the successful returning warrior coming home in a cargo-ship, andexplains that Óláfr switched ships (Hkr II, 35): Óláfr konungr lét þar eptir veralangskipin, en bjó þaðan kn�rru tvá ‘King Óláfr left the longships behind there,and made ready two knerrir from there’. Steinn Herdísarson (III,14) lists someof the gifts King Óláfr kyrri gave to his followers, including hábrynjuð skip oksteinda kn�rru ‘ships armoured at the oarports and painted knerrir’. There isboth repetition and variation in these stanzas, and it is not certain that the poetintended these phrases to be synonymous. The emphasis is on both the range andthe splendour of the king’s gifts, and he is likely to have given away differentkinds of ships (compare the gifts of different kinds of armour, brynjur ok hjalma


25 That Óláfr returned in two merchant ships (cum duabus onerariis navibus) is also known tothe twelfth-century synoptic historians, Theodericus monachus and the anonymous authorof Historia Norwegiae (McDougall and Foote 1998, 76).

‘mail-coats and helmets’, in Steinn III,16). Similarly, King Eiríkr gave hisfollowers sverð ok kn�rru ‘swords and knerrir’ (Mark I,7). Kn�rr also occurs inkennings (Edáð 3; Sigv XIV,2; Bersi I,1) as both base-word and determinant,meaning ‘ship’, but without any further illumination of what kind of ship it wasthought to be.

Arnórr uses the related word knarri (m., pl. knarrar, a weak variant of thestrong-declension noun kn�rr) in a quarter-stanza telling of his own journeys(Arn II,2).26 This word is a hapax legomenon, but presumably has the samemeaning as kn�rr, since in the same stanza Arnórr calls his journey a kaupf�r‘trading voyage’. It is usually assumed that this stanza belongs to Arnórr’sMagnússdrápa, with the poet recalling his own journeys before embarking onpraise of King Magnús, and the oddity of this personal beginning is remarked onboth in the prose anecdote which describes Arnórr’s recitation (Msk, 116) and inthe Third Grammatical Treatise commentary on another fragmentary stanzafrom this introduction (TGT, 57). If the attribution of the two quarter-stanzas iscorrect, then it is clear that, in using knarri, Arnórr deliberately chose a word forhis own journeys that would not by then normally be appropriate in a praisepoem for a war-leader.

It is impossible to discuss the meaning(s) of kn�rr without also considering itsuses as a loan-word in other languages. Most notably, the two occurrences in TheBattle of Brunanburh, as the simplex cnear in line 35 and in the compoundnægledcnearr in line 53, used of the ships of the Norsemen fighting atBrunanburh, provide a securely-dated attestation earlier than any in the corpus(i.e. soon after 937). Although the battle took place on land, the function of theseships was to transport the Norse warriors to the battle, so at the very least, kn�rrcould be used of a troop-carrier, if not an actual warship.

In a recent article on the semantics of kn�rr, Sayers interprets cnear(r) as anocean-going vessel and contends that ‘[f]or the most part only ocean-goingvessels would have called on Ireland, and the requirement of seaworthinesswould have favored the higher freeboard and broader hulls of the merchantmantype over the sleeker fighting ships, sailed to best advantage in the coastal watersof Scandinavia’ (1996, 284–5). However, as he himself notes, the large warshipfrom Skuldelev (Wreck 2), surely the quintessential ‘sleek fighting ship’, is nowshown by dendrochronology to have been built in Ireland, and must have sailedback to Scandinavia. In any case, the journey from Ireland to Scandinavia (orvice-versa) involves only short open-sea passages. The word was also borrowedinto Middle Irish, Old French and possibly even Old High German (Sayers 1996,284–8), and at least some of the instances in these languages refer to Norsewarships (e.g. CCS, 40, 42), at any rate not one of them occurs in a context ofeither mercantile activities or deep-sea crossings. Sayers’ article is primarily


26 The Third Grammatical Treatise explains knarri as an example of paragóge, the deliberatelengthening of a word by a syllable to make it fit the metre (TGT, 63).

intended to propose an etymology of kn�rr as a ‘ship whose hull was promi-nently marked by nail heads’ (1996, 285), and to argue that an understanding ofthe ‘underlying semantics’ (the etymology?) of the word is reflected in theborrowings into ‘languages of the western European seaboard’ (p. 288).Although Sayers is quite right to criticise the traditional etymology, he does notreconsider the Norse evidence and I do not find his alternative particularlyconvincing, but the article is useful in setting out the range and type of occur-rences of the word in the borrowing languages.

Loan words do not have to have the same semantic range as in their originallanguage, but it seems that the borrowing languages all understood kn�rr asappropriate to a ship used by invading warriors, and we have to consider whetherthis was also true in Old Norse. The East Norse runic inscriptions have alreadyshown that the word was used in contexts that could include both raiding andtrading, and combined with the loan-word evidence, this suggests that, in earlyusage, the meaning was not restricted to ‘cargo-ship’ or ‘ocean-going vessel’.This semantic narrowing can however be traced in the West Norse skaldic textsfrom the eleventh century, where there is a clear avoidance of the word for royalwarships, and is complete in the later prose sources on which most scholars basetheir understanding of the word.

Recently, Ole Crumlin-Pedersen (1997a, 189–90) has observed that the rela-tive beam of ships ‘changed drastically in the early phase of the process ofadapting ships to carry sail, in order to provide sufficient stability at the initialstage’. This is why early warships, such as Tune and Gokstad, have a lowlength-to-breadth ratio, while the eleventh-century warships ‘had returned to thepre-Viking proportions’ and were long and slender ‘to maximize the effect of therowers, now in combination with sail propulsion’. In the early period (in theninth and most of the tenth century), then, there would not have been muchdifference between warships and cargo-ships in terms of their shape (althoughthey would have been distinguished in other ways). The term kn�rr can be seento reflect this stage, and must in its subsequent development be linked to theoverall shape of the vessel. It survived as a term for cargo-ships, which continuedto have low length-to-breadth ratios, even after the development of the long andnarrow warships in the late tenth and eleventh centuries, the skeiðar of skaldicpoetry. This explanation would even allow for the correctness of the term knerririn Hkv. Foote urged a belief in the poet’s accuracy on this point, but the work ofarchaeologists since he wrote over twenty years ago suggests that we are nowcloser to knowing ‘what might suitably be called a kn�rr about the year 900’(1978, 64).

Oak and pine

Occasionally the skalds used words which reflect the types of wood widely usedin Viking Age ship construction, especially oak and pine, though this vocabularyis not especially rich.

Eik ‘oak’ (f., pl. eikr) is used in three stanzas as a simple heiti for ‘ship’ (Sigv


VII,1; Valg 6; AnonXII B,3),27 and once in the kenning læbaugs eik ‘oak of thering of poison [serpent]’ (Hár 2) with the same meaning. Where a poet neededtwo syllables, he could use eiki (n., pl. eiki), originally a collective noun andtherefore appropriate for a ship which would be made of more than one tree, andthis occurs three times (Arn II,9,16; ÞjóðA I,4). Three syllables are provided bythe compound eikikj�lr ‘oaken keel’ (ÞjóðA III,8). These are all warships, andthe collocations suggest stately and well-made vessels. Three of these ships arealso called skeið in the same stanza (Sigv VII,1; ÞjóðA III,8; Valg 6), and threeof them are described using complimentary adjectives: g�fugt ‘splendid’ (ArnII,9), farligt ‘attractive, looking as if it would run well’ (Arn II,16) and vandlangt‘long-masted’ (ÞjóðA I,4).28 Analysis of the wood used in building the fiveSkuldelev wrecks shows that a variety of timbers was used, but oak was the mostcommon, and it is characteristic that wreck 2, the largest of these, built in Dublin,was made entirely of oak (Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen 1990, 130–31), as arethe Oseberg and Gokstad ships, not so much warships as royal yachts (Brøggerand Shetelig 1950, 139, 174, 196).

Shipbuilding materials would depend at least in part on local conditions, andpine would have been more commonly used in western and northern Norway(Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 255–6). With their pine-planked hulls, Skuldelev 1and 6 are now known both to have been built in Norway (NAVIS, see alsoWagner 1986 on the types of wood used in shipbuilding). However, fura ‘pine’(f., pl. furur), occurs only twice (Arn II,10; ÞjóðA IV,11),29 in different contexts:in the former the ship is being buffeted by a storm, in the latter it is lying atanchor. Arnórr, at any rate, chose the word because he needed to alliterate on theletter f, for this is the same ship that was called eiki in the previous stanza (ArnII,9; see Malmros 1986, 102). The noun þella (f., pl. þellur), also meaning‘pine’, occurs often enough in skaldic verse (in kennings meaning ‘woman’), butnever of a ship, while the collective variant þelli (n., pl. þelli; compare eik andeiki) is once used of a ship, but outside the corpus (LP). Þ�ll (f., pl. þellir) ‘youngpine’ is similarly used mainly in woman-kennings, but once of an oar (ÞjóðAIV,21, see below).

Another tree-type occurs as a base-word in the kenning sævar hlynr ‘maple ofthe sea’ (Ólhelg 7). As a lausavísa attributed to a king and preserved only inFlateyjarbók, this stanza is less secure than most in the corpus, and in any case


27 In Hharð 9, I follow Hkr III, 109, in reading líneik as a woman-kenning, rather thaninterpreting eik as the object of the verb halda, as in Skjd B I, 330. However, if this stanzabelongs with ÞjóðA IV,11 (Perkins 1982–5, 194), it might be that the poet is using twodifferent (and contradictory) words for ‘ship’, eik and fura, in the same stanza, rather as heuses a number of words for ‘anchor’ (see below).

28 Although this is understood as a collective noun (and translated ‘skibene’) in Skjd B I, 333,it is more likely to be a singular reference to the king’s ship Visundr than to the whole fleetof seventy ships mentioned earlier in the stanza.

29 There appears also to have been a genuine variant with a long vowel, fúra (Whaley 1998,163). On ÞjóðA IV,11, see n. 27, above.

hlyn ‘maple’ depends on Sveinbjörn Egilsson’s reading of the manuscript formhlunn (Skjd A I, 221). It could of course be argued that the archaeologicalevidence of the use of maple in shipbuilding (Wagner 1986, 135;Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 185–6) confirms the correctness of the emendation.But even so the example is not a good one, for, in a kenning, the base-wordstands for a category (here, ‘tree’, compare sæmeiðr ‘sea-tree’, Sigv I,1) anddoes not necessarily inform us about the material from which the ship is made.

Other references to the type of wood in the corpus are doubtful (see also thediscussion of askr ‘ash’ below). In ÞKolb III,2 m�rg vas lind fyr landi is usuallytranslated ‘many a lime-wood [spear/shield] defended the land’ and there wasprobably a similar construction in Tindr I,9 (NN, 436). Since Þórðr’s stanza isotherwise about ships, it is possible that lind ought to be translated ‘ship’ there,but even then it is more likely the poet was in need of a word that provided himwith both alliteration and half-rhyme in the line, than that he intended to suggestthe construction material. Lime-wood was not especially suitable for ship-building, although we do find it used in Skuldelev 1 (Wagner 1986, 135).

Occasionally, a poet refers to a ship by the simple synecdoche viðr ‘wood’(m., pl. viðir),30 telling us that ships were made of wood, but then we knew thatalready. It seems that the skaldic ideal was a ship made of oak, and that kings, atany rate, were mostly able to make that ideal a reality.

Miscellaneous words

Other words used by skalds to denote ships are even less informative. Mostcommon of these miscellaneous terms is flaust (n., pl. flaust), which is etymo-logically related to the verb fljóta ‘to float’. It occurs ten times referring to a shipor ships and, with one exception (Arn II,15), all of these instances either allit-erate (Ótt II,14; Arn II,11; Gísl I,8) or rhyme (Ótt II,4; ÞjóðA I,4; ÞjóðA III,9;Mark I,5), and two do both (Steinn III,5; Mark I,24). The word was particularlyuseful for poets seeking a rhyme for either austr ‘in/to the east’ or austan ‘fromthe east’. It also rhymes with austin the stanzas where it occurs as part of akenning, for poetry (Eskál III,3) or for the sea (AnonX III,C,3; Þfagr 8; AnonXIKnútr). The fact that most viking journeys celebrated in skaldic verse went eithereast or west may be the explanation for the relative frequency of flaust, ratherthan Simek’s theory that it was ‘ein poetisches Modewort’ (1982, 105). In GíslI,8 it is used of the ships of merchants, while the same alliterative phrase, flaustfagrbúin ‘beautifully-prepared ships’, is used of warships in HHuI,31. In MarkI,25, the poet describes how King Eiríkr built five stone churches in Denmarkand, using the common metaphor of church as ship, how the rest of the tíða flaust‘ships of services [churches]’ in his kingdom were borði merkt ‘marked byplanks’, i.e. made of timber.


30 Sigv X,7; Þloft II,4; Arn III,19; Þfagr 11; AnonXII B,3. In the latter, Finnur Jónssontranslates viðr as ‘plankerne’ (Skjd B I, 592), but it is clearly a pars pro toto.

Another colourless, but useful, synonym for ‘ship’ is far ‘(means of) travel’(n., pl. f�r), which as a short, monosyllabic noun was suitable for position 4 inthe dróttkvætt line (Sigv III,2; ÞjóðA III,34), or when alliteration on the verycommon initial sound f was needed (Ótt II,14, where it alliterates with flaust). Italso occurs (Arn VI,4) in the compound farskostr ‘vehicle’ (m., pl. farskostar).The closely related ferja (f., pl. ferjur), which later certainly means ‘ferry’,occurs only once in the skaldic corpus, in a sea-kenning (Glúmr I,2) which doesnot reveal a specific meaning.

An interesting pair of cognates are beit (n., pl. beit) and bátr (m., pl. bátar).Beit, a Norse word of uncertain etymology (AEW), is used twice of Haraldrharðráði’s ships (B�lv 2; Valg 5), and once of Magnús berfœttr’s ships (AnonXIIB,3).31 B�lverkr, describing Haraldr’s journey to Constantinople, calls the sameships snekkja and skeið, so they must be large warships, while at least one ofMagnús’ ships has a seventy-foot mast (discussed below), so was not insignifi-cant. Bátr, on the other hand, appears to be a loan-word, possibly from OldEnglish (AEW, cf. modern English ‘boat’), and is used for much lower-classvessels. Sigvatr’s journey to Sweden for King Óláfr took place partly in a dodgybátr which he also calls hlœgiskip ‘ridicule-ship, wretched craft’, so the word isnot likely to connote a fine, stately craft. Similarly, in ÞjóðA IV,17, a probablyspurious and certainly joky fragment, the poet questions someone whose foot issticking out from under an upturned bátr whether he is having sex (according tothe prose context, he is actually seasick). We would hardly expect to find such aword in a formal poem of praise.

The craft that Sigvatr called bátr and hlœgiskip, he also called a karfi (SigvIII,2), the only occurrence of this word in the corpus. As Foote (1978, 59) haspointed out, archaeologists are over-confident when they assume they knowwhat kind of a vessel a karfi was, and Sigvatr’s boat is unlikely to have resembledthe Oseberg ship.32

It is also worth noting words which occur in other sources and might thereforebe expected to occur in skaldic poetry, but which do not, or rather which occuronly in kennings. Although ash was used in building ships (Wagner 1986, 132),askr ‘ship (made of ash-wood)’ (m., pl. askar) occurs only once, in the kenningUllar asks�gn ‘crew of the askr of Ullr [shield→warriors]’ (Eskál III,2). As Falk(AnS, 87) notes, the cognates of this word are used in English and continentalsources of viking ships. King Alfred’s plan to build long ships ongen ða æscas‘against the ash-ships’ of the Danes in 897 has already been mentioned, whiletwo decades later, the Chronicle refers to viking invaders as æscmenn (ASC921A; the date is actually 917, see Bately 1986, 66–8) and in The Battle ofMaldon, 69, the invading Scandinavian army of 991 is called æschere, possibly


31 See also HHuI,23.32 Although it has been suggested this word appears in Irish as carbh (CCS, xii), it is not at all

clear that the loan was necessarily from ON.

from their ships, though perhaps rather from some other kind of equipment(spears or shields) they had made of ash (Fell 1986, 313–14).

Calling a ship a kjóll (m., pl. kjólar) is common in Eddic poetry, the word mayhave been borrowed into Middle Irish (ciúil), and the Old English cognate ceolmeans ‘large ship’. But it is not used of ships in the skaldic corpus: it occurs oncein a shield-kenning (Ullar kjóll, Eyv III,9; compare Ullar askr, above) and oncein the kenning hæls hleypikjólar ‘running-ships of the heel [shoes]’ (ÞjóðAIII,19).

Summary

Skalds used many different words to refer to ships. Certainly, the variety of thisvocabulary partly reflects poetic pressures: the skald’s need for words that allit-erate, rhyme or have the right number of syllables. Some words are generic (e.g.skip) and are therefore uninformative. Others are used poetically rather thandescriptively (e.g. dreki). Words which describe the materials from which shipswere made (e.g. eik) correspond with the factual evidence, but are not necessarilyused precisely. Yet it is not fair to argue, as Malmros (1986, 107) has done, thatthe ships described in skaldic poetry ‘er overalt de samme’. The Skuldelev findshave shown that ships varied in size, shape and quality, and the skaldic evidenceconfirms that distinctions between different types of ships were important, andcould be made even by the skalds (see especially the discussions of skeið,snekkja and kn�rr, above).33

Names of ships

From the Mary Rose to the QEII, we are accustomed to ships named afterwomen, as a glance at any fishing-harbour will also show. There is no evidencefor this cultural stereotype in the Viking Age. Where ships’ names are preservedin contemporary sources, they are mostly grammatically masculine, and oftennamed after animals. The list of contemporary attestations is quite short, thoughmany more names occur in prose sources, especially those relating to the twelfthand thirteenth centuries (discussed in AnS, 32–3; see also Simek 1982, 14–27).

Most famous of all is Óláfr Tryggvason’s Ormr inn langi ‘The Long Serpent’,named in six stanzas from two poems (Hfr III,13,18; Hókr 3,4,5,8). Halldórrókristni was particularly fond of using ship-names. In his poem on Óláfr’s oppo-nent at Sv�lðr, Eiríkr jarl Hákonarson, Halldórr always uses both the name andthe epithet of Óláfr’s ship. Eiríkr’s own ship is called Barði in the skaldic sources(presumably a name derived from the part of the prow called barð, see below):


33 Even the Bayeux Tapestry shows William’s invasion fleet as consisting of ships of varyingsizes (Wilson 1985, pls 36–7, 40–44, p. 227).

Halldórr names it twice in stanzas in which he also names Ormr (Hókr 3,5),34

while Tindr (I,10) names it in a stanza on the battle of Hj�rungavágr.The names of two more ships belonging to Óláfr are recorded. One was called

Trana ‘Crane’ (the manuscripts differ on whether this ship was called Trani m. orTrana f.), while another was also called Ormr, and known as inn skammi ‘theshort’ to differentiate it from ‘The Long Serpent’. The former is named directlyand the latter indirectly by Hallfreðr (III,16), describing the devastation after thebattle of Sv�lðr from the point of view of a man who sá Tr�nu ok báða Naðrafljóta auða ‘saw the ‘‘Crane’’ and both ‘‘Snakes’’ floating empty’. Thesynonymic (?nick-)name Naðr also occurs in Hfr III,13 and Hókr 8, and Halldórronce even refers to Ormr inn langi by the name of the mythological serpentFáfnir (Hókr 3). These variations gave the poets more latitude in their rhyming(thus Naðr twice rhymes with glaðr, and once half-rhymes and alliterates withniðr) but, as Hókr 8 shows Eiríkr taking over the defeated king’s ship, it may alsobe that he changed its name to suggest its change of ownership.

Sigvatr once mentions a ship called Karlh�fði ‘Man-headed’, owned by ÓláfrHaraldsson and used in the battle of Nesjar (Sigv II,4). From this, Snorriconcocts a story that it had this name from the king’s head on the prow, carved bythe king himself (Hkr II, 59), a kind of Viking Age equivalent to the femalefigureheads on later ships. However, Paasche’s suggestion (1914, 13) that thisname recalls Óláfr’s royal ideal and model, Charlemagne, just as the naming ofhis son Magnús did, seems more likely.

Óláfr’s better-known ship was called Visundr ‘Bison’. While ships could alsobe captured or inherited, Sigvatr tells us that Óláfr had this one made, in imita-tion of his namesake and predecessor’s Ormr (in this stanza called by thesnake-kenning lyngs fiskr ‘fish of the heather’, Sigv XII,3).35 An anonymousstanza (AnonXI Lv,4) also refers to Visundr as Óláfr’s ship, and there are threereferences to it in the ownership of his son and successor, Magnús góði (ArnII,9,16; ÞjóðA I,4). The prose sources (e.g. Hkr II, 267) tell us that this ship had abison-head on the prow, but the skaldic sources are not so informative, althoughArnórr attempts to match the animal ship-name with an animal-basedship-kenning, elgjar œðiveðrs ‘elks of the storm’ (Arn II,16).

The ship and its parts

Archaeological investigations over the last hundred years or so have given us avery clear picture of the construction of ships in the Viking Age. Quite a largenumber of ships and parts of ships are now known from different archaeologicalcontexts, but the most important examples are those from ship-burials and those


34 This clear parallelism between the two ships suggests that Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (Hkr I,361) is over-cautious in doubting whether Barði is a proper noun, rather than a commonnoun derived from barð.

35 On the metaphorical development of this stanza, see Hallberg 1978, 51.

recovered from harbours (there is a useful summary of ‘The ship as an archaeo-logical object’ and ‘The methods employed in ship archaeology’ inCrumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 12–18). Of the ship-burials, Gokstad and Oseberg inNorway contained relatively well-preserved ships and boats (summarised inBrøgger and Shetelig 1950),36 while the ship from Ladby in Denmark left onlyan impression of itself (though it has now been artfully reconstructed from thatimpression, see Sørensen et al. 1998). The ships deliberately scuttled atSkuldelev in the Roskilde Fjord in Denmark have usefully provided a range oftypes of vessels from the late Viking Age (summarised in Olsen andCrumlin-Pedersen 1990), while similar finds have been made in the harbour ofHedeby (Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 81–104). Such finds continue to be made,most recently the discovery of no less than nine ships from the Viking Age andMiddle Ages found literally at the door of the Viking Ship Museum in Roskildein 1996–7 (Bill et al., 1998). Many of these ships, from both graves andharbours, have been reconstructed, some several times, and subjected to sailingtrials, with the reconstruction process extensively documented (Andersen et al.1997, see also Crumlin-Pedersen and Vinner 1986). It is not my intention torepeat any of the easily-available archaeological evidence, even in summaryfashion. Nor do I attempt to consider the whole range of pictorial representationsof ships from the Viking Age, though these are undoubtedly also contemporarysources and relatively numerous. Instead, I attempt to survey the complete rangeof words for the ship and its parts found in the skaldic corpus (the runic evidenceis negligible in this section) and to relate this vocabulary to the archaeologicaland art-historical evidence where it has seemed illuminating to do so.37 Often,however, this link is hardly worth making: if a skaldic stanza mentions planks, itis hardly necessary to turn to archaeological evidence to confirm that ships wereindeed made of planks. It may seem equally banal to collect such words whenthey are not much more informative in their skaldic contexts. Nevertheless, I feelthe need to redress the omissions of Falk and others, and to give as complete arecord of nautical vocabulary in the skaldic corpus as possible, and amconvinced that the overall picture will be illuminating. It is only when the fullrange of nautical vocabulary has been considered that we can pronounce on whataspects of ships and their equipment were considered important or memorable inthe Viking Age itself. The skaldic evidence will not provide a complete key to


36 It is important to remember that the Oseberg ship (built before the construction of the gravechamber in 834) and the Gokstad and Tune ships (both built before c.900) are all earlierthan the skaldic and runic evidence under discussion here. I am aware of the inconsistencyof insisting on strict chronological limits to these two textual corpora while admittingearlier (and occasionally later) evidence from the archaeological material. However, I tryto do it with an awareness of the dates of the latter. On the dates of the Norwegian ships,established recently by dendrochronology, see the summary in Bonde and Christensen1993.

37 There is a useful glossary of modern English terms relating to the construction of ships inMcGrail 1987, xviii–xx.

Viking Age shipbuilding, for there are many words and concepts that neverappear, and those that do are often used imprecisely. But it provides a very usefuladjunct to other evidence.

The hull

Much of the nautical vocabulary in the skaldic corpus concerns the viking ships’characteristic clinker-built hulls, including their keels, their planking and es-pecially their distinctive stems, the same shape at either end.

The keel (kj�lr m., pl. kilir) was the foundation of a clinker-built hull andlaying it (attached to the lower part of the stems) the first stage in constructing aship (Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen 1967, 108). As a basic part of a ship, the wordwas almost bound to be used by poets to stand for the whole. Sigvatr is particu-larly fond of this synecdoche to describe fast-moving ships (Sigv III,9; SigvX,4,8; see also HHuI,28), and the use of eikikj�lr ‘oaken keel’ for a ship (ÞjóðAIII,8) has already been noted. More specific reference to the keel itself occurs ina late lausavísa (Eldj 1), in a description of hard sailing (þótt kj�l kosti ‘thoughthe keel is tested’). In kennings, the word can similarly appear either as a parspro toto (kj�lslóðir ‘ship-paths [sea]’, ÞKolb III,10) or in the primary meaning(kjalar vagn ‘wagon of the keel [ship]’, ÞjóðA I,12, in the kenning v�rðr kjalarvagna ‘guardian of the wagons of the keel [ships]’, meaning ‘captain’ and refer-ring to Magnús góði),38 though in these the distinction is not especially clear.

The sides of the hull were built up from the keel by lashing or nailing theplanks together, and the words the skalds used for the hull reflect the construc-tion process. The collective noun for this planking is súð (f., pl. súðir), etymo-logically related to sýja ‘sew’ and referring to the oldest method of joiningplanks by lashing them together (Foote and Wilson 1974, 243). Crumlin-Pedersen (1981, 284–5) points out that lashing frames was an outmoded tech-nology in the Viking Age, but is found on the Norwegian royal ships preciselybecause ‘distinctive features of a glorious past [were] preserved as a manifesta-tion of royalty’. The word can also stand for the whole ship (Hharð 4,16; ÞjóðAI,4; B�lv 4),39 or refer to the (usually long) sides of ships (Þloft II,6; ÞjóðAIV,18; Steinn III,5), similarly in the adjective súðlangr ‘long-sided’ describing aship or ships (ÞKolb III,1; Hallv 1).40 In Hharð 16, the word súð stands for the


38 Some Hkr manuscripts have an alternative reading v�rðr Kjalars regna ‘guardian of therainstorms of Óðinn [battles]’ meaning ‘warrior’, but this is less likely, see further on thecollocations of v�rðr in ch. 2.

39 In ÞjóðA I,4 it would be possible to read the plural súðir gnauðuðu as referring to thecreaking movement of individual planks, rather than the movement of ships. However, thelatter seems more likely as, in this carefully constructed stanza, the poet makes threereferences to ships in the plural (skip, flaust and súðir) before homing in on Magnús’s shipVisundr in the last two lines.

40 This adjectival usage contradicts Falk’s view that súð is used ‘nur als pars pro toto fürSchiff’ (AnS, 32).

whole ship but the poet hints at the construction method by modifying it with theadjective feldr ‘bevelled, scarfed’ (the techniques of overlapping planks aredescribed in detail in Vadstrup 1997b, 96–103, see also the scarfed strakes illus-trated in Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 226–7).

This joining of strakes is called sk�r (f., pl. skarar) and a ship can be sk�rumhvélðan ‘concave because clinker-built’ (Arn II,4). I cannot find any evidence inthe skaldic corpus that there was a regular distinction in the Viking Age betweenthe two joining methods termed skarsúð and fellisúð, which Falk (AnS, 47)explains using later sources. The thinnest planks were the most supple, and so aship can be called þunn sk�r ‘thin, narrow sk�r’ (ÞjóðA III,9). The planks in thehull of a warship were both narrow and thin (mæ borð ‘slender planks’ Ótt I,5).Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen note that in the Skuldelev ships they ranged from20–50cm in width (1990, 131), while wreck 2, the big warship, was built ofstrakes only 2–2.5cm thick (1990, 111, see also Brøgger et al. 1917–28, I, 294;Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 170). The nailing of planks together is alluded to inÞjóðA IV,21 where a ship (naðr ‘snake’) is described as neglðr með jarni ‘nailedwith iron’. The very visible row of nails along each strake was called saumf�r,used in Arn V,21 as a synecdoche for the whole ship, as it is modified by theadjective kløkkr ‘pliant’. Although Whaley 1998, 261 sees ‘no justification for[the] assumption . . . that saumf�r . . . is a pars-pro-toto expression for ‘‘ship’’ ’,in a Viking ship it is the wood that makes the ship pliant, rather than the nails.The method of clenching round-shafted nails inside the ship over ‘roves’ isdescribed and clearly illustrated in Crumlin-Pedersen 1991, 70–71.

The word for an individual plank is the common Germanic term borð (n., pl.borð). This appears in the skaldic corpus in the collective sense, referring to theplanking of the hull (singular in Arn VI,16; AnonXI Lv,16; plural in Arn VI,2;BjH 2), and in such phrases as innan borðs ‘on board [lit. ‘within the shell’]’ (HfrIII,14; Ótt II,13), fyr(ir) borð ‘overboard’ (Tindr I,10; Sigv II,7) and útan borðs‘overboard’ (Steinn III,9). In this collective sense and meaning ‘side of a ship’ itappears in the compound hléborð ‘lee-side’ (Arn III,6 [in a ship-kenning]; ÞjóðAIII,8). Large ships can be described as borðmikill ‘high-sided’ (Hókr 3), or as aborðviðr breiðr ‘broad plank-wood’ (Mark I,5). As with all words to do with thehull, borð can also appear as a pars pro toto for ‘ship’ (Sigv II,1; Arn II,11;Hharð 16; Steinn III,11).41 The word also appears as a determinant inship-kennings: borðmarr ‘plank-horse’ (Eskál III,19), borðraukn ‘plank-draught-animal’ (Þfagr 3) and borðvigg ‘plank-steed’ (Steinn III,5).42 Borð occa-sionally appears in the plural, referring to the individual planks that make up thehull: in Ótt I,5 they are mjór ‘slender’ and break in the storm, in BjH 2 they areawash with blood, in Arn II,2 they are described as stinnr ‘firm, stiff’. In the


41 In reproducing Arn II,11, Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (Hkr III, 39) prints borð, a variant foundin a number of manuscripts, though Kringla (or rather AM 63 fol.) has b�rð (pl. of barð, apart of the stem, see below), a term that would also work as a pars pro toto.

42 N.b. this kenning is an emendation from borðveg (Skjd A I, 410).

latter example, the ship is a knarri (discussed above), and ships designedprimarily for the transport of cargo were intended to be solid, rather than suppleand resilient like the warships which could be beached (Olsen andCrumlin-Pedersen 1967, 109).

The evidence in the skaldic corpus for specific names for individual strakes(or rows of planks) is limited, and their interpretation often dependent on latersources (AnS, 52–4). The word aurborð ‘gravel-plank’ apparently refers to theplank that rests on the ground when a ship is beached (AnS, 28, 52; see also dis-cussion of hlunnr, below). This occurs twice in kennings (Eskál III,26; Ólhelg 7),which do not reveal the specific meaning, but as the compound is transparent,Falk’s interpretation may well be right. The keel strakes of Skuldelev 2 were‘very worn on the outside from scraping against sand and gravel when the shipwas pulled ashore’ (Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen 1967, 117).

In Modern Icelandic the fifth strake from the keel has in recent times beencalled a hrefna, and Falk would link this to ON hrefni (n., pl. hrefni), but as thelatter occurs only once in the skaldic corpus, in a ship-kenning (ÞKolb III,3), it isnot possible to confirm what specific meaning it had in the Viking Age.

A word for the ‘brim’ of any vessel, not just a ship, is barmr (m., pl. barmar),which we find in a ship-kenning barms vigg ‘horse of the barmr’ (ÞKolb III,4)and in the descriptive adjective barmfagr ‘with a beautiful brim’ used of ships inB�lv 2, perhaps a reference to the decorated shields of these warships.43 In boththese cases the word is chosen to rhyme and is unlikely to be intended veryspecifically. A more convincingly nautical term is þr�mr (m., pl. þremir), a wordalso meaning ‘edge, rim’, and hence ‘sheer-strake’, which appears several times(Hfr III,14; ÞjóðA I,4; B�lv 5). In the first two of these, the word is modified byan adjective indicating its pliability and suppleness, þíðr ‘pliable’ and sveigðr‘curved’. The interpretation of þíðr as ‘pliable’ is from LP (see also Foote 1978,62), but the basic meaning is ‘thawed’, which could be just as appropriate in thiscontext of warm blood splashing on the þr�mr.44

A skjaldrim (f., pl. skjaldrimar) ‘shield-rail’ could be mounted on the upper-most strake, to hold the warriors’ shields (Arn V,21; B�lv 5). Falk is uncertainwhether skjaldrim is the name of the topmost strake (AnS, 53) or of a special railmounted on the topmost strake to hold the shields (AnS, 55). The small warshipSkuldelev 5 had a narrow rail mounted outside the top edge of the uppermoststrake, which has been interpreted as a shield-ledge (Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen 1967, 137), as did the Gokstad ship (Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 151).

Also mounted on the uppermost strake was a hlýða (f., pl. hlýður) ‘wash-board, washstrake’, to provide extra protection from the waves (Halli 1; MarkI,5,16), a detail that is known from visual representations of ships (Christensen


43 Although it is tempting to see the later meaning of barmr ‘bosom’ in this adjective, there isno evidence of this meaning before the Reformation (CV, ONP).

44 Kock (NN, 3215) seems more concerned to attack Finnur Jónsson than to establish themeaning of the word from its range of contexts.


4.4 Ship graffito from Christchurch Place, Dublin, showing washboards.Photo: National Museum of Ireland.

Image not available

1988, 18; see fig. 4.4), though the archaeological evidence is less than clear. Thetop strakes (with oar-ports) in some Viking Age ship finds from western Norwayare so thin and light compared to the other strakes that they have been describedas ‘hvad en maa kalde et let skvætbord’ (‘what could be called a light wash-board’, Brøgger et al. 1917–28, I, 350–52), and the excavators of the Scar boatburial in Orkney thought they could identify some of the nails as derived fromthe fixing of a ‘washrail’ to the boat (Owen and Dalland 1999, 203). The BayeuxTapestry consistently shows the English ships as having ‘the central portion ofthe gunwale plank missing’ (Wilson 1985, 226) and these ships may have hadsome similar arrangement. These washboards may have been optional extras: inboth Halli 1 and Mark I,16 the hlýður are said to skjalfa ‘tremble’, perhapsbecause they are not very firmly attached, while in Mark I,5 King Eiríkr studdiborðvið breiðan hlýðu í veðr óðu ‘supported the broad plank-wood with a hlýðain foul weather’, again suggesting that it could be added when required.45 Thisword does not appear in any prose sources, or in OGNS or AEW, and itsetymology is obscure. Several dictionaries (CV, ÍO, IEW) link it with an OE wordvariously spelled and meaning ‘shelter, protection, warmth’ (BT, s.v. hleowþ),but the link is a distant one, for there is no evidence that the OE word was everused in a nautical connection. Nor is ‘washboard’ the only suggested meaning.CV suggests ‘ship’s cabin’, while ÍO tentatively suggests that hlýða might be adissimilated variant of hlýra ‘skipskinnungur’ (see discussion of hlýr, below).However, Mark I,5 seems to indicate a part of the ship that can be easily attachedand removed, and neither of these suggestions seems especially plausible.

Archaeologists and others writing about viking ships frequently use the termmeginhúfr for the transition strake, an especially strong, narrow, strake at thewaterline (Brøgger et al. 1917–28, I, 296–7; Vadstrup 1997b, 103; Sayers 1998,57). Falk mentions this word (AnS, 53) but does not adduce any sources for it,and both CV and OGNS give only one instance of it from a medieval prosesource.46 Meginhúfr is not recorded in the skaldic corpus, although the simplexhúfr (m., pl. húfar) is. Etymologically, húfr refers to something concave (AEW),while in more recent Icelandic it has developed the meaning of specific strakes,either the third and fourth, or the fourth and fifth (AnS, 53). The skaldic instancesseem closer to the etymological meaning, as they mainly refer to the shape of thehull, or just to the hull as a pars pro toto (Mberf 1). Thus Arnórr refers to the húfrof a skeið as sk�rum hvélðan (Arn II,4, discussed above), but also has Magnússlicing the sea héltum húfi ‘with icy hull’ (Arn III,2). The shape is alsosuggested in Eldj 1 in which a ship is described as breiðhúfaðr ‘broad-hulled,


45 Wreck 6 from Skuldelev had an additional seventh strake added ‘some time’ after thevessel was built, to increase ‘the height of the ship’s sides’ (Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen1967, 152), but this seems to be a more permanent addition.

46 The source is the later Bjarkeyjarréttr first promulgated in 1276 (NGL II, 283; see KLNM I,659). ONP has no further citations in its archive of slips. Nevertheless, the word nowappears to have entered the English, Danish and German languages (Crumlin-Pedersen1997b, 207)!

beamy’. When a bay is called húfi róinn ‘hull-rowed’ (ÞjóðA III,34), the poet ispresumably saying no more than that ships have passed over it. The descriptionof a ship as húfjafn ‘smooth-hulled’ in Hfr III,18 depends on an emendation, somust remain uncertain as an example, but fits in with other references to thecareful jointing of hulls.47 Valg 10 has the waves breaking und húfi ‘under thehull’. This may suggest a particular part of the hull at or near the waterline. Simi-larly, the example already quoted from Arnórr (Arn II,4) actually says thatMagnús ‘stepped onto’ the húfr. This makes good sense if the word is being usedas a pars pro toto for ‘ship’, but even better sense if it was intended to be specific,suggesting a particular strake at the level of the deck. Exactly which strake wasintended depends on the number of them in a vessel, which naturally dependedon its size. But the cross-beams which support the decking of loose planks aregenerally at the waterline level (see e.g. Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 145, 159;Evans 1985, 71), and it may be possible to see here an early instance of thisspecialisation of meaning, and the basis for the more specific term meginhúfr. Amore specific meaning may also be behind the ship-kenning húfs fákr ‘horse ofthe húfr’ (Hfr III,9), though the context cannot reveal what part is meant.

There are few references to the colour of ships’ hulls in the skaldic corpus.There may be a suggestion of the tarring of ships in kolsvartir viðir ‘coal-blacktimbers’ (Þloft II,4), where viðr is a synecdoche for ship (though it may also bepossible to take it as meaning ‘masts’, e.g. AnS, 56). The same synecdoche, butwith a different colour, appears in a rauðr viðr ‘red timber’ (Þfagr 11), presum-ably painted. In ÞKolb III,9 the b�ru dýr ‘animals of the billow’ are blár ‘blue’(usually a colour closer to black than to bright blue), likewise in Sigv II,2 bothsides at the battle of Nesjar sail bl� borð ‘ ‘‘blue’’ ships’, while the planks ofErlingr’s ship are blakkr ‘dark’ (BjH 2).48 More colourful, perhaps, were theships of Sveinn Úlfsson steini fagrdrifin ‘beautifully washed with paint’ (Þfagr 3;the same ships are called fagr ‘beautiful’ in Þfagr 5) and the ships which KingÓláfr kyrri gave to his followers, including steinda kn�rru ‘painted knerrir’(Steinn III,14). Wreck 1 from Hedeby, the large warship, had traces of paintworkon the inside of its planks, which currently show as a ‘strong yellow deposit’(Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 86).

The stems

The viking ship is characterised by its symmetrical stems. It is misleading to talkof a ‘prow’ and a ‘stern’ on viking ships, since the two ends had the same shape,though the location of the rudder at the rear of the ship, the set of the sail, andother details, would indicate at a glance the difference between the fore-stem andthe after-stem. Their elegant stems are a notable characteristic of viking ships,


47 Kock’s suggested explanation of the manuscript forms (NN, 1958) as hverjafn ‘fullysmooth’ would still give the same overall meaning, though without specific reference tothe hull.

48 In HHuI,50 the ships are blásv�rt ‘blue-black’.

justly celebrated in skaldic poetry. Dragonhead stems have already beendiscussed above, in connection with the ship-word dreki.

The generic word for either end of a ship was stafn (m., pl. stafnar). This wordis found in one of the two runic references to a part of a ship (Sö 164), whichstates of the commemorated that he stuþ trikil(a) i stafn skibi ‘stood in adrengr-like fashion in the stem of the ship’. In theory, this could either mean thathe stood in the rear of the ship, steering and/or captaining it, or in the front, in thefighting position (as it is understood in SR III, 126).

In the skaldic examples, the word stafn is often used in the extended meaning‘ship’ (Ótt III,2; Arn VI,2; ÞjóðA IV,1; Halli 2; Steinn III,5) but the more specificmeaning must be understood when it collocates or compounds with a wordmeaning ‘ship’: (langskipa stafnar Halli 1; skeiðar stafnar Sigv II,9 and AnonXIFlokkr; snekkju stafnar ÞjóðA IV,22). Similarly, in ship-kennings (Edáð 2,5), theword must stand for a part of a ship, although in the sea-kenning stafnklif‘stafn-cliff’ (Þloft II,5), ‘ship’ works as well as ‘stem’. The compound framstafn‘fore-stem’ occurs twice, both times, obviously, with the specific rather than thegeneric meaning. In Hallv 2 it collocates with a ship-kenning, while in ÞjóðAI,12 the poet refers to the leader (Magnús) fighting í fagran framstafn vararhrafni ‘in the beautiful fore-stem of the raven of the harbour [ship]’. KingHaraldr’s stallari ‘marshal’ (a high-ranking official of the king) apparentlydeclared in 1066 that the stafnrúm of the king’s ship was not the place for his ilk(Ulfr). The stafnrúm (n., pl. stafnrúm), is the space in the stem and, in thiscontext, must refer, like framstafn in the previous example, to the occupation ofthis space by fighting-men.

The word stafn can be modified by adjectives indicating the appearance of thestem. In ÞKolb III,3 the stems are h�vir ‘high’. The skafnir stafnar ‘shavedstems’ of ÞjóðA IV,22 refer to how they were produced.49 In describing thebuilding of the Roar Ege, a copy of Skuldelev 3, Vadstrup (1997b, 86) notes thatthe final stage of carving the stepped stem-posts was time-consuming because allthe surfaces (of which there are many on such a complex, sculptured object) hadto be ‘plane-smooth’, something that was achieved by using planes, axes andscrapers (see fig. 4.5). Christensen (1985, 207) stresses the importance of thecorrect cutting of the stem and postulates both that ‘the stem was a prestigiousobject and that good stem-cutters were highly regarded by others’.

The skalds use a number of words for the different parts of the ends (thoughmainly the front end) of a ship, and the precise significance of these can be diffi-cult to determine from the skaldic evidence alone. Some of the words are meta-phorical, developing the image of the ship as an animal. Where a ship bears aprow-ornament in the shape of or representing the head of a dragon or other crea-ture, this can simply be called h�fuð ‘head’ (Edáð 5; Valg 11; Gísl I,16)50 or,


49 Other wooden parts said to be skafinn are the rudder (Ótt II,20) and the oars (Þór; see alsoHHuI,49).

50 See also HHuI,24, langh�fðuð skip ‘long-headed ships’.

4.5 The stepped stem-post of the Skuldelev 3 ship. Photo: Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde.

Image not available

more extravagantly, skolptr ‘the front part of an animal’s head’ (Valg 10), hauss‘skull’ (Gísl I,16; Mark I,6) or even gríma ‘mask’ (Arn II,4). As we have alreadyseen, these are often described as ‘golden’ or ‘gilded’: there is an image of thereflection in the water of the gold af roðnum hausi ‘from the reddened skull’ inMark I,6. The skalds can home in on the detail of this ornament by focusing onits mouth, usually with reference to gilding: a ship is gollmunnuð‘gold-mouthed’ (Þfagr 3) or gínn golli búnum munni ‘gapes with a gold-adornedmouth’ (Þfagr 11), or has gj�lnar roðnar m�lnu gulli ‘gills reddened with groundgold’ (Sigv XII,3), an extravagant image chosen because the dragon-ship isdenoted by the snake-kenning lyngs fiskr ‘fish of the heather’. The head sits onthe ‘neck’, which is also ‘adorned’: búinn svíri (Gísl I,16).

A slightly different image is when the ship’s bows are denoted by hlýr (n.,often in the pl. hlýr) ‘cheeks’, imagining the ship as a face seen head-on (SigvI,5; Arn II,4; Þham I,2).51 The nautical meaning of hlýr is common enough for itto be used as a pars pro toto (Hharð 16; Mark I,5) and as the determinant inship-kennings (Hfr II,1; Hfr III,18) and a sea-kenning (J�k 1).

A number of more technical, and less metaphorical, words clearly refer tosome of the different parts that make up each end of the ship. Brandr (m., pl.brandar), a word which may or may not be etymologically related to thehomonym meaning ‘sword’ (AEW), is interpreted by Falk (AnS, 44) as the trian-gular, possibly decorated, piece of wood such as that reaching up from below theend of the top strake to the stem of the Oseberg ship. But if this word had such aspecific meaning in the Viking Age, there is no evidence of this in the skaldiccorpus, where it is used mainly as a pars pro toto for ‘ship’ (Tindr I,6; Arn III,6;Halli 1),52 or collocating with a ship-word, herskip (ÞjóðA IV,22) or snekkja(B�lv 8), suggesting a part of the ship but not which part. Foote and Wilson(1974, 234) more cautiously translate it as ‘curved gunwale fore and aft’. In B�lv2 it is modified by a colour-adjective: svartr snekkju brandr ‘black brandr of thesnekkja’, suggesting that brandar, whatever they were, would be tarred. The ideathat brandar were a particularly special part of the ship may be supported by thereference to brandar glæsti gulli ‘brandar adorned with gold’ (Halli 1), althoughwe have already seen that in the context of this stanza the word is used as a parspro toto for ‘ship’. The word may have been borrowed into Old English,appearing as the first element of the compound brondstæfne used of a ship in thefamous description of sailing in Andreas, 504. This compound would be tautolo-gous, unless the first element referred to some special kind of part (Sandahl1951, 39). Brooks (1961, 80) notes the tautology and rejects the ON origin ofbrond-, though the question must remain open, as the meaning of the ON word isnot as clearly fixed as he thought. In Arn II,7, Magnús’ opponent, Sveinn


51 Kinnungr (m., pl. kinnungar), with the same meanings, does not appear in the skaldiccorpus. There is no trace in the skaldic corpus of ON bógr, thought to be the origin ofEnglish ‘bow’, suggesting that Sandahl (1951, 37) is right to query this etymology.

52 Tindr I,6 is a doubtful example, as the stanza has to be very heavily emended to makesense. Kock interprets brandr here as ‘sword’ (NN, 433).

Alfífuson, is called a skildir skeiðar brands, interpreted by Whaley (1998,157–8) as ‘shield-provider of the ship’s prow’, while Finnur Jónsson readsskyldir skeiðarbrands and interprets it more or less as ‘captain, steersman’ (‘ensom lader skibet bevæge sig’, LP s.v. skyldir). In either case, brandr is redun-dant. The captain causes the whole ship to move, not just the prow, while it isunlikely that shields were positioned just on the steeply-rising stem of a ship(though they may have remained there, when shields positioned elsewhere on thegunwale were removed for rowing). Falk (AnS, 55) gives some examples fromprose sources where shields were hung only on the parts of the gunwales risingtowards the stems. The poem from which this stanza is taken is in the hrynhentmetre, which required eight syllables per line, rather than the usual six, andArnórr is clearly engaged in a little padding (with the added benefit of providinga rhyme for landi in the same line).

A word that has been linked with the brandar is the mysterious tingl (n., pl.tingl), which appears in the ship-kenning tingls marr ‘horse of the tingl’ (Sindr2) and the shield-kenning tungl tingla tangar ‘moon of the tong of the tingl’(Hókr 3). Falk’s explanation of the latter (AnS, 43–4) is that the ‘tongs’ are thebrandar, which enclose the tingl, the triangular piece in the fore-stem where thetwo sides of the ship join, and which, in the Oseberg ship at least, is richly deco-rated with carving (see fig. 4.6). Unfortunately, the skaldic evidence is toomeagre to confirm or deny this interpretation, although it is a bit odd that tingl isplural in this kenning if Falk’s suggestion is correct. But since we cannot knowwhat a tingl really was, it is a good enough word for the object to which it hasbeen attached.53

Another word which must mean some part of the stem, but is often used forthe whole thing is barð (n., pl. b�rð). This word occurs in one runic inscription,Sö 65, where it is said of the commemorated that he austarla arþi barþi ‘in theeast ploughed with his barð’. In Sigv I,3, Bálagarðssíða (a place) lá brimskíðumat barði ‘lay before the barð of the sea-skis [ships]’, and barð is used elsewherein this context of arriving and landing (B�lv 2,4), or in more general descriptionsof launching and sailing like the semi-poetic runic inscription (Arn II,11 [if thereading is b�rð rather than borð, see Hkr III, 39]; ÞjóðA IV,23; Mark I,16).54 Insome of these it could equally well be a pars pro toto for ship. Slightly morespecific is Sigv V,1, in which the poet describes his own arrival in Rouen, wherelétk b�rð fest ‘I had the b�rð fastened’, suggesting a part of the ship to which amooring rope could be attached (if he is not using the word as a pars pro toto


53 Although the etymology of this word is uncertain, the cognates listed by Falk (AnS, 44)tend to support his theory. Also, in Hkv 7, not in the corpus, the tinglar are said to begrafinn ‘carved’.

54 In Mark I,16, the vowel in b�rð is confirmed by the rhyme with g�rðum, and the wordcollocates with the adjective hélug, just as in Arn II,11. This, together with a Wendishcontext, suggest that Markús was influenced by Arnórr, and indicate b�rð rather than borðas the correct reading in Arn II,11.


4.6 The tingl of the Oseberg ship?Photo: Universitetets Oldsaksamling, Oslo.

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again). But the evidence does not tell us any more than that barð referred to apart or whole of a ship’s stem, though it does seem to have been particularlyassociated with the fore-stem.

The word stál (n., pl. st�l) is interpreted by Falk (AnS, 36) on an etymologicalbasis as referring to the highest, narrowest, part of the stem proper, whichsupported the dragonhead or other decoration, and hence as synonymous withkylfa (discussed below). Other definitions (e.g. LP, OGNS) are more cautious andsee it as a part of, or even synonymous with the fore-stem in general. However,the three skaldic instances of this word, as far as they go, support a specific inter-pretation of ‘stem-post’, the piece (or pieces) of wood rising from the keel intowhich all the strakes are gathered, and which makes the hull end in a sharpprofile. In BjH 3, Óláfr’s sea-journey to Russia is expressed in a metaphor ofcutting: allvaldr réð rísta haf austr stáli ‘the ruler cut the sea with a stál in theeast’. This metaphor works best with a part of the ship that is in contact with thewater most of the time, and the main part of the stem-post rising up from the keelis most appropriate. Arnórr refers to the st�l of Magnús’ ships as stirð ‘stiff’ (ArnII,10), suggesting a firm and sturdy part. A more difficult example is in B�lv 5,describing Haraldr’s journeys in the east: byrr lá á breiddu stáli ‘the tailwind wason the broadened/spread stál’. A byrr was any kind of favourable wind, but sincethat cannot be a headwind it must in this stanza be a tailwind on the after-stem.Kock had trouble with breiddr and suggested emending to bræddr ‘tarred’ (NN,3090). However, if the ship had a stepped stem-post like those of the Skuldelevships, especially wreck 3 (the carving of its replica is described in Vadstrup1997b, 85–6), the process of hollowing out the piece of wood could be describedas ‘broadening’ it. In any case, the hull of any viking ship widens quite sharplyfrom the stem-post.

This leaves kylfa (f., pl. kylfur) as the term for the highest and narrowest partof the stem, as in its only skaldic instance, in a stanza by Sigvatr on the battle ofNesjar. In an attack on Sveinn’s skeið, Óláfr orders his men to skeina harðligasvartar kylfur ‘cut strongly into the black kylfur’, and they proceed to strikeacross the skeiðar stafna ‘the stems of the skeið’ (Sigv II,9). The highest part ofthe stem was in the way and, being made of relatively slender pieces of wood,could easily be cut down to make for easier access to the warriors on the enemyship. Such objects are not known archaeologically from the Viking Age. Laterevidence comes from models from medieval Bergen, which include some ‘loosestem-tops’ (Christiansen 1985, 158–60) and graffiti, from Bergen (illustrated inChristiansen 1985, 232) and elsewhere.

Inside the hull

There is relatively little evidence in the skaldic corpus to tell us how ships werearranged inside the hull, although the vocabulary that is used appears to be quitespecific. In building viking ships, the frames or ‘floor-timbers’, which weretransverse members providing internal support, were added after the first rows ofplanks had been built up (see the illustrations in Crumlin-Pedersen 1986, 96,


100). According to Falk (AnS, 46), these were called r�ng (f., pl. rengr) in ON.55

This word appears twice in the corpus: the part concerned is described as ristin‘carved’ (Hharð 16) and is said to have trembled (skalf HHarð16; bifask Kali) inthe currents. This is an exact description: the curved frames were normally cutout of one piece of wood to fit the hull exactly at the point at which they wereinserted, and so needed skilled carving, and they were only attached to the hull atcertain points, to give elasticity, and so would move independently (Vadstrup1997b, 105–10; see also Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 87–8, for frames with mould-ings from Hedeby; see fig. 4.7).

At the battle of Sv�lðr, warriors fighting inside a ship stumbled over theþoptur as they retreated from the attack (Hókr 6). This is the only Viking Ageexample of þopta (f., pl. þoptur), though the noun þopti derived from it isdiscussed in the next chapter. In later sources þopta means ‘rowing-bench’.There do not appear to have been rowing-benches as such in viking ships,however, and rowers may have sat on chests (in which they could also have kepttheir belongings) placed on the loose decking (see the one from Hedeby picturedin Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 142–3), or on the thwarts, or cross-beams. Someships (e.g. Gokstad) appear to have had just one kind of cross-beam, called a‘bite’ (from ON biti ‘beam’, not recorded in the skaldic corpus) by archaeolo-gists, one above each frame, which supported the decking, while later ships (e.g.Skuldelev 1, 3 and 5) had a system in which the ‘bites’ were set lower in the hull,and further strengthening cross-beams were inserted above some of them.56

These ‘bites’ could support a deck, while the upper beams could be used asthwarts (Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen 1967, 140, 168; see also the diagram inCrumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 87). These upper cross-beams are thus the þoptur overwhich the warriors stumbled.57

The deck-planks were called þilja (f., pl. þiljur), and Sigvatr describes Óláfrmowing down the men on Erlingr Skjalgsson’s ship so that valr lá þr�ngt áþiljum ‘the dead lay tightly-packed on the deck’ (Sigv VII,2; similarly ArnV,7).58 A ship-kenning þilblakkr ‘(deck-)plank-horse’ (Sigv II,12) can becompared with ship-kennings of the same type but with the word borð as deter-minant (discussed above), although here the first element is þil (n.), a collectivenoun from the same root meaning ‘decking’.

A problematic word which it has been suggested (Lindquist 1928) is synony-mous with þilja is skokkr (m., pl. skokkar), twice used in a context of blood


55 The word was adopted into late Old English (Sandahl 1951, 114–15).56 ON biti appears to have been adopted into Middle English, with roughly the same meaning

(Sandahl 1951, 30–31), though the Modern English ‘bitt’ now has a different meaning. Italso appears in Russian, though not recorded before the seventeenth century (Svane 1989,29–30).

57 The Irish loan-word topta is used in a very similar context in CCS, 42 (see also pp. xii and100).

58 LP makes the curious suggestion that þiljur (pl.) is equivalent to the lypting (discussedbelow), but I cannot find any evidence for this, and AnS, 48, cited as a source, is clear thatþiljur are deck-planks.

4.7 A frame from the Skuldelev 3 ship. Photo: Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde.

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flowing in the ship (Arn V,21; B�lv 4). However, in two other stanzas byB�lverkr the word seems to be used as a pars pro toto for ‘ship’: in B�lv 5, it hasa þr�mr ‘rim, edge, rail’, while in B�lv 8 it is dýrr ‘splendid’ and lies on the darkwave. These parallels with the uses of borð suggest that skokkr was indeed a(deck-)plank.

Several stanzas refer to some kind of a structure called a lypting (f., pl.lyptingar), sometimes translated ‘poop-deck’ and interpreted as a raised place inthe after-stem of the ship. The contexts give us various clues to the nature of thispart of the ship. Erlingr Skjalgsson’s last stand was einn í lyptingu ‘alone in thelypting’ (Sigv VII,3), because his attackers cleared the ship of his followers fromone end to the other, but perhaps also suggesting that the lypting afforded someprotection for defence because he held out lengi ‘for a long time’. In a stanzasummarising Magnús’ heroic career as a sea-warrior (Arn II,16), Arnórr says thatVisundr carries him like a hawk innan í lypting ‘inside the lypting’, suggestingeither that it was a roofed structure big enough to sit, if not actually stand, in, orthat it was surrounded or enclosed in some other way. This is also suggested byArnórr’s description, earlier in the same poem, of the ugly surf which dreif útaná lypting ‘drove onto the outside of the lypting’ (Arn II,10), again implying that ithad some kind of protective function. Unfortunately, nothing resembling a struc-ture corresponding to any of these descriptions can be traced in the archaeolog-ical record, although the decking of the Gokstad ship is higher near the rudderthan elsewhere (Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 155) and the small warshipSkuldelev 5 had ‘a little horizontal seat for the helmsman resting on the top edgeof the fourth strake’ (Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen 1967, 139).59 The relatedword lopt (n., pl. lopt) is used in a confused kenning for ‘captain’, unnar eykjarloptbyggvir ‘lopt-dweller of the traction-beast of the wave [ship]’ (Sigv IV),which at least seems to confirm the suggestion of the lypting examples that thiswas the captain’s place.

The word vengi (n., pl. vengi) in a ship-kenning vengis hj�rtr ‘hart of thevengi’ (Hharð 4) has been interpreted as referring to some kind of ship’s cabin(AnS, 10), but the evidence is hardly conclusive. The word vengi also appears ina ship-kenning in Ótt II,3, where it is usually interpreted as the homonymmeaning ‘plain’ (vengis dreyra blakki ‘steed of the lifeblood of the plain[water]’). It is quite possible that Haraldr’s kenning is an abbreviated kenning(on which see Turville-Petre 1976, lii) of this type, with a half-kenning (‘of theplain’ rather than ‘of the lifeblood of the plain’) as the determinant of thebase-word hj�rtr ‘hart’. Despite the contention of Sayers (1998, 57) that Hharð 4confirms the interpretation of vengi as ‘a cuddy or small shelter’, the context inwhich this word occurs (SnESkskm, 129) suggests no more than that it wasthought to be some part of the ship. This misunderstanding probably derives


59 The ‘løfting’ created for the Skuldelev 3 replica, Roar Ege (Vadstrup 1997b, 129–30) doesnot appear to be based on anything actually found in the ship, but is a simple seat withstorage space underneath.

from Haraldr’s stanza itself, the relevant first half of which is quoted earlier(SnESkskm, 75).

It is usually assumed that most ships had some kind of cover or awning for theopen hold, called a tjald (cp. ModE ‘tilt’). This word will be discussed below, asit is difficult to separate it from the same word used to refer to sails.

Rudders, oars and shields

Viking ships could normally be propelled either by sail (discussed in the nextsection), or by manpower on the oars. In both cases, steering was done by arudder, often called a ‘steering oar’ as its shape was not very different from arowing oar, attached to the starboard rear side of the ship and manipulated by atiller. There is quite a rich vocabulary for the oars, rudders and their attachmentsin the skaldic corpus, mainly because a few stanzas concentrate on this aspect oftravelling by ship.

The word for ‘oar’ is the common Germanic ár (f., pl. árar; also �r[ar]),which occurs frequently in the skaldic corpus.60 Another word for ‘oar’ is rœði(n., pl. rœði; Þór; ÞjóðA IV,20). Þjóðólfr Arnórsson twice uses the periphrasticterm sæfang (n., pl. sæf�ng) ‘sea-implement’, in both cases because he needs toalliterate on s- and rhyme with -�ng- (ÞjóðA IV,20,21). The blade of an oar iscalled blað (n., pl. bl�ð), while hlumr (m., pl. hlumar) is used of its grip (both inÞKolb III,3, the latter also in Þór). Óttarr refers to ships skreyttum �rum ‘adornedwith oars’ (Ótt II,4). This might just refer to the aesthetics of a warship and itsflight of oars, but we do know that some oars were painted and carved. TheOseberg oars had both mouldings and traces of painted decoration, with thedecoration designed to be on the part of the oars that was just outside the oarports(Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 176). More workaday oars are described as ferkleyfþ�ll ‘rectangular pine’ and could be sortaðr ‘tarred [lit. blackened]’ (ÞjóðAIV,21).

Oars suffered from use, which may be why the Oseberg oars were newlymade for the burial (Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 176–7). Óttarr describes Óláfr’sjourney in stormy weather to raid Sweden: m�rg mj�k róin �r sleit mikla b�ruund þér ‘many a much-rowed oar tore the great billow underneath you’ (Ótt II,4),and much power would be needed to counter the thrust of the waves. ThusArnórr describes a delay caused by difficult rowing: seinkun varð, þás en ljótabára hnikaði �r ‘there was drag, as the ugly breaker caught the oar(s)’ (Arn II,3).But good oars should last some time before falling apart, as noted by ÞjóðólfrArnórsson: ært mun, áðr sortuð sæf�ng ganga í tvau ‘there will be rowing beforethe tarred sea-implements split’ (ÞjóðA IV,20).

This act of rowing (róðr, m., pl. róðrar, Steinn II; see also the verbs æra ‘torow’, ÞjóðA IV,20; róa ‘to row’, Þór; Arn III,13; ÞjóðA IV,21) is hard work, as


60 Sindr 1; ÞKolb III,3; Ótt II,4 (twice); Arn II,3; ÞjóðA IV,19,20,21; AnonXI Lv,4; Gísl I,3.See also Tindr I,5 (in a kenning), and HHuI,27,49.

suggested by the verb slíta ‘to tear’ used of the movement of pulling the bladeout of the water,61 and knýja ‘to press’ of the act of pushing down on the oars, orpulling them through the water (AnonXI Lv,4; Gísl I,3), although when a ship isleaving a sheltered harbour, the oars more easily falla í sjá ‘fall into the sea’(ÞjóðA IV,19). The ára burð ‘movement of the oars’ is admirable when therowers slíta rœði rétt ór verri ‘pull the oars straight out of the sea’ (ÞjóðA IV,20;the word used for ‘sea’ here, v�rr, actually means ‘stroke of an oar’, cp. ÞjóðAIV,21 and the kenning varrláð ‘land of the oarstroke [sea]’, ÞKolb III,10). Fromwithin the ship, this flight of the oars looks like the wings of an eagle: es sem lítiinnan arnar væng (ÞjóðA IV,21).

Archaeological finds provide a number of examples of the different ways inwhich the movement of the oars was controlled at the point where they rest onthe ship, thus some ships have oarports (holes in the top strake or sometimeslower), while smaller boats tend to have tholes, wooden pins which act as afulcrum for the oar (various types are illustrated in Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b,128–9). The word that later became the usual one for a tholepin in Norwegian,ON keipr (m., pl. keipar) is recorded in a stanza from the very end of our corpus(AnonXII B,3). The poet, describing sailing in storm, artfully uses the verb knýja‘press’ (also, as we have seen, used of the actions of rowers), of the wind’s forceon the pin.

Otherwise, the skaldic corpus has two principal words for oarports, thoughboth tend to be used metaphorically of the oarsman’s place at the oar, rather thantechnically of the device which fixes this position. One of these is hár (m., pl.háir), which is however used in a technical sense in hár heldr sjau tøgum ára tilvarra ‘the oarport [sg., used in a pl. sense] holds seventy oars to the stroke’(ÞjóðA IV,21). V�rr ‘stroke of an oar’ is also used in the plural here, which hasled most translators (e.g. LP; also Poole 1991, 60, though he translates it as‘stroke’ in the previous stanza) to interpret it in the transferred sense ‘sea’. Butthe plural is appropriate as there are seventy oars, each ready to take a stroke, andit is likely that the primary meaning is intended here, just as hár is used techni-cally rather than metaphorically. We thus have an image of each oar correctlypositioned in its oarport, ready for the next stroke. Otherwise, the Swedish king�nundr brings an army to raid the Danes at há (Sigv X,4), which hardly meansmore than ‘by ship’, and the word appears in two kennings: hádýr ‘animal of thehá [ship]’ (Þloft II,4)62 and hákesjur ‘spears of the há’ (Steinn II), which prob-ably means ‘oars’ (Perkins 1986–9, 114). It is also found in Old English in theeleventh century. The account of Harthacnut’s tax of 8 marks on each crewmember (?) uses the Norse word: viii marc æt há (ASC 1040C). The word hásæta‘sitter at the há, oarsman’ is used in the E-version when Edward decides tochange the manning of some of his fleet, both eorlas ‘earls’ and hásæton (ASC


61 ÞKolb III,3; Ótt II,4; ÞjóðA IV,20,21. See Gjessing 1986 on the physiology of rowing, andMcGrail 1987, 207–16, on various aspects of rowing.

62 This kenning may be implied by the mountain-name Hádýr (Hkr II, 309).

1052E). This suggests that ON háseti with the same meaning was current in theeleventh century, even though the word is not recorded in Scandinavian sourcesuntil later (Malmros 1986, 104).

In their accounts of Harthacnut’s tax, the D- and E-versions of the Chronicleuse the word hamele (ASC 1039E, 1040D), apparently derived from ON hamla‘oar-loop, grommet’ (AEW). Large warships in the eleventh century did not usesuch simple devices as loops to control their oars, and in the corpus hamla (f., pl.h�mlur) always means ‘oarsman’s place’, usually in contexts describing thegathering of a troop. Magnús, before embarking on an expedition to Denmarkorders his men to samnask til hverrar h�mlu ‘come together at every hamla’ (ArnII,9), and similarly, his troop bar hervæðr til h�mlu ‘carried [or ‘wore’] theirwar-garb to the hamla’ (Arn III,2). In a battle-context, the leader can order hismen to skilda h�mlur ‘provide the h�mlur with shields’ (ÞjóðA III,13) as adefensive measure. Although Finnur Jónsson interpreted this as tying the shieldsto the oar-loops (Skjd B I, 342), it is more likely that it means they were placedon the shield-rim at each rowing-position.

The occurrence in ASC of these two ON words, usually interpreted as refer-ring to a ‘rowlock’ (more correctly, ‘oarport’), hence ‘oarsman’, has been fullydiscussed by Rodger (1995), with particular reference to the calculations his-torians have made, on the basis of these entries, about the number of men in eachof the sixty-two ships of Harthacnut’s fleet. Noting the point that oar-loops werenot the current technology for large warships, Rodger suggests that the wordhamla referred, not to any part of a ship, but to ‘a unit of men which may be oneman or several’ (1995, 401), in the context of a rate of taxation. The transfer ofsuch a sense to OE would imply that some kind of fleet-organisation was alreadyknown in Scandinavia, which used this out-of-date term in an abstract rather thana literal sense. Rodger might have pointed to the provision in the leiðangr law(NGL I, 203) which stipulates that ‘Every man who had a hamla on the journeyout from home shall bring it back, unless he provides the shipmaster withanother man whom he is willing to accept’.63 The first half of this stipulationmight make it sound as if the hamla was some concrete object (such as arowing-bench, cp. NGL I, 202) that could be taken away and brought back, butthe second makes it quite clear that it refers to a unit of men. In the equivalentsections of the Gulathing law (NGL I, 98–101), it is less clear whether hamlarefers to a specific position in the ship or to a unit of men, but the latter meaningis certainly possible. However, the word is still used in a very concrete sense inother laws (NGL I, 75, of a rotten oar-loop) and the meaning ‘unit of men’ ismore difficult to read into the skaldic examples of both há and hamla citedabove. It is possible to imagine that the word was used to describe a unit of oneor more men holding the oar, ready for the stroke (ÞjóðA IV,21), or to imagine


63 The translation is from Larson 1935, 321, though I replace his ‘rowlock’ with the originalON term hamla. Rodger (1995, 397) laments the need ‘to use twelfth- and thirteenth-century Norwegian evidence for want of the eleventh-century Danish information weneed’, but is not aware of the eleventh-century (Norwegian-Icelandic) evidence.

men joining their units at the beginning of an expedition (Arn II,9; Arn III,2),although a technical meaning of ‘oarport’ is just as likely in the former, while inArnórr’s two stanzas a concrete reference to the part of the ship occupied by thewarrior-crew (the ‘room’) is also just as likely. In ÞjóðA III,13, hamla cannotmean ‘unit of men’, since the stanza describes Haraldr ordering his troop(fylking) to provide the h�mlur with shields, and makes clear that the ship is thencompletely encircled by these shields. Even in the ASC, it is likely that a part ofthe ship is meant. In ASC 1039E the expression (which occurs twice) is clearlygeald . . . scipan æt ælcere hamelan viii marc ‘paid for . . . ships [at the rate of]eight marks to each hamele’. Although in effect this meant payment for a certainnumber of crew (although we do not know how many would be considered to bein a hamele), we cannot, I think, take the further step of asserting that either há orhamla had a meaning ‘unit of men’, in either OE or ON in the eleventh century,though it is easy to see how such a meaning could have developed later.

The adjective hábrynjaðr occurs in three more or less contemporary stanzasin the corpus (ÞjóðA IV,22; Þfagr 4; Steinn III,14). LP enters it undercompounds in h�- ‘high-’ and translates ‘ ‘‘höjpansret’’, hvis panser går höjt op’.For Falk (AnS, 38) the adjective brynjaðr refers to warships which have metalstrips or plates covering their prow, and he compares hábrynjaðr [sic] withharðbrynjaðr. The simple adjective brynjaðr is used once of ships (B�lv 2),while harðbrynjaðr is used twice of Knútr’s ships (Ótt III,1; Hallv 3). A brynja isnormally a mail-coat or other body-armour, and the other occurrence of theadjective brynjaðr in the corpus is with this meaning (Sigv XII,10; cp. HHuI,37).Using it of a ship involves a metaphorical extension of the meaning and such ametaphorical extension could occur in a number of ways. One possibility is toimagine the ships as having some sort of naval equivalent of body-armour, in theform of some kind of metal covering. But I know of no archaeological evidencefor such protection for Viking Age ships.64 It seems more likely that the wordbrynjaðr imagines the ship as protected by its row of shields,65 and that thecompound hábrynjaðr is formed with hár ‘oarport, rowing-station’, since thepositioning of the shields on a warship corresponded to these positions betweenthe frames (Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 151; Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen 1967,137). A closer look at the examples suggests that this interpretation fits thecontexts better.

It has to be remembered that shields could not be placed on the shield-railwhen the ship was under oars, only when it was being sailed or (most likely)when it was anchored in harbour. Þorleikr fagri’s stanza describes Sveinn’s largefleet intending to defend Denmark from the attack of Haraldr harðráði (Þfagr 4).


64 Although LP and AnS anachronistically imagine this as plate mail, chain mail would havebeen easier to produce and is perhaps more likely to have been used on ships as well.

65 Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (Hkr III, 144) translates and explains h�brynjaðar [sic] in ÞjóðAIV,22 as ‘brynvarin (skjölduð)’, Poole (1991, 61) as ‘with their high shields’. To myknowledge, Malmros (1986, 101) was the first to make the explicit suggestion that thisadjective refers to shields at the rowing-positions.

Þjóðólfr Arnórsson’s stanza gives the other side of the coin (though on a lateroccasion), Haraldr’s fleet on its way to attack Denmark (ÞjóðA IV,22). In both ofthese cases, the warships would naturally carry shields. Neither stanza shows thefleet actually moving and Þjóðólfr’s actually pictures the ships lurking in varioussheltered spots (because of a storm, according to Snorri, Hkr III, 143–4). SteinnHerdísarson’s stanza describes the gifts Óláfr kyrri makes to his followers, whichinclude hábrynjuð skip ok steinda kn�rru ‘hábrynjuð ships and painted knerrir’(Steinn III,14). Here, there is certainly an intended contrast between two types ofship. The stanza particularly emphasises the uniqueness of Óláfr’s generosity,and it is likely that a particularly spectacular gift of a warship would include a setof shields, especially painted in the ship’s colours, as in the case of the Gokstadship (Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 152).

Some decades earlier, two poets used the adjective harðbrynjaðr of Knútr’sships. Ótt III,1 is almost certainly the first stanza of this poem, as it describes theyoung king setting out on an expedition for the first time (Jesch 2001a),preparing and launching his ships, and the reference to harðbrynjuð skip isfollowed almost immediately by a reference to red shields (Knýtl, 101–2):

Hilmir, bjóttu ok hættirharðbrynjuð skip kynjum.Reiðr hafðir þú rauðarrandir, Knútr, fyr landi.

Chief, you prepared a hard-armoured ship and took astounding risks.Knútr, you surrounded the country with red shields, angry.

Hallv 3, on the other hand, shows the same fleet on the way to England. Even if itcould carry shields on the shield-rail when under sail, this would have been anextravagant way to cross the North Sea (Brøgger and Shetelig 1950, 152).

The occurrence of the adjective brynjaðr in B�lv 2 is supposedly the examplethat is decisive for the meaning proposed by Hjalmar Falk and Finnur Jónsson.The latter prints and translates the stanza as follows (Skjd B I, 355):

Hart kníði sv�l svartansnekkju brand, fyr landi,skúr, en skrautla b�ruskeiðr brynjaðar reiði;mætr hilmir sá malmaMiklagarðs fyr barði;m�rg skriðu beit at borgarbarmf�gr h�um armi.

Den svale vind drev stærkt skibets sorte stavn frem, men de pansredeskibe bar deres prægtige udstyr langs landet; Miklegårds herlige fyrsteså metalbeslagene på stavnene, mange brystskinnende skibe skred hentil borgens höje arm.

Finnur saw a reference to metal on the prow of the ship in malma fyr barði, andthis confirmed his interpretation of brynjaðr as ‘pansret’. He was criticised by


Kock (NN, 2035), who proposed quite different syntax in lines 5 and 6, roughly:‘the glorious king saw the beaches of Miklagarðr before his prow’. AlthoughKock’s interpretation of malm- as ‘beach’ is probably wrong, his syntax is almostcertainly right, as the parallels he adduces show, and the correct translation ofthese lines is almost certainly that in Hkr III, 71: ‘Hinn ágæti konungur(Haraldur) sá málmþök Miklagarðs fyrir stafni’, in which we have Haraldrcatching sight of the copper roofs of Constantinople as he approaches it by ship.

In conclusion, there is no evidence in the skaldic corpus (or the archaeologicalrecord) for any metal plating or other covering on Viking Age warships.66 Whenthe poets use the adjective (-)brynjaðr, they are either referring in a general wayto the fact that the ship is protected and that it carries shields, or, in a few cases,they may be referring more specifically to the practice of carrying shields on theshield-rim of a warship (ÞjóðA IV,22; Steinn III,14; possibly Ótt III,1). Even ifthe first element of the adjective in ÞjóðA IV,22, Þfagr 4 and Steinn III,14 is h�-‘high-’ rather than há- ‘rowing-position’, it remains the case that the secondelement -brynjaðr must refer to the warship’s shields (as in harðbrynjaðr in ÓttIII,1) rather than any armour-plating. Many depictions of viking ships showthem displaying their shields, which protrude above the top strake.67

The word for the steering arrangement on a viking ship is stýri (n., pl. stýri),but it is not entirely clear whether this was used of both the rudder and the tiller,or just the rudder (Þór; Hfr II,1; Ótt II,20; Arn II,10; Steinn III,6).68 But whenskalds describe the movements of the stýri they seem to have primarily therudder in mind. Thus, stýri mól ‘the stýri made a grinding noise or movement’(Hfr II,1), referring to the rudder’s turning in rough seas, and braut stóran straumof stýri ‘a great current broke over the stýri’ (Steinn III,6). The stýri was skafið‘shaved, planed’ (Ótt II,20), and it could apparently be decorated with some kindof gold that trembled when the ship was sailing: gullit rauða um skeiðar stýribifðisk ‘the red gold around the stýri of the skeið shook’ (Arn II,10). Althoughthis is usually taken to mean that the ship’s hull was gilded in the general area ofthe rudder (e.g. Whaley 1998, 163), it may also be that the tiller was decorated insome way. The Gokstad ship, not otherwise highly decorated, had a tiller thatwas both carved and painted in three colours (Nicolaysen 1882, 44, pl. XI). Therudder is prominently displayed in a number of illustrations of ships.69


66 HHj, 13, mentions iárnborgir ‘iron fortifications’ around the prince’s floti ‘fleet’ (or‘ship’?). What exactly is meant is not clear (though there may be some connection withskjaldborg, see ch. 5), nor can this poem be used as datable evidence.

67 D 220, D 258, D 271, Ög 181. See also several of the Gotland picture stones (GB I, figs79–81, 85–6, 89, 97, 105, 107, 116, 128, 142) and one of the Lowther hogbacks (BACASSEII, 130).

68 Róðr in the sense ‘rudder’, rather than ‘act of rowing’, first appears in the twelfth-centuryrunic graffito N 532. The meanings of what might be the same word in U 11 and U 16 aredisputed (see Hjärne 1946 for a lengthy discussion). I cannot see that there is anything inthese inscriptions to justify a nautical interpretation, even though Hjärne argues (1946, 111–15)that [i ruþi hakunar] on U 16 refers to a naval expedition of some sort, led by Hákon.

69 D 77 (possibly), D 220, D 271, Ög 224, U 979, U 1052, U 1161; see also Vg 119, the

Masts, sails and rigging

While masts and mast-fixings are relatively well represented in the archaeolog-ical finds, the details of the rigging of viking ships are harder to reconstruct andare a matter of lively debate between the specialists, who have to base their argu-ments on visual representations such as the Gotland picture stones, or onethnographic evidence from more recent times (Christensen 1979). The skaldicevidence is unlikely to resolve these controversies, but does provide a range ofvocabulary for many of the parts of the rig.

The viking sail was a square (or rectangular or trapezoid) sail raised onto themast and supported along its upper edge by a yard. The most common word for‘mast’ in the skaldic corpus is v�ndr (m., pl. vendr). This word has a primarymeaning of ‘rod, stick, pole’ and Falk (AnS, 56) sees its use for ‘mast’ as aninstance of poetic language. The more prosaic term sigla (f., pl. siglur) occursonce in the corpus (ÞjóðA III,31), but in a kenning meaning ‘sword’.70 V�ndroccurs three times as a simplex (Arn II,4; ÞjóðA I,2; AnonXII B,3), once in thecompound vandlangt ‘long-masted’ referring to Magnús’ ship Visundr (ÞjóðAI,4) and twice in the ship-kennings vandar valr ‘horse of the mast’ (Sindr 2) andvandar dýr ‘animal of the mast’ (Eskál III,20). It is likely that v�ndr was a wordnormally used by sailors in the late Viking Age and was not especially poetic.

In Arn II,4 the masts are said to bifjask ‘shudder’, while in ÞjóðA I,2 ótt veðrvægðit sveigðum vendi ‘the bad storm did not spare the bent mast’, meaning thatthe wind caused the mast to bend. Both poets are referring to the same journey,Magnús góði’s return from Russia. The mast of a ship captained by Magnúsberfœttr (Anon XII B,3) is also said to skjalfa ‘tremble’, but we are given theadditional information that it was seventy feet long (Foote 1978, 65). As archae-ologists find ever longer and longer warships (the Roskilde 6 ship, dated to 1025,was 36m long), such a long mast seems less incredible than when Foote firstdrew attention to this stanza.

Another word for ‘mast’, which Falk brackets with v�ndr as poetical usage, islaukr ‘onion, leek’. Here, the metaphor is more obvious, and the word occursonly twice in the skaldic corpus: in B�lv 5 lofðungr reisti lauka við þungan sæ‘the leader raised the masts in [despite] the heavy sea’, while Þfagr 3 contains theship-kenning lauks glæsidýr ‘gleaming animal of the mast’.

The top of the mast was called húnn (m., pl. húnar), a word with the primarymeaning of ‘bear-cub’, but with a number of other meanings, including ‘die,playing-piece’, which apparently gave rise to the nautical meaning from theoften quadrilateral strengthening of the area at the top of the mast through whichthe halyards passed and on which the shrouds could rest (AnS, 59; see


non-runic U 1001, several of the Gotland picture stones (GB I, figs 71, 79–81, 86, 89, 104,108, 112, 139, 142), and the Stow (Lincs.) graffiti (BACASSE V, 292–3).

70 Tré ‘tree’ is used of a mast in HHuI,26. Sigla appears to have been borrowed into Russian,and is attested there in the eleventh century (Svane 1989, 29), suggesting it was commonlyused then in OEN.

Christensen 1979, 185, for a concise definition).71 These functions could beachieved in a variety of ways, and the skaldic instances do not give any sense ofprecisely what forms the húnn could have (see Andersen 1997b, 179–80, 188–91for some possibilities). In Korm I,3, a leader is one who bindr hún beinan ‘tiesthe húnn straight’. Otherwise, the húnn is usually mentioned in connection withthe sail, in contexts which make it clear that the sail was raised to the top of themast (Ótt II,20; Gísl I,14), similarly the adjective hýndr ‘raised to the húnn’(ÞjóðA I,4; Valg 6) and the sail-kenning húnskript ‘decorated cloth of the húnn’(ÞjóðA I,2). Húnn also appears in ship-kennings, thus hreinn húnlagar ‘reindeerof the liquid of the húnn [sea]’ (Hókr 2) and hreinn húnferils ‘reindeer of the wayof the húnn [sea]’ (Þfagr 4). Sigvatr has the kenning hyrsendir húna ‘sender ofthe fire of the húnn [gold]’ (Sigv XII,16), suggesting that mast-tops were regu-larly gilded.

It is usually assumed that Arnórr’s description of élmars typpi ‘storm-


71 The rectangular object at the top of the mast on the Gosforth slab (or ‘Fishing-Stone’) hasbeen interpreted as a húnn (BACASSE II, 108–9).

4.8 The ship’s vane from Heggen, Buskerud, Norway. Photo: UniversitetsOldsaksamling, Oslo.

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steed[ship]-tops’ which glóðu eldi glík ‘glowed like fire’ (Arn II,10) also refersto gilded mastheads (in poetry, it is always gold that glows like fire). However,there is another possible interpretation of Arnórr’s metaphor. Whaley (1998, 77)notes that typpi ‘can be assumed to share with its cognate toppr the senses ‘top,knob, masthead’ . . . and ‘forelock’. The latter meaning seems indicated in akenning which compares a ship with a horse, and something on the fore-stem is abetter parallel to a horse’s forelock than something on the mast-top amidships.The ship’s ‘golden forelock’ may have been a gilt copper ‘vane’, of whichseveral are known from the eleventh century (see fig. 4.8) and which Blindheim(1982) has demonstrated were attached to or in the fore-stem of a ship, ratherthan to the top of the mast (although this was also done later). These had no realfunction beyond that of decoration, and possibly as indicators of rank and status(see Christensen 1998 for a convincing refutation of a recent suggestion that theywere navigational instruments).

The yard, the horizontal beam supporting the sail, was called r� (f., pl. ráar).In Sigv X,8, Knútr’s ships are said to have carried their sails við r� í byr ‘on theyard in a favourable wind’, which does not mean much more than that the shipswere able to take advantage of the wind to sail, so that rowing was unnecessary.The yard was one of the parts of the ship particularly vulnerable to damage in astorm (AnS, 13), and ÞjóðA I,2 provides a dramatic picture of sailing in briskweather: ekin r� dúðisk ‘the ‘‘driven’’ yard shook’, with the yard shuddering as itis turned to catch the wind.72 Archaeological finds of yards are scarce, but theydo seem to have been typically very long and slender (McGrail 1987, 232).Several of the ‘thin round spars of fir or pine wood’ found in the Gokstad burialhave been identified as yards (Nicolaysen 1882, 39, pl. IV).

The common Germanic word for ‘sail’ segl (n., pl. segl) occurs five times inthe corpus, commonly modified by an adjective indicating its appearance orcondition.73 Sigvatr describes his pleasure in sailing, despite the hard weather:�rðigt veðr úti á fj�rðum skóf vindblásit segl í vási ‘the high wind out on thefjords scraped the windblown sail in the difficult conditions’ (Sigv III,9). Thisunusual use of the verb skafa (cognate with English ‘shave’) has been interpretedin a variety of ways, but may refer to the tearing noise of the sail being blownback and forth, or perhaps even to the actual tearing of the sail. In Sigv X,8Knútr’s ships carry bl� segl ‘blue sails’ (though the colour should be imagined assomething closer to black than to bright blue). In ÞjóðA I,4, as already noted, thesails are hýnd ‘raised to the húnn’ and make noises as they are blown against theforestay: rýndu við stag. In Gísl I,14 the ships’ sails, also sett við húna ‘raised tothe húnns’, are sædrifin ‘sea-drenched’. Óttarr gives a clear description of Óláfr


72 R� is used in HHuI,33,49. The latter stanza also provides us with the term rakki, notpreserved in the skaldic corpus, in the ship-kenning rakka hj�rtr ‘deer of the mast-ring’.The mast-ring, or parrel, was a semicircular or crooked piece of wood around the mastwhich enabled the yard to go up and down it, see the example from Oseberg illustrated inAndersen 1997a, 170.

73 Segl also occurs in HHuI,29.

sailing to Sweden in stormy weather (addressed to the king in the secondperson): stundum neyttuð segls ok settuð sundvarpaði ‘occasionally you used thesail and set (it) against the strait-disturber [wind]’ (Ótt II,4), contrasting with adescription of rowing that follows in the stanza, and again referring to the raisingof the sail to catch the wind. The verb neyta can imply ‘use to near-destruction’(e.g. ÞjóðA I,4; ÞjóðA IV,23), and that would be appropriate in this descriptionof stormy sailing.

But there is a range of possible words for ‘sail’. Viking Age sails could bereefed, that is shortened to lessen the area in contact with the wind, and eachhorizontal section by which they could be shortened was called rif (n., pl. rif;AnS, 68–9).74 The plural form of this word is used as a pars pro toto for ‘sail’ inValg 6 (Foote 1984b, 235). Referring to the way in which the sail is produced arevefr (m., pl. vefjar) ‘weave’ (ÞjóðA III,8; Gísl I,15) and v�ð (f., pl. váðir or væðr)‘loom-width of cloth’ (Ótt III,2), of which several would go to make one sail(AnS, 63).75 The sail-kenning húnskript ‘decorated cloth of the húnn’ (ÞjóðA I,2)may indicate some kind of device on the sail. Falk (AnS, 63) suggests this devicewas embroidered, on the basis of a late prose source, but it is just as likely to havebeen painted. Or the poet may simply have meant that the stitched sections andthe reef-bands of the sail made it look like a piece of worked cloth (see thedrawing in Andersen 1997b, 188).

Two further words need more detailed discussion. Skaut (n., pl. skaut) is usedtwice by Óttarr. The primary sense of this word is ‘something triangular’, hence‘lower corner of a sail, clew’. This meaning obviously does not work in Ótt II,20,where the poet says skaut þats drósir spunnu lék við hún ‘the skaut spun bywomen played against the mast-top’, even if we assume the word could also referto an upper corner of the sail. There are two possible ways of extending themeaning of skaut. As in the English cognate ‘sheet’ (Sandahl 1982, 91–2), theword for a corner of a sail could be extended to the rope attached to that corner.Further extending this to mean ‘rope’ in general would give us a reference to oneof the many ropes that converged around the top of the mast. This interpretationdoes not work in this context because, under sail (as in this stanza), such ropeswould be taut rather than playing against the mast. ‘Spun by women’ would alsosuggest woollen ropes, for which there is no Viking Age archaeologicalevidence, although there are ethnological parallels.76 More likely is that, like rif,the word skaut is used in this context as a pars pro toto for ‘sail’. We havealready seen several examples of sails raised to the mast-top, and the reference to


74 The English word ‘reef’ is borrowed from ON (Sandahl 1958, 90–91). The procedure isclearly described in McGrail 1987, 239.

75 HHuI,26 calls a sail a vefnisting ‘weave-sewing’, combining the two crafts used inproducing the sail. On woollen sails, see Andersen 1995.

76 As demonstrated in the exhibition Seilet som kvinnene spant held in Trondheim in thespring of 1999 (also in Roskilde later that year). Most Viking Age ship-ropes were madefrom bast (Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 188–90), though a full analysis is still awaited.Ohthere mentions the use of whale- (or walrus-) and seal-hides for ship-ropes in ninth-century Norway (Lund 1984, 20, 54, 58–9).

spinning women provides us with an earlier stage in the production of the sailtextile than the terms vefr and v�ð just mentioned. In Ótt III,2 skaut- appears inthe ship-kenning skauthreinn ‘reindeer of the skaut’. In theory, any of the mean-ings for skaut just outlined would work here, but again, ‘sail’ is probably themost likely, given that a sail is more prominent than its corner, or a rope attachedto it, and that Óttarr describes the blowing of the sail, or v�ð, in the same stanza.

In two stanzas by Arnórr, the poet uses the word tjald (n., pl. tj�ld) of a sail(Arn II,16; Arn V,19). Normally this word is assumed to refer, either to a ship’scover or awning, or to a land-tent, but in any case to something that providedsailors with shelter from the elements. However, I would like to suggest that thismeaning could also be extended to ‘sail’. The two meanings are in any case notso easy to keep apart, as it is quite likely that sails were used to provide shelterwhen not in use for sailing.77 A photograph reproduced in Crumlin-Pedersen andVinner 1984, 206, shows sails being used as tents in Trondheim at the beginningof the twentieth century, and the crew of the replica viking ship Odin’s Ravenregularly used their spare sail as a tent (Binns 1980, 169, 215, 221; Ingram 1982,37, 149), though I do not know what evidence there is that viking ships carried aspare sail. The etymology of tjald is uncertain, but both NDEW (s.v. telt) and ÍOwould derive it from an Indo-European root *delâ ‘to spread out’, comparing aGreek word dól�n ‘small sail’. In ON, the word can also refer to a wall-hanging,and the idea of vertical cloth is what tents, sails and wall-hangings have incommon. The Old English poem Exodus metaphorically links sails and tents inits description of God’s covering the Egyptians with a cloud: segle ofertolden‘tented over with a sail’ (line 81; see Lucas 1977, 89–90). But far-flung parallelscan only suggest, and the proposed interpretation rests more convincingly on thecollocations of tjald in Arnórr’s two stanzas. In Arn V,19, it is said that Þorfinnrsleit bl�u tjaldi fyr útan eyjar ‘tore the blue tjald beyond the islands [out at sea]’.This same colour-adjective was used of sails in Sigv X,8, as noted above. Andsince this wearing out of the tjald is said to have taken place at sea, it seems morelikely to refer to a sail than to an awning or tent (compare the use of skafa in SigvIII,9, discussed above). The stanza goes on to mention snow and frost (probablyin connection with the mast), and these would be just the conditions in whichsails could be torn.78 In another stanza, the poet praises Magnús for a life spentmostly und drifnu tjaldi ‘under the drenched tjald’ (Arn II,16). It seems moreheroic to imagine the king standing proud under the sail, however wet, thancowering under a sodden awning. It has already been noted that Gísl I,14describes sails as sædrífin ‘sea-drenched’, and ÞjóðA III,8 pictures King Haraldrsailing und breiðum vef ‘under the broad weave’. Thus, I would like to suggestthat, in these two stanzas by Arnórr, tjald specifically means ‘sail’. This may be a


77 Archaeologists have been unable to determine whether the textile fragments found atOseberg were ‘sails or tents’ (Andersen 1995, 258).

78 Whaley (1998, 303–4) translates ‘wore to shreds dark awnings’. Although she does notquestion the traditional translation of tjald, she recognises the oddity of these ‘enigmatic’lines.

particular poetic usage by Arnórr, and it is not to deny that, elsewhere, tjaldmight have the more usual meaning of ‘tent’ or ‘awning’. In ÞjóðA IV,19, KingHaraldr sets the departure of his fleet from Trondheim in motion by throwingback the tjald on his ship: slyngr l�ngu tjaldi af sér ‘throws off the long tjald’.Here, the modifying adjective makes clear that this is a proper ship’s cover forthe whole length of the ship when in harbour, and sails cannot be involved at thisstage, since the ship moves out of harbour under oarpower. Tjald also occurs inthe ship-kenning tjalda drasill ‘horse of the tjald’ (Sigv XIII,2). Kennings do notnormally help us define words precisely, and the determinant here could be anyword to do with ships. It may, however, be significant that the ship in this stanzais called myrkblár ‘dark blue’, a colour associated with sails, as we have seen.

The vocabulary of what is normally called ‘standing and running rigging’, i.e.the ropes holding the mast and those for manipulating the sail, is not well repre-sented in the skaldic corpus. Andersen (1997b, 183) makes the point that thisdistinction between two types of rigging was less relevant in ON, particularly onwarships where the mast was regularly raised and lowered. The general termreiði ‘tackle’ (n., pl. reiði) makes an occasional appearance. Ótt II,15 describesÓláfr’s capture of Hákon’s ship með skreyttu reiði ‘with adorned tackle’. Pre-sumably this refers to the careful craftsmanship of some of the wood, bone orhorn blocks used to control and tension the rigging ropes (pictured in Andersen1997b, 186–7, 199; Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 133–40). In Arn II,4, the readingreiði depends on an emendation to the text, although a well-founded one(Whaley 1998, 150). Again, it is modified by an adjective, this time gerzkr‘Russian’. It is not clear whether Russian tackle was somehow special, orwhether this is a simple practicality, since Magnús was just coming from there.79

According to the sagas, Magnús was brought back from Russia by some Norwe-gian noblemen, presumably in the same ship they went out in (called a skeið inthis stanza), so it may be that they had to re-rig the ship there before they couldreturn in it.

The ‘stay’, or rope that supported the mast, was called stag (n., pl. st�g) inON, and appears in this meaning in three stanzas (ÞjóðA I,4; Valg 6; Gísl I,15),all clearly referring to a forestay, a rope that went from the top of the mast to thefore-stem. This term has been discussed by Peter Foote (1978, 60–61; 1984,235). As Foote points out, ‘when the yard was hoisted to the mast-head, then ahigh wind forced the sail against the stay’, and Þjóðólfr’s stanza, as we havealready seen, even suggests the noise that this makes. The characteristic angle ofthe stay is alluded to in Stefnir 2, in which the poet claims he would rather standstaglútr drifinn úti ‘leaning like a stay, rain-drenched, outdoors [or ‘out at sea’]’than warm himself in the arms of a Danish girl.80


79 In Arn II,9, the warriors on the ship appear to have been provided with gerzkum malmi‘Russian metal [i.e. weapons]’.

80 Jón Helgason 1968, 44, suggests that staglútr, drifinn is a mistake for staglút drifinn‘sprinkled with ‘‘stay-lye’’ ’, a kind of liquid used to prepare ships’ ropes. However, thiswould involve an emendation, and lút f. ‘lye’ is not recorded in the skaldic corpus, whereas

One more rigging word is hidden away in the ship-kenning hlébarðr hanka‘the bear of the hanki’ (Arn II,3), in which it has been suggested hanki refers to ‘aloop or other device which holds the cordage for the sails in a given position’(Whaley 1998, 144). Osier rings for the purpose of fastening the mast shrouds,and which ‘pass through a hole in the gunwale strake and then through a cleat ofbeech fastened on the outside of this strake’ (Olsen and Crumlin-Pedersen 1990,116) have been found in Wreck 3 at Skuldelev (very clearly illustrated inAndersen 1997b, 194; see fig. 4.9). It is not clear whether hanki was used of thecleat, the ring, or the whole arrangement.

In harbour and on land

In the late ninth century, the north Norwegian Ohthere told King Alfred ofWessex of his journeys from his home to the market-town Sciringes heal (prob-ably Kaupang): Þyder he cwæð þæt man ne mihte geseglian on anum monðe, gyfman on niht wicode ‘He said that a man could scarcely sail there in a month,assuming he made camp at night’, while his Anglo-Saxon counterpart Wulfstantravelled from Hedeby to Truso in the course of syfan dagum & nihtum, þæt þætwæs ealne weg yrnende under segle ‘seven days and nights, the boat runningunder sail the whole way’ (Lund 1984, 21–2). Depending on circumstances,Viking Age sailors could either stop every night to camp, or sleep on board themoving ship. Clearly they would have to do the latter when setting out across theNorth Sea or the North Atlantic, rather than sailing along a coastal route.

But even ‘camping’ at night might not necessarily imply more than anchoringin a sheltered spot, and sleeping on board ship, perhaps with the sail as a tent, assuggested above. This is what Sigvatr describes in the account of his voyage toSweden: létum skip skolla tj�lduð við ey ‘we let the tented ships rock by theisland’ (Sigv III,10). This stanza clearly refers to the covering of a ship, witheither a sail or an awning, and the use of tjald in ÞjóðA IV,19, discussed above,also most likely refers to a ship-cover. There is therefore no skaldic evidence forland-tents of the kind found in the Gokstad and Oseberg ship-burials (Brøggerand Shetelig 1950, 163), perhaps because such equipment, while appropriate fora royal progress, was a luxury that took up too much space on a military ormercantile expedition.

According to Falk (AnS, 78), the Scandinavians borrowed both the anchor andits name from the Romans early on (for a brief summary of finds of Viking Ageanchors, see Vadstrup 1997b, 136–7). The word akkeri (n., pl. akkeri) occurs inHharð 9, in which the king describes lying at anchor in Randersfjord to make anattack on Danish warriors who are being sung to by their wives, unawares: l�tum


there are at least two other examples of compound adjectives in -lútr describing bodilyattitudes (LP, s.v. lútr). There is also a mysterious ship-kenning in HHuI,29 stagstjórnmarr‘horse of stay-steering’, whatever that might mean.

vér akkeri halda í Goðnarfirði ‘we let the anchor hold (the ship) inGoðnarfj�rðr’. In ÞjóðA IV,11, a stanza that is clearly linked to this (the medi-eval sources variously attribute each half-stanza or both together to Haraldrharðráði or his skald Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, see Perkins 1982–5, 194), the anchor ispoetically called kaldnefr ‘cold-nosed one’, while its fluke is called fleinn‘arrow-/spear-head’ and one of its arms krókr ‘(fish-)hook’. Especially if thesetwo half-stanzas belong together, we have the poet ringing the changes ondifferent words for the anchor and its parts. Another stanza with a number ofanchor-words is ÞjóðA IV,23, describing the king’s ship anchored in a storm, anddriven about by the wind, so that this puts a strain on the anchor ropes and theanchor itself (Hkr III, 144):


4.9 The osier ring from the Skuldelev 3 ship. Photo: Viking ShipMuseum, Roskilde.

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Hléseyjar lemr h�vanhryngarð konungr barði.Neytir þá til þrautarþengill snekkju strengja.Eigi es járni bjúguindæll skaði lindis.Gnegr af gaddi digrumgrjót ok veðr en ljótu.

The king strikes the high, resounding enclosure of Læsø [the sea] withthe prow. The prince then makes heavy use of the ship’s anchor-ropes[sg. strengr]. The destroyer of the lime-tree [storm]81 is not pleasant tothe bent iron [bjúgt járn]. Pebbles and the foul storm gnaw at the sturdyspike [gaddr].

None of these words has the appearance of being a technical term. Strengr couldbe used of any rope, gaddr of any nail or spike, while bjúgt járn is descriptive.But clearly Þjóðólfr enjoyed describing anchors in as many ways as possible.

Another anonymous poet also had fun with anchors. Apparently on the sameexpedition on which he threatened the husbands of Randers, Haraldr took pris-oner the daughters of a Danish chieftain, Þorkell geysa, who had taunted theNorwegians by carving anchors out of some kind of soft cheese (AnonXI Lv,6;Hkr III, 110–11):

Sk�ru jast ór ostieybaugs Dana meyjar,þat of angraði þengil,þing, akkerishringa.Nú sér m�rg í morginmær, hlær at því færi,ernan krók ór járniallvalds skipum halda.

The maidens of the Danes carved sea-things, anchor-rings[akkerishringar] out of yeast-cheese; that distressed the prince. Now,this morning, many a maiden sees an efficient iron hook [krókr órjárni] hold the ruler’s ships; fewer laugh at that.

The story seems ludicrous, but the verse is preserved in a number of kings’ sagas,with Morkinskinna telling the fullest anecdote about how Haraldr used the girlsto press a large sum of ransom money out of their father (Msk, 157–8). Theanchor-rings could have been the iron rings on the anchor itself to which theanchor-ropes could be tied (AnS, 79), but one Viking Age anchor with a chain is


81 ‘Destroyer of the tree’ is a normal kenning for ‘storm’, but the particular choice of tree heremay also be intended to allude to the lime-bast which was the basis of much Viking Agerope, such as that found in the Oseberg burial (illustrated in Andersen 1997b, 182; see alsoCrumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 188).

known from Ladby (Vadstrup 1997b, 138; see fig. 4.10). This formed the firstpart of the attachment, to help weigh down the anchor and keep it on the bottom,while the rest of the anchor-cable is likely to have been of rope.

Crumlin-Pedersen (1997b, 146) makes the point that anchors are ‘the largestexamples of forged ironwork’ known from the Viking Age and that, because oftheir cost, they were used only on the largest ships. It has been suggested that Sö352 depicts an anchor and rope (SR III, 343) though, if so, it is rather acurious-looking one. It is perhaps more plausibly an anchor-stone, or an anchor‘made from wood, stones and rope lashings’ (Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 146), asused on small ships and boats. This status value of iron anchors would explainthe intense interest that the poets had in them.

Þjóðólfr used the word strengr (m., pl. strengjar) for the anchor-rope. Thisword could in fact be used of almost any kind of rope or string including, mostcommonly, bowstrings (LP). Thus, when it is used in the ship-kenning strengjarjór ‘horse of the strengr’ (Sigv II,6), it may not have been intended very specifi-cally, after all there would have been many ropes on a ship. However, thesingular form may suggest an anchor- or mooring-rope rather than the manyropes of the rigging. Similarly, the ship-kenning snœris vitni ‘wolf of the snœri’(Hfr III,16) may give us a specific term for an anchor-rope (as argued in AnS,80), or may simply be another general word for ‘rope’. The word snœri other-wise seems to be used mostly of a leather spear-band (LP), and the kenningalludes to the well-known myth in which the gods tied the Fenriswolf up with a


4.10 The anchor and chain from the Ladby ship. Photo: National Museum ofDenmark.

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fetter made of impossible things like the beard of a woman and the breath of afish, and which turned out to be sléttr ok blautr sem silkirœma, en . . . traustr oksterkr ‘smooth and soft like a silk ribbon, but reliable and strong’ (SnEGylf, 28).Clearly, ropes that were both light and strong were the ideal, but this does notgive us any further clues as to its function.

Mooring techniques may lie behind the ship-kenning valr krapta ‘horse of thekrapti’ (Hár 2). Although the kenning by itself would not reveal this, krapti (m.,pl. kraptar) is apparently the word for a bollard, the wooden protuberance on thehull of a ship (or boat) to which the mooring-rope could be attached (AnS, 24).Vadstrup (1997b, 126–7) makes the point that the bollard found on the fore-stemof the Skuldelev 3 ship is not strong enough to hold the moored or anchored ship,and that the rope would also be passed through a hole in the bulkhead.

Harbours are mentioned three times in the skaldic corpus (Sigv II,3; SigvXIII,23; Halli 1), using the common word h�fn (f., pl. hafnar; also a commonplace-name element), also found in one runic inscription (U 1016) in thecompound grikkhafn ‘ ‘‘Greek’’ [Byzantine] harbour’. These could be natural orbuilt-up harbours. A landing-place might also be called a st�ð (f., pl. st�ðvar) ora v�r (f., pl. varar) as in the ship-kennings st�ðvar hrafn ‘raven of the st�ð’ (HfrI,6) and varar hrafn ‘raven of the v�r’ (ÞjóðA I,12). In both these cases, hrafnmight be being used as a horse-name (originally for a raven-black horse), givinga more usual type of kenning.

If not anchored, ships would be pulled up onto land on a wooden slipway laiddown to make this process smoother. The ships would go back down the sameway when being launched. This slipway was called a hlunnr (m., pl. hlunnar), arelatively common word in the skaldic corpus. The singular form actually means‘roller’, but is usually used in a collective sense of the whole slipway.82 Suchrollers might be evidenced by the logs found under the Oseberg ship (Brøgger etal. 1917–28, I, 174–6, pl. 18). Falk (AnS, 28) assumed these rollers were dugdown into a ditch which could accommodate the keel, while the broad part of thehull rested on the sand or gravel either side of the slipway (see also discussion ofaurborð, above), and it has been argued that the construction method was thesame at portage sites (thus a roller-lined V-shaped portage ditch is illustrated inAmbrosiani 1991, 103, though the status and accuracy of this drawing are veryuncertain). However, simple rollers seem to have been common – four werefound underneath the newly-discovered Roskilde 3 ship (Bill et al. 1998, 146).The state of this slipway affected the ease with which a ship could be landed orlaunched, and poets comment on this regularly. In ÞKolb III,1 the launchway isdreginn ‘worn from use’. In Arn II,4 the hlunnr is harða stinnr ‘exceedinglystiff’, while in Arn II,11 it is sléttr ‘smooth’ (in this case the ship is said to behélugr ‘icy’, which explains why it slid easily). In Þfagr 4, the ship-kenning


82 ÞKolb III,1; Arn II,4,11; ÞjóðA IV,18. Very common in ship-kennings: Edáð 8; Hfr II,5;Sigv III,14; Ótt II,20; Ótt III,10; Arn II,17; ÞjóðA IV,9; Þfagr 11.

húnferils hreinn ‘reindeer of the way of the mast-top [sea]’ is modified by anappropriate adjective, hlunntamiðr ‘tamed to the slipway’.

Sigv III,10 contrasts the ship rocking offshore in summer with the same shipon shore in the autumn. Once landed, a ship might be stored for the winter in aspecial shed or boat-house called a naust (n., pl. naust), a word which stillsurvives in Norwegian and Icelandic, and in the language of archaeologists, butis recorded only once in our corpus, in a ship-kenning: nausta blakkr ‘horse ofthe nausts’ (ÞSjár II,1).83 Whether in the naust or outside, a ship would bepropped up with a skorða (f., pl. skorður) ‘prop’, which occurs in theship-kenning skorðu skíði ‘ski of the skorða’ (Arn II,9). The equivalent verbskorða ‘to prop’ is found in Gísl I,8 in a rather obscure context, but which appar-ently describes merchants propping up their ships (with axes!) on shore at atrading-site.84

The vocabulary of sailing

Description and metaphor

The discussion of the vocabulary of the ship and its parts has shown that skaldicpoets could choose to use technical nautical vocabulary (mainly nominal forms),and that this vocabulary was sometimes used in a very precise way. This poeticprecision could be extended, not only to accurate use of technical terminology,but to naturalistic descriptions of sailing, in which the relevant vocabulary ismainly verbal. In the praise poems, with their focus on the deeds and virtues ofthe leader, the metaphorical tends to take over from the naturalistic in descrip-tions of the loading and launching of ships, of sailing, rowing and steering them,and of landing and anchoring. Thus, these activities are frequently presented as ifthe leader alone was responsible for getting the ship from A to B. Nevertheless, itis possible to get some sense of the words used for these activities from theskaldic and even the runic material. This section is not exhaustive, since few ofthe verbs used by the skalds to describe the launching, sailing and landing ofships are restricted to nautical usage, and it is not always easy to draw a linebetween nautical and non-nautical instances.

Preparing and launching

Preparing a ship for a voyage, whether of raiding or trading, would have been amajor undertaking, but the skaldic corpus gives hardly any indication of the workinvolved, and where it does, it contrives to suggest that the leader did it all


83 A study of twenty-one western Norwegian boat-houses by Myhre (1997) unfortunatelyincludes only one example from what he calls the ‘Viking Age’ and one from the eleventhcentury.

84 On beach operations, see McGrail 1987, 267–9.

himself. Thus, Knútr is flattered by being told bjóttu harðbrynjuð skip ‘youmade ready hard-armoured ships’ (Ótt III,1), while the Danish king Eiríkr bjó�ndurt vár veglig flaust austan ór G�rðum ‘made ready early in the springsplendid ships to go west from Russia’ (Mark I,5), both using the common verbbúa ‘prepare, equip, make ready’.85 In Korm I,3, the leader is one who bindr húnbeinan ‘ties the húnn straight’.

More poetically, the workaday preparation of a ship for a voyage was figuredas the leader ‘adorning’ or ‘embellishing’ the vessel, using the verb glæsa ‘tomake shiny’. The ten-year-old Magnús glæsti herskip ór G�rðum ‘embellished(a) warship(s) (to go) from Russia’ (Arn III,1).86 Arnórr also sums up what ispraiseworthy about Magnús’ career: hrósak því es hlenna dolgr glæsir herskip ‘Ipraise the fact that the enemy of thieves embellishes warships’ (Arn II,17). Simi-larly, Haraldr skreytir �nnur unnvigg sunnan ‘adorns other wave-horses from thesouth’ (ÞjóðA, IV,9; see also B�lv 8). The enemy does the same: Sveinn’s shipsare glæst (ÞjóðA III,16), although this does not stop Haraldr from clearingseventy of them in one instant (!).

Occasionally the skalds give us glimpses of the crew loading the ship, usuallywith their armour and weapons. Returning from Russia, Magnús’ fim hirð barhervæðr til h�mlu ‘athletic troop carried war-garb to the oar-loop[rowing-position]’ (Arn III,2). Again, there is a parallel with Hfr II,1, in whichthe leader’s men hlóðu hlýrvigg Hamðis klæðum ‘loaded the bow-horse [ship]with Hamðir’s clothes [armour]’. In a stanza describing the young ÓláfrHaraldsson setting out for Sweden with warlike intent, Óttarr includes the kingin this activity: b�ruð á skip randir ‘you [pl.] carried shields onto the ship(s)’(Ótt II,4).87

Just as the war-leader seems to have prepared his ships single-handed, so he isalso presented as having physically launched the ships on his own, using avariety of appropriate verbs. Óttarr praised both Óláfr and Knútr to their faces forhaving launched ships when young: ungr hratztu vengis dreyra blakki á vitDanmarkar ‘(you were) young (when) you propelled the steed of the lifeblood ofthe plain [water→ship] to go to Denmark’ (Ótt II,3) and hratztu lítt gamall framskeiðum ‘you propelled ships when not very old’ (Ótt III,1). The ten-year-oldMagnús is presented as having given his ship(s) the decisive shove: vannt geystherskip af harða stinnum hlunni ‘you caused the warship(s) to move swiftlydown the very stiff slipway’ (Arn II,4). Recalling the same event, Þjóðólfr uses


85 An ambiguous instance is Bersi I,3, in which the poet, who is changing his allegiance fromSveinn Hákonarson to Óláfr Haraldsson, notes that búum í ári ólítinn Áta �ndur til handaþér ‘this year we [probably ‘I’] (will) make ready a large ski of Áti [ship] for you’.

86 The same expression is used of a twelve-year-old hero in a stanza of obscure origin thatFinnur Jónsson wrongly attributed to Hallfreðr’s Óláfsdrápa (Hfr II,1), and in which thisstatement may have been scribally ‘borrowed’ from Arn III,1; the stanza is discussed inSkjd A I, 156, Fidjestøl 1982, 106–7, and Whaley 1998, 184.

87 Both these parallels suggest to me that the correct translation of bera in Arnórr’s stanza is‘carried’, rather than ‘wore’ as Whaley (1998, 185) has it.

the verb skjóta ‘shoot’, réttu skjóta snekkju út ‘you shot the snekkja out to sea’(ÞjóðA I,2).88 This verb is used in a number of launching scenes: Magnús’ uncleHaraldr hlaut skjóta stafni til Hallands ‘shot his prow (i.e. ship) towardsHalland’ (Arn VI,2) and is celebrated as sás skaut nýtla herskips borði ‘he whoskilfully shot the hull of the warship’ (Arn VI,16); he says of himself that hlautkskjóta hlýri á flœði ‘I had to shoot the bows [ship] onto the water’ (Hharð 16);returning to Norway from England in 1066, Haraldr’s son Óláfr kyrri skaut stafniþars heitir Hrafnseyrr ‘shot the prow out at the place called Ravenser’ (SteinnIII,5);89 and Eiríkr skaut hlýrum ‘shot the bows’ in the east, on his way home toDenmark (Mark I,5). Sometimes pulling was required, rather than pushing, aswhen Arnórr reminds Magnús that drótt hélug borð af sléttu hlunni ‘you draggedicy hulls from the smooth slipway’ (Arn II,11) at the start of his Wendishcampaign. In Arn II,9 the poet says that Magnús ýtti flota miklum suðr með láði‘shoved a great fleet southwards along the coast’. Although Finnur Jónssontranslated this as ‘styrede den store flåde’ (‘steered the large fleet’, Skjd A I,308), the verb clearly refers specifically to the act of launching, as the poet goeson to describe how the ship was auðit skriðar ‘granted gliding’ (see also a furtherexample of ýta, below). In kennings, the leader can be called a flausta �rþeysir‘swift-impeller of ships’ (Eskál III,3) or a hleypimeiðr hlunnviggja ‘tree [man]that causes roller-horses [ships] to run’ (Hfr II,5).

Occasionally, ships are launched without the poet making clear who did thelaunching, again using some of the verbs discussed above, and thus still implyingthe physical activity involved: þryngva ‘press’ (ÞKolb III,1); hrinda ‘propel’(ÞjóðA IV,18); ýta ‘shove’ (ÞjóðA IV,18).

In Þjóðólfr’s celebrated stanzas, Haraldr gives the signal for the departure ofthe fleet from Niðaróss, once the ships have actually been launched into thewater, by throwing back the ship’s cover: lið-Baldr slyngr l�ngu tjaldi af sér ‘thetroop-lord throws off the long tjald’ (ÞjóðA IV,19, discussed above). I have notfound any other such vignette in the skaldic corpus, though there is a similar onein the description of the launching of Helgi’s fleet in HHuI,26: brá stýrirstafntioldom af ‘the captain smartly pulled the stem-covers off’, followed by theraising of the sail onto the mast.

The ship in the sea

The skaldic corpus is rich in words describing the different aspects of the ship’smotion through the water and the captain’s and crew’s actions which influencethat motion. The basic verbs sigla ‘sail’ and stýra ‘steer’ are also recorded in therunic corpus (sigla in Sö 198, stýra in U 439, U 654, U 778, U 1016). Both verbshave a ship-word as their object (in the dative), either kn�rr (Sö 198, U 654, U


88 The auxiliary verb ráða (réttu < réð-þú) is more or less meaningless in this kind of context,the meaning resides in the infinitive form skjóta.

89 On this place-name, see Smith 1970, 16, 19.

1016) or skip (U 439; implied in U 778 as the word occurs earlier in the inscrip-tion). In U 654, the verb stýra is modified by the adverb vel ‘well’, praising thedeceased for his sailing abilities.

While sigla does not appear in the skaldic corpus, stýra does. The verb isambiguous: its basic meaning is the action of holding the tiller and directing thecourse of the ship, but it can also refer in a more general way to the war-leader’scommand of his fleet. Thus, when Sveinn Úlfsson stýrir f�grum skipum ‘steersbeautiful ships’ (Þfagr 5), he cannot literally be steering all of them, and the moregeneral meaning is intended. Where the object of the verb is singular, however,the focus tends to be on the individual’s seafaring capabilities (Hfr III,18; J�k 1).In Hfr III,13, the poet, lamenting the loss of the crew of Ormrinn langi, declaresthat it will be long before the ship again sees such drengir, þótt alldýrr konungrstýri ‘even if a very glorious king should be steering it’. Here, the emphasis ismore on command, with the peerless captain deserving a peerless crew. In Valg5, the verb has no explicit object, but since the poet says to Haraldr, of his stormyjourney to Sigtuna, stýrðu hvatt í h�rðu glyggvi ‘you steered boldly in a hardstorm’ (Valg 5) it is more likely that he means Haraldr’s way with the tiller.While the stanza refers to ‘ships’ in the plural, and Haraldr could hardly havesteered all of them, there can have been no real distinction between ‘command-ing’ and ‘steering’ in this context. The commander would have taken his turn atthe tiller, and could only have had authority as a commander if he was a capablesteersman. In ÞjóðA IV,19, Haraldr is shown at the tiller of his brand-new ship(réð at stýra næsta nýri skeið ‘steered his ‘‘nearest to new’’ skeið’) while hiscrew man the oars.

There are just one or two technical sailing terms in the corpus. Beita ‘to beat,sail to windward’ occurs in a stanza in which the poet tells Óláfr Haraldsson that,returning from England, beittuð miðjan Nóreg ‘you reached the middle ofNorway by beating’ (Ótt II,14). The meaning of the verb is made clear both inthis stanza and others in the poem (esp. 13) which emphasise how hard thejourney was for the ships (Fidjestøl 1992, 124). In another stanza whichemphasises the physical hardships of sailing, Magnús is shown as a brave sailorwho vafðir lítt (Arn II,4). In this context, the verb vefja is interpreted as anautical idiom by Foote (1978, 63), meaning ‘take in sail, reef’, which developedfrom the basic meaning ‘wrap, roll’. Others (most recently Whaley 1998, 151)interpret it as ‘hesitate, waver’, a meaning which, as Foote points out, ‘seems tohave little to commend it save as an extension of sailor’s idiom’. Whaley (1998,151) notes that the nautical meaning ‘is contextually plausible but not . . .supported by usage elsewhere’, but the contextual evidence is strong, as the verboccurs in the stanza between references to reiði ‘tackle’ and vendir ‘masts’,making a connection with ‘sail’ (which could also be called by the related wordvefr, see above) almost inevitable. A nautical meaning is certainly more effectivein this particular stanza than a general praise of Magnús for being resolute.

Once the captain has pointed his fore-stem in the right direction (vestr léztuvísat framstafni ‘you caused the prow to be directed west’, Hallv 2), the usualverb for keeping a ship on a particular course was halda ‘hold’, followed by an


adverb of direction (norðan ‘from the north [south]’, Arn II,10, ÞjóðA IV,9;þangat ‘thither’, Mark I,16). This is the basis of the seafarer-kenninghald-Viðurr haffaxa ‘holding-god of the sea-horse [ship]’ (Eskál III,11).

As well as the standard verbs of motion ganga ‘go’ (ÞjóðA III,8) and fara‘travel’ (Valg 10), the stasis or progress of the ship can be indicated by descrip-tive verbs such as fljóta ‘float’ (Hfr III,16; Sigv XIII,23; Arn VI,4; see alsoHHuI,31), þyrja ‘race’ (Sigv X,4; also used of shipborne men in Eskál III,23),hníga ‘pitch’ (Valg 5) and skríða ‘glide’ (Hfr III,13; ÞKolb III,4; Sigv X,7; ArnII,16; Arn VI,2; Hharð 4; B�lv 2; see also HHuI,23). Adjectives describing themotion and angle of a ship are sælútr ‘sea-leaning, heeling’ (Arn VII,2) and hallr‘leaning’, so Haraldr’s sodden ship is h�ll á hléborð ‘leaning to leeward’ (ÞjóðAIII,8).

Ships could also líða, which has a basic ON meaning of ‘glide (by land, wateror air), pass’. In OE, the usage of the cognate lidan means ‘travel by sea [of aperson]’ and it has been suggested (Kuhn 1991, 70) that this restriction ofmeaning became fashionable in Scandinavian poetry around 1025. Hofmann(1955, 92) is more sceptical and certainly the evidence is less than clear. Thereare eight instances of this verb in the corpus. The clearest example referring to aperson travelling by sea is frægr hildar leiptra v�rðr leið of ægi ‘the renownedguardian of the flash of battle [sword→warrior] sailed across the sea’ (Hallv 3),describing Knútr’s journey to England. The other two examples of this meaningcited by Hofmann are less convincing. The stanza AnonX III,C,3 erum liðnir áleið frá láði ‘we have passed on the road from the land’ is quoted in Snorri’sEdda to demonstrate that the ‘sea’ can be called a ‘road’ (SnESksm, 93), so it is amoot point whether the verb here actually means ‘to travel by sea’, or is merelycarrying through the metaphor. Þloft II,5 does indeed show the use of the verblíða of men (griðfastir friðmenn liðu), but it is flanked by two stanzas in whichthe same verb is used of ships (kolsvartir viðir liðu ‘coal-black timbers liðu’;svalheims valar liðu ‘horses of the cool world [sea] liðu’). In the latter, thebase-word in the ship-kenning is ‘horse’, for which the native meaning of líðawould also be appropriate, so that Þórarinn’s poem shows all the possible collo-cations for the verb: men, ships and horses. Similarly, Hallv 1 has a ship-kenningwith an animal base-word (sunds dýr ‘animals of the strait’) as the subject oflíða, while Sigv X,8 has a straightforward ship-word (kilir) as its subject. InBersi I,1, the subject of the verb líða is the poet himself (in an accusa-tive-and-infinitive construction), but there is no indication in the stanza that histravelling is to be by sea (although there is a reference to the preparation of a shipin st. 3), indeed the statement is rather general and equivalent to ‘farewell’: baðtuþenna hróðrs hagkennanda líða heilan ‘you [King Óláfr] bid this knowledgeablepractitioner of poetry líða safely’. Its use in these ambiguous contexts suggeststhat líða was an all-purpose word for ‘travel’, and this would even cover its use inthe examples in which a person travels by sea. In this instance, the influence ofOE is probably a chimera.

Just as the king is shown single-handedly preparing and launching his ship, sohe can also be shown rowing it. An anonymous poet tells us that �leifr knýr


Visund und �rum ‘Óláfr presses Visund under the oars’ (AnonXI Lv,4), althoughit is unlikely that the king did much rowing, and certainly not by himself. But it isstill the captain (and rarely his crew) that causes the ship’s motion: þeir báðirkníðu bl� borð ‘they both thrust the blue ships (forward)’ (Sigv II,1), létumskeiðr eisa ‘we made the skeiðr rush’ (Sigv III,9), léztu skip dynja ‘you made theships thunder’ (Hallv 3; similarly ÞKolb III,2), lét dreka skolla ‘(Haraldr) causedthe dreki to rock’ (ÞjóðA III,12), although sometimes the ship itself is active:flaust hratt af sér br�ttum forsi ‘the ship thrust away the steep billow’ (Ótt II,14);hlýr en stinnu brutu hr�nn ‘the sturdy bows broke the wave’ (Þham I,2).

The sea is kaldr ‘cold’ (Valg 11), strangr ‘strong’ (Ótt II,13; ÞjóðA IV,21),þungr ‘heavy’ (B�lv 5), sollinn ‘swollen’ (Valg 11) and skelfðr ‘turbulent’ (ArnII,16; ÞjóðA I,1). When not blár ‘blue’ (Gísl I,16), it is grár ‘grey’ (Sigv X,5;Þfagr 11) and howls (þjóta, Ótt I,5; ÞjóðA I,16; Þfagr 11). It is a mighty forcearound the ship (bára hristi búnar grímur ‘the bore shook the adorned masks[figureheads]’, Arn II,4; grœðir hristi hélug b�rð ‘the sea shook the icy stems’,Mark I,16) and a constant challenge to the seafarer: eigi hræddusk ægi, ér fóruðsjá stóran ‘you were not afraid of the main, you travelled the great sea’ (ÓttII,14); eigi þraut ofvægjan gram bægja við ægi ‘the formidable prince neverceased contending with the sea’ (Arn V,13). The force of a wave can be felt bythe oarsmen (en ljóta bára hnikaði �r ‘the ugly breaker caught the oar[s]’, ArnII,3) and the king at the tiller (braut stóran straum of stýri konungs ‘the greatstream broke over the king’s rudder’, Steinn III,6). Arnórr describes the turbu-lence of the sea as Magnús sails to Denmark: ljótu lauðri dreif útan á lypting ‘theugly surf drove onto the outside of the lypting’ and álar bifðusk fyri ‘thesea-channels shook’ (Arn II,10). The very act of sailing disturbs the water: dúfubraut und húfi ‘the wave broke under the hull’ (Valg 10), and the foam is sent upover the ship: bára berr bjart lauðr of við rauðan ‘the billow carries bright surfover the red timber’ (Þfagr 11).

Waves can be sylgh�r ‘high enough to swallow [the ship]’ (Ótt II,20) or �rðigr‘steep’ (ÞjóðA III,8) and, when they overwhelm the ship, bailing is needed:austr’s til hár, býðk Gíparði reiða byttu ‘the bilgewater is too high, I ask Gíparðrto pass the bailer’ (Eldj 1). Objects identified as bailers, and which might thushave been called bytta (f., pl. byttur) have been found in the Oseberg burial andat Hedeby (Crumlin-Pedersen 1997b, 144; see also Christiansen 1985, 205).Both the verb ausa ‘bail’ and the noun austr ‘bilge-water’ occur in Eskál III,3 ina complex sailing metaphor, extending over several stanzas, which actuallydenotes the delivery of poetry (Fidjestøl 1982, 224).

The captain’s mastery of the sea is often described in metaphors. Thecommon kenning-type ‘horse of the sea’ for ship inevitably leads poets to useverbs appropriate to horses to describe the leader’s sailing, even when such akenning is not used in the immediate context. In Ótt II,4, the poet tells ÓláfrHaraldsson that �ttuð austr með flaustum ‘you spurred your ships east’, with averb (etja) normally used of driving horses on. The metaphor is used moreconsistently in another stanza in which Eiríkr Hákonarson sails to meet an oppo-nent; he is jarl sás atti hrefnis stóði á l�g ‘the jarl who spurred the stud of the


hrefni [fleet] onto the sea’ (ÞKolb III,4). There may also be a horse-taming meta-phor behind venr snekkjur sælútar úti ‘(he) accustoms the sea-leaning snekkjurto be out (i.e. at sea)’ (Arn VII,2).

Unique to the runic corpus is the metaphor of ‘ploughing’ the sea with thestem of the ship (arþi barþi ‘ploughed with a barð’, Sö 65), although thecomparison is obvious enough and well-known from other cultures. The shipthrows up a wave on either side just as the plough throws up the soil, and thewake of the ship is like a furrow (Lewis 1994, 81–3).

More originally, poets use verbs of cutting, slicing and inscribing to describethe captain’s progress through the water with his ship. The metaphor is particu-larly appropriate when the rudder is the object of the verb, as in sk�ruð bylgjurstýri ‘you scored waves with the rudder’ (Ótt II,20). More usually, it is with alarger part of the ship that the king parts the waves: hraustr þjóðkonungr skarsalt héltum húfi ‘the bold king of the people scored the salt with icy hull’ (ArnIII,2); léztu vatn slitna of þunnri sk�r ‘you caused the water to tear asunderaround the thin planking’ (ÞjóðA III,9); reistu gœði glæstum gjalfrstóðum ‘youcarved the sea with adorned sea-horses [ships]’ (B�lv 8, rather mixing his meta-phors); allvaldr réð rísta haf austr stáli ‘the ruler carved the sea in the east withthe prow’ (BjH 3); atseti Hleiðrar réð rísta þangs láð sunda m�rum ‘the ruler ofLejre carved the land of seaweed [sea] with strait-horses [ships]’ (Steinn I,2,again a splendidly mixed metaphor). The verb rísta ‘carve’ also appears in Valg11, although without an instrumental ship or ship-part. This verb is one whichoccurs frequently in runic inscriptions, describing the action of inscribing therunes,90 and this metaphor of carving the sea implies the same kind of knowledgeand mastery in the sea-captain as in the rune-carver. But it should be noted thatthe ship can also be described as cutting or slicing the waves, without any humanagency: súð sneið ‘the hull sliced’ (Hharð 4); eikikj�lr reist �rðigt vatn ‘theoaken keel carved the steep water’ (ÞjóðA III,8); flaust klufu flóð ‘ships split thestream’ (ÞjóðA III,9). In Sigv II,1 the reconstructed reading sund sk�ru can beunderstood by taking a subject from the first half of the stanza, either ‘the shipsscored the sound’ (Fsk, 175), or the king (Óláfr) and the jarl (Sveinn). The latterseems preferable, since the two leaders are the subjects of all the verbs in the firsthalf of the stanza.

The nine skills in which the twelfth-century earl of Orkney, R�gnvaldr (whowas born in Norway, the home of skiing), claimed expertise included rowing,knowledge of both books and runes, and gliding on skis (Rv 1). Thus, skiing, likerune-carving, could also be a metaphor for sailing. Arnórr, in a stanza on theNorwegian king Magnús, figures the ship as a ‘ski of the sea’, and its captain asan accomplished skier, using an appropriate verb and an appropriatesea-kenning: mildingr rennir sævar skíði Meita hlíðar ‘the ruler runs the ski ofthe sea [ship] across the slopes of Meiti [a sea-king→sea]’ (Arn II,18). Similarly,


90 The instances are too numerous to document here, but see e.g. SRR s.v. r�sta.

Haraldr renndi byrskíðum ‘Haraldr ran with wind-skis’ (Þfagr 6), an appropriateimage of a Norwegian king sailing, and descending on the non-skiing nation ofDenmark.

Shipwreck and landing

Not all sea-voyages reached their desired end, and runic memorials, with theirfactual approach, sometimes record drownings at sea. The verb drunkna ‘drown’is used to describe the deaths of the commemorated or someone else in nineinscriptions in the corpus.91 In some of these the deaths were probably local,while others give details which make it clear that the deaths occurred at sea,sometimes on far-flung voyages (Sö 39, Livonia; Sö 83, England).

Such failure was not appropriate for commemoration in skaldic praise poems,and the poets show their heroes approaching their destination and landing safely.They can usually see their goal before arriving there: Eiríkr sailed svá náar landi,at knátti séa enska v�llu ‘so near to land that one could see the English plains’(ÞKolb III,9); for Óláfr Bálagarðssíða lá brimskíðum at barði ‘Bálagarðssíða laybefore the surf-skis’ [ships’] prows’ (Sigv I,3); Valgarðr tells Haraldr sáttuSigtún, þás sædríf létti ‘you saw Sigtuna, when the sea-spray lessened’ (Valg 5).The method of landing depended on the conditions, of course, and the skaldiccorpus does not give us much in the way of detail. But it is said that Knútr renndilangskipum útan at eyrar grunni ‘Knútr ran his longships from the sea onto theground of sand/gravel’ (ÞKolb III,10); similarly, when Haraldr landed on Sicily,b�rð renndusk at j�rðu ‘the prows ran onto the land’ (B�lv 4). The ship ofMagnús, on a raid in Denmark, simply hefr numit staðar í miðju landi ‘stoppedin the middle of the country’ (ÞjóðA IV,1). Returning from Russia, Eiríkr wasable to lenda ‘land’ in Denmark (Mark I,5).

In ÞjóðA I,2, Magnús góði’s followers hlóðu húnskript í Sigtúnum ‘took downthe sail in Sigtuna’. The basic meaning of hlaða is ‘to pile up’ and here the verbpresumably refers to the folding of the sail into a heap after it has been takendown from the mast, allowing the ship to approach harbour under oarpower, orjust possibly after landing, if they were able to sail direct to a jetty.

Anchoring offshore has already been discussed (pp. 166–8, above), whileSigvatr, on a visit to Rouen, claims létk b�rð fest við enn vestra arm Rúðuborgar‘I had the prow fastened to the western arm of the fortification in Rouen’ (SigvV,1). Presumably this was some sort of jetty in that position, and Sigvatr’s state-ment is borne out by what we know of the topography of eleventh-centuryRouen. In particular, I am tempted to think that Sigvatr laid up at the ‘Donjon’, aU-shaped structure on the river, thought to be the old ducal residence (withstreet-name evidence of an anchoring point along its west side), west of the new


91 D 379, Sö 39, Sö 83, Sö 318, Vg 174, U 29, U 214, U 455, Gs 7. U 214 comes at the veryend of the Viking Age, and the verb also occurs in D 190, which is too early for the corpus.See Wulf 1997 for an exhaustive analysis of these inscriptions.

ducal residence, the ‘Tour’, built c.1024 (Gauthiez 1992). The date is almost toogood to be true: Finnur Jónsson dates Sigv V to 1025–6 and in this stanza hetalks of having been in Rouen the previous year.

Disembarkation was called uppganga (f.), in the skaldic corpus used of thedisembarkation of warriors on their way to fighting on land (Arn III,16; ArnVI,12; Þham I,5). The OE upgang is used in the same sense in The Battle ofMaldon, 87, as is the equivalent verbal phrase g�ngum upp ‘let us go ashore’ inLiðsm 1. The disembarking warriors were generally crew as well as militarymight on the ships, and the next chapter will consider different ways of referringto seaborne warriors, ships’ crews, and the manning of fleets.


5

The Crew, the Fleet and Battles at Sea

This song for mariners and all their ships.

WHITMAN

The skaldic praise poems, with their focus on the leader and his often grandioseambitions, frequently refer to the organisation of large fleets of warships, andthis will be discussed below. For information about the crew and command ofindividual ships, we need to turn primarily to the evidence of runic inscriptions,which usefully commemorate a different class of person from the eleventh-century kings celebrated in skaldic poetry, with their great fleets and majorbattles, providing evidence of a range of vocabulary to do with the different rolesand functions on board ship.

Manning a ship

The owner

Whether the types of people commemorated in late Viking Age runic inscrip-tions belonged to a class of ship-owners is difficult to say, as the evidence isminimal. Three runic inscriptions certainly refer to the owners of ships: two ofthese indicate that the ship was jointly owned, while one was owned by a singleman.1 D 68 commemorates �zurr saxi, a man who is said to have been the félagiof those remembering him (see discussion of this word in the next chapter), butthe inscription states that he owned a ship with another man, who is not one ofthe commissioners. In D 335, on the other hand, the commissioner of the monu-ment owned a ship together with the man he is commemorating. The same mancommemorates his brother in D 334, who is said to have died in the north ívíkingu (see ch. 2 on this word). Since both rune stones form part of a compositemonument with a mound and five other (non-runic) stones, it is quite likely that

1 Moltke’s suggestion that the fragmentary D EM1985:265 commemorates someone ‘who[owned a ship with . . .’ must remain a conjecture.

all three men participated in a joint expedition. The fact that the brother is notmentioned as having been a part of the joint ownership arrangement is notconclusive: it is equally possible, either that he was, for instance, too young orpoor to co-own the ship, and went along as crew, or that his joint ownership withhis brother was such a normal thing that it was not considered necessary tomention it in the inscription.

In U 778, a mother and father commemorate their son Banki (or Baggi) is ati

ain sir skib ‘who owned a ship alone’ and who died in the east with Ingvarr (seefig. 5.1). The stone is large and well-made, and the text is either consciously inverse, or at least in highly stylised prose (Hübler 1996, 97–8). Even if the expres-sion einn sér ‘alone’ is not emphatic (SR VIII, 360), it seems likely that the son’ssole ownership was unusual, and certainly something his parents were proud of,as reflected in the quality of the monument. The expression einn átti is paralleledin a number of runic inscriptions which refer to the sole ownership of land, mostof them by the impressive (or at least boastful) Jarlabanki (U 127, U 164, U 212,U 261, U 331, U 337).

In U 348, it is said of the deceased that an ati bo i þorsulmi ok i rolstam

-kibliþ ‘he owned a farm in Torshulma and a skiplið in Rolsta’ (see fig. 5.2).Most commentators have assumed that a skiplið was a crew (SRR; Varenius 1998builds a whole book on this premise). However, the collocations of eiga ‘to own’sit uneasily with any human relationships other than familial ones and it is usedof ships and property as just noted, so this inscription will be discussed further,under lið, below.

The captain

Banki, who was commemorated in U 778, not only owned a ship, but austr

stu[rþi] i ikuars liþ ‘steered (it) east in Ingvarr’s lið’. Both this collocation withownership, and the skaldic examples of the verb stýra, discussed above (ch. 4),show that ‘steering’ a ship normally involved commanding it as well as the morelimited action of guiding the tiller. For this reason, most scholars have tended tointerpret the derived noun stýrimaðr ‘steersman’ (m., pl. stýrimenn) as some-thing more of a ship’s captain, the man in charge of the ship (who may often havealso been its owner). The word is recorded in a mixed bag of at least six runicinscriptions (D 1, Sö 161, U 922, U 1011, U 1016, U FV1976:104).2 As Düwel(1987, 328–9) has pointed out, the range of contexts in these inscriptions is wide,and the word could be used in association with trade, war and ‘Wiking’. In somecases, the term appears to be a job description, in others more of a title. Thus, inD 1, it is said of the commemorated that han uas sturimatr ‘he was astýrimaðr’, which sounds like a description of his role on board ship. He is also

The Crew, the Fleet and Battles at Sea 181

2 Ruprecht’s suggestion (1958, 73) that the fragmentary U 1037 also contained this word isplausible in that the rune stone was found in the same geographical area in and aroundUppsala as four of the six other instances, although it must remain conjectural.


5.1 The Svinnegarn stone (U 778). Photo: Judith Jesch.

Image not available


5.2 The Näs rock (U 348), showing the final part of the inscription with the wordskibliþ. Photo: Judith Jesch.

Image not available

called a drengr, is commemorated as a félagi, and died when drengjar ‘besiegedHedeby’. This vocabulary is that of the close-knit war-band (see ch. 6) andsuggests that Eiríkr was their (best?) helmsman, rather than their leader. Twoinscriptions commemorate a man who was a ‘good stýrimaðr’ (Sö 161 and UFV1976:104), and this can be linked with the statement in U 654 that is kuni ual

knari stura ‘he could steer his/a kn�rr well’ in which the verb is similarly modi-fied by the equivalent adverb vel. All of these can be taken to be extolling thedeceased for his seamanship (Gustavson 1976, 105).3

However, in two inscriptions the word is in apposition to the name of thecommissioner of the monument, suggesting it is being used more as a title,equivalent to ‘Captain’. U 1011, commissioned by Vígmundr stýrimaðr as amemorial to his wife and himself in his own lifetime, gives no further informa-tion on his nautical activities. In U 1016, the commissioner Ljótr stýrimaðr iscommemorating his sons, one of whom died at home, having ‘steered a kn�rr’ tothe harbours of Greece. Whether the son had his own ship, or whether he was ahelmsman on his father’s ship is impossible to say, but it is clear that the father’srole, at any rate, was that of captain of a ship, or perhaps even commander of asmall fleet. Similarly, Ingifastr, commemorated in U 922 as a stýrimaðr whotravelled abroad to Greece, is likely to have had a commanding position.

The crew

A collective noun for the crew members of a ship is recorded on the lost runestone U 349, where it is said of the deceased that [on furs uti miþ ala skibin] ‘hedied at sea/abroad with the whole skipan’.4 A very similar statement on a runestone from Bornholm suggests that the individual members of this crew werecalled skipari (m., pl. skiparar): truknaþi han uti meþ ala skibara ‘he drownedat sea/abroad with all his/the skiparar’ (D 379). As this inscription is a late onefrom Bornholm, it is not impossible, though I think unlikely, that what the textactually says is ‘he died at sea/abroad with Ali skipari’ where the word is used asin the modern (English and Scandinavian) ‘skipper’ to mean ‘captain’ (a possi-bility suggested in DR, 436). However, a further inscription clearly distinguishesbetween the leader or commander of a ship and his crew (Sö 171). Although theinscription is badly damaged and partly missing, it can be reconstructed ascommemorating a skeiðar vísi ‘leader of a skeið’ who died in Russia með skipara‘with the members of his crew’. The word vísi m. is commonly used of a leaderin West Norse poetry, including skaldic poems, though I believe the collocationwith a ship-word is unique to this inscription. Since only one ship appears to be


3 When borrowed into Irish, the word sdiurasmann (from an ON stýrismaðr) is used incontexts which make quite clear that it means helmsman (e.g. CCS, xii, 42, 100). Here thevariant form with the first element in the genitive may be significant.

4 The normal ON term for ‘crew’ is skipan (or skipun) f., and the spelling in this now-lostinscription may be a mistake by Peringskiöld who missed the cross-bar of the a when herecorded the text.

involved, it is clear enough that the word skipari is here used of the members ofthat ship’s crew.

In several other inscriptions, the word occurs in a genitival collocation whichmakes clear that a skipari was subordinate to someone else. These occurrencesare particularly difficult to interpret, since it is possible that a skipari who wassubordinate to some higher leader was still a man of some standing and responsi-bility, perhaps even a ship’s captain, and this is how Düwel (1987, 329–31) isinclined to understand the word. He suggests a contrast with the stýrimaðr, whois both owner and captain of the ship, while a skipari is someone who captains aship on behalf of another who is the owner. For Düwel, this interpretation is es-pecially indicated where that other person is named in such a way that it is clearhe is of high social rank, as in Sm 42, where the commemorated was the skipariof hrhls kunuks ‘King Haraldr(?)’. Interpretation of this inscription is hamperedby our not knowing which King Haraldr is meant, and indeed whether the runicsequence hrhls represents that name at all. Nevertheless, there is no doubt hewas a king. D 82, D 218, possibly D 275, and Sö 335 all mention that thedeceased was (or were) the skipari of a named person, while in D 363 theunnamed commissioner of the monument specifies himself in this way. In D 82,the commemorated skiparar ‘belong’ to the commissioner of the monument,who was named but whose name does not survive in this fragmentary inscrip-tion. The normal meaning of skipari e-s in ON prose is defined by OGNS as‘Person som er med paa samme Fartøi’ and that meaning cannot be excludedfrom any of these instances, especially D 82 and D 218, where the commemo-rated skiparar are in the plural. However, with the exception of D 82, we do needto ask why a third party otherwise unconnected with raising the monument isnamed, and whether this suggests that that person was prominent in some way. Itis unlikely that a randomly-selected crew-member of the same status as thecommemorated would be named in this way. Therefore, Düwel is probably rightto argue that these skiparar were not just fellow crew members, but subordinateto the named person in some way. Whether this necessarily meant they werecaptains on the ships of absentee owners is, however, less likely, as demonstratedby Sö 335. This commemorates Ósníkinn who died in the east ‘with Ingvarr’ butwho was ksibari hulmstains ‘Holmsteinn’s skipari’. It is clear that Ingvarr wasthe leader of the expedition which consisted of a number of ships. It seems mostlikely that Holmsteinn was the captain of one of these ships, on which Ósníkinnwas a crew member, rather than that Holmsteinn sent his ship on the expeditioncaptained by Ósníkinn.

The simplest explanation which accounts for all the instances is that skiparimeans ‘member of a ship’s crew’. Where the word occurs in a genitival colloca-tion with a personal name, that name is most likely that of the captain of the ship.Even the apparent social anomaly of D 82, in which a captain(?) commemorateshis (lower-status) crew members is not unparalleled in Danish inscriptions: wecan compare D 3 in which a king commemorates his retainer. The meaning‘member of a ship’s crew, sailor’ is also found for OE scipere (e.g. ASC 1046E).

The runic corpus provides one more word which may be associated with a


ship’s crew, the common ON m�tunautr (m., pl m�tunautar) ‘mess-mate,companion’ (U 385). Neither the word itself nor this particular instance needimply a nautical context, as it could be used of any companions who pooled theirvictuals. If however it is indeed the origin of the French word matelot ‘sailor’(AEW), the nautical usage must have been common.

There is relatively little overlap between the runic and the skaldic corpus intheir vocabulary for the members of a ship’s crew. Þjóðólfr Arnórsson does usethe expression �ll skipun Jóta konungs ‘the whole crew of the king of the Jutes’when noting that they were all dead áðr d�glingr náði at støkkva á land ‘beforethe prince was able to flee onto land’ (ÞjóðA III,15). Other words apparentlyused for a crew include s�gn (f., pl. sagnir) and sókn (f., pl. sóknir). S�gn justmeans ‘assemblage of people’, but its use in the kenning Ullar asks�gn ‘crew ofthe ship of Ullr [shield→warriors]’ (Eskál III,2) suggests a usual termskip(s)s�gn, which does indeed appear in prose sources (OGNS). Every winter,Arnórr would exhort the followers of Earl Þorfinnr at drinking parties, callingthem skipa sagnir ‘ships’ crews’ (Arn V,1). Sókn is etymologically a ‘seeking’,and so can mean ‘attack, battle’, as very commonly in skaldic verse. Themeaning ‘assemblage of people’ (eventually with a religious connotation: ‘con-gregation, parish’) is not recorded in skaldic verse except in Sigv VII,3, wherethe crew killed on Erlingr Skjálgsson’s ship are called skipsókn Erlings. Sigvatruses sókn in the meaning ‘attack, battle’ elsewhere in this poem (Sigv VII,2,10),but in this stanza he needed a rhyme with Bókn, the location of the battle, andused a word whose new, Christian, meaning was probably just developing inNorway. The poem as a whole is an unusual glorification of an opponent ofSigvatr’s usual patron, Óláfr Haraldsson, and has a slight Christian tinge to it.

The word sessi (m., pl. sessar) is derived from sess n. ‘paired rowing bench’ (aword not preserved in the skaldic corpus), and refers to one who shares thatbench (Foote and Wilson 1974, 235; see chapter 4 for discussion of what rowerssat on). One skaldic example reflects this camaraderie of the rowing-bench: inSigv XIII,5, the poet addresses his sessi Teitr directly, recalling their joint partic-ipation in Óláfr’s campaigns. Otherwise, the poets use this connotation of inti-macy to characterise the leader being praised, especially to humanise him. Inthese examples, the shared seat need not be on board ship. Thus, both Hákon jarl(seggja sessi ‘bench-mate of warriors’, Tindr I,3) and Óláfr Tryggvason (þjóðarsessi ‘bench-mate of the troop’, Hfr III,2) are everyone’s friend. In Arn V,3, onthe other hand, Þorfinnr, who is only a jarl, is elevated by being called þengilssessi ‘bench-mate of the monarch’. Ótt II,12 uses a word with the same meaning,þopti (m., pl. þoptar, derived from þopta f.), in a similar way. Óláfr Haraldsson,returning from England to claim Norway, is called skj�ldunga þopti ‘bench-mateof Skj�ldungs’ (a dynastic term for Danish kings, though it could be used for anyking). Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson speculates that this expression hints at Óláfr’s jointmartial activities with Æthelred in England (Hkr II, 35), although sinceskj�ldunga is in the plural, it is more likely to refer to his joint activities with thesons of Æthelred, as described by Snorri (Hkr II, 33–4).


The fleet and the troop

Most of the activities described in this book would have involved the use of anumber of ships sailing in company, in many cases such a large number that theycould reasonably be called a ‘fleet’. Both the runic and the skaldic corpusprovide evidence for words used for a number of ships sailing in company,although this vocabulary can be confusing, since it is often difficult to distin-guish whether the words are being used of the ships, their crews, or both. Thereis also a problem of interpretation in deciding to what extent any fleets were adhoc arrangements, or part of a complex and centralised system in which the kingcould call up, and the inhabitants of every district were required to provide,manned ships for the defence of the nation.

lið

A word of common occurrence in both the runic and the skaldic corpus is lið (n.,pl. lið) with a wide range of meanings. The basic meaning appears to be ‘groupof people’ (AEW, OGNS), with other meanings such as ‘troop’, ‘retinue’, ‘help,assistance’ and even ‘fleet’ all specialisations of this primary one.5 The word isdiscussed here because both the runic and the skaldic instances have collocationswhich suggest that the word could also be used of a company of ships (with orwithout their crews).

One such instance from the runic corpus is U 778, already discussed in severalplaces above. In this inscription, the commemorated son owned a ship and austr

stu[rþi] i ikuars liþ ‘steered/commanded it eastwards in Ingvarr’s lið’. Here, theword lið must refer to the company of ships that went east on the ill-fated expedi-tion led by Ingvarr (similarly in U 439, although without using the word lið).There is a similar nautical connotation in Sö 338, where the deceased and hisbrother are said to have been bistra mana a lanti auk i liþi uti ‘the best of menin the country [or, ‘on land’] and out in the lið’. Both the contrast with land andthe adverb úti ‘out (at sea)’ suggest that here lið means at least a shipborne host,if not a fleet. It is also said that the deceased, who died in battle in Russia, wasliðs forungi ‘leader of the lið’, presumably of the whole expedition, men, ship(s)and all. This particular expedition need not have involved more than one ship,though it may have done, for the quality of the monument suggests that thebrothers were of some wealth and status.

The other instances of lið in runic inscriptions mostly have military connota-tions, but not necessarily nautical ones. A lið is generally something in which the


5 Lindow’s suggestion (1976, 72) that lið is a ‘verbal abstract’ of líða, and thereforeoriginally meant ‘a going, an expedition’, may or may not be etymologically correct, but isnot relevant to the period under discussion here, where it is clear that the primary meaningis of a collection of people. The fact that a group of people could go on an expedition doesnot prove the etymology.

commemorated died, often abroad (Vg 184, Sö 160, Sö 217, Sö 254, U 611, N184). Insofar as such expeditions had to travel by ship, the word lið could encom-pass the idea of a fleet and might in some cases even involve death in a sea-battle,but this is not the primary connotation and the meaning ‘troop’ is the predomi-nant one. As Lindow (1976, 74) says, ‘a lið was an expedition of a warrior bandfunctioning abroad under a single leader’. In several cases, this leader is speci-fied, in a genitival collocation of the type ‘X’s lið’ (Sö 217, Sö 254, U 611, U837), while twice the commemorated are said to have been liðs forungi ‘com-mander of a/the lið’ (Sö 338, U 112).

In D 209, the word lið occurs in a particularly obscure part of the text. AsLerche Nielsen has pointed out (1997, 42–3), it is clear that the word meanssome kind of ‘group’, but not at all clear what kind. Similarly, U 1161 stands outin that the word apparently refers to two rune-carvers, the lið or colleagues of athird rune-carver.

The word lið is very common in skaldic poetry, again with a range of mean-ings. Its wide semantic coverage reinforced its usefulness to poets as ashort-stemmed monosyllabic noun of the type required in the fourth syllable ofthe six-syllable dróttkvætt line (Craigie 1900, 343–6). In most cases, lið can betranslated as ‘troop’, though often in a nautical context, or as ‘assistance’. Theoccurrences of lið in the skaldic corpus (at least sixty-four) are numerous, andthis discussion will be restricted to those with a strong nautical connotationincluding a few in which the word must mean ‘fleet’.

The troop or retinue of a shipborne war-leader would presumably also act ashis crew, as in the case of Ótt II,13 which describes the capabilities of Óláfr’s liðon the difficult voyage home to Norway from England. A number of skaldicstanzas describing military expeditions by sea or sea-battles reflect this dual roleof the lið (Tindr I,4; Hfr III,13; Sigv XIII,5; B�lv 4; Halli 2; Steinn I,4; SteinnIII,7).6 In the same contexts, the meaning of lið can be extended so that it is notclear whether it refers to a fleet of ships or to the warriors crewing that fleet, ormost probably to both (Eyv II,14; Hókr 1; Sigv I,10; Sigv X,5; Þloft II,2; ÞjóðAIV,19; Gísl I,14).7 However, some stanzas show a distinction between the lið ascrew, and the ships they are sailing in (Sindr 5; Steinn III,11; Gísl I,3).

In the kenning lýg�tu lið ‘lið of the cod-path [sea]’ (Sigv X,3), the meaning‘fleet’ is likely, especially in the immediate context, which says that Óláfr‘caused (it) to go south out of (the River) Nið’.8 A clear example of the meaning‘fleet’ is ÞjóðA III,12, in which Haraldr’s dreki is described as both oddr liðs‘point of the lið’ and brjóstr leiðangrs ‘breast of the leiðangr’, i.e. it is sailing atthe head of a wedge-shaped formation of the fleet (see below for further


6 I have not included stanzas where, although the lið has arrived by ship, the battle is clearlyon land (e.g. ÞKolb III,13).

7 Compare also HHuI,49, where lið is used just as the focus of the poem switches from theships to the men.

8 The reading is that of Hkr II, 270. Fsk, 184, has a text that has to be construed slightlydifferently, but with the same overall meaning.

discussion of leiðangr). Here, there is no hint of the meaning ‘troop, crew’. Simi-larly, in Valg 1, lið is the object of the verb halda, normally used of a captainsteering a ship (see above). The subject of the verb is King Haraldr, and the lið isequivalent to the skeiðr (pl.) of this stanza, the fleet he is commanding on anexpedition to Denmark. The same collocation of halda liði occurs in Steinn III,6,in the context of Óláfr kyrri’s return from England (with a reduced fleet, butclearly more than one ship, cf. Steinn III,5; ASC 1066D records that Óláfr left thecountry with twenty-four ships).9

Thus, there is evidence that a company or fleet of ships could be called lið inthe late Viking Age, as an extension of the normal meaning of ‘troop’, becauseno fleet could go anywhere without its crew of (warrior-)sailors, but it wascertainly not the normal word. The meaning ‘ship’ for lið (compare OE lid, e.g.Andreas 398, 403, 1707; Battle of Brunanburh 34) is not attested in either therunic or the skaldic corpus. Despite the impression given by some commentators(Björkman 1900–02, 164; Simek 1982, 135), lið meaning ‘ship’ is hardlyattested in ON at all (LP, OGNS) and is unlikely to be the origin of ME liþ ‘fleet’as they suggest.10 Indeed, although it is frequently asserted (e.g. Lindow 1976,78) that there is a ME word lid, liþ or lith meaning ‘fleet’, there is no example ofit in MED. That records just one example of lith, from ASC 1069E, discussedbelow (where it is argued ‘fleet’ is a better translation), to which it assigns themeaning ‘a body of fighting men, army’. However, ON lið ‘fleet’ was borrowedinto OE, even if it did not survive (long) into ME. The examples of liþ in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle most often, like the skaldic examples discussed above,refer both to the fleet and to the warrior-sailors of the fleet (ASC 1052E,1066C,D, 1068D, 1069E). But some instances may reflect a narrower meaningof just ‘fleet’: 1052C,D þæt lið þæt on Sandwic læg ‘the lið that lay at Sand-wich’, with its collocation with licgan ‘lie’, a verb normally used of ships (also1071D), and especially 1055C, when Ælfgar acquires in Ireland a lið thatconsists of eighteen ships apart from his own.11


9 Similarly, in HHuI,32, lið is the object of the verb stýra and must again mean ‘fleet’. In thesame stanza, the compound feiknalið ‘threatening lið’, the object of the verb fœra, is moreambiguous, as the first element of the compound may suggest warriors, or just the size ofthe fleet.

10 The main evidence comes in SnESkskm, 14, 109, where it is twice said that lið heitir skip.Since skip could also be plural, the statement is actually ambiguous and could be sayingthat lið means ‘fleet of ships’.

11 Correctly translated in Whitelock et al. 1961, 130. Garmonsway’s convoluted translation(1953, 184) ‘and added a force of eighteen ships to his own household troops’ arises fromhis conviction that lið can only mean ‘(household) troops’ (p. 274). Classen and Harmer(1926, 123) also correctly give ‘fleet’ as the meaning for all the examples of lið in versionD. John of Worcester’s translation of these passages shows that he too understood lið as‘fleet’ (CJW II, 568, 576).

Compounds with -lið

Given that lið could mean ‘company of ships, fleet’ (certainly in U 778, probablyin Sö 338), it is possible that the compound skiplið in U 348 should be translatedas ‘collection of ships’ rather than ‘ship’s retinue’ as it is usually interpreted(SRR; SamRun). The significance of the inscription as a whole, in which it is saidthat the commissioner ati bo i þorsulmi ok i rolstam -kibliþ ‘owned a farm inTorsholma and a skiplið in Rolsta’, has been variously understood. For Wessén(SR VII, 94) Lifsteinn was the farmer at Torsholma, who got help from nearbyRolsta for the manning of his trading ship. For Gustavson (1991, 116–18),Lifsteinn was a king’s steward on a large farm, sharing ship-service with the menof Rolsta, and the inscription provides early evidence of the Swedish leiðangr-system. In both interpretations, it is assumed that skiplið refers to a crew whowill or must man Lifsteinn’s ship. However, the use of the verb eiga is unusual insuch a context. It has already been pointed out that this verb can be used of theownership of property or, in the context of human relationships, of close familyones.12 There is no evidence that it was used for the kind of relationship ofservice that has been suggested for U 348. My suggestion that Lifsteinn ownedmore than one ship in Rolsta is not incompatible with the archaeologicalevidence. Certainly, Rolsta would have been connected to the sea at the time.Although it is more likely that a land-owner who could organise more than oneship would be based at the large settlement of Vada just to the south, rather thanat Rolsta, it may be significant that Vada is in a different hundare (a districtsystem perhaps related to the introduction of the levy system). Rolsta andSkånela to its west would have been the only settlements in Seminghundra thathad access to the sea. If we do not assume any connection with the laterleiðangr-system in Sweden, it is perfectly possible that Lifsteinn was in fact theowner of more than one ship and was able to organise a small private fleet ofsome sort, based in Rolsta.13

Much has been made of the word þingalið, which occurs only once in aViking Age source, in the inscription on U 668 (see fig. 5.3).14 This is one of apair of stones in which two men commemorate their father (U 668) and theirbrother (U 669). Of the father, Geiri, it is said that he uestr sat i þikaliþi ‘sat[had a place] in the west in the þingalið’. It is usually assumed that vestr in thiscontext means England, and that the þingalið was ‘the famous body of retainersof Canute the Great, the bodyguard called þingalið’ (Jansson 1987, 76, similarly


12 Eiga is used of the ownership of land in D 280, Öl 69, Sö 145, Vg 4, U 127, U 164, U 165,U 212, U 261, U 331, U 337, and of a ship in D 68, D 335 and U 778. It is used of marriagein D 293, Sö 52, U 115, U 489, N 61, Kirk Michael 3, and of paternity in G 136. In IR 10 itis used of the ownership of luck, while Sö 202, U 414 and U 973 are too fragmentary tointerpret or uncertain.

13 I am grateful to Björn Ambrosiani for his advice on this.14 Lund (1986, 110) misleadingly asserts that this word ‘appears on a couple of Swedish rune

stones’.


5.3 The Kålsta stone (U 668), with the sequence i þikaliþi on the bottom right.Photo: Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

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SR VIII, 153–4, Ruprecht 1958, 150). This interpretation relies heavily on theoccurrence of the word tinglith in Sven Aggesen’s Law of the Retainers, whichdescribes just such a body (Christiansen 1992, 12, 33, 80). However, thistwelfth-century text cannot be assumed to be wholly accurate in its account ofKnútr’s English reign, let alone be used to explain a term that occurs on aSwedish rune stone. The problem of deciding what lið means in this compoundis exacerbated by the uncertainty of what the first element means. It is usuallyassumed to be the common ON word þing n. ‘assembly’, which might explaintinglith, but is less obviously relevant to þingalið, where the first element is inthe genitive plural. In any case, as Christiansen (1992, 12) points out, it is hardly‘usual to name an army or its members after an assembly or law-court’.

The semantics of the word þing are discussed by Foote (1984a), who identi-fies a range of meanings consisting of ‘thing, object’, ‘meeting’, ‘assembly’, and‘battle’, the last of these mainly or only as the base-word of a kenning with thismeaning. Although the meaning ‘battle’ appears to be secondary in skaldic verse,it may be appropriate for the runic corpus.15 A plural þing also occurs in Sö 33,where it is said of the commemorated that he antaþis austr at þikum ‘died eastin/at the þings’ (see fig. 5.4), where a meaning ‘battle’ would make sense (for theplural usage, compare ModE ‘go to/been in the wars’). In the light of this, wecould interpret the þingalið in which Geiri had his place as a troop or fleet dedi-cated to waging war, rather than Knútr’s immediate bodyguard. An interpretationof þinga- as an element signifying ‘battle(s)’ could also explain the two instancesin the skaldic corpus of þingamaðr (m., pl. þingamenn), which is otherwisealmost universally, but to my mind uncovincingly, interpreted as ‘member of theþingalið’, often assuming an intermediate form þingamannalið (e.g. SR VIII,153; Hkr II,19; Hofmann 1955, 75), which is attested in later prose sources butnot in the Viking Age.

ÞKolb III, 11 is a difficult stanza which has been interpreted in a variety ofways. But if we follow Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson (Hkr II, 32) and Bjarni Guðnason(Knýtl, 117–18), then it says that bláar eggjar skulfu of þingam�nnum ‘steel-blueblades trembled above the þingamenn’. From the context, it is not clear whichside these þingamenn are on, but it is clear that they are warriors. Poole’s inter-pretation (1987, 289–71; followed by Frank 1994, 108) of the þingamenn asrecipients of the poem may make for easier syntax, but depends on a rathercircular argument that þingamenn are men of the þingalið (SR VIII, 153) andtherefore the followers of the Scandinavian war-leaders in England.

In a single stanza attributed to King Haraldr’s official, Ulfr stallari, in 1066,the poet declares his attention to avoid the stafnrúm, the fighting area, of theking’s ship, because tveir skulu hrøkkva undan fyr einum þingamanni ‘two willhave to retreat before one þingamaðr’ (Ulfr). Like modern scholars, the authors


15 Although Foote attempts to do away with examples of the simplex þing meaning ‘battle’(except in a few cases where he argues that a legal metaphor is being used ironically), itwould be possible, in the light of Sö 33, to read some of his examples in this way, e.g. ArnV,9 and Gr,49 (Foote 1984a, 76, 81), both in the plural. See also Whaley 1998, 154, 238.


5.4 Detail of the Skåäng stone (Sö 33), showing the sequence at þikum.Photo: Judith Jesch.

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of the kings’ sagas which record this stanza (Msk, 265; Hkr III, 174–5) wouldlink this statement to the þinga(manna)lið. They explain that, in England, therewas a lið of þingamenn (Msk adds that they were mostly af danskri tungu ‘of theDanish tongue [Scandinavians]’) who were twice as good as Haraldr’s best men.But the saga-authors are clearly influenced by the later use of þingamannaliðand cannot be considered to provide reliable evidence. All we can gather fromthe stanza itself is that Ulfr preferred not to fight in the king’s ship when facedwith an enemy more than twice as good, whoever they were, and it is sufficient totranslate þingamaðr as ‘warrior’.

The form þingmaðr, in which the first element is in the singular, occurs once,in Sigv XI, 13 where, as we would expect, it refers to a man who attends theassembly. Although ON compounds in which the first element is in the genitiveplural are relatively rare, there is a parallel to þingamaðr ‘man of battles’ invígamaðr ‘man of killings’ (OGNS), though this is not recorded in the skaldiccorpus.

However, there may be another way of explaining the compounds in þinga-.Christiansen (1992, 80) suggests that the first element may be (or may be derivedfrom) the verb þinga ‘discuss, negotiate’, and points to the compound málamaðr‘person who is paid for service to another’.16 The parallel is not exact, asmálamaðr is compounded with the noun máli ‘(military) wages, service’ as itsfirst element, and not with a verb, and there is no evidence for an equivalent noun*þingi.17 However, máli does occur in the skaldic corpus in relevant contexts.Sigvatr refers to his relationship with Óláfr Haraldsson as máli (Sigv XIII,7) andHaraldr harðráði gekk á mála ‘entered (war-)service’ (B�lv 3) during hisByzantine period. A similar meaning may be present in the obscure Sigv V,8,preserved in only one manuscript, and the import of which is not entirelycertain.18 If we can accept these semantic links, a meaning ‘contracted man’ forþingamaðr and ‘contracted troop’ for þingalið would certainly work very well inthe contexts outlined above.19


16 The verb þinga occurs only once in the skaldic corpus (ÞjóðA III,21), where it has themore legal sense of ‘pronounce a verdict’, in a context in which fire is said to pronounce adeath-sentence on the inhabitants of Ringerike.

17 However, ausþiki in Sö 196, apparently referring to an assembly-site, seems to contain then. element þingi with that meaning, as in ModIce Alþingi.

18 Finnur Jónsson was not able to make full sense of this stanza (Skjd B I, 228), but linkedmáli with herr ‘army’ in a sentence which can be translated ‘you accustomed the army towages’. Kock’s interpretation of the stanza (NN § 636–7) does not involve the noun máli,though the overall context, of a war-leader who assures the loyalty of his followers withgenerosity, is the same. We may note that the first half of the stanza mentions an eið ‘oath,binding agreement’.

19 There is a parallel to this meaning in þingaprestr ‘contracted priest’ recorded in later prosesources (OGNS).

floti

An unequivocal word for ‘fleet’ in the skaldic corpus is floti (m., pl. flotar). It isused fairly consistently, when kings or chieftains lead large forces into battle atsea, or attack a land from seaward (Eyv II,13; Eyv III,2; Eskál III,7; Hallv 3;Þloft II,2; Arn II,9; Gísl I,3). Size is an important characteristic of a fleet, and theword can be modified by a suitable adjective such as breiðr ‘broad’ (Eyv III,2;Eskál III,7), ólítill ‘not small’ (Þloft II,2) or mikill ‘large’ (Arn II,9). These andother collocations make it clear that floti mostly refers to the ships rather than themen of the fleet: léztu flota bundit ‘you caused the fleet to be tied up’ (Hallv 3);fœrði flota út ór firði ‘he moved the fleet out of the fjord’ (Þloft II,2); sikling ýttiflota suðr ‘the prince drove the fleet south’ (Arn II,9).

Like lið, floti has an OE cognate, flota, that can mean ‘ship’, and again thismeaning is not attested in ON, unless it is assumed that the examples listed aboveuse lið in the meaning ‘ship’ synecdochically for the meaning ‘fleet’ (as Simek1982, 107, does), which seems to me unlikely in the contexts outlined above. OEflota ‘fleet’ is often used in contexts in which the men of the fleet are meant, aswell as or even instead of its ships. This is especially clear in ASC 1014E se flotaeall ge curon Cnut to cyninge ‘the whole fleet chose Knútr as king’ (see also ASC1002E). In ON this meaning can be seen in Gísl I,3, where floti is modified bythe adjectival phrases vel vígligr ‘very martial’ and vanr sigri ‘accustomed tovictory’, which are both more appropriate to warriors than to ships.

Floti and lið are thus semantic mirror images in ON. While floti refersprimarily to ships, but can be extended to include the men on those ships, liðrefers primarily to men, but can also be extended to the ships they travel on. It isnoteworthy that floti occurs right through the corpus, from the earliest to thelatest poems, suggesting that ‘fleets’ were common throughout the period underdiscussion. Another, and more problematic, word for such fleets is leiðangr.

leiðangr

This word for ‘fleet’ has been much discussed and I do not propose to rehearsethat discussion here, or to reopen the vexed question of the origins of medievalScandinavian leiðangr (or general levy) systems, in particular the date at whichsuch systems were introduced. Such a discussion lies outside the scope of thiswork since it cannot avoid consideration of sources and evidence outside the twocorpora being analysed here (see Lund 1996 for a review). The etymology of theword has also been much discussed (for the most recent contribution, with auseful summary, see Nilsson 1999, 49–53), but does not necessarily explainViking Age usage. It is useful, however, to survey the Viking Age occurrences ofleiðangr as the skaldic evidence has been relatively neglected in these discus-sions, covered in detail only by Malmros 1985 (and to some extent Kuhn 1991and Lund 1993), but both still in the context of the larger discussion.

The word leiðangr is recorded in runic databases, editions and dictionaries asoccurring in the inscription Gs 13, although the text actually has only lank. The


argument that this ought to be read as leiðangr is put at length by Sven B.F.Jansson (SR XV, 143–7), who recognises its audacity, but can see no other wordthat could have been intended. I rather agree with Thompson (1975, 108–9) thatthe suggestion is improbable and unprovable, and the conclusion must be thatthere is no reliable runic evidence for the word.

Leiðangr (m.) occurs five times in the skaldic corpus (Tindr I,9; ÞKolb III,4;ÞjóðA III,12; ÞjóðA IV,22; B�lv 8), in stanzas dated up to a century apart. In allfive instances the word can be translated as ‘fleet’. As with both lið and floti, thisconcept can include men as well as ships, although leiðangr is more like floti inthat the primary meaning seems to be ‘fleet of ships’, with less emphasis on thecrews. This is indicated by the verbal collocations in ÞKolb III,4 leiðangr renndilangt með landi ‘the leiðangr ran a long way down the coast’ and in ÞjóðA III,12lét dreka skolla fyr miðju leiðangrs brjósti; þat vas oddr liðs ‘he caused the drekito rock in the middle of the leiðangr’s breast; it was the point of the lið’(discussed above in connection with lið).20 In ÞjóðA IV,22 and B�lv 8 the termleiðangr can include the men of the fleet, although the imagery in both stanzas isprimarily to do with ships. Thus, in ÞjóðA IV,22, Haraldr is leiðangrs vísi ‘leaderof the leiðangr’, but the stanza says he læsir l�nd herskipa br�ndum ‘locks theland with the brandar of warships’, and in B�lv 8 Haraldr is told bjótt leiðangr afláði f�gru ‘you called out a leiðangr from the fair land’, and the stanza goes on todescribe how the fleet sailed to Denmark. As far as the skaldic contexts go, thereis little difference between the ways in which floti and leiðangr are used.

Malmros (1985, 113) points out that ÞjóðA IV,22, as well as containing theword leiðangr, also uses the term almenningr (m., pl. almenningar). In the laterNorwegian laws, this can be used for the general levy that the king could call upas part of the defence of the realm, and Malmros contends that this stanzademonstrates the existence of the levy system during the reign of Haraldrharðráði. A closer look both at the word itself, and at the context in which itappears, suggests however that this is to read too much into this stanza. The wordalmenningr has a range of meanings in the Scandinavian languages, both generaland legal, but most frequently to do with land or property used in common(KLNM I, 95–103; Larson 1935, 412). Its use in the context of the provisions forthe levy in the Gulathing Law §297 (NGL I, 97) suggests not so much a technicalterm as a descriptive one, distinguishing between a ‘general levy’ when ‘everyseventh man shall be called into service’ and an alternative situation in which‘the terms [of muster] are easier’ (Larson 1935, 189).

In addition, the stanza needs to be considered in its poetic context. It is part ofa sequence of stanzas (ÞjóðA IV,18–24) preserved in ch. 60 of Snorri’s Haraldssaga Sigurðarsonar (Hkr III, 141–5). These form a clear, stylistically unified,group of stanzas, which are similar to and may have had some connection with


20 The rather unusual collocation with brjóst, humanising the image, seems to haveoccasioned the (certainly secondary) variant fyr lofðungs brjósti in the Hulda-Hrokkinskinna manuscripts (Skjd A I, 371).

Þjóðólfr’s Sexstefja (Fidjestøl 1982, 134, 172, 238–9; Poole 1991, 59–72). Thefirst four stanzas of this sequence describe the royal departure from Trondheim,the next three show different stages of the fleet’s approach to Denmark: st. 22shows it taking shelter from a storm, st. 23 shows it anchored in a(nother?)storm, and st. 24 shows it approaching the border at Götaälv where the king hasan appointment with King Sveinn of Denmark. It is true that the first four stanzas(18–21) describe only one ship (the king’s dreki or skeið), while st. 22 has shipsin the plural. Snorri explains this discrepancy by saying at this point that Haraldrhafði úti almenning at liði ok skipum ‘called out the general levy, both in troopsand ships’ (Hkr III, 143), but he was clearly influenced by the meanings thatleiðangr and almenningr had in his own time. It is otherwise not unknown forskaldic poets to use variable focus in their stanzas, moving between the king onhis ship and the rest of his fleet (see Þloft II,2–3; Arn II,9–10; ÞjóðA I,4). Buteven if Haraldr did call up ships as he sailed along the Norwegian coast, wecannot say that this happened as a result of an organised levy system. In st. 22,the focus is on the ships in Haraldr’s force, and the almenningr that liggr innanhverja vík í skerjum ‘takes shelter within each cove in the skerries’ is very much acollective term for the snekkjar, herskip and skeiðar that are also mentioned inthis stanza (Poole 1991, 61, translates ‘levy [of ships]’). Thus, it has to be read asa description of a storm-tossed fleet, and cannot stretch to providing evidence forcentralised military organisation.

The skaldic evidence shows that the word leiðangr was clearly known fromthe late tenth century onwards, while almenningr was known at least from themid-eleventh century. The first of these (like floti) simply means ‘fleet’, the latteris a very general term applicable to various kinds of collective situations. Bothwords were available and useful when the levy system was developed in Norwayand both developed technical meanings in that context, whenever that was.Unfortunately, the skaldic evidence is insufficient either to prove or disprove thedate at which those developments took place. In discussions of the levy system, itis important to distinguish between a meaning ‘expeditionary fleet’, for whichthe skaldic examples provide ample evidence, and the more specific meaning‘fleet called up according to the levy system described in the medieval Norwe-gian laws’, for which the skaldic examples do not provide any evidence. While itis therefore reductive of Lund (1993, 117) to claim that ‘the word leiðangrsimply means a campaign’, he is right to stress that the skaldic material does notand cannot provide evidence for an early introduction of the levy system and thatwe must look to other evidence for the date of that.

A brief excursion into some Irish evidence likewise suggests that the wordleiðangr does not demonstrate the existence of a levy system at any particulardate. The word laoidheang occurs in a number of early Irish texts and AlexanderBugge saw it as evidence for the tenth-century Irish ‘imitating . . . the Norsecustom of summons to arms, the leiðangr’ (CCS, 151).21 Yet it is notable that the


21 It also occurs in the twelfth-century Togal Troi ‘Destruction of Troy’, in the meaning

passage of Caithreim Cellachain Caisil which occasions this comment ofBugge’s, and which appears to contain a description of the muster, does notcontain the loan-word (CCS, 29). When laoidheang does appear in the text,Bugge translates it as ‘ship’ or ‘fleet’ (CCS, 25, 27, 82, 84). Whatever the date ofthis Irish text, it does not provide evidence for a levy-system in Scandinavia,only for a hardly surprising association between Scandinavia and fleets of ships.

The troop

Apart from the compounds with -lið as a second element, discussed above, thereare also a number of compounds with lið- as the first element recorded in theskaldic corpus. Most of these reinforce the primary meaning of ‘troop, army’(with perhaps a hint of ‘aid, assistance’), especially in those examples whichare abstract nouns, liðfæð f. ‘troop-fewness’ (Sigv XIII,19), liðv�n f. ‘troop-expectation [i.e. ‘expected troop’]’ (Ótt III,2), liðskostr m. ‘troop-choice’ (ArnII,5). In Gísl I,17, Magnús is described as a liðskelfir m. ‘troop-terrifier’, refer-ring to the enemies he made tremble.

The word liðsmaðr (m., pl. liðsmenn) ‘man of the lið’ occurs twice, both timesin the plural (Arn VI,15; ÞjóðA II,1). In a stanza describing Haraldr harðráði’sdeath, Arnórr notes that allir liðsmenn ens mæra mildings kuru meir heldr fallaof folksnaran fylki an vildi grið ‘all the liðsmenn of the famous king would ratherfall beside the battle-quick leader than desire a truce’. Although Whaley (1998,291–2) translates ‘liegemen’, it is not clear that the stanza really has such feudalconnotations. These depend partly on her reading ens milda mildings ‘thegenerous king’, from the Kringla manuscript, while Bjarni Aðalbjarnarsonchooses mæra which appears in Fagrskinna as well as some Heimskringla manu-scripts (Hkr III, 191) and which therefore seems preferable both stemmaticallyand otherwise. Haraldr’s troops at Stamford Bridge came to England by ship,and a nautical context is provided by the next stanza which recalls Haraldr’slaunching of a herskip from Niðaróss. It is thus most likely that the liðsmenn areHaraldr’s shipborne troop.

Þjóðólfr’s stanza is similarly about Haraldr, apparently describing hissuppression of the Poles on behalf of Iaroslav, Prince of Kiev (Hkr III, 70). Thepoet says liðsmanna réttr vasa léttr Læsum ‘the law of the liðsmenn was not easyfor the Poles’. Again, the liðsmenn would be Haraldr’s shipborne troop, althoughthe context is much less clear. However, there may be a nautical metaphor buriedin this stanza. Finnur Jónsson (Skjd I B, 338, and LP, s.v. réttr) translates ‘thechasing of the liðsmenn’, from réttr, referring to a ship’s running before the wind(OGNS). Even léttr can have a meteorological connotation, used of a gentlebreeze (LP, OGNS) so that the burden of the stanza is ‘there was no lessening of


‘ships’ (CCS, xii, xvii). CCS has also been dated to the twelfth century by some (seereferences in Williams 1997, 25), but the borrowing of the word into Irish couldnevertheless have been earlier.

the wind for the Poles driven before the liðsmenn’. Þjóðólfr was a poet whofrequently celebrated Haraldr’s ships and his sailing, and such a neat metaphorseems entirely appropriate, with the word liðsmenn chosen because it, too, canhave a nautical connotation.

The word is also found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. In ASC 1036E, þaliðsmen on Lunden ‘the liðsmen in London’ chose Harold Harefoot as regent ofEngland. We can compare this with ASC 1014E, where it was the flota that choseKnútr as king. In 1046E the word appears in the form litsmen, again fromLondon, and in 1047E, nine lits manna scipa ‘ships of litsmen’ are dismissed inLondon (see also 1050C). The connection with London is consistent, but theonly clearly nautical context is the annal for 1047E. The spelling litsmen mightsuggest a derivation from OE lid ‘ship’ (Campbell 1959, 480), but is more likelythe scribes’ reinterpretation of the word, for the contexts suggest that all threeexamples were intended to be the same word.22 Translating all of these examplesas ‘ship-men, sailors’ (ASC I, 369; Whitelock et al. 1961, 102, 113, 115) does notreally do justice to the word. Garmonsway (1955, 159, 169, 171, 274) translates‘(household) troops’. Swanton (1996, 159, 169, 171) is probably correct to trans-late all these instances as ‘men of the fleet’. This accords with the meaning of liðin the ASC, outlined above, and almost certainly represents a standing navalforce that existed from the time of Æthelred to the time of Edward (Hooper 1994,97–100).

Thus, it is clear that, in both ON and OE, liðsmenn are troops strongly associ-ated with a ship or a fleet, warrior-sailors in fact. The attribution in Knýtl, 116, oftwo stanzas to the liðsmenn who attacked England with Knútr shows a use of thisterm that would also have been correct in the Viking Age, and suggests a reliableand old tradition about the authorship of the poem now known asLiðsmannaflokkr (see also Knýtl, xcvi). The whole poem is preserved in LegS,48–52, where it is improbably attributed to St Óláfr, and begins with the warriorband coming ashore from their ships (Liðsm 1; Poole 1991, 86):

G�ngum upp, áðr Englaættl�nd farin r�ndumorðs ok miklar ferðirmalmregns stafar fregni:verum hugrakkar Hlakkar,hristum spjót ok skjótum,leggr fyr órum eggjumEngla gnótt á flótta.

Let us go ashore, before warriors and large militias learn that the Englishhomelands are being traversed with shields: let us be brave in battle,brandish spears and hurl them; great numbers of the English flee beforeour swords.


22 ASC E is a twelfth-century manuscript in which t is occasionally written for ð (Whitelock1954, 16).


5.5 Detail of the Karlevi stone (Öl 1), showing the sequence liþi sati.Photo: Judith Jesch.

5.6 Detail of the Sylten stone (Ög 155), showing the sequence hilfniki.Photo: Judith Jesch.

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A word derived from lið is liði (m., pl. liðar), which denotes a member ofsomeone’s lið. The examples are few, but come from both the runic and theskaldic corpus, and their contexts suggest the same semantic range as lið. In U479, the word liði occurs in the rune-carver’s signature: Ulfkell, liði of Lófi,carved the runes. This usage parallels that of U 1161, where the word lið simi-larly occurs in the part of the inscription to do with who carved the runes,although in a somewhat unclear context.

The remaining runic example, and the two examples from the skaldic corpus,all have to do with members of a shipborne troop or retinue. The Karlevi stone(Öl 1), on the Swedish island of Öland, was discussed in chapter 1. The inscrip-tion opens with a memorial formula which makes clear that the stone is to thememory of one Sibbi, son of Foldarr. Although the commissioner of the monu-ment is not named, the text states that hons liþi sati ‘a member of his lið placed’the monument (see fig. 5.5). The commemorated is described as a ruler inDenmark, and was clearly not from the small island of Öland. The memorialstanza uses poetic language to describe him both as a seafarer, indeed the captainof a ship, reið-Viðurr Yndils j�rmungrundar ‘god of the wagon of the wideground of the sea-king’, and as a warrior, dolga Þrúðar draugr ‘executor of thegoddess of battles’. His liði who organised the monument was a member of theshipborne troop led by Sibbi.23

The two examples of liði from the skaldic corpus occur in similar contexts:describing a sea-battle, and in a genitival collocation with the name of a leader.So, Sigv II,9 has Sveins liðar tying ships together before the battle of Nesjar,while Gísl I,12 mentions Magnúss liðar at the battle off Anglesey. The word alsooccurs in two stanzas which are anomalous in the corpus, but also fit the patternin one way or another. A stanza by an unknown Icelander known variously asÞórálfr or Þorvaldr in the manuscripts of Snorra Edda mentions Háreks liðar(SnESksm, 11).24 An anonymous poem in regular fornyrðislag, calledHaraldstikki and preserved in Snorri’s account of 1066 (Hkr III, 181) describesthe death of Valþjófs liðar at the battle of Fulford, according to the prose. It isnoteworthy that all of the skaldic examples are in the plural, while all of theexamples, both runic and skaldic, occur in genitival collocations, which corre-lates neatly with the practice, discussed above, of identifying a lið by the name ofits leader (Sö 217, Sö 254, U 611, U 837).


23 Although Bugge thought liði was a n. noun, with the same meaning as lið, rather than them. noun meaning ‘member of a lið’ (Brate and Bugge 1891, 266; repeated in SR I, 26), Iknow of no other examples of such a word. Brink 1999, 430–31, attempts to link theinstitution of the lið, implied on the Karlevi stone, with the place-name, ‘a cult-site forkarlar’, but admits that this is ‘nothing more than a caprice’.

24 Faulkes (SnESksm, 472) glosses Hárekr as an ‘unknown battle-leader’. As this name alsoappears as the name of a sea-king in the þulur (SnESksm, 109) there may be a nauticalconnotation.

Units of the fleet

Both the runic and the skaldic corpus record a word which can be interpreted as asubdivision of the fleet. Runic helfningr (m., pl. helfningar) and skaldichelfingr/helmingr (m., pl. helfingar/helmingar) etymologically mean ‘a half’ andrefer to some kind of subdivision, in these contexts of a military troop, whichmay or may not have been shipborne.

In Ög 155, a mother commemorates two sons, one of whom died i ikuars

hilfniki ‘in Ingvarr’s helfningr’ (see fig. 5.6). Ingvarr’s expedition was large, andinvolved many ships. Inscriptions often mention that the commemorated died onIngvarr’s expedition, most commonly using the phrase með Ingvari ‘withIngvarr’, or the word lið, as outlined above. It is likely that some smaller unit ismeant here, probably the unit based on the ship commanded by Ingvarr himself(which is unlikely to have been literally ‘half’ of the force). Ög 145 is fragmen-tary, but seems to have used the word in a similar way.

The skaldic examples do not necessarily have connotations of subdivision, butrefer simply to a military ‘troop’. Thus, Arnórr praises Magnús for being victo-rious over the Wends, despite having a smaller troop (við minna helming, ArnII,13), while he claims that no one will ever attack England with a larger troop(við meira helming) than Þorfinnr (Arn V,15). Similarly, Haraldr attackedEngland in 1066 með lítinn helming ‘with a small force’, only to face an flugrherr sunnan of England ‘powerful army from the south, through England’ (ArnVI,12). Although the immediate contexts are not necessarily nautical, all thesehelmingar were shipborne, and the nautical connotation is even clearer in laterexamples. Gísl, describing Magnús Barelegs’ defeat of Egill’s force in asea-battle við Hlaðir útan ‘off Hlaðir’, calls it helmingr Egils (Gísl I,6), whileMarkús calls Eiríkr, returning from a naval expedition to the east, helmings oddr‘point [= leader] of the helmingr’ (Mark I,5). The only instance of helmingrwithout any nautical connection is in Valg 4, where it refers to a troop of theByzantine Emperor’s Varangian guard, killed by Haraldr, and may even be usedin the meaning ‘half’ (Blöndal and Benedikz 1978, 95).

The variant form helfingr, with the same meaning as helmingr, occurs inÞjóðA IV,24, describing Haraldr’s approach to meet King Sveinn at the battle ofNiz. LP assumes the word refers to Haraldr’s ‘half’ of the journey (the other‘half’ being Sveinn’s approach), followed tentatively in Hkr III, 145, but theother possibility mentioned there (see also Poole 1991, 61) is more likely to becorrect: that Haraldr ‘impelled his shipborne troop’ to the battle with Sveinn. Asin the examples of helmingr cited above, the nautical connotation is strong in thisstanza which comes in a series that are primarily descriptive of sailing. Haraldrwould have needed his whole force in the battle with Sveinn, but this stanzafocuses in on the king’s unit in the vanguard of the fleet as they approach themeeting-point. If we believe Poole (1991, 66), this stanza is followed by ÞjóðAIII,12, in which Haraldr’s ship is described as both oddr liðs ‘point of the lið’ andbrjóstr leiðangrs ‘breast of the leiðangr’, making this focus even clearer.

Both the runic and the skaldic examples thus suggest that the associations of


helmingr were largely nautical: it referred to a shipborne military unit, a meaningnot attested in the prose instances of this word which turn mainly on its etymo-logical meaning of ‘a half’ (OGNS). It may be that this nautical meaning arosefrom the practice of joint ownership of expeditionary ships, which is attested in afew runic inscriptions (discussed above, pp. 180–81), rather than from anyregular subdivision of military units, which is not otherwise attested in thesources, or rather it suggests that such subdivisions were based on ships as units.

Summary

All of the words discussed in this section can refer variously to a fleet of ships(usually with a military purpose) or to the men of that fleet, as sailors or warriors,whether collectively (in the ‘fleet’-words) or individually (in the compounds andderivatives discussed above). The overall impression is that ‘there was probablynot a significant distinction between fleet and army in the Scandinavian world ofthe eleventh century’ (Hooper 1994, 97). However, I hope I have demonstratedthat the distinction can sometimes be made in individual contexts, and it is mostuseful to translate with an awareness of those contexts, rather than assuming asingle meaning for words such as lið or floti.

Battles at sea

Maritime warfare

Warriors in sea-battles behaved, and were expected to behave, much as warriorsin other sorts of battles; they slashed with swords, chopped with axes, shot witharrows, parried with shields, and generally tried to kill but not be killed,reddening their weapons and piling up enemy corpses for the delectation of thebeasts of battle. This is not the place to give a detailed exposition of the Vikingart of war,25 but some aspects of sea-battles were unique to fighting at sea, andthe skaldic corpus provides some useful evidence of these, largely neglected byFalk, who bases his account almost entirely on sagas (AnS, 113–17).

The runic evidence for battles at sea is minimal, but it may be useful to recapwhat has already been mentioned. In U 258, it is said of the commemorated thaton trabu nurminr o kniri asbiarnaR ‘Norwegians killed him on Ásbj�rn’skn�rr’. The mention of Norwegians might suggest a sea-battle between Norwe-gians and Swedes (SR VI, 327, 428), but it could equally have been a merchants’brawl on a trading voyage (Düwel 1987, 326). Sö 164 states of the commemo-rated that he stuþ trikil(a) i stafn skibi ‘stood in drengr-like fashion in the stemof the ship’. In theory, this could either mean that he stood in the rear of the ship,


25 Clarke (1999) is a brief survey, concentrating on the earlier Viking Age, Griffith (1995,11) an analysis ‘using the methods of modern military analysis’ though rather old-fashioned in its use of sagas read in translation.


5.7 The Mejlby stone (D 117). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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steering and/or captaining it, or in the front, in the fighting position (as it isunderstood in SR III, 126). In D 117, a father commemorates his son Áskell ias

tauþr uarþ maþ þuri i urasuti ‘who died with Þórir in the Eyrasund [Øresund]’(see fig. 5.7). It is unlikely that Þórir was just any companion of Áskell’s, theway he is named strongly suggests he was the leader of an expedition or raid ofsome sort, as in all the examples of those who travelled and died með Ingvari‘with Ingvarr’, cited in chapter 3. The fact that Áskell died in the Øresundsuggests that this was in a sea-battle.

Kuhn (1991, 46) lists six major sea-battles, celebrated in skaldic poetry:Hj�rungavágr c.980, Sv�lðr 1000, Nesjar 1016, Áin helga 1027, Helganes 1044and Niz 1062 (see fig. 3.11 for all known locations).26 Other battles which, whileperhaps less politically significant, were recorded in skaldic verse and add to ourunderstanding of the processes of making war at sea, were Bókn in 1027 or 1028,Þorfinnr’s battles off Dýrnes (after 1023) and Rauðabj�rg (c.1044), a battle atÁróss (Århus), in 1043–4, and Magnús berfœttr’s battle against Hugh, earl ofShrewsbury, off Anglesey in 1098.27 Fidjestøl has pointed out (1982, 216) that,although most skaldic poems are descriptive or enumerative, those whichconcentrate on one particular historical event, such as a sea-battle, have a clearnarrative structure, with events told in sequence and using appropriate syntac-tical markers. Poems which concentrate wholly or largely on one major battle areTindr I (Hj�rungavágr); Hfr III, Hókr, Skúli I (Sv�lðr); Sigv II (Nesjar); Sigv VII(Bókn); Steinn I (Niz). Most of these poems would deserve to be analysed fullyfrom this point of view, for they are Scandinavia’s first historical narratives, andthe skalds its first contemporary historians. But here I shall concentrate onanalysing the vocabulary of sea-battles, the lexical choices made by the poetswhen describing fighting at sea rather than on land.28 These will give some


26 The dates are Kuhn’s, though not all are equally certain, and alternatives that have beensuggested by other scholars are noted below. Hj�rungavágr is mentioned in Eyv II,13–14;Vígf I; Tindr I; ÞKolb I,1; ÞKolb III,1–4. Svl�ðr is celebrated at length in Hfr III, Hókr andSkúli I. Nesjar (1015) is celebrated in Sigv II and Sigv XIII,5. Áin helga (1025 or 1026) ismentioned in Ótt III,11. Helganes (1045) is mentioned in Arn II,15; Arn III,12–15; ÞjóðAI,21–23. For Niz, see Arn VI,2–4, ÞjóðA III,12–17, Steinn I, Steinn II, and possibly SteinnIII,8–9.

27 For Bókn see Ólhelg 9; Sigv VII; BjH 1–2 (the date is from Hkr II, xcii); and possibly N252. For Dýrnes and Rauðabj�rg, see Arn V,6–8,20–21 (dates from Whaley 1998, 335).For Áróss, see ÞjóðA I,12–16 (date from Whaley 1998, 332). Okík I,1 mentions a battle fyrsunnan Árós, which Snorri includes almost as an afterthought, to confirm his statementthat Magnús ‘had many battles in Denmark and won all of them’ (Hkr III, 63). The firsthalf of this stanza refers to Magnús’ battle (on land) at Hlýrskógsheiðr, which preceded hisbattle against Sveinn at Áróss. Morkinskinna attributes this stanza to Þjóðólfr Arnórssonand links it to the battle against Sveinn at Áróss (Msk, 50–51). For Anglesey, see Bkrepp 9;Þham I,3; Gísl I,10–13 (discussed in Jesch 1996).

28 The discussion will also refer to stanzas about occasions when there was no battle, despitethe gathering of fleets (Þfagr 3–8), or when peace is made, following scenes which arereminiscent of preparations for a sea-battle (Halli 1–3). There are also a few miscellaneousstanzas which are relevant (Edáð 5,7; Arn VI,5; Arn VII,2; AnonXI Flokkr; AnonXILv,16).

impression of the logistics of marine warfare in the late tenth and eleventh centu-ries.

Battles at sea were not chance encounters, the skalds describe the protagonistspreparing for them by calling out large fleets. Thus, when Eiríkr jarl frá Danaskeiðum of þrungit á vatn sunnr ‘heard that Danish skeiðar had been launched inthe south’ (ÞKolb III,1), he lét mj�k margar snekkjur sem kn�rru ok skeiðardynja á brim ‘caused very many snekkjur, knerrir and skeiðar to thunder into thewater’ (ÞKolb III,2), to meet the Jómsvíkingar at Hj�rungavágr. He also bauð útliðu miklu af Svíþjóðu ‘called out a large fleet/troop from Sweden’ (Hókr 1) forthe battle of Sv�lðr against Óláfr Tryggvason.

The skalds regularly use a double focus, showing the two sides approachingeach other, perhaps as a way of establishing the equality of the opponents andthus the worthiness of the eventual winner (Fidjestøl 1982, 229). Thus, theNorwegians and the Danes on their way to Hj�rungavágr: jarðráðendr þeystuflota at Eyd�num, þás sverðalfr sunnan kníði lagar stóð at liði þeira ‘the rulersof the land impelled the fleet towards the Island-Danes, while the sword-elf[warrior] pressed his wave-stud [fleet] towards their fleet’ (Eyv II,13–14). Theskalds regularly use parallel verbal structures to show the two sides’ approachfrom different directions (Hókr 3; ÞKolb III,3–4; Sigv II,1; Sigv VIII; Þfagr 3;Halli 1–3; Steinn I,2).

Occasionally, skalds give more detail on these fleets by saying how manyships they consisted of. In a poem celebrating Óláfr Tryggvason’s opponent,Eiríkr jarl, the Norwegian king is said to have brought seventy-one skeiðar to thebattle of Sv�lðr (Hókr 2). In the smaller-scale battle at Dýrnes, Þorfinnr is said tohave attacked Karl Hundason’s eleven skeiðar with five snekkjur (Arn V,6). In anencounter between Haraldr harðráði and Sveinn Ulfsson that does not lead to abattle, Sveinn had sex hundruð, i.e. 720, ships (Þfagr 4). At the battle of Niz,Haraldr had 180 ships, halft annat hundrað, while Sveinn had 360, þrimrhundruðum (Steinn I,2). These figures (particularly the largest ones) probablyowe as much to propaganda as to historical accuracy, but they do give some ideaof the range of numbers of ships one leader could command. However, we maydoubt whether a large fleet of 720 ships consisted entirely of warships, it musthave included a range of vessels of different sizes and functions.

Place and time

The skalds can be quite specific about the location and timing of sea-battles (asindeed with other kinds of battles. The battle of Hj�rungavágr takes place á Mœri‘in Møre’ (Tindr I,5).29 The battle of Sv�lðr (the location of which has still notbeen convincingly identified) took place sunnr fyr Sv�lðrar mynni ‘south off the


29 The location of this battle has recently been discussed by Megaard, who attempts to sift theconflicting traditions and discover what their sources said. He detects (1999, 49) areminiscence of the place-name in Þjsk I,2.

mouth of the Sv�lðr’ (Skúli I,2) and fyr Sv�lðr ‘off Sv�lðr’ (Skúli I,4), but isotherwise merely sunnr ‘south’ (Hókr 4), fyr sunnan haf ‘in the southern part ofthe sea’ (Hfr III,15), á víðu holms/Holms sundi ‘on the wide sound of theisland/Holm’ (Hfr III,17), fyr handan sæ ‘on the other side of the sea’ (HfrIII,21), or at holmi ‘off the island/Holm’ (Hókr 3), where holmr/Holmr might bethe name of a specific island (but we do not know which one), or might refer tosome island whose name is not recorded.30

Nesjar was fought fyr víðum vangi ‘off the broad land’ (Sigv II,2), fyr austanAgðir ‘east of Agder’ (Sigv II,4). The exact place (identified as Brunlanes inVestfold, Krag 1995, 136) was perhaps remembered in the title of the poem,Nesjavísur. Two poets give a whole host of place-names to identify the exactlocation of Óláfr’s battle against Erlingr Skjalgsson at Bokn in Ryfylke: it wasfyr Tungum . . . fyr norðan Jaðar ‘off Tunge . . . to the north of Jæren’ (SigvVII,2; see also Ólhelg 9 á Jaðri ‘in Jæren’), fyr norðan Tungur . . . við þr�mBóknar ‘to the north of Tunge . . . off Bokn’s shore’ (Sigv VII,3), austr við Bókn‘east off Bokn’ (BjH 1), við Útstein ‘off Utstein’ (Sigv VII,5) and fyr norðanÚtstein ‘to the north of Utstein’ (BjH 2).

One of the battles between Magnús and Sveinn was fyr sunnan Árós ‘to thesouth of Århus’ (Okík I,1), another at a place in northern Jutland called (vítt)Helganes ‘(wide) Helganes’ (Arn III,12; ÞjóðA I,21), which is suðr ‘in the south’(ÞjóðA I,23), from a Norwegian point of view. Haraldr and Sveinn had arenowned encounter fyr móðu mynni . . . fyr útan Halland ‘off the mouth of theestuary . . . off the coast of Halland’ (Steinn I,3), fyr (útan) Nizi/fyr Nizar ósi ‘off(the mouth of) the Niz’ (Arn VI,2; ÞjóðA III,13; Steinn I,5), and when Steinnsays that Óláfr kyrri’s first battle was fyr útan Halland ‘off Halland’ (SteinnIII,8), he may be referring to the same event.

Arnórr also gives geographical details of Þorfinnr’s various battles, includingthose at sea: fyr austan Dýrnes ‘to the east of Deerness’ (Arn V,6), which is fyrsunnan Sandvík ‘to the south of Sandwick’ (Arn V,8), and fyr Rauðabj�rgum . . .á Péttlandsfirði ‘off Rauðabj�rg [either Roberry on South Walls or Roeberry onSouth Ronaldsay, see ch. 3] . . . in the Pentland Firth’ (Arn V,20–21). Magnúsberfœttr fought two Norman earls í �ngulssundi ‘in the Menai Strait’ (Bkrepp 9),við �ngulsey ‘off Anglesey’ (Gísl I,11).

Minor skirmishes at sea are also located. Eiríkr jarl also fought at Stauri . . .fyr eyri ‘off the shore at Staver (? in southern Denmark)’ (Edáð 5). In anotherstanza of the same poem (Edáð 7), he is said to have fought a battle í eyja sundi‘in the strait between islands’, according to all the manuscripts of Hkr whichpreserve this stanza, but there is some evidence (in the prose account of Eiríkr’sraids in Fsk) that this is a copying error for í Eyrasundi ‘in the Øresund’(Fidjestøl 1982, 113).


30 Icelandic saga-traditions place the battle of Sv�lðr off Wendland (e.g. Hkr I, 351), whileAdam of Bremen places it in the Øresund, inter Sconiam et Seland (AB, 276). The latter ismore likely, both for strategic reasons and because Adam is an earlier source (Megaard1999, 49).

We are occasionally informed what time of year the battles happened, andhow long they lasted, but perhaps mostly when these were unusual. On his wayto the battle of Nesjar, Óláfr departs ór Vík á vári ‘from the Oslofjord in thespring’ (Sigv II,1), and the battle took place on palmsunnudag ‘Palm Sunday’(Sigv II,14), which in the year 1015 fell on the 3rd of April (Hkr II, lxxxix) andin 1016 on the 25th of March (Krag 1995, 136). Sunday seems to have been apopular day for battles: Sveinn fought a battle against Tryggvi on a Sunday(AnonXI Flokkr), while the battle of Áróss took place on a Sunday (ÞjóðA I,14)fyr jól ‘before Christmas’ (Okík I,1). At Bókn, the warriors provided the wolfwith a rich feast til jóla ‘for Christmas’ (BjH 1), and the sagas specify that thebattle took place on the day of St Thomas the Apostle, the 21st of December (e.g.Hkr II, 312). The battle of Helganes seems to have begun �ndurt røkr ‘in thebeginning of twilight’ and continued haustn�tt gegnum ‘through the autumnnight’ (Arn III,12), though another poet apparently claims it was á sumri ‘in thesummer’ (ÞjóðA I,23).31 Haraldr is also celebrated for having fought through thenight at Niz: hilmir dró alm alla nótt ‘the prince drew his bow all night’ (ÞjóðAIII,14), while another poem about the same battle refers to the Norwegians’defence of their king í óttu ‘in the time before dawn’ (Steinn I,5).

Preliminaries to battle

There could be some parleying before a battle. In a scene which does not lead toa battle, Haraldr and Sveinn declare their respective preferences for fighting onland or at sea (Þfagr 7; Hkr III, 116):

Bauð, sás beztrar tíðarborinn varð und Miðgarði,ríkri þjóð at rjóðarandir Sveinn á landi.Þó lézk heldr, ef heldihvatráðr konungr láði,á byrjar val berjaskbilstyggr Haraldr vilja.

Sveinn, who was born at the most auspicious time on earth, offered thepowerful troop a chance to redden shields on land. However, thedelay-shunning Haraldr said he would rather fight on the raven/horse ofthe wave [ship], assuming the decisive king [Sveinn] controlled the land.


31 Both stanzas are quoted in Magnúss saga góða (and Þjóðólfr’s only there): in the proseSnorri draws attention to the fact that the battle lasted all night, but does not mention theseason (Hkr III, 56–8). There is in any case some confusion about the exact numbers anddating of the battles between Magnús and Sveinn, c.1043–5 (Hkr III, xiv). Although it hasbeen suggested (Hkr III, 7) that ÞjóðA I,23 does not belong to Magnússflokkr, it seems tome more likely that it does belong to this poem (as argued by Fidjestøl 1982, 133), but thatit belongs rather with the following stanzas describing various skirmishes in Skåne, andthat Snorri was mistaken to link it with the sea-battle off Áróss.

With the warrior-sailors of any fleet able to fight either on land or at sea, thechoice of arena was thus a matter of tactics. Haraldr’s challenge to Sveinn onanother occasion is expressed in a roundabout way: vísi gerðit biðja friðar ‘theleader did not ask for peace’ (Steinn I,3).

The arming of the warriors of the fleet and the arraying of the troops aredescribed in two cases where the poets were present at the battle, recalling eventsin the first person. In a stanza which almost certainly belongs to Nesjavísur,Sigvatr addresses his bench-mate, Teitr, and remembers how he saw svalarbrynjur falla okkr of herðar . . . sv�rt sk�r mín falsk und enn valska hjalm . . .vissak okkr svá g�rva við her ‘cool mail-coats fall down onto our shoulders . . .my black hair was hidden under the Frankish/continental (?) helmet . . . I knewwe were thus equipped against the troop’ (Sigv XIII,5). Haraldr’s exhortation ofhis troops and the arrangement of their shields on the ship before the battle ofNiz are described in ÞjóðA III,13 (Hkr III, 146):

Fast bað fylking hraustafriðvandr j�furr standa.Hamalt sýndisk mér h�mlurhildings vinir skilda.Ramsyndan lauk r�ndumráðandi manndáðanýtr fyr Nizi útannaðr, svát hver tók aðra.

The prince assiduous for peace ordered his bold troop to stand fast. I sawthe friends of the leader place shields on the rowing positions to form ashield-wall. Off Niz, the useful executor of manly deeds encircled thestrongly-swimming serpent [ship] with shields, so that each touched thenext.

When Magnús ordered his troops to leggja saman randir ‘place shields together’at Helganes (Arn III,12), it is most likely this shield-wall the poet is describing,though it could also refer to the clash of the rows of shields on the ships ofopposing sides (discussed below), which signals the start of battle (as it is takenin Skjd B I, 314 and Hkr III, 57). This shield-formation is called skjaldborg‘shield-fort’ in Arn VI,3 (perhaps also in Mark I,24, though a metaphorical senseis more likely there). Gísl I,10, though it is very terse, probably implies thatMagnús berfœttr also used such a formation at the battle of Menai Strait.

While most sea-battles were close encounters, they could be preceded by anexchange of missiles, in the form of stones, while the ships were stillapproaching each other. Thus, in the battle between Sigurðr ullstrengr andSteigar-Þórir in 1095, the skip rendusk hvatla at ‘ships ran quickly towards eachother’ and glamm grjóts gerðisk á borði ‘there was a clang of stone on the hull’(AnonXI Lv,16).

Before the actual attack, the leader exhorted his troops and gave instructions.He hét á heiptar nýta drengi sína ‘called on his drengir, useful in battle’ (Hókr6); bað lið seggja skjóta ok h�ggva ‘ordered the troop of warriors to shoot and


hew’ (Steinn I,4). The first stanza of Steinn’s Nizarvísur gives what must be a fairrepresentation of Haraldr’s exhortatory speech before the battle of Niz (SteinnI,1; Hkr III, 145–6):

Sagði hitt, es hugðihauklyndr vesa mundu:Þar kvað þengill eirarþrotna v�n frá h�num.Heldr kvað hvern várn skylduhilmir frægr an vægja,menn brutu upp, of annan,�ll v�pn, þveran falla.

The hawk-minded one said that which he thought would be the case: Theprince said there was less and less expectation of leniency from him. Therenowned prince said each of us should fall one across the other ratherthan give way, men fetched out all (their) weapons.

Bringing the ships together

Once the warriors are ready, the next move is to bring the ship closer to theenemy ship, so they are broadside on. The poets use a variety of expressions forthis: leggja við síðu Fáfnis ‘lay alongside Fáfnir [Ormr inn langi]’ (Hókr 3), fœraBarða við Orm enn langa ‘bring Barði alongside Ormr inn langi’ (Hókr 5),leggja Karlh�fða nær jarli ‘lay Karlfh�fði nearer the jarl(’s ship)’ (Sigv II,4),liggja síbyrð við skip ‘lie side-by-side with the ship’ (Sigv VII,1), leggja skip at‘run the ships alongside’ (Arn V,7). The ships are so close that both sets ofshields can clash: tungl tingla tangar sk�rusk þá ‘the moons of the tongs of thetingl then intersected’ (Hókr 3). Steinn is using litotes when he says that skammtvas liðs á miðli ‘there was a short distance between the fleets’ (Steinn I,4) at thebattle of Niz. In this manœuvre, the leader’s ship is first, and his keenestfollowers want to be up there with him: Ulfr stallari bað leggja skip sitt velframm með skylja, en seggir j�ttu ‘ordered his ship to be laid well forward withthe king, and his warriors agreed’ (Steinn II). This kind of close manoeuvring isdone by rowing: (áðr vas h�num róit nær ‘[we] had previously rowed right up tohim’, Sigv II,9; atróðr, Steinn I,3; róðr, Steinn II) and is equivalent to an attack.If the attackers have sufficient ships, they can encircle and isolate the ship of theenemy leader: h�fðu lokit skeiðum of snjallan gram ‘they had encircled the braveprince with skeiðar’ (Hókr 6). The final stage of preparation is tying the ships:each commander lashed his own ships together to make a more stablefighting-platform. In a battle against Tryggvi Óláfsson, Sveinn Alfífuson baðdrengi sína tengja saman skeiðarstafna ‘ordered his drengir to tie the stems ofthe skeiðar together’ (AnonXI Flokkr).


Attack and defence

The attack begins with the boarding of the enemy ship: at Sv�lðr, hundmargrherr sótti drasil sunda ‘an army of hundreds attacked the steed of straits [ship]’(Hfr III,5). At Nesjar, the attackers carried banners: gengu und merkjum á skip‘they boarded the ship under banners’ (Sigv II,6), and the poet was part of theboarding party, vér drifum hvatt reiðir upp á skeiðar ‘we quickly flocked, angry,aboard the skeiðar’ (Sigv II,7), following King Óláfr, þar hykk ungan gram, esvér fylgðum, gerðu g�ngu upp í skip ‘there I know the young prince, whom wefollowed, boarded the ship’ (Sigv II,8). Some manuscripts have en vér fylgðum‘and we followed’, making it clearer that the troops are following their leaderonto the ship, rather than just following him in a more general sense (Hkr II, 64).

On board the enemy ship, the task is to kill as many of the enemy as possible.The leader is shown, in his battle fury, going reiðr of skeiðar ‘furious across theskeiðar’ (Hfr III,6; Sigv VII,2; see also Sindr 2), and his warriors match his fury(Sigv VII,6–7).32 The purpose of the onslaught is to empty the ship of enemywarriors, and the successful attackers are frequently said to hrjóða ‘clear, rid’ theships, using both active and passive forms of the verb.33 At Hj�rungavágr, Hákonjarl is said to have cleared twenty-five langra skeiða ‘of the long skeiðar’ (TindrI,4), Magnús manages only seven ships at Áróss (ÞjóðA I,15), while Haraldrsurpasses them all with seventy of Sveinn’s ships cleared á einni svipstund ‘in amoment’ at Niz (ÞjóðA III,16). Some poets acknowledge that this kind ofclearing was not all the leader’s work, and that his troop also played a part in it(Hfr III,14; ÞjóðA I,12). At Sv�lðr, a survivor sá Tr�nu ok báða Naðra fljótaauða ‘saw the ‘‘Crane’’ and both ‘‘Snakes’’ floating empty’ (Hfr III,16), simi-larly, Sveinn’s ship hlaut at fljóta auðr ‘got to float empty’ after Niz (Arn VI,4).

It is harder to run away from an enemy onslaught on board ship than on land,and the warriors retreat the length of the ship, stumbling over the thwarts (þoptur,Hókr 6). Many do not make it, so that herr fell á þiljur ‘the army fell on the deck’(Arn V,7) with the result that valr lá þr�ngt á þiljum ‘the dead lay tightly-packedon the deck’ (Sigv VII,2). As a result the various parts of the ship are covered inblood: blóð kom á þíðan þr�m ‘blood splashed onto the pliable sheer-strake’ (HfrIII,14); døkkr dreyri dreif á kløkkva saumf�r, sveita skaut á skjaldrim, skokkr vasstokkinn blóði ‘dark gore splashed onto the pliant row of nails [ship], blood shotonto the shield-rim, the deck-plank was sprinkled with blood’ (Arn V,21); bl�kkborð óðu í blóð ‘the dark planks were awash with blood’ (BjH2). Successfulwarriors make the whole ship awash with blood: sveiti rann ‘blood flowed’ (ArnV,7); hann litar herskip innan blóði ‘he colours the inside of the warship withblood’ (Arn VII,2).


32 In Ólhelg 9, the king says of himself, ek gekk reiðr of skeiðar (though only in one versionof this stanza, see Fidjestøl 1982, 67–8).

33 Sindr 2; Tindr I,1,5,9; Edáð 7; ÞKolb III,4; Arn III,12; Arn VI,3; in Sigv VII,3, Óláfr vannauða skeið ‘succeeded in emptying the skeið’.

Those who do not fall on the deck go into the water, either alive or dead. AtHj�rungavágr, the Jómsvíkingr Búi is forced overboard by the warriors on Eiríkrjarl’s ship Barði (Tindr I,10), and this simple statement is developed into acolourful anecdote in the saga description of the battle (e.g. Jómsvíkinga saga,ch. 34). Those who went overboard could sometimes swim to safety, and suchescapes are no doubt the origin of rumours such as that Óláfr Tryggvasonsurvived the battle of Sv�lðr, which Hallfreðr subjects to extended debate in hismemorial poem, eventually concluding that the king cannot be alive (HfrIII,20–25). More usually, at least in the propagandist world of skaldic praisepoetry, the leader lasts longest while his followers go overboard. At Nesjar, it isthe búendr ‘free farmers’ (though the word may not be intended very literally inthis context) who gengu sárir fyr borð ‘went wounded overboard’ (Sigv II,7). AtÓláfr kyrri’s first battle, possibly at Niz, danskir drengir gengu útan borðs meðbrynjur ok hjalma ‘Danish drengir went overboard with mail-coats and helmets’(Steinn III,9). At both Helganes and Niz, Sveinn flees only when his ship isempty and all his warriors dead (Arn VI,4; ÞjóðA I,22; ÞjóðA III,15). Those whogo overboard are said to sink to the bottom (Hfr III,13; Sigv II,10; ÞjóðA I,14,21;Steinn III,9), where, in a bleak image of mortality, their bones are churned aboutin the sea: unnr, hreggi œst, hrœrir hausa þeira ok leggi á sanda grunni; sjár þýtrof auðs �rum ‘the wave, churned up by a storm, moves their skulls and limbs onthe sandy bottom: the sea howls over the consumers of wealth’ (ÞjóðA I,16). Thewave and the sandy bottom here suggest shallow water, and such bodies gener-ally turn up on the shore: hár hranngarðr varp hausum þeira á þr�m jarðar ‘thehigh wave-fence (sea) threw their skulls up onto the rim of the earth [shore]’(Steinn III,9).

The skalds revel in descriptions of blood and bodies in the water, and washedashore, and this must indeed have been a memorable sight to anyone whowitnessed such a battle at sea. At Bókn, varmt blóð kom í víðan ægi ‘warm bloodfell into the wide sea’ (Sigv VII,2; see also Arn V,21), while at Niz, heit und blésblóði á sæ ‘hot wound(s) spouted blood onto the sea’ (Steinn I,3). The aftermathof a sea-battle is described in colourful terms: grœnn grœðir varð, blóðiblandinn, at rauðum ‘the green sea, mixed with blood, became red’ (Arn VI,5).At Nesjar, ófár nár flaut við eyri ‘not a few corpses floated off the sand-bank’(Sigv II,7), while after Áróss, nár flaut á hverri b�ru ‘corpses floated on everybillow’ (ÞjóðA I,14). Arnórr gives a graphic description of the aftermath ofHelganes (Arn III,15; Skjd B I, 314):

Sveins manna rekr sunnans�ndug lík at str�ndum;vítt sér �ld fyr útanJótland, hvar hræ fljóta;vitnir dregr ór vatni(vann Áleifs sonr bannat),búk slítr vargr í víkum,valk�st (ara f�stu).


The sandy bodies of Sveinn’s men drift onto the beaches from the south;far and wide people see carrion floating off the coast of Jutland; the wolfdrags the pile of dead out of the water; the wolf tears at bellies in bays;Óláfr’s son ended the eagle’s fast.

The descriptions of fighting on board ship are generally not very differentfrom similar descriptions of fighting on land (e.g. Hókr 4–5), but occasionallydescribe actions specific to sea-battles. Hallfreðr describes the heroic defence ofÓláfr’s followers at Sv�lðr in terms of how they delayed the clearing of the ship(Hfr III,14; Skjd B I, 153):

Myndi lung et langalæsíks und gram ríkum(blóð kom á þr�m þíðan)þjóð varliga hrjóða,meðan ítrs vinir �ttuinnan borðs at morði(sú gerðisk vel) varðaverðung j�furs sverðum.

The troop could hardly clear the long ship under the powerful prince ofthe land-fish [serpent→Ormr inn langi] – blood came onto the pliant rim– while the friends of the noble prince on board in the fight defended thecompany with swords – they behaved well.34

Most of the fighting seems to have taken place at either end of the ship. AtNesjar, Sveinn called on his men to cut down the kylfur, the highest part of theship’s stems, to facilitate fighting across the stems (Sigv II,9). At Bókn, ErlingrSkjalgsson, despite the death of all his followers, held out for a long time in theempty ship, alone in its lyptingr (Sigv VII,3). As discussed in chapter 4, thiswould suggest that the lyptingr was a large enough structure to afford some kindof defensive protection, rather than just the captain’s or helmsman’s seat in theafter-stem. Magnús is heroically depicted fighting í fagran framstafn ‘in thebeautiful fore-stem’ of his ship at Áróss (ÞjóðA I,12).

Victory and booty

Once the enemy ship(s) had been cleared, and the leader killed or captured,victory was assured (j�furr vá sigr ‘the prince won the victory’, ÞjóðA I,15). Aswell as whatever military or political advantage he gained from winning, thevictor had the added prize of the loser’s ship(s) to add to his fleet: ÓláfrTryggvason réð ítrfermðum Ormi norðan á móti Eireki ‘rode the nobly-loaded


34 I follow Kock (NN, 477) in restoring the manuscript reading læsíks and in his interpretationof the first half of this stanza. I have, for the sake of consistency, also followed hissuggested syntax for the second half of the stanza (NN, 478), though I find this lessconvincing. The overall meaning is in any case not much different from that proposed inSkjd.

Ormr from the north to meet Eiríkr’ at Sv�lðr, but Eiríkr stýrði þeim húfj�fnumhlýrs gota sunnan ‘steered the smooth-hulled horse of the prow (home) from thesouth’ (Hfr III,18; similarly Hókr 8). In Hókr 8, the ship is called both Ormr andNaðr, and it may be that this suggests a change of name to go with the change ofownership. The ship would of course be captured with all its tackle, making itdoubly useful (búin skip fengusk ‘prepared ships were captured’, Sigv II,7).General references to ‘booty’ may mean the expectation of capturing the ship, orpossibly any cargo or equipment on it. It is likely that the leader got the ship (þúfekt �ll þeira flaust ‘you got all their ships’, Arn II,15; see also Arn III,13), whilethe followers got smaller kinds of booty. At Nesjar, Óláfr’s followers have (in afirst-person stanza) auðv�n ‘expectation of wealth’ (Sigv II,9). If the enemywarriors went overboard with their armour and weapons, there was not muchscope for the victorious warriors to claim these as their booty as they wouldnormally do, for instance as described by Þjóðólfr who got a shield, a mail-coatand a helmet on a land campaign with Magnús (ÞjóðA I,23).35

The sagas tell an anecdote about how Haraldr tries to lighten his ships anddistract Sveinn’s ships pursuing him by throwing overboard clothes and valuableobjects, and eventually food and captives, which had been taken from the Danes(Hkr III, 116–17; slightly more clearly told in Fsk, 258–61, and more fully inMsk, 166–9), clearly based on Þfagr 8, from a sequence which describes variousskirmishes between the two sides which never turn into a full battle:

Allt of frák, hvé eltiAustmenn á veg flaustaSveinn, en siklingr annarrsnarlundaðr helt undan.Fengr varð Þrœnda þengils,þeir létu skip fleiri,allr á éli sollnuJótlandshafi fljóta.

I have heard ?straightaway how Sveinn chased the Norwegians on theway of ships [sea], but the other quick-witted leader escaped. The bootyof the prince of Þrœndir had all to float on the storm-swollen Sea ofJutland; they lost more ships.

The motif of discarding valuable objects to distract a pursuing enemy is awell-known tale type (e.g. SnESkskm, 59), and may be put down to the saga-writers’ interpretation of the stanza. It is also possible to read the stanza in such away that the ‘booty’ floating on the sea are ships originally captured from theDanes, which the Norwegians abandon to the pursuing Danes (hence ‘they lostmore ships’, because the Danes, having got their own ships back, did not loseany). These had some Norwegians on board, who gave up the unequal struggle


35 It is argued above (n. 31) that this stanza refers, not to the battle of Helganes, as Snorriseems to think, but to subsequent campaigns, probably on land.

with the pursuers and offered them a truce (Þfagr 9). But any such exercise inreconstructing the story behind a skaldic stanza whose original context isobscure must remain a bit of conjectural fun.

Not like leeks and ale

Although the skalds enjoyed giving colourful accounts of battles at sea, theyrecognised that maritime warfare, like all warfare, was a grim business. But eventhis recognition was proffered in ironic rather than in serious mode (AnonXIFlokkr; Hkr II, 413–14):

Vasa sunnudag, svanni,seggr hné margr und eggjarmorgin þann, sem mannimær lauk eða �l bæri,þás Sveinn konungrsaman tengja bað drengi,hrátt gafsk hold at slítahrafni, skeiðarstafna.

Lady, Sunday was not like when a girl brings a man leeks or ale – many awarrior sank under the blade that morning – when King Sveinn orderedhis drengir to tie together the stems of the skeiðar; the raven was givenraw flesh to tear at.

To drag men away from their girls bearing leeks and ale,36 to encourage them todo their tasks of tying prows and swinging blades, and to help them survive thestench of raw flesh, a strong ethos of group solidarity was needed, encapsulatedin the word drengr used in this stanza. This ethos is considered in detail in thefollowing chapter.


36 A very similar sentiment is expressed in Sigv II,6, though there the refreshment is mj�ðr‘mead’. In Tindr I,1, the girl’s services are more personal.

6

Group and Ethos in War and Trade

A simple stone or mound of earth,can summon the departed forth;

WHITTIER

The effectiveness of these shipborne groups of men, in raiding and in trading, onland and at sea, derived from a clear definition of the group, a strong ethos ofloyalty that bound them together, and an ideology of appropriate behaviour forwhich they could be praised in the verbal memorials of skaldic poetry and runicinscriptions. The idea of the group was defined by a restricted and pointed vo-cabulary of fellowship and group membership, and their ethos and ideology wasexpressed in the praise, both direct and figurative, of individual members of thegroup.

The group and its vocabulary

drengr

In chapter 2 it was demonstrated that the word víkingr was not commonly used inthe Viking Age, and often pejoratively when it was, so the question remains what‘vikings’ called themselves and each other. The runic and the skaldic evidencesuggest that it is most likely to have been drengr (m., pl. OWN drengir, OENdreng(j)ar).1 Unlike víkingr, this noun is found in both runic and skaldic texts inboth the singular and the plural. Also unlike víkingr, it has positive connotationsin most of the recorded instances. This much is clear but exactly what it means,or how best to translate it, is another matter.

There is an echo of the use of this word in Viking Age speech in HallfreðrÓttarsson’s Erfidrápa on Óláfr Tryggvason, which opens with an account of thatking’s final battle at Sv�lðr (c.1000). The poet is keen to preserve for posterity

1 On these varying plural forms, see Jansson 1954b, 35.

the king’s defiance in words as close to his own as the strict skaldic forms permit(Hfr III,2):

Geta skal máls þess, es mælamenn at vápna sennudolga fangs við drengidáð�flgan b�r kv�ðu.Baða hertryggðar hyggjahnekkir sína rekka,þess lifa þjóðar sessaþróttar orð, á flótta.

This speech shall be mentioned, which men said the deed-strong tree ofbattle-tunic [mail-coat→warrior] spoke to his drengir at the flyting ofweapons [battle]. The destroyer of the army’s security told his men notto think of flight; the powerful words of this people’s bench-mate willlive.

The stanza is full of the vocabulary of speech, suggesting the poet’s attempt topreserve Óláfr’s immortal words. These are given in reported speech, but areaddressed to his drengir and can be reconstructed as Hyggið ekki á flótta!,loosely translatable as ‘Don’t even think of running away’, for it was a part ofevery leader’s pep-talk to remind his warriors that fleeing was not an option.2 Onthe other side, at the same battle, we are told by Halldórr ókristni that Eiríkr jarlhét á sína heiptar nýta drengi ‘called on his drengir, useful in battle’ (Hókr 6).Earlier in his career, Óláfr Tryggvason may have been one of the viking leadersat the Battle of Maldon in 991 (Keynes 1991, 88–9). And it may be because theEnglish were so used to hearing their viking opponents urging each other onusing the term drengr, that the English poet celebrating this event borrowed theword to characterise the warriors on the other side (Battle of Maldon, 149).

The word drengr has been even more extensively discussed than víkingr.There are studies which consider this word in a variety of sources, in manylanguages and over historically long periods, comparing with other wordsassumed to be from the same semantic field (Aakjær 1927–8; Kuhn 1944;Lindow 1976, 106–12). There are studies which discuss or try to pin down thespecifically Viking Age meanings of the word, using primarily runic or skaldicevidence, though rarely both, (Düwel 1987; Jesch 1993b, 1994, 1997; Moltke1985, 284–90; Nielsen 1945; Page 1993, 150–52; Ruprecht 1958, 62–7; Strid1987; Wulf 1988). There are studies by archaeologists and historians whichattempt to build other theories on their understanding of this word(Christophersen 1982; Randsborg 1980, 24–44; B. Sawyer 1994; P. Sawyer1991, 52–5). Even in those studies which consider a range of Old Norse

Group and Ethos in War and Trade 217

2 There is an inversion of this in Hfr III,3, where the men of Trøndelag, who should havebeen Óláfr’s closest followers, but desert him (kom á flótta), are ironically called a gengiþrœnzkra drengja. However, how these two stanzas relate to each other is unclear, as theoriginal sequence of stanzas in this poem is not certain, see Fidjestøl 1982, 109–10.

examples, the skaldic material has been relatively neglected despite its possibili-ties for comparison with the runic material. A closer focus on runic inscriptionsand skaldic poetry can help identify what meanings are central to the word in theViking Age, and what shades of meaning are dependent on the context in whichthe word appears or are restricted to certain usages.

It is also important to keep later meanings or shades of meaning on theperiphery of the discussion. The word lived on in Old Icelandic and, indeed, inthe modern Scandinavian languages, but its meaning developed and changed somuch that the later sources are more confusing than helpful.3 Nevertheless, in itsOld Norse forms, at least, it still had a strong whiff of the Viking Age about it, forSnorri Sturluson as much as for modern scholars (SnESkskm, 106; Faulkes 1987,151):

Drengir heita ungir menn búlausir meðan þeir afla sér fjár eða orðstír,þeir fardrengir er milli landa fara, þeir konungs drengir er h�fðingjumþjóna, þeir ok drengir er þjóna ríkum m�nnum eða bœndum. Drengirheita vaskir menn ok batnandi.

Young men that have not settled down, while they are making theirfortunes or reputation, are called drengir; they are called fardrengir whotravel from land to land, king’s drengir who are in the service of rulers,and they are also called drengir who are in the service of rich men andlandowners. Manly and ambitious men are called drengir.

This may seem definitive: Snorri sets out the semantic components of youth,travel, service, manliness and promise as basic to the word. In fact, the definitionis almost too general to be useful, and probably tells us as much about laterdevelopments in the meaning of this word as about its Viking Age connotations.As Fritzner defined it (OGNS), a drengr is a ‘Menneske der er som det bør være’(‘person who is as s/he should be’), suggesting that to understand the word weneed to understand the whole body of cultural assumptions behind it. Thus, inlater Old Icelandic prose sources, drengr and derivatives such as drengskapr,could also be used of women, but there is no evidence that this was the case inthe Viking Age, when it was restricted to the masculine sphere.

In an attempt to delineate those cultural assumptions more specifically, manyscholars have followed Snorri in trying to pin down the term in relation to partic-ular semantic components, especially associations with youth, war, trade andservice. Aakjær (1927–8, 28–9) argued that drengir were ‘royal servants,members of the king’s attendant nobility and of his hird or bodyguard’ and thatthe term was a title. Nielsen (1945, 158) disagreed and returned to Wimmer’s


3 Similarly, the borrowing of this word into English social terminology meaning ‘youngman, free tenant’ (quite distinct from the anomalous Battle of Maldon example citedabove) does not immediately help elucidate Viking Age meanings, since the sources aregenerally post-Conquest, though more work needs to be done on this (Aakjær 1927–8,20–25, has some preliminary comments).

definitions (1895–1908, IV, vii, xxv), in which both þegn and drengr refer tomen of the free land-owning classes, with the distinction between them one ormore of the following: age vs. youth, farmer vs. warrior, man with political rightsand duties vs. man not yet socially established. Ruprecht (1959, 62–7) sawdrengr as primarily referring to a warrior, probably young, or at least harkingback to the warrior ideal. Lindow (1976, 106–12), concerned with the vocabu-lary of the comitatus, concluded that drengr does not belong to this lexical set,but did not say much about what it does mean. For Randsborg (1980, 34), it isone of a set of ‘occupational or rank titles’. Düwel (1987, 318) was quite clearthat drengir were warriors, but also that they were young, while for Wulf (1988,86) ‘[d]as Merkmal ‘‘kriegerisch’’ . . . ist rein akzidentiell’ and he provided amore nuanced definition à la Wimmer or Nielsen. Peter Sawyer (1991, 52–5) andBirgit Sawyer (1994) would return to Aakjær’s view and see both the drengir andthe þegnar as titles for men in the service of kings such as Knútr. Strid (1987,306–13) distinguished between the drengir of the runic inscriptions of Denmarkand Götaland, who could be ‘a member of an army unit, a fighting ship or amerchant fraternity’ and those of the inscriptions of Svealand, where, citingFritzner’s definition, he claimed the word is used pretty much as in Old Icelandicliterature.

Clearly the word could mean different things in different contexts, and themost useful studies are those which try to pin down its meaning or meanings inparticular contexts. In these different contexts, drengr could be used of bothwarriors and merchants, of men both old and young, and of both oneself andothers. Some of these men were certainly in the service of kings, but there doesnot seem to be anything inherent in the word itself that expresses this, and manyof them were not.

Since the runic inscriptions provide relatively little context for determiningthe shades of meaning of this word, and since they have been more fullydiscussed than the skaldic examples, it is most useful to start with an analysis ofthe skaldic evidence, and then consider the runic evidence in that light. Theskaldic sources present a picture in which drengr is neither a technical term ofrank, nor a synonym for ‘warrior’ (young or otherwise), nor a meaningless,general term of approbation. Instead it belongs to a semantic sphere that demon-strates the relationships between a king or military leader and his immediatecompanions. These relationships occur in the spheres of both war and morepeaceful political activity, and it is clear that they are in flux in the eleventhcentury and that the terminology reflects this.

A primary use of drengr appears to be of a member of the comitatus (thoughnot necessarily a technical term for such), the follower who fights by the side ofhis leader in battle, and who is richly rewarded in turn. This idea is expressed in asequence of stanzas in Halldórr ókristni’s Eiríksflokkr, describing the battle atSv�lðr. We see the drengir performing their duties (Hókr 4a; Hkr I, 360):

Gerðisk snarpra sverða,slitu drengir frið lengi,


þars gollin spj�r gullu,gangr of Orm enn langa.

There was movement of keen swords around Ormr enn langi, drengirbroke the peace for a long time, where gilded spears called out.

Their leader jarl Eiríkr calls on his drengir (Hókr 6a; Hkr I, 365):

Hét á heiptar nýtahugreifr, með �leifiaptr st�kk þjóð of þoptur,þengill sína drengi,

The cheerful ruler called on his drengir, useful in battle, the troop sprangback across the rowing-benches with Óláfr,

But Eiríkr, leader of the drengir, also does his bit in the battle, showing that theleader is primus inter pares (Hókr 7b; Hkr I, 367):

Gnýr varð á sjá sverða.Sleit �rn gera beitu.Dýrr vá drengja stjóri.Drótt kom m�rg á flótta.

There was crash of swords on the sea. The eagle tore the wolf’s food.The excellent leader of drengir fought. Many warriors fled.

The collocation (and rhyme) with þengill (‘ruler’) also occurs in SteinnHerdísarson’s Óláfsdrápa, where the equation between military support and theleader’s generosity is made explicit (Steinn III,16; Skjd B I, 382):4

Dyggr lætr þungar þiggjaþengill af sér drengi,vás launar svá vísiverðung, H�ars gerðar.

The valiant ruler lets his drengir receive heavy Óðinn’s gear [armour],thus the leader repays his retinue for their trouble.

The particular connotations of drengr are, paradoxically, easiest to trace whenthe term begins to lose its specific meaning and begins to take on other connota-tions. Thus it is the specific meaning ‘close follower of a military leader’, andnot a more general meaning ‘man, warrior’, that enables new meanings of theword to develop in the eleventh century. From Sigvatr onwards, we can trace thetwofold development of drengr, with emphasis on one hand on the semanticcomponent of ‘intimacy’, on the other of ‘followership’.

Sigvatr rings the changes on the element dreng- in his Austrfararvísur,


4 See also Eskál III,33, where the stanza is primarily about the poet’s reward, but the poetincludes himself in the troop of drengir who are gladdened by their leader’s generosity(NN, 410).

describing a diplomatic mission that he undertook to Sweden on behalf of KingÓláfr. He is called armi drengr by a heathen woman he meets in Sweden (SigvIII,5); when his horse stumbles it is referred to as fákr drengs (Sigv III,11).Despite the fact that it is a difficult and uncomfortable mission (drjúggenginnvas drengjum), the poet (drengr) still feels able to praise his þengill (Sigv III,14).Indeed, he triumphs over adversity and emphasises that he has managed thejourney fulldrengila (Sigv III,15): he achieves an agreement for equal treatmentof R�gnvaldr’s húskarlar with Óláfr’s drengir (Sigv III,18). Throughout thepoem, Sigvatr contrasts his happiness on the king’s ship with his troubles onland, and tends to use drengr when the discomforts are being emphasised. Theimplication is that the king’s followers are more than willing to endure troubleand difficulty for his sake, but also that they are intimate enough with him tomake open and complaining reference to this. Sigvatr’s usage is individual,perhaps even idiosyncratic, but builds on the semantic components of the basicterm. His verse is very much the poetry of camaraderie, of the in-group. Usedwithin that in-group, it is logical for drengr to develop the first-person meaning.This meaning is common in skaldic verse outside the corpus, where the poetrefers to himself in the third person as drengr (e.g. Þjsk III,5; see also Gísl II).The semantic component ‘intimacy’ that seems important to the meaning ofdrengr can also lead to the use of the term in other contexts than that of the rela-tionship between the war-lord and his followers, as in poetry about women andlove (e.g. Stefnir 2; and, outside the corpus, Bjbysk 4).

The poet refers to himself as drengr in a lausavísa preserved in Orkneyingasaga, expressing his unwillingness to get involved in a battle between the twoOrkney jarls Þorfinnr and R�gnvaldr (Arn VII,5). Besides demonstrating thefirst-person meaning of the word, this verse illustrates (gótt’s fylgja vel dróttni ‘itis good to follow [one’s] lord well’) an important collocation with dróttinn ‘lord’(arising partly, but not entirely, out of the fact that these two words alliterate).Arnórr’s poetry suggests a new relationship between a drengr and his dróttinnthat is no longer the easy camaraderie of the comitatus. In his Magnússdrápa, forinstance, the king is drengja harri ‘lord of drengir’ in the centre of the fighting(Arn III,14), or drengja dróttinn when he wins both Denmark and Norway (ArnIII,7a; Skjd B I, 312):

Náði siklingr síðansnjallr ok Danm�rk allri,m�ttr óx drengja dróttins,dýrr Nóregi at stýra.

The courageous, excellent prince then achieved rule over Norway and allDenmark, the power of the lord of drengir increased.

This stanza is a good example of the type of praise poetry that centres on theking, heaping up nouns and epithets referring to him – the drengir have only ashadowy substance, providing at most an unspecific background to the achieve-ments of their king. This style reaches its culmination in the Eiríksdrápa of


Markús Skeggjason. In Mark I,18, Eiríkr’s drengir are reduced to anonymousstandard-bearers following the splendidly-armoured king into battle. In a stanzadescribing Eiríkr’s generosity to his followers, the emphasis is entirely on theking and the gifts he is distributing, while the drengir are the passive recipientsof his bounty, with no hint of what they did to deserve these rewards (Mark I,7;Knýtl, 214):

Drengir þ�gu auð at Yngva.�rr fylkir gaf sverð ok kn�rru.Eiríkr veitti opt ok stórumarmleggjar r�f dýrðar seggjum.Hringum eyddi hodda sløngvirhildar ramr, en stillir framðifirða kyn, svát flestir urðu,Fróða stóls, af h�num góðir.

The drengir received wealth from the king. The generous captain gaveswords and ships. Eiríkr granted often and lavishly arm’s amber [gold] tomen of excellence. The battle-brave distributor of treasure destroyedrings, and the occupant of Fróði’s throne honoured men so that mostbecame enriched by him.

And anyone who is not totally loyal to his dróttinn is accused of the crime ofdrengspell (ÞjóðA III,11).

Thus, in skaldic verse, drengr can be shown to have changed in the course ofthe eleventh century from meaning a member of the comitatus on a quasi-equalfooting with his leader, to meaning a supporter or a mere fighting-man in acontext which gave more prominence to the leader, the dróttinn. This reflects thegrowing power and ambitions of kings in the eleventh century (see further on thisbelow and in chapter 7).

Extending this analysis to runic inscriptions shows how the meanings of theword could vary from region to region as well as in time. The meaning of drengras a warrior both close to and nearly equal to his war-leader can be found in somerunic inscriptions, notably the much-discussed group of stones from Hällestad inSkåne (D 295–7). The most impressive one (D 295) is partially in poetic form:5

: askil : sati : stin : þansi : ift[iR] : tuka : kurms : sun : saR : hulan :trutin : saR : flu : aigi : at : ub : : salum satu : trikar : iftiR : sin :


5 See Moltke 1985, 191:SaR flo ægi He fled notat Upsalum. at Uppsala.Sattu drengiaR Warriors set upæftiR sin broþur after their brothersten � biargi the stone on the hillstøþan runum standing firm with runes.þeR Gorms Toka Toke, Gorm’s son,gingu næstiR. they followed nearest.

bruþr stin : o : biarki : stuþan : runum : þiR : (k)(u)(r)(m)(s) (:)(t)(u)(k)(a) : kiku : (n)(i)(s)(t)[iR]

Áskell set up this stone in memory of Tóki, Gormr’s son, a lord graciousto him. He did not flee at Uppsala. Drengjar set up, in memory of theirbrother, a stone on a hill, made firm with runes. They went nearestGormr’s Tóki.

Although Áskell is prominent in the commemoration formula, it becomes clearthat he is not acting alone but as a member of a group of drengjar (as is indicatedby the parallelism of singular sati stin and plural satu . . . stin). We learn of thisgroup that they ‘went [or ‘followed’] nearest’ Tóki, i.e. that they were his closestfighting-men, and that he was their bróðir ‘brother’ and Áskell’s, and probablytheir, dróttinn ‘lord’.

The name Tóki appears on all three Hällestad stones, though it is not certainthat they all refer to the same man. The genitival collocation kurms tuka on D295 may suggest there was a need to distinguish him from another or others ofthe same name. The man commemorated in D 297 is also called Tóki:

: osbiurn : him : þaki : tuka : sati : stin : þasi : iftiR : tuka : bruþur :sin :

Ásbj�rn, Tóki’s heimþegi,6 set up this stone in memory of Tóki, hisbrother.

The word bróðir ‘brother’ might be ambiguous here. The most obvious explana-tion would be that Ásbj�rn is commemorating his real brother, who just happensto have the same name as their leader Tóki, commemorated in D 295. But theinterpretation of drengr in that inscription indicated that bróðir means‘brother-in-arms’, emphasising the equality, in battle at least, of the drengjarwith their leader.7 This may in turn suggest that D 297 is also commemoratingTóki, the leader. The word bróðir is also used in D 296 (where the inscriptionconsciously echoes D 295 with the formula stin : o : biarki):

: oskautr : ristþi : stin : þansi (:) (i)ftiR : airu : brþur : sin : ian : : saR

: uas : him : þiki : tuka : nu : : skal : stato : stin : o : biarki :

Ásgautr raised this stone in memory of Erra, his brother. And he wasTóki’s heimþegi. Now the stone shall stand on the hill.

Whether or not these men (or some of them) were literally brothers, they wereclearly a close-knit group who felt like, and felt the need to commemorate eachother as, brothers.8 If Tóki was primus, he was clearly also inter pares. And the


6 This word is discussed further below.7 Wimmer (1895–1908, I, 86, IV, vi–vii) exceptionally takes the drengjar of D 295 in a

heroic meaning (‘heltene’) and bróðir, again exceptionally, to mean a brother-in-arms.8 Varenius (1999, 175) makes the point that a ‘retinue is . . . organized according to the same

principles as a family’.


6.1 The Sjörup stone (D 279). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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word which is most appropriate for expressing this intimacy, this camaraderie,even equality, is drengr, exactly as in some skaldic verse.

Also relevant is the Sjörup stone (D 279) from further south in Skåne. In this,Saxi commemorates Ásbj�rn, who ‘did not flee at Uppsala but fought as long ashe had a weapon’ (see fig. 6.1). Ásbj�rn is not Saxi’s bróðir but his félagi. Theterm félagi (discussed further below) occurs in conjunction with drengr in anumber of inscriptions from Denmark and Skåne (D 1, D 68, D 127, D 262, D330, D 339, Vg 112),9 but never with other words, suggesting that it too carriesthe implication of a close relationship: it is, indeed, often translated as ‘partner’(Page 1993, 150, suggests ‘comrade-in-arms’ as a possibility). Thus, the colloca-tions help to build up a picture of the semantic field.

It is important to note that a word that is often linked with drengr, i.e. þegn,does not show the same collocations. I have previously tried to show (Jesch1993b) that, in skaldic verse, the terms þegn and drengr belonged to twodifferent semantic fields, the drengr a close associate of the king, while þegn wasused mainly of internal opposition to the king, mostly wealthy landowners whoresented his growing power. There was no obvious link between the two terms inthe skaldic material, indeed they seemed to represent diametrically oppositeconcepts. In the runic corpus, however, they appear to be more closely linked,particularly in Denmark and Västergötland, where there are many examples ofboth terms in similar contexts, usually with the qualifier harða góðr ‘very good’(P. Sawyer 1991, 53–4).

Unfortunately, the Västergötland inscriptions generally stick to a simplecommemorative formula and do not offer the kind of context that would helpelucidate the meanings of these terms. To do this, it has been usual to look atoccurrences of the terms elsewhere. As Peter Sawyer himself has pointed out(1991, 54), the distribution of these two words is not equal, with drengr having amuch wider distribution. In fact, the distribution of þegn is probably even morerestricted than Sawyer would believe, since all but one of his examples fromSödermanland contain the phrase þróttar þegn, an obscure collocation which hasnot yet been satisfactorily explained, but which is unlikely to have the same ref-erence as þegn in the Västergötland inscriptions (Strid 1987, 302). This leavesonly three inscriptions containing the word þegn in Sweden outsideVästergötland, but a wealth of examples from Denmark (including Skåne). Sincethe Danish examples appear to be analogous to those in Västergötland, and sincethis analogy is the basis for Sawyer’s argument that Knútr claimed overlordshipover this area, the parallels need further comment.


9 D 127 and Vg 112 have an almost identical text, and were both put up by Þórir in memoryof his félagi Karl, a very ‘good’ drengr. The rune forms and orthography suggest twodifferent rune carvers (DR, 165), although Þórir did not apparently make use of a localcarver in Denmark, since D 127 shows Swedish characteristics. It has been suggested thatboth men were from Västergötland and travelled to Denmark together (Moltke 1985,379–81). Interestingly, the vocabulary points in the opposite direction. The collocation ofdrengr and félagi is unique in Västergötland but common in Denmark (including Skåne).

If the inscriptions in the two areas are in fact analogous, then that analogymust naturally apply to both the terms that are linked in Sawyer’s argument,which is in a nutshell that ‘Drängar som en gång kämpat för Knut kan mycket välha fortsatt att erkänna honom som sin kung, och, sedan de återvänt hem, haverkat som hans lokala agenter, d.v.s. thegnar’ (1991, 54: ‘Drengjar who oncefought for Knútr may well have continued to acknowledge him as their king and,once they returned home, have acted as his local agents, i.e. þegnar’; my trans-lation). The link with Knútr is however tenuous: it depends in part on oneinscription (D 345) that refers to a drengr of Knútr (triks knus), but there is noway of knowing whether or not this refers to the king of England.10 Nor is thelink with England any firmer. None of the drengr- or þegn-inscriptions fromVästergötland mentions England and only Vg 61 notes of a drengr that he died inthe west, although there are three other inscriptions for men who died in Englandor the west in that province (Vg 20, Vg 187, Vg 197). Sawyer’s assumption thatVästergötland drengjar fought with Knútr in England depends on a loose associ-ation with a few inscriptions from Uppland and one from Östergötland whichrefer to Knútr (Sawyer 1991, 53). Such an assumption would also fit very oddlywith the meanings for drengr outlined above, where the connotations of this termare very strongly of intimacy and reciprocity between brothers-in-arms. Knútr’swarriors might very well have called themselves his drengjar when together withhim, or remembering him, or when he was remembering them, but this is not thesituation in either the Danish or the Västergötland inscriptions.

If there is no obvious link of the drengjar with Knútr, then there is no basis forthe concomitant argument, that the þegnar were his agents on their return home.This is borne out by a closer look at what evidence there is for the meaning ofþegn in Danish and Västergötland inscriptions. The latter are, as already indi-cated, not a good place to start since the texts containing this term do not provideany further context. In Denmark, however, there are some that do. The basis ofsome scholars’ interpretation of þegn seems to be its occurrence on theGlavendrup stone (D 209): Moltke (1985, 286) explained its meaning there as ‘akind of military status’. Apart from the fact that the expressions associated withthis term on the Glavendrup stone have still not been fully elucidated (Moltke1985, 277; Lerche Nielsen 1997), it is not defensible to build a whole theory ofthe word’s meaning on this one inscription which is probably considerablyearlier than most of the others, yet Moltke goes on to conclude (1985, 287),without any further evidence, that ‘ ‘‘thegns’’ and certain ‘‘drengs’’ were associ-ated in some way with the king’s military organisation’ (for which he is also criti-cised by Page 1993, 150). Whatever the word þegn may mean, there is noevidence, apart from the very obscure association with lið in Glavendrup, to linkthis word with any aspect of military activity. Where we do have an inscriptionwith a context more generous than the usual formula with harða góðan þegn, it


10 This stone is in any case atypical for Skåne, showing affinities with Södermanland andÖstergötland (Moltke 1985, 265–6).

suggests quite the opposite meaning: the associations are to settled and wealthyhereditary landowners in a peaceful context. Thus, several of the inscriptionscommemorating a þegn refer to the monument as a kuml (D 143, D 209, D 277,D 293, D 294), suggesting a family with the means to erect a substantial monu-ment.11 As well as suggesting a family context, kuml hardly ever collocates withany of the terms that can have military connotations: never with drengr and onlyonce with félagi (D 318). All of these inscriptions with kuml give genealogicaland family information, and all except D 294 also make reference to women,suggesting an interest in inheritance and family continuity far removed from thepurely masculine world of the military inscriptions. This use of þegn, implyingwealthy local magnates, can be reconciled with the use of the same term inskaldic verse, although there the emphasis tends to be a negative one because ofthe royalist bias of the poetry (Jesch 1993b, 167–9).

This of course still leaves a fair number of Danish þegn-stones which appearto be exactly parallel to the Västergötland ones. Like the Västergötland ones,these do not provide any further context to shed light on this expression. Butthere are further reasons to question the analogy between the Danish and theVästergötland inscriptions, despite their apparent similarity. One is the questionof dating. Marie Stoklund (1991, 289–94) has published good arguments forreconsidering the traditional dating of the ‘Efter-Jelling gruppe’ (into whichmost of the Danish memorial stones fall) and making it somewhat earlier, c.970to c.1025, with stones such as those of Hällestad dated to the 980s. This redatingwould explain the absence of Knútr in the Danish material (it is mostly tooearly), and make it more difficult to link the Danish stones with those fromVästergötland (dated predominantly to the first two thirds of the eleventhcentury, although fine-tuning of this chronology is difficult, see SR V, xlix–lv).There is another factor which suggests that the two groups represent differentsocial phenomena. We have already seen that four of the Danish inscriptionscontaining þegn where the monument is called a kuml make mention of women,and this is also true of at least two further þegn-inscriptions (D 98, D 99), makingsix out of the 18 listed by Sawyer (1991, 54).12 However, of the 17 Danishdrengr-inscriptions listed by Sawyer, only one lost (and therefore possiblydoubtful) one contains a female name (D 78). This marked imbalance is notreflected in the Västergötland inscriptions, where women’s names appear in bothdrengr- and þegn-inscriptions (a minimum of 5/17 of the former and 4/17 of thelatter, similar to the overall proportion of inscriptions in Västergötlandmentioning women, as computed by B. Sawyer 1988, Table I).

Peter Sawyer may be right that the drengr- and þegn-stones in Västergötlandform a group, and that there is a relationship between the two terms in this group.


11 Nielsen (1953) defines a kuml as a monument consisting of several erected stones,normally one or more rune stones in association with one or more uninscribed stones.

12 The total is now 19, as a further þegn-inscription was found at Borup in 1995 (Stoklund1996, 278–80). This has neither the word kuml nor any mention of women, but does showan interest in genealogy, mentioning three generations of one family.


6.2 The Bjälbo stone (Ög 64). Photo: Judith Jesch.

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But his analogy with Danish inscriptions is problematic in terms of both chro-nology and social context. In any case, the use of drengr and þegn in the Danishinscriptions does not support his explanation of these terms. The best explana-tion so far is a negative one: whatever drengr and þegn meant in Västergötland,at the time of the rune stone fashion there, it was not what these terms meant inDenmark or elsewhere.

While in Denmark the associations of drengr are mainly to warriors, and inVästergötland the implications of the term are unclear, there is evidence fromelsewhere that it could be used in a mercantile milieu. This is not necessarily inconflict with the ‘warrior’-meaning, since merchants would have to defendthemselves and their wares in the course of their journeys. Most notable is thecollocation with gildi ‘guild-brother’ in two inscriptions from Östergötland (Ög64, Ög MÖLM1960:230), discussed further below. Thus, although the termdrengr does not of itself imply mercantile activity, it was certainly used, not onlyby bands of warriors, but also by bands of merchants, of themselves.13

What is clear is that drengr could, and did, have different meanings indifferent contexts. It even occurs once as a personal name (Ög MÖLM1960:230). Thus it is futile to try to pin it down to one translation, and a betterapproach is to identify its range of semantic components. An important, evenbasic, semantic component in the Viking Age is that of intimacy, even exclu-sivity: drengr belongs to the vocabulary of the in-group, in whatever context.The collocations suggest that the contexts could include bands of warriors, bandsof merchants, and any other close-knit group of men. Because such bands weremost likely to have been composed of relatively young men establishing them-selves, the word also came to acquire a connotation of youth (though not invari-ably).

From this use between close-knit members of a particular group, the wordcould develop in a variety of ways. In later skaldic poetry, it developed afirst-person meaning, where the speaker referring to himself can be seen as theultimate in intimacy, mainly in post-Viking Age poetry, though this aspect is alsofound in some of Sigvatr’s idiosyncratic usage. A similar semantic developmentcan be seen in runic inscriptions where the commissioners of the monument arereferred to as drengjar (D 295, Ög 64 [see fig. 6.2], ?Sö 155, U 808) or in whichthe adverb drengila ‘in a drengr-like manner’ is used of the actions of thecommissioners (Sö 113, ?Sö 122, Sö 130). Although the commissioners andtheir actions in such inscriptions are referred to in the third person, the very act ofcommissioning a monument implies that its inscription reflects how the commis-sioners wish themselves to be seen, and is thus semantically, if not


13 In an analysis of the inscription on the silver neck-ring found in Senja in northern Norway(N 540), I have tried to show how the seemingly military vocabulary of this inscriptioncould also be interpreted as indicating trading activity (Jesch 1997). In a reply to thisarticle, Kees Samplonius (1998), while agreeing that drengr is likely to refer to a groupwhich includes the speaker, suggests that the text was inscribed by a Norwegian vikingwho had been on a joint viking-Frisian expedition.

grammatically, a kind of first-person statement. Along the same lines, the verse,presumably by the rune-carver Balli, on U 729, addressed to potential readerswho are able to read runes, uses the term drengr for such initiates, of whom thepoet is obviously one (Jesch 1998a).

In runic inscriptions, the use of drengr by young warrior-merchants of them-selves on their voyages abroad led to its being applied to them by familymembers outside their particular in-group when commissioning monuments intheir memory, so that the semantic component of exclusiveness is lost. Most suchinscriptions involve fathers commemorating their sons. Presumably, in thesecases the commemorated were mostly quite young when they died, so that thesemantic component of ‘youth’ may also have played its part in the choice of vo-cabulary. The instances are: in D 380 a ‘good’ drengr who was killed in battle;14

in Sö 55 a son who died at home, but who had been to England when he was a‘young’ drengr; in Sö 163 several snjallir ‘bold’ drengjar, one of whom acquiredgold in Greece; in Sm 48 a harða góðr ‘very ‘‘good’’ ’ drengr, who probably (thereading is uncertain) ‘died on a journey’; in Vg 181 a harða góðr drengr whowas ‘killed in Estonia’; while in Vs 18 and Vs 19 the same man commemoratedhis son who had been in England and his stepson who had been in the east withIngvar. In Vg 61, a mother commemorated her son who died í vestrvegum ávíkingu ‘on western routes a-viking’ and in Ög 81 a niece commemorated fiveuncles who died in different places, calling one of them a frœkn ‘brave’ drengr.Where a brother is commemorating a brother (or brother-in-law) in an inscrip-tion that suggests a context of ‘viking’ activity, there is of course the possibilitythat the men were actually a part of the same band (that they were both brothersand brothers-in-arms), so that the word drengr is used in its in-group meaning(thus D 77, D 387, Ög 104, Ög 111 [see fig. 6.3], Sö 320, Vg 184, Vs 22).15 Theinscriptions in which the commemorated is said to have voyaged abroad drengila‘in drengr-like fashion’ also belong here: Sö 164 incorporates a ship design andnotes that he stood drengila in the stem of his ship; Sö 179 commemorates ayoung man who was with Ingvar and ‘fed eagles in the east’ and ‘died in thesouth’; and in Nä 29 the commemorated is said to have ‘travelled’ fulldrengila‘fully like a drengr’.

The many inscriptions in which a family member commemorates a drengr ofsome kind without further context are a further development of this process ofgeneralisation, whereby the term becomes a nearly meaningless word used toindicate approbation of the deceased. Examples of this are found in various prov-inces of Sweden (Öl 58, Sö 167, Sö 177, Sm 93, Vg 32, Vg 90, Vg 123, Vg 126,Vg 127, Vg 153, Vg 154, Vg 162, U 143, U 166, U 289, U 610, U 760, U 767, U768, U 802, Vs 3, ?Nä 18, Nä 23).16 In those inscriptions without further contextin which a brother commemorates a brother, the more precise meaning may be


14 Here, the use of drengr is conjectural, as part of the inscription is worn away.15 There is no verbal context to indicate ‘viking’ activity in D 77, but the carving includes a

ship. D 387 is discussed further below, under ‘Treachery’. On Vs 22, see Williams 1992.16 In Nä 18, it is not certain who is commemorating the deceased drengr. D 389, from

implicit, these are found only in Denmark (actually Skåne: D 268, D 276, D288),17 Östergötland (Ög 122, Ög 130, Ög 201), and Västergötland (Vg 114, Vg125, Vg 130, Vg 157, Vg 179).

Thus, there is no evidence in the runic or skaldic sources that the word drengrever implied a title or office of any kind, nor that it specifically and formallyreferred to membership of an organised warrior band or merchant fraternity(Nielsen 1945, 118–19), even though it is the vocabulary used of themselves andeach other by the members of such bands. Since both of these types of bandswere normally shipborne, it could also be used in contexts where it clearly refersto a ship’s crew, even if these were also fighting men. There are several skaldicexamples of this (Hfr III,13; Ótt II,14; Hharð 4; ÞjóðA IV,19; AnonXI Flokkr).There are also a number of runic examples where a ship occurs in the verbal orpictorial context, though drengr need not refer to a crew member of that ship(D 1, D 68, D 77, Ög MÖLM1960:230 and, with drengila, Sö 122 and Sö 164).From its use in warbands in particular, where the leader of the band was primusinter pares, drengr could be extended to those led by a more powerful king,whose sway extended beyond the band of warriors he led, and therefore began to


6.3 The Landeryd stone (Ög 111). Photo: Judith Jesch.

Bornholm, and Ög FV1965:54 are the only examples of sons in these areas, and the formerinscription is quite obscure.

17 D 289 commemorates a mágr ‘kinsman by marriage’, who is perhaps most likely in thiscontext to be a brother-in-law.

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acquire a sense of service if not of servitude, shown most clearly in lateeleventh-century skaldic verse.

One final shade of meaning to be considered is where the term drengr is used,not of the speaker’s own group, but in recognition of another such group, evenwhen they are the opposition. A stanza on the battle of Hj�rungavágr, attributedto Vígfúss Víga-Glúmsson, recalls the boarding of the Danish enemy’s ships:þar gingum vér til knarrar danskra drengja (Vígf I). Although the authenticityand canonical status of this verse are doubtful, it is not impossible to imaginesuch an extension of the meaning of drengr. Fidjestøl (1982, 165) postulated thatthis was a stanza addressed by the poet to his fellow warriors, and the past tenseforms suggest that this took place at the feast afterwards, rather than in the thickof things. The Danish opponents were the Jómsvíkingar, whom tradition gradu-ally elevated to heroic status, despite their defeat in this battle. However, whendrengr is used of the (defeated) enemy in Steinn III,4,9, the most likely explana-tion is that the word was chosen for metrical reasons (it rhymes in III,4 and allit-erates in III,9) and has no meaning beyond ‘warrior’ (see also Þfisk 1,3). Theseexamples confirm that, in the last third of the eleventh century, drengr had begunto lose, or had lost, the semantic components of intimacy and exclusiveness thatwere a feature of its use in earlier texts.

félagi

A word less common than drengr, but regularly collocating with it, is félagi.Etymologically, the word appears to suggest trade, or at least some activity basedon common property (AEW). It is glossed (DR, 649) as being used of ‘mænd, derdeltager i samme vikingetogt’ (‘men, who participate in the same viking expedi-tion’), though noting Finnur Jónsson’s assumption that it refers to‘handelsfæller’ (‘partners in trade’). Others have assumed the word is ambig-uous, referring either to war or to trade (e.g. Düwel 1987, 329). However, wherethe runic material provides additional context for this word, it indicates militaryactivity more than anything else (as recognised by Wimmer 1895–1908, IV, viii).

Thus, in D 66, four men commemorate a félagi, who died þo kunukaR

barþusk ‘when kings fought’. This battle cannot be identified, but the mentionof kings precludes a merchants’ brawl. The Sjörup inscription (D 279), in whichone man commemorates his félagi, who ‘fled not at Uppsala, but fought while hehad weapon’, also clearly refers to a particular battle. The partnerships intowhich these men entered therefore presumably had the function of going to war.On the Hedeby stone (D 1), one man commemorates his félagi, who was a ‘verygood’ drengr, and who died þo trekiaR satu um haiþabu ‘when drengjarsurrounded Hedeby’. In this particular instance, the drengjar of whom Eiríkr wasone were clearly acting in a military capacity. However, Hedeby was a majortrading centre in the Viking Age, and their partnership may also have had amercantile element (as argued by Jankuhn 1986, 74–6).

There are further inscriptions which are ambiguous and indicate ‘viking’activity which could be either raiding or trading (or both). Thus, in D 68 three



6.4 The Århus stone (D 68). Photo: Erik Moltke, NationalMuseum of Denmark.

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men commemorate their félagi, who was a ‘very good’ drengr (see fig. 6.4). Theinscription says a little more about him: he died an óníðingr (see more on thisexpression below), and he owned a ship together with another man, who is notone of those commissioning the memorial. This is surprising: the term félagiought to be most appropriate for two men owning a ship together, where the rela-tionship was an equal compact. If the commissioners of the monument were hiscrew members, félagi would not seem the most obvious term to use of the rela-tionship. Perhaps they were also ship-owners, and the enterprise was an expedi-tion of two or more ships on a joint venture of either raiding or trading.

D 330, which has been already discussed in chapter 2 in connection with theabstract noun víking, shows two men commemorating two others who are theirfélagar. The text is fragmentary and the final statement is also ambiguous, in thatit could apply to all four of them, or just the two commemorated. It calls themdrengjar, and it has been conjectured that it says that they váru víða óneisir ívíkingu ‘they were widely unshamed in víking’. The adjective is rare and it is notclear exactly what it implies, though it is laudatory, using the Old Norse prefer-ence for litotes, expressing a strong opinion through a negative.18 This kind ofpraise is more common in military contexts than mercantile ones, but the wholeinscription is unfortunately too obscure to make any firm judgments.

One of only two instances of the word félagi from Uppland is the lost stone U954. Like D 68, there is an association with concepts of treachery, and the textwill be discussed in more detail below. Here, the deceased is being commemo-rated by his siblings, and the term is used to refer to his relationship to the manwho killed him. There is not much to go on in deciding whether this relationshipwas mercantile or military, though it is perhaps significant that the only otheroccurrence of félagi in Uppland comes from a mercantile context. One of the twoSigtuna stones commissioned by members of the Frisian guild for a colleagueuses the term for the deceased’s relationship to someone called Slóði (U 391).Since the commissioners do not name themselves individually, it is not knownwhether Slóði was one of them, or a third party altogether.

To complicate the picture further, an inscription from a remote part ofSödermanland suggests joint ownership of land, rather than joint investment inan expedition or ship for trading or raiding. On Sö 292, a Vígmarr commemo-rates his mágr, which could be any male relative by marriage, but was mostcommonly used of brothers-in-law (or sons-in-law, which is less likely in thiscase). In commenting on this inscription (SR III, 266), Wessén made a link withSö 298, in which Vígmarr is commemorated by his sons. Both stones are placedin the forest, far from any farms, but near a parish boundary, and seem to indicateVígmarr’s property in some way: either he owned land on both sides of theforest, or the stones mark the boundaries of his property. It is possible to specu-late that Vígmarr originally owned property jointly with his brother(?)-in-law(who may have inherited some of it from his own brother), and then came into


18 It has been conjectured that the same adjective is used in the lost inscription Ög 122, alsocollocating with drengr.

possession of a large estate on his death. This interpretation, depending as it doeson the situation of the two stones, must however be much more conjectural thanany depending on the linguistic context.

As with drengr, there are a number of inscriptions with no further linguisticcontext to explain félagi. Unlike drengr, however, it is notably not a word that isused in commemorating family members. The other inscriptions in which thecommemorated is said to have been a félagi of the commissioner(s) do notspecify any family relationship between them (D 125, D 127, D 262, D 270, D316, D 321, D 339, Vg 112, Vg 122, Vg 182, Berezan).19 In an inscription fromSkåne, a son commemorates his father and his father’s félagi (D 318). Theabsence of any indications of family relationship make it virtually certain that,even in these inscriptions with no explanatory context, the word means somekind of partner. Thus, the word has not undergone the kind of generalisation thatcan be seen in the runic uses of drengr, and retains the specific, technicalmeaning of ‘partner’, whether for the purposes of war, trade or landowning.

These terminological implications may explain why félagi is largely absentfrom the skaldic corpus. Only the joky and possibly spurious ditty SteigÞ uses it,apparently in the context of four men in a boat (Perkins 1986–9). Skaldic versehas relatively little to say about trade, and the economic side of war is presentedas a matter of the war-leader or king rewarding his followers and not as anactivity for joint entrepreneurs. The profits of war in skaldic verse come fromgift-giving and reward, rather than the contractual division of spoils.

This contractual implication of the term is illuminated by the loan wordfeolaga in Old English (ModE ‘fellow’). The account in the Anglo-SaxonChronicle of the treaty of Olney between Knútr and Edmund notes that, as aresult of their settlement, they became feolagan � wed broðra ‘feolagan andpledge-brothers’ (ASC 1016D). Here, the two terms are presumably intended tobe synonymous and to represent the cultural backgrounds of the two kings. Thisreinforces the strong, almost legal, implications of the term, and fits in neatlywith the Norse evidence for the vocabulary of treachery and loyalty, discussedfurther below. Less clear is the meaning of feolaga in the OE, roman-alphabetinscription on a grave stone from the late tenth or eleventh century found in 1965during excavations at the Old Minster, Winchester (HANI, no. 138). The grave isof someone who may have had the Scandinavian name of Gunni, and who isdescribed as EORLES FEOLAGA. But it is not at all certain whether EORL is aname or a title here, nor whether FEOLAGA ‘could have legal significance’, assuggested by Okasha (HANI, 127).

heimþegi

Six Danish inscriptions (D 1, D 3, D 154, D 155, D 296, D 297) use the termheimþegi ‘home-receiver’ (m., pl. heimþegar), invariably in a genitival colloca-tion with a personal name. In two of the inscriptions (D 1 and D 297), the


19 On D 127 and Vg 112, see n. 9, above.

heimþegi is the commissioner of the monument, and is clearly proud of hisstatus. The fact that D 3 is commissioned by a King Sveinn for his heimþegisuggests that status was a high one. Two of the examples (D 154 and D 155)involve a wife commemorating her husband who was a heimþegi. The term isthus not a part of the vocabulary of the in-group as such, but does illustrate therelationship between the war-band and its leader. In D 1 we can see a distinctionbetween the two:

� þurlf � risþi � stin � þonsi � � himþigi � suins � eftiR � erik �

filaga � sin � ias � uarþ : tauþr � þo � trekiaR satu � um � haiþa�bu� ian : han : uas : sturi:matr : tregR � � harþa : kuþr �

Þórulfr raised this stone, Sveinn’s heimþegi, in memory of Eiríkr, hisfélagi, who died when drengjar besieged Hedeby; and he was astýrimaðr, a very good drengr.

While Þórulfr is proud of his own position in King Sveinn’s entourage, thememorial inscription is for someone of the same social status, his félagi and adrengr. As we have already seen, in two of the Hällestad inscriptions (D 296, D297), men are said to have been heimþegar of Tóki, presumably the same mancommemorated in D 295. Here, the social distinctions are less clear, perhapsbecause Tóki was not a king (though he was a dróttinn ‘lord’). Nevertheless, it isclear that he was a leader, the one who ensured the cohesion of the group, a trueprimus inter pares.

The word heimþegi is a transparent compound, meaning one who is given ahome by someone else (DR, 663). Both its etymology and the clear indication ofthe inscriptions in which it occurs that such men had high social status suggestthat it is a word used of the closest and highest-ranking followers of a war-leaderor king. While it probably does not occur in the skaldic corpus (though seebelow), or indeed in OWN, other compounds in -þegi do. Most notably, KingÓláfr’s men are called heiðþegar ‘gift-receivers’ (Sigv II,6). According to LP,heið means ‘gift, stipend, pay’, but there is no obvious way to distinguishbetween these in the examples. As Snorri explains, heiðfé heitir máli ok gj�f erh�fðingjar gefa ‘heið-money is the name of the wages or gift which chieftainsgive’ (SnESkskm, 81). Although Sigvatr’s term may seem more mercenary thanthe runic one, the social institution to which they both refer is surely the same.

The collocations of heiðþegar are ambiguous in Sigvatr’s stanza, for the geni-tive þengils ‘of the prince’ could govern the followers, the mj�ð ‘mead’ whichthe poet imagines being distributed to them as an alternative to battle, thestrengjar jór ‘horse of the ropes, ship’, or indeed all three of these (seeSnESkskm, 204, on some other ambiguities in this stanza). It is not impossiblethat Sigvatr’s stanza originally had heimþegum. Several manuscripts have a form‘hæimdrogum’ or ‘heimdregum’ (Skjd A I, 230). The word heimdragi or -dregioccurs in later skaldic verse meaning ‘stay-at-home, yokel’ and is clearly inap-propriate in Sigvatr’s stanza. But it may reflect the Icelandic scribes’ attempt tomake sense of an original heimþegum they did not understand. The reading of the


majority of manuscripts, heiðþegum, could also derive from heimþegum, withthe change of one letter providing a simple substitution for the more commonfirst element heið-, known in the compounds heiðmaðr (Sigv III,17), heiðmildr(Bersi I,3) and heiðmærr (Arn VI,3). Whether Óláfr’s followers received wagesor a home from the king, the mead they also received was a symbol of this rela-tionship.

húskarl

Another word for a retainer was húskarl ‘house-man’ (m., pl. húskarlar), the firstelement, like that in heimþegi, indicating that the follower shared his leader’sroof. Like víkingr (and once drengr), this is a word that also appears as apersonal name in the runic corpus.20 Otherwise it occurs only three times as acommon noun, twice in a genitival collocation. In U 330, we are given thesupplementary information that �zurr was the húskarl of Ragnfastr, thedeceased, while in U 335 the deceased, Hæra, is said to have been the húskarl ofone Sigrøðr. In Sö 338, two brothers are praised for the fact that they h(i)(l)(t)u

sini huska(r)la ui- ‘held their húskarlar well’. At the same time the húskarlarform part of the group who commissioned the monument. The commis-sioner-commemorated constellations in this inscription are quite complicated.The dead man, Þorsteinn, is commemorated by his two sons, his brother, hishúskarlar and his wife. But the rest of the inscription, which is in verse, praisesboth brothers, the dead and the living, for their activities both at home andabroad. Þorsteinn died in Russia, commanding a lið. Thus, when we are told thathe and �nundr looked after their retainers, it is not certain whether these werefollowers at home, or on the expedition abroad, or whether this means that theywere paid handsomely, or were given their leaders’ protection. It is quite possiblethat all of these are meant. Although of high status, or at least wealth, assuggested by the splendour of this particular monument, Þorsteinn and �nundrwere only local magnates who had a relatively successful life. Neither they, northe employers of the húskarlar in U 330 and U 335, were aristocrats in anysense.

The relatively short social distance between employer and employee is alsoindicated in Sö 338 by the fact that the húskarlar participate in commissioningthe monument. In fact, this part of the inscription, auk hu[skar]laR hifiR iafna

could be interpreted as ok húskarlar eptir jafna ‘and the húskarlar in memory oftheir equal’, as first suggested by von Friesen. Wessén (SR III, 327) notes that theonly problem with this suggestion is the absence of a possessive sinn after jafna,but a quick trawl through SamRun soon demonstrates that there is no shortage ofinscriptions in which the noun of relationship is not modified by a possessive.21


20 U 184, U 240, U 241, U 281, U 1139.21 E.g. Ög 40, Sö 113, Sö 129, Sö 130, Sm 89, Sm 105, Sm 146, Vg 3, Vg 18, U 462, U 527,

U 895, U 984, U 1025, U 1026, U 1086, U 1160, N 84, N 163.

There is therefore no possible objection to von Friesen’s original suggestion,which seems syntactically and otherwise preferable to Wessén’s alternative inwhich jafn means ‘just’ and is a kind of by-name for Þorsteinn, ‘the Just’. Theadjective jafn is often used in the comparison of men and occurs in this way inthe skaldic corpus, when Sigvatr compares Erlingr Skjalgsson to the legendaryDala-Guðbrandr: Ykkr kveðk jafna þykkja ‘I say you two are thought to beequals’ (Sigv VI).

In the skaldic corpus, húskarl is inevitably used of a king’s retainers, incontexts which give quite a lot of clues to this relationship. In a stanza addressedto King Óláfr, Sigvatr passes on a message from the Swedish jarl R�gnvaldr tohalda vel hvern húskarl sínn ‘look after each of his húskarlar well’ (Sigv III,18),using exactly the same expression as in Sö 338, although the context of a royaldiplomatic mission is far removed from the more domestic runic memorial. Butit is interesting to note that the Swedish húskarlar are paralleled by Óláfr’sdrengir, whom Sigvatr promises an equally good reception at R�gnvaldr’s court.Sigvatr also uses the word húskarl of his own relationship to Óláfr (Sigv XIII,3).The closeness of the king’s relationship to his húskarlar means that there is realdanger when they appear ready to betray him (Sigv XIII,18), and is graphicallyillustrated by the weeping húskarlar mourning Magnús góði in Okík I,2. Húskarlis the word used by Haraldr harðráði in his ironic comment on how Einarrþambarskelfir has more followers than a jarl (Hharð 11), indicating that jarlscould also have húskarlar. Finally, we see the húskarlar in their fighting role,although on the other side, at the battle of Áróss. Magnús is said to bring it aboutthat þverði jarli húskarla lið ‘the jarl’s troop of húskarlar diminished’ (ÞjóðAI,12). The effect of this is the greater if the húskarlar were his closest retainers.

Húskarl is thus mostly a simple descriptive term, with no particular connota-tions of the in-group. Though the contexts show that the húskarlar were closefollowers of a leader, the relationship is seen from the outside, as it were, andcontrasts with drengr, used in a similar range of contexts, which gives more of aninside view into the viking warband.

The term húskarl was also borrowed into OE, where the collocations link itvery strongly with the king himself. The earliest reference is possibly in a charterof King Knútr, granting land to ‘his huscarl Bovi’, though this survives only in atwelfth-century manuscript (OEC; ASCha, S 969). In the aftermath of Knútr’sdeath, Queen Emma stays in Winchester mid þæs cynges huscarlum hyra suna‘with the huscarlas of her son, the king’ (ASC 1036E). This son, Harthacnut,ravaged Worcestershire in revenge for the killing of his twegra huscarla ‘his twohuscarlas’ (ASC 1041C,D) in Worcester where they had been trying to collect histax (see chapter 4). Several of King Edward’s charters refer to his huscarlasusing a possessive adjective (Harmer 1989, 120, 344, 411). The Denscahuscarles ‘Danish huscarlas’ who are said to have accompanied the DanishBishop Christian and Earl Osbearn to Ely (ASC 1070E) are likely to have beenthe húskarlar of Osbearn’s (Ásbj�rn’s) brother, King Sveinn Úlfsson ofDenmark. They are noticeably not in a genitival collocation with either thebishop or the earl. But, as in Norway, some earls could have their own huscarlas.


When Earl Siward of Northumbria defeated Macbeth some of his huscarlum ondeac þæs cynges wurdon þær ofslægene ‘huscarlas of his and also of the kingwere slain there’ (ASC 1054D). From these examples, it can be deduced that thehuscarlas could have a wide range of duties that included fighting,tax-collecting, and diplomatic missions. With the exception of tax-collecting,these duties are similar to those that can be deduced from the skaldic examples.

It is also possible that the word húskarl occurs in a fragmentary Scandinavianrunic inscription from Winchester (see Holman 1996, 41–2). Although thereading is uncertain, it may be significant that Winchester is a royal site, closelyassociated with Knútr (Holman 1996, 24).

gildi

The word gildi ‘guild-brother’ (m., pl. gildar) does not occur with this meaningin the skaldic corpus, though gildi ‘confraternity’ is common in later prose texts,where it also occurs in the meaning ‘guild-brother’ (OGNS). It is however foundin four Swedish runic inscriptions which are all remarkable in that they arecommissioned by (probably) unrelated groups of men. In Ög 64, a group ofdrengjar (who do not otherwise name themselves, unless the named rune-carverwas one of them) commissioned the monument in memory of Greipr, their gildi.There are no discernible military allusions in this inscription, only the term gildito suggest a context. The fact that the commissioners do not name themselvesindividually emphasises their group identity, just as in two inscriptions fromSigtuna commissioned by a collective of unnamed Frísa gildar ‘guild-brothersof the Frisians’ (U 379, U 391), with structurally similar memorial formulas (seefigs 6.5 and 6.6). In U 379, the man being commemorated is (probably) theirgildi, one of their number, though unfortunately the inscription is damaged atthis point. An inscription discovered at Törnevalla in 1960 points in the samedirection (Ög MÖLM1960:230). Although the beginning of this inscription isobscure, it has been suggested that, again, the commissioners do not name them-selves individually, but use some (now lost) collective term (Jansson 1963,112–13; see Düwel 1987, 339 for a contrary view). The commemorated man hasthe rare personal name Drengr and is their gildi, and the stone is adorned with asplendid rigged ship which Jansson (1963, 118–19) has suggested might havebeen the heraldic badge of the Törnevalla guild (see fig. 6.7).22

It is commonly assumed that the guilds of which these men were memberswere organisations formed for the purposes of trade, though that is not neces-sarily clear from the inscriptions alone. Whether the Frísa gildar were Frisianswho traded in Sigtuna, or Swedes who traded in Frisia (or with Frisians) is alsonot clear from the phrase alone. Scholars have disagreed on whether thewell-attested later meaning of gildi (n., pl. gildi) ‘feast, banquet’ can be traced


22 Gildi also appears as a personal name in U 641 and U 642, both referring to the sameperson.


6.5 The Sigtuna stone (U 379). Photo: Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet,Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

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back to heathen sacrificial feasts, but this meaning is probably secondary, thoughthe religious connection is strong in later guilds (KLNM V, 299–314).23 What therunic inscriptions do suggest, in their strong emphasis on collectivity, is that theViking Age guilds were like their medieval successors in being organisations forthe mutual assistance of their members, whether these were traders or not. Therune stones’ geographical location in or proximity to urban centres (Sigtuna,Skänninge) supports the suggestion that they were traders, or at least groups whoengaged in the kinds of economic activity characteristic of urban centres, whichmight include manufacture, production or other craftsmanship. The absence ofany family relationships in these inscriptions also point to people who had to findsupport networks other than their kin. Thus, even if the guilds were groups ofmerchants, they operated in ways analogous to the warband.


23 Cormack (1994, 51–3) notes that in Iceland the gildi, feasts in veneration of a saint, hadpurely festive functions, and did not have the administrative functions of ‘mutual aid andinsurance’ that characterised confraternities elsewhere.

6.6 The Sigtuna stone (U 391). Photo: Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet,Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

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6.7 The Törnevalla stone (Ög MÖLM1960:230). Photo: JudithJesch.

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The ideology of battle

The cohesion of a group was most crucial in battle, yet the survival of the groupdepended on the actions of the individual in that situation. Thus, it is not entirelyparadoxical that a positive expression of the group ethos came in the praise of theheroic deeds of the individual.

‘He fled not’

Tóki, commemorated in one or more of the Hällestad stones discussed above (D295–7), was renowned for not having fled at Uppsala. His bravery in that battlepresumably resulted in his death (and hence the commemoration) and, likeÁsbj�rn commemorated in the Sjörup inscription (D 279), ‘he fought while hehad a weapon’, presumably in the same battle at Uppsala. The only differencebetween them seems to have been that, while Ásbj�rn was commemorated by hiscomrade, his félagi, Tóki was commemorated by a group of men who, howeverclose to him, were nevertheless subordinate to him, he was their dróttinn. Thus,the same praise is used for different classes of men. Like the use of óníðingr,discussed below, the praise is expressed through litotes: the heroic ideal isconjured up through its opposite.

However, one runic inscription (Sö 174) shows that such unheroic desertionsdid sometimes happen. The son being commemorated by his father uaR trebin a

kutlanti ‘was killed in Gotland’. The inscription continues in verse: þy lit fiur

sit fluþu kankiR ‘he lost his life because his companions fled’. The word

gengir (m. pl.) might imply ‘followers, subordinates’, but in a situation wherethe leader is primus inter pares, as in D 295, which says of the dead leader’scomrades that they gingu næstir ‘went nearest’ him, using the verb ganga fromwhich gengir is derived.24

Men are regularly praised for not fleeing in the skaldic corpus. Because of thenature of the material, the examples mostly refer to kings rather thanlower-ranking military leaders, and can refer either to specific battles, or be ageneral comment on the man’s career.

Like Tóki and Ásbj�rn, Óláfr Tryggvason was praised for not fleeing at thebattle of Sv�lðr in which he was eventually killed (a stanza showing how heurged his warriors not to flee has already been discussed at the beginning of thischapter). In his Erfidrápa, Hallfreðr calls Óláfr frægr flugþverrir ‘renowneddiminisher of flight’ (Hfr III,1) and flugstyggr sonr Tryggva ‘flight-shunning sonof Tryggvi’ (Hfr III,19). Although both examples are general comments onÓláfr’s qualities, the whole poem is about the battle of Sv�lðr and its outcome,and it is clear that Óláfr is being praised for fighting to the death there. Hfr III,19


24 There is no other record of either pl. gengir or any sg. form in ON, though the collectivenoun gengi (n.) is common enough.

is almost certainly the refrain of the original poem (Fidjestøl 1982, 110) and isused to sum up the most important point about the king.

This point is picked up in Sigv XII,3, where Sigvatr, in a comparison of thetwo Óláfrs (Tryggvason and Haraldsson) and their ships, calls Óláfr Tryggvasonflugstyggr sonr Tryggva, borrowing this famous epithet from Hallfreðr.25 Later inthe same poem, his verdict on Óláfr Haraldsson (in a stanza which mentions histwenty battles) is similar (Sigv XII,22): flóttskj�rrum feðr Magnúss biðk guðdróttin fagna ‘I ask the Lord God to welcome the flight-shy father of Magnús’.As usual, Sigvatr introduces a personal note into his poetry and, in one of a seriesof stanzas lamenting the loss of his king, the poet calls himself fljóttstyggr‘flight-shunning’ (Sigv XIII,22), perhaps in answer to those who criticised himfor not having been present at the king’s final battle at Stiklarstaðir.

Arnórr uses the traditional motif in a stanza about the battle of Deerness, inwhich he praises Þorfinnr, jarl of Orkney, for being a flugstyggr rausnarmaðr‘flight-shunning man of magnificence’ (Arn V,6). Þorfinnr did not die in, or evenlose, this battle, but Arnórr makes clear in a later stanza (Arn V,8, discussed inmore detail below) that he won despite having a smaller troop than KarlHundason. But in a poem addressed to the Norwegian king Magnús Óláfsson,Arnórr extends the idea of not fleeing to include it in more general praise of hisking, without reference to any specific event (Arn II,17): hvártki flýr þú, hlennaþreytir, hyr né malm í broddi styrjar ‘Fronting the attack, you flee neither flamenor steel, scourge of thieves’.26 The stanza sums up Magnús’ royal qualities: hepunishes thieves, is a successful warrior and has a splendid ship.

The nature of skaldic verse as poetry in praise of leaders means that most ofthe references to not fleeing are to the leader being praised, but Óttarr doesacknowledge that Knútr, when setting out for England, was accompanied byJutlanders who were flugar trauðir ‘reluctant in flight’ (Ótt III,2). The Englishlaws of Knútr prescribe a harsh punishment for se man, þe ætfleo fram hishlaforde oððe fram his geferan for his yrhþe, si hit on scipfyrde, si hit onlandfyrde ‘the man who flees from his lord or from his companions because ofhis cowardice, whether in a naval force or one on land’ (GA I, 364). Frank (1991,100) discusses this law in the context of an argument that ‘the ideal of men dyingwith their lord’ is relatively new in The Battle of Maldon, rather than a throwbackto the ideals described by Tacitus. However, she does not note that the lawequally castigates the desertion of comrades, emphasising the individual’sresponsibility to the group as well as to its leader.


25 Fidjestøl (1982, 121) doubts that Sigv XII,1–3 are from his Erfidrápa, noting especiallythat 1–2 are found only in odd manuscripts of ÓsH. However, since Sigv XII,3 is found inHkr and, since Fidjestøl himself suggests that the poet modelled his memorial lay onHallfreðr’s Erfidrápa, it seems most likely that st. 3, at least, was a part of Sigvatr’sErfidrápa, given the clear borrowing from Hallfreðr in it, and the link with Sigv XII,22.

26 Whaley (1998, 178) emends þreytir to rýrir ‘destroyer’ in view of ‘Arnórr’s usualexactitude’ in respect of skothending (but see her comments on p. 94). The emendationgoes further and provides aðalhending.

In skaldic poems from the middle of the eleventh century onwards, we findthe convention turned on its head, with the military leader praised for making hisopponent flee, in line with the general tendency of this poetry to concentrate onextravagant praise of the king as war-leader. Thus, both Arnórr and Þjóðólfrpraise Magnús for making King Sveinn of Denmark flee. This statement ofdefeat is given added force as it is based on the convention of praising those whodid not flee.

In his Magnússdrápa, Arnórr describes with glee how Magnús drove Sveinnout of Norway (Arn III,4; Fsk, 210):

Flýði fylkir reiðiframr þjóðkonungs ramma,st�kk fyr auðvin okkrumarmsvells hati gellir.Létat Nóregs njótanýtr þengill gram lengi;hann rak Svein af sínumsókndjarfr f�ðurarfi.

The bold leader [Sveinn] fled the strong wrath of the national king[Magnús], the hater of arm-ice [silver→generous man→Sveinn] rangellir27 from our wealth-friend [Magnús]. The useful lord did not let theprince enjoy Norway for long; battle-bold he drove Sveinn from his ownpaternal inheritance.

The poet seems anxious not to belittle Sveinn, perhaps in order to emphasiseMagnús’ achievement, and praises him with the usual heiti and a gener-osity-kenning, making him equal to Magnús. However, the overwhelming factsof the stanza are reflected in the verbs: Sveinn flýði ‘fled’ and st�kk ‘ran’, whileMagnús létat njóta ‘did not let enjoy’ and rak ‘drove’.

On Sveinn’s own territory, Magnús defeated him at the naval battle ofHelganes and jarl flýði af auðu skipi sínu ‘the jarl [Sveinn] fled from his emptyship’ (ÞjóðA I,22). As Snorri put it succinctly (Hkr III,57): Þat er skjótast atsegja af orrostu þessi, at Magnús konungr hafði sigr, en Sveinn flýði ‘Thequickest thing to say about this battle is that King Magnús was victorious, andSveinn fled’, although in fact he gives a lot of detail about the battle, based onextensive quotation of stanzas by Arnórr as well as Þjóðólfr.28

In poetry concerned with extolling a powerful king, ‘not fleeing’ has onlylimited possibilities as praise. Many of the examples occur in contexts where theleader is eventually defeated and killed: the litotes is appropriate preciselybecause it conjures up the spectre of defeat. Even in Arnórr’s stanzas on thebattle of Deerness, Þorfinnr’s tenacity is required because he has a smaller force,


27 The meaning of this word in this context has not been satisfactorily explained (see Whaley1998, 191–2).

28 Fsk, 223, however, assigns this stanza to a battle off Áróss (Århus) just before the battle ofHelganes.


6.8 The Gripsholm stone (Sö 179). Photo: Nils Lagergren, Antikvarisk-topografiska arkivet, Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm.

Image not available

and his victory is touch-and-go. Inverting the convention and showing the flightof the leader’s enemy can only be used in situations where that enemy has beendecisively defeated. A more elastic, and therefore more useful, statement inpraise of the war-leader is to show him in action, providing bodies for the delec-tation of the battlefield scavengers.

‘He fed eagles, ravens and wolves’

The trope in which the warrior is said to feed the beasts of battle is not restrictedto skaldic verse, but is developed there to a greater extent than in any other litera-ture. It is the commonest statement made about any king or leader in the skaldiccorpus, and sums up what a lot of the poetry is about. In contrast, the motifoccurs in only one inscription from the runic corpus. On the Gripsholm stone, amother commemorates her son Haraldr, brother of Ingvarr, leader of the famousexpedition to Serkland in the 1040s (see ch. 3).29 The inscription is in verse,providing a quasi-literary context for the trope (Sö 179, see fig. 6.8):30

þaiR furu : trikila : fiari : at : kuli : auk : a:ustarlar:ni : kafu : tuu :sunar:la : a sirk:lan:ti

They journeyed drengila, a long way for gold, and in the east gave theeagle (food). They died in the south in Serkland.

The three beasts of battle, the eagle, the raven and the wolf, are a feature ofboth Old English and Old Norse poetry. However, skaldic poetry differs from theOld English use of the beasts of battle in several ways.31 While in the latter theyare used to evoke the grim expectation of slaughter, sometimes from the point ofview of the eventual losers of the battle, the Norse poets use the beasts to glorifythe victorious warrior who causes the slaughter.32 The element of anticipation isvery rare in the skaldic corpus, and the skaldic use is often simply a motif moreor less closely linked to the warrior who is being praised. The Norse poetryhardly ever uses the beasts to create an atmosphere, a sense of impending doom,


29 Presumably, Ingvarr had a different mother. However, it is just possible that, in thiscontext, ‘brother’ means ‘brother-in-arms’.

30 This is one of the few inscriptions admitted by Hübler to his corpus of ‘Runendichtung’(1996, 114). See Jansson 1987, 65:

ÞæiR foru drængila They fared like menfiarri at gulli far after goldok austarla and in the eastærni gafu. gave the eagle food.Dou sunnarla They died southwarda Særklandi. in Serkland.

31 I have considered the differences between Old English and Old Norse beasts of battleextensively in a forthcoming article (Jesch 2001d), and give only a brief summary here.

32 Thus, the reference in EE,28, to the Danes’ leaving the bodies of the defeated Englishbestiis et auibus ‘to the beasts and birds’ seems to derive from the Norse tradition.

or the elegiac mood that we find in the Old English examples. If anything, thetone is quite the opposite: upbeat and positive. The Old Norse convention can besummarised as ‘the warrior feeds the beasts of battle, the beasts of battle enjoytheir food’. The usage can either be specific, describing the warrior’s actions in aparticular battle, or general, praising the warrior for his prowess in a campaign orin the whole of his career. The most characteristic aspect of the beasts of battle inthe Norse material, but largely absent from the Old English poetry, is this fairlynarrow focus on the warrior as the provider of a meal for the beasts.

The simple idea of the warrior feeding the eagle/raven/wolf can be varied in anumber of ways, given the large stock of poetic synonyms and circumlocutionsavailable to the Old Norse poet. This variation has been analysed by Fidjestølwith particular reference to the kennings used in this motif (1982, 200–203).Thus, the whole idea can be collapsed into a kenning for a warrior: he becomesthe ‘feeder’ or ‘fattener’ or ‘hunger-diminisher’ or ‘reddener’ or even ‘gladdener’of the carrion bird or wolf. When this happens, we tend to be left with only afleeting image of the beasts of battle enjoying their meal, with the focusremaining on the warrior who provides it. But the idea can also be turned into anindicative statement: the warrior ‘feeds’ or ‘causes to drink’ or ‘does away withthe hunger of’ or ‘reddens the claws of’ or ‘gladdens’ the beasts of battle. Andwhen the poets use heiti or kennings for eagles, ravens and wolves in these state-ments about the warriors, the focus broadens to include the beasts.

The skaldic examples in which the warrior feeds the beasts of battle are sonumerous that it is not possible to give full documentation here (for sometenth-century examples see Jesch 2001d). Instead, it is most useful to outline theways in which the trope is used in the skaldic corpus. This will demonstrate theextent to which the skaldic convention is closely bound up with the warriorsociety that produced the skaldic corpus: although feeding the beasts of battle isa literary convention, it is not put to literary use, as in other genres, but is firmlyfocused on the social function of praise, and the creation of a warrior ideologyfor emulation.

Conventionally, the ‘beasts of battle’ present at the fall of warriors are twobirds, the eagle and the raven, and one mammal, the wolf. An example whichincludes all three beasts is a stanza on Haraldr harðráði (Grani 2; Skjd B I, 357):

D�glingr fekk at drekkadanskt blóð ara jóði(hirð hykk hilmis gerðuhugins jól) við nes Þjólar;ætt spornaði arnarallvítt of valfalli,hold át vargr sem vildi(vel njóti þess) Jóta.

The prince caused the child of eagles to drink Danish blood at Þjólarnes,I believe the leader’s retinue provided the raven’s yule-feast; theoffspring of the eagle trampled far and wide across the fallen corpses, thewolf ate the flesh of the Jutes at will, may he relish this.


The conceit is developed in a way that may seem macabre: the beasts drink bloodand eat flesh, and their consumption is presented as an enjoyable yuletide feast.Twice the eagle is called the child or offspring of eagles, and the word jóð in thesecond line usually connotes a very small child or an infant. The picture conjuredup is of greedy children let loose on seasonal treats and, like children, food is tothem both a benefit and a pleasure (the verb njóta covers both these meanings).

The development of the metaphorical implications of the warrior feeding thebeasts of battle can be exemplified in the poetry of Arnórr Þórðarson whocomposed for several kings of Norway and jarls of Orkney in the middle of theeleventh century (see also Whaley 1998, 56–60).

At the beginning of Þorfinnsdrápa, the Orkney jarl is conventionallydescribed as hrafns verðgjafa ‘meal-giver of the raven’ (Arn V,1) and fetrjóðrhugins ‘reddener of the raven’s feet’ (Arn V,5). However, it is clear throughoutthe poem (e.g. by the use of first-person forms) that the poet was present at, evenparticipated in, most of the battles of Þorfinnr’s career or at the least hadfirst-hand information about them, and this colours his use of the conventionalmotifs, which is more innovative than usual. Stanza 8 is the culmination of asequence of stanzas describing how Þorfinnr fended off an attack in Orkney bythe mysterious Karl Hundason, ‘king’ of the Scots. In the first half, the poetproudly notes how his patron drove the Scots to flight, in the second half he notesthat the raven (‘battle-mew’) was exulting over the wounded (enemy) armybefore the prince’s (i.e. Þorfinnr’s own) men could fall (Arn V,8; Orkn, 48):

Þrima vas þvígit skemmri,þat vas skjótt, með spjótum,mætr við minna neytiminn dróttinn rak flótta.Gall, áðr grams menn fellu,gunnm�r of her s�rum,hann vá sigr fyr sunnanSandvík; ruðum branda.

The battle with spears was not any shorter, it went quickly, my noblelord, with a smaller following, drove (the enemy) to flight. Thebattle-mew [raven/eagle] shrieked over the wounded army before theprince’s men fell, he won a victory south of Sandwick; we reddenedswords.33

The sentiment is similar to that of the Old English Battle of Brunanburh, with thecontrast between the defeated army, some fleeing, some remaining behind asfood for ravens, and the victorious leader.

Like the Old English poets, Arnórr can use the beasts of battle to evoke thesense of danger and menace associated with a battle. Stanza 12 describes a raid


33 Whaley (1998, 235–6) discusses the difficulties of this stanza and argues against the usualemendation to ruðum and in favour of retaining the ms. form ruðu.

that Þorfinnr and his cousin and co-earl R�gnvaldr made on the Isle of Skye: thepoet quite explicitly acknowledges his fear and uses the grim picture of the grin-ning grey wolf to underscore this sense of foreboding (Arn V,12; Orkn, 58):

Veitk, þars Vatnsfj�rðr heitir,vask í miklum háska,míns, við mannkyns reyni,merki dróttins verka.Þjóð bar skjótt af skeiðumskjaldborg fríamorgin;g�rla sák, at gíndigrár ulfr of ná s�rum.

I know there is a trace of my lord’s deeds in the place called Vatnsfj�rðr,I was in great danger with the tester of men. The army quickly carriedthe shield-wall from the ships on Friday morning; I saw clearly that thegrey wolf bared his teeth over the wounded corpse.

Wolves are grey in two Old English beast of battle scenes, The Battle ofFinnsburh, 6, and The Battle of Brunanburh, 64–5, but this is the only example inthe skaldic corpus.

Þorfinnr and R�gnvaldr’s power-sharing in the Northern Isles did not last andthey eventually fell out, resulting in the death of R�gnvaldr. This left the poetArnórr in a difficult position, for he was loyal to both earls, and had composedpoetry about both. His conflict of loyalties before the final denouement isexpressed in a personal way in a number of stanzas, although once R�gnvaldrwas out of the way, he was wholehearted in his support for Þorfinnr. But on amore formal level, he makes a conventional use of the beasts of battle motif toexpress as clearly as possible the essential equality of the two cousins who bothaspired to rule the Northern Isles (Arn V,19a; Orkn, 122):

Emk, síz ýtar hnekkðujarla sætt, es vættik,j�fn fengusk hræ hr�fnum,hegju trauðr at segja.

I am reluctant to say what is happening since men, I believe, destroyedthe truce between the earls, they equally provided ravens with corpses.

At a time when the truce between them had been broken, the poet is unwilling tocomment on the situation, but notes merely that they had been equally valiant inbattle.

While the Old English poets never show the beasts of battle enjoying theirmeal, only anticipating it, the Norse poets had no such compunctions, as illus-trated by Grani 2, quoted above, although the motif is not especially common.But Arnórr, the innovator, has a particularly colourful example, in which thewarrior thoughtfully barbecues the carrion for the wolf’s benefit (Arn III,8; SkjdB I, 313):


Vann, þás Vinðr of minnirvápnhríð konungr, síðan;sveið ófám at Jómiillvirkja hræ stillir;búk dró bráðla steikðanblóðugr vargr af glóðum;rann á óskírð enniallfrekr bani hallar.

The king then fought [won] a weapon-storm [battle] which the Wendswill remember; the leader scorched not a few corpses of evil-doers atJóm; the bloody wolf drew a quickly-roasted torso from the coals; thevery greedy destroyer of the hall [flame] played on unbaptised fore-heads.

The generic requirements of skaldic praise poetry in the late Viking Age causethe beasts of battle to crop up with monotonous regularity in that genre. Themain function of this poetry is to praise kings and leaders, and the main thingthey are praised for is their success in war. The most common way to praise themis to encapsulate that success in the statement that they fed the beasts of battle ona grand scale. The Norse poets’ use of the motif is quite monotonous, too: despitethe possibility of extensive variation, as outlined above, used to express the samesentiment in a myriad of ways, the basic statement remains the same. To summa-rise, it is possible to identify three main uses of the motif in skaldic praise poetryof the tenth and eleventh centuries:34 (1) the warrior is called a ‘feeder’ of eagles,ravens or wolves;35 (2) there is a statement that the warrior ‘fed’ eagles, ravens orwolves;36 (3) there is a statement that eagles, ravens or wolves consumed theirfood.37 Both (2) and (3) can be either habitual or refer to a specific occasion,while (1) is habitual by its nature.


34 Anomalous instances, where the trope is implied, but cannot be classified in one of thethree ways identified below, are few: Eskál III,30; Sigv X,1; Sigv XIII,23; Arn II,13,15;Arn III,5,11; ÞjóðA IV,24; Þfagr 4; Bkrepp 4; Gísl 19. Of these, ÞjóðA IV,24 and Gísl 19show the raven anticipating battle.

35 Examples of this in the skaldic corpus are: Korm I,4; ESkál III,8,29; Tindr I,4; Hfr I,2; HfrII,8; Hfr III,20,27; Edáð 1; Hókr 1; ÞKolb I,1; ÞKolb III,3,13; Sigv XIII,4; Ótt II,5,15;Þloft II,2; ÞSjár II,4; Arn II,5,6,7; Arn III,5,12,17; Arn V,1,5; Arn VI,13,17; ÞjóðA I,3;ÞjóðA III,6,15,30; Ill I,2; Halli 1,2; Stúfr 1; Steinn I,6,7; Bkrepp 4,6; Þham I,2.

Similar to this are a few examples where the warrior is said to be ‘gracious’ or ‘useful’ tothe beasts of battle: Hfr III,7; Arn III,18; Arn VI,2; ÞjóðA III,12.

36 This can be either specific or habitual:Specific: ÞHjalt 1; ESkál III,25,36; Tindr I,7; Hfr II,6,7; Sigv I,1,12; Sigv II,9; Sigv

VII,1; Ótt III,6; Skúli I,3; Hallv 3; Þorf; ÞSjár II,2; Arn III,15,17; Arn V,16; Arn VI,6;ÞjóðA III,4,7,29; B�lv 1; Grani 2; BjH 1; Þfisk 2; Liðsm 3.

Habitual: Eskál IV,2; Tindr I,8; Gunnl II,3; Edáð 1; ÞKolb III,12; Sigv III,16; Sigv XI,1;Sigv XII,5,27; Þórm II,11,20; Ótt I,6; Hallv 6; Arn II,14; Arn V,19; ÞjóðA III,30.

37 This can be either specific or habitual:Specific: ESkál III,36; Tindr I,3,7; Hfr II,9; Edáð 5; Hókr 1,5; ÞKolb III,14; Sigv II,8,9;

Ótt I,4; Ótt II,6; Ótt III,8,10,11; ÞSjár III; Arn III,8,15; Arn V,8,9,12,17; Arn VI,5; Arn

The beasts of battle motif is utterly conventional in skaldic verse: in analysingit, Bjarne Fidjestøl (1982, 206) drew a contrast between the predictable use ofthis motif and the fresh and novel ways in which the skalds approached anotherpopular theme, that of seafaring. There were no traditional ways of depicting seajourneys, no inherited conventional motifs, and the skalds developed a muchmore naturalistic style to show their heroes successfully captaining their shipsacross the northern waters (see chapter 4). But this was an innovation among thebest poets, and it is clear that some poets were particularly drawn to this theme.The beasts of battle, on the other hand, were part of the toolkit of all poets, good,bad and indifferent. Just as the poet fed his audience on Óðinn’s mead (poetry),so the warrior fed Óðinn’s raven on the blood of his enemies – in this particularliquidity, war and poetry commingle and cannot be separated, as between themthe warrior and the poet turn corpses into poetry (Arn II,14a; Hkr III, 64):

Hefnir, fenguð yrkisefni,�leifs. Gervik slíkt at m�lum.Hlakkar lætr þú hræl�g drekkahauka. Nú mun kvæði aukask.

Óláfr’s avenger, you provided the stuff of poetry. I turn it into language.You cause the hawks of Hl�kk [valkyrie�eagle or raven] to drink theliquid of corpses [blood]. Now the ode will increase.

The symbolism of battle: ravens and banners

Four of the versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle record the death in Devon ofan unnamed viking, the brother of Ingwær and Healfdene, and 840 men withhim, and also that þar wæs se guðfana ge numen þe hi ræfen [v.l. hræfn] heton‘there the war-banner that they called ‘‘Raven’’ was captured’ (ASC878B,C,D,E). The taking of the banner is symbolic of an important (and rare)Anglo-Saxon victory in the ninth century. The Chronicle quite clearly states thatthey (the vikings) called the banner ‘Raven’, not that it had the bird depicted onit, although it is usually assumed that it had. The raven device is associated withother viking leaders in the British Isles, as for instance on the coins issued inYork c.939–40 by the Hiberno-Norse king Olaf Guthfrithsson (depicted inRoesdahl et al. 1981, 135, 140). Both of these suggest a symbolic expression ofthe warrior ideology of feeding the ravens that is given more literal expression inthe skaldic poetry discussed above.38

In contrast to this early Anglo-Saxon reference, banners and other military


VII,2; ÞjóðA I,7,9; ÞjóðA III,29; B�lv 1; Grani 2; Valg 7; Þfagr 1; Stúfr 5; Steinn I,5;Steinn III,3; ÞSkall 1; Liðsm 9; Flokkr; Bkrepp 2,4,6; Þham I,4.

Habitual: Þjsk I,1; Hfr II,3; ÞjóðA III,7; Ill I,1.38 A contemporary, though not necessarily reliable, source for raven banners in the late

Viking Age is EE. I discuss this, and other literary raven banners, in Jesch 1993a, 232–5.

paraphernalia (other than weapons) appear rather late in the skaldic corpus (andare not mentioned in the runic corpus). With the exception of Sindr 8, the earliestreferences are in the poetry of Sigvatr, though after Sigvatr they are quitefrequent. Fidjestøl (1982, 241) also notes that Arn V,17 is the first time the soundof horns blowing is heard in skaldic poetry. The skaldic examples do not givemuch evidence of what these banners were like, or what might have beendepicted on them. However, there are some hints. The poles which hold thebanners aloft are described as gyllt st�ng ‘gilded poles’ in Sigv II,6 and SigvXII,7, while the banner itself is marked with some kind of golden device in Þfagr5 (gollmerkð vé). In Arn III,18, the banners described as fr�n ‘bright, shining’may belong to the Danish enemy, since Magnús góði is said to have ‘reddened’them, although it is not likely the poet intended to be very specific on this point,for in the same stanza, Magnús is called a hringserks lituðr ‘one who colours amail-coat (red)’ and this could be either his own of that of the enemy. With a bitof imagination, it is possible to see, in the conjunction in the same stanza of awind-filled banner (hol merki) blowing above the head of Magnús berfœttr, andthe raven anticipating the battle (fránn huginn gladdisk), an allusion to a bannerwith a raven device on it (Gísl I,19). But this comes at the very end of the VikingAge.

The words for banner are merki39 and vé,40 for the pole on which it is heldaloft, st�ng.41 The banner is the rallying-point for the war-leader’s followers: fora stingy one, they are þunt of stangir ‘thin around the poles’ (Sigv II,2). Sigvatr,remembering an attack in which he took part notes that the pole óð fyr g�fgumræsi ‘advanced before the noble leader’ while gengum und merkjum á skip ‘weboarded the ship under the banners’ (Sigv II,6; see also ÞjóðA IV,4), while oppo-nents can be identified by their banners visible in the middle of their troop (merkiÞrœnda ‘banner of the Þrœndir’, Óláfr’s opponents at Stiklarstaðir, Sigv XII,11).Occasionally leaders are said to carry a standard (jarl bar st�ng at ættgrundEngla ‘the earl carried a standard-pole onto the ancestral ground of the English’,Arn V,16), although this is more likely a metaphorical expression of leadershipin battle. In ÞjóðA I,17 the girls of Sjælland ask hverr bæri vé ‘who carried thestandard’, not out of interest in the standard-bearer, but because they want toknow whose army is about to drive them from their homes. Otherwise leadersuse standard-bearers (Sigv XII,7; Mark I,18), but the truly heroic leader is aheadof the banners (Sindr 8) or in the van with the banners, as Óláfr was in his finalbattle (Sigv XII,12). Banners are said to ‘advance’ (vaða: Sigv II,6, XII,12; ArnVI,10; BjH 5) or ‘shake’ (hristisk: Arn V,17) in the attack. A particularly fierceattack is suggested when the warriors knýja vé ‘press banners’ (Arn V,16; ÞjóðA


39 In the runic corpus, merki is relatively commonly used to denote the runic monument itself,and is thus from a completely different lexical set.

40 The suggestion (SR III, 136) that Sö 174 contains the word vé can only be conjectural,though the context, in which the man being commemorated is said to have died because hewas deserted by his comrades, is appropriate enough.

41 This is apparently recorded as a loan-word in Russian as early as 1096 (Svane 1989, 28).

IV,4). They are reddened by the warriors in the fighting (Arn III,18), or shineabove the ground red with blood (Þfagr 5). The poles are planted into the groundwhen land is claimed (ÞjóðA IV,13). The banner of the fleeing loser is draggedalong the ground as he returns to his ships: merki drap slóð of hauga framm atflóði ‘the banner caused a track across the heaths down to the water’ (ÞjóðAI,18).

In skaldic poetry, banners function more or less as warriors do. Like thewar-leader they can provide both a focus for and a symbol of the troop as awhole, like the individual warriors, they can either advance victoriously or flee indefeat.

Murder and betrayal

In their commemorative function, both runic inscriptions and skaldic praisepoetry naturally focus on the individual. That individual can be praised foractions which adhere to the heroic ethos, and this praise can be expressed in bothpositive and negative (or inverted) fashion. Thus, he was a successful warriorbecause he fed eagles, ravens and wolves. But he was also a successful warriorbecause he did not flee from the battle. But as this last compliment shows, indi-vidual success is very much seen in a group context. The cohesion of the groupin both war and trade depended on an ethos of loyalty and a condemnation of itsopposite. The group ethos naturally precludes the breaking of social bonds thatwe can call treachery. Below I explore how this operated both within the group,and between kings and their subordinates.

Kinds of killing

Although most runic memorials mark someone’s death, very few suggest that thecommemorated died as a result of a crime. One exception is U 691, in which aman commemorates sun sin mrþan ‘his murdered son’.42 This is the only occur-rence of the verb myrða in a runic inscription, but the concept is well-knownfrom the later Scandinavian laws (KLNM XI, 698–93). The ON noun morð indi-cates a more reprehensible kind of killing than that designated by the alternativeterm víg. A killing becomes morð if the killer conceals the deed. Normally hewas supposed to publish what he had done as soon as possible. He would then beliable to indictment, but the crime was eligible for atonement by the payment ofcompensation. The secret killer, however, forfeited his immunity, i.e. he could bekilled in his turn, without legal consequences. Moreover, a killing was alsoconsidered morð if it took place at night, or in some other stealthy or secretive


42 Although the runes m and r could easily be confused with or mistaken for k and u (makingthe common formula sun sin kuþan ‘his good son’), Jansson (SR VIII, 205) is certain thatthe runes are indeed m and r. I have not had the opportunity to examine this stone myself.

way, as well as if it was not announced. The use of the verb myrða in this inscrip-tion thus indicates that the father did not know who had killed his son and socould neither name him nor claim redress.

Two runic inscriptions, in commemorating the death of a brother, name theman who killed him. Characteristically, the naming of the killer is linked with theuse of the more inclusive verb drepa ‘kill’, rather than myrða, in both cases. Thefirst is the lost U 954:

[� þRu : aRrukr : fretr : ri--u : s. . . . . .-r : helka : bruþr : sin : en :sasur : trab : han : ouk : kaþ * niþiks:uerk : seik : felka : sin : kuþ :helb : hut : has �]

Eyríkr and his siblings set up this stone in memory of Helgi, theirbrother. And Sassurr killed him and did the deed of a níðingr, betrayedhis félagi. God help his soul.

The killing was obviously considered particularly heinous, for Helgi wasSassurr’s félagi and the killing is condemned as a níðingsverk, a word that will bediscussed further below. The disapproval is compounded by the use of the verbsvíkja ‘betray’ for what Sassurr did to his partner. Although not morð ‘murder’ inthe technical sense, since the dead man’s family knew who the killer was, thiskilling is condemned in the strongest possible terms.

A memorial stone from Bornholm (D 387) uses similar vocabulary to expressa brother’s outrage at the killing of his brother, but the implications are moreobscure:

: asualdi : risti : stein : þinsa : iftR : alfar : bruþur : sin : drinr : koþr: trebin u:syni : auk : skogi : suek : saklausan :

Ásvaldi set up this stone in memory of Alfarr, his brother. A nobledrengr killed shamefully, and Skógi betrayed him innocent.

Does the statement in the inscription that Skógi ‘betrayed’ Alfarr when he wassaklauss ‘innocent, not guilty’ imply that Skógi felt justified in killing Alfarrdespite what Ásvaldi thought? If Skógi and Alfarr were partners in some sort ofventure, perhaps they had fallen out over the spoils? At any rate, the use of theterm saklauss suggests that some killings could be considered justified, even ifthis one was not.

Treachery

Men on viking expeditions, whether of a military or mercantile kind, had to trusteach other. They would have to protect each other on journeys far from home andin battle, and they would have to divide the spoils of war or trade equitably. Theclose-knit bands of men who acknowledged their closeness in the terminology ofwords like félagi and drengr, however, did not leave things to chance, andcemented their relationship with oaths. It was of course particularly heinous to


kill someone to whom you had sworn loyalty. A fragmentary runic inscriptionfrom Braddan, in the Isle of Man, shows that such tragedies could happenthroughout the viking world (see fig. 6.9):

. . .(n) roskitil : uilti : i : triku : aiþsoara : siin

. . .and Hrossketill deceived his confederate in a state of truce.

The commemorative part of the inscription is lost, only the additional informa-tion that Hrossketill betrayed one to whom he was bound by oath (eiðsvara sinn)survives. This person was presumably the one being commemorated, most likelyby a member of his family. The condemnation of the deed is compounded by theuse of the technical term trygg ‘truce’.43 Although the inscription no longer tells


6.9 The Braddan stone. Photo: Leslie F. Jesch.

43 Though this word is not recorded in its singular form in ON, it is recorded in Gothic, and inits plural form is used in medieval Norwegian laws (Brate 1907, 25; NGL V, 649). Themore usual term tryggð, with the same meaning, is more often used in its legal sense of a‘truce’ than the more general, abstract, meaning of ‘trust, trustworthiness.’

Image not available

us what Hrossketill actually did, it is likely that he too committed the ultimatebetrayal of causing his friend’s death. Where the Scandinavian inscriptions hadused the verb svíkja ‘betray’, Braddan uses a different verb with a slightlydifferent meaning, véla ‘trick, deceive’. Again, the effect is to strengthen thesense of disapproval: not only did Hrossketill (presumably) kill his friend, butthe victim was unsuspecting when it happened. The traditional dating of thisinscription to the tenth century would make it earlier than any of the Scandina-vian examples just discussed. Even a revised dating of the Manx inscriptions tothe period 950–1025 (Holman 1998) still leaves the Braddan cross as one of theearliest of our examples.

While the inscriptions discussed so far concentrate on the deed, with itsvictim and its perpetrator, an inscription carved into the living rock at Nora (U130) is more concerned with the consequences of the deed:

biurn ’ finuiþaR sun lit ’ haukua ’ hili þisa ’ aftiR ulaif bruþur sin ’hon uarþ suikuin o f(i)(n)aiþi ’ kuþ hialbi on hons ’ iR þisi biR ’ þaiRauþal uk at(r)fi ’ finuþaR sun o ilhiastaþum

Bj�rn, Finnviðr’s son, had this rock carved in memory of Óleifr, hisbrother. He was betrayed on Finnveden. God help his soul. This farm istheir ‘odal’ and family inheritance, the sons of Finnviðr at Älgesta.

Again, a brother remembers his brother who had been ‘betrayed’, i.e. treacher-ously killed, but the inscription concludes with a statement of inheritance.Älgesta is the main farm in the family estate, about 30 km to the north of Nora,and there is another rune stone there which Bj�rn raised in memory of himself (U433). With his brother’s death, Bj�rn claimed all the inheritance from theirfather, including the subsidiary farm at Nora, and used the runic inscription toproclaim this fact to the world at large. The emphasis is not on who betrayedÓleifr and why. As it happened some way away, Bj�rn may not have known allthe details and he was more concerned with explaining his brother’s absence anddemonstrating his own legal title to the property.

Another man who died far from home was one of the three sons of a couplefrom Gotland (G 134):

roþuisl : auk : roþalf : þau : litu : raisa : staina : eftir : sy-. . . þria :þina : eftir : roþfos : han : siku : blakumen : i : utfaru kuþ : hialbin :sial : roþfoaR kuþ : suiki : þa : aR : han : suiu :

Hróðvísl and Hróðelfr, they had stones set up in memory of (their) threesons. This one in memory of Hróðfúss. Wallachians betrayed him on anexpedition. God help Hróðfúss’ soul. God betray those who betrayedhim.

The traditional interpretation of the sequence blakumen is that it refers to‘Wallachians’ or Vlachs, the inhabitants of a region of present-day Romania (SRXI, 267–8). An alternative explanation is that the term means ‘black men’ (e.g.SamRun), though of what kind is not clear. What is of interest is the use of the


verb svíkja again. It suggests that Hróðfúss was killed by a group of men inwhom he had trust and, moreover, that this happened while he was í útf�r ‘on avoyage abroad’, whether this was in Wallachia or among ‘black men’. Again, themost likely explanation is that he was on a trading voyage and had entered intosome kind of contract with local merchants along the way, who then betrayedthis trust.44 With a death so far away, the family would have no chance of redress,nor of recovering whatever property the dead man had out there. Their frustra-tion found expression in the final invocation of the inscription. After a conven-tional prayer to God to help the dead man’s soul, they call on God to ‘betraythose who betrayed him’. This unchristian thought suggests a society in whichthe old ideas of revenge still held a powerful sway. If the killing had happenedcloser to home, the family could have sought its own revenge, or sought compen-sation at the assembly. As it is, they have to call on their God to carry out thepunishment for the crime. We find exactly the same invocation (kuþ suiki þa iR

h[a] sui[k]u) on a fragmentary rune stone from Uppland (U 1028). Unfortu-nately, this is not well enough preserved to reveal what crime against the deadthe survivors would like God to punish, or who perpetrated it. But together thetwo inscriptions indicate a shift in ideas of crime and punishment. Svíkjabroadens its meaning from the betrayal of one associate by another to includedeath at the hands of foreigners (the use of the plural in G 134 suggests thisbroadening of the meaning) and even to include God’s punishment of thewicked.

Loyalty

In U 954 the act of betrayal is called a níðingsverk ‘deed of a níðingr’. Thesimplex níðingr does not appear in any runic inscriptions, but is occasionallyfound in its negative form in inscriptions which praise someone for not being aníðingr. The semantic range of this negative form, óníðingr, is probably widerthan the semantic range of its positive counterpart which was to some extent atechnical, legal term. Thus óníðingr may have come to mean not much more thanyet another word of approbation for the dead. But in some of its occurrences, atleast, we can still see it used to praise those who upheld the particular values ofloyalty and support in the band of partners in war and trade, those who did notbetray their closest companions.

A Danish rune stone (D 68) from this sort of warrior-merchant milieu hasalready been mentioned:


44 On the treacherousness of the Vlachs (‘the race of the Vlachs is entirely untrustworthy . . .swearing every day the most solemn oaths to its friends, and violating them easily’), seeCS, 74–5. This passage is translated in Roueché (2000, 211–12), who argues that it is moreof a rhetorical exercise than a reflection of attitudes to the Vlachs, though ‘[t]hat is not . . .to say that Kekaumenos really liked Vlachs’.

(-)usti x auk x hufi x auk x þiR x frebiurn x risþu x stin x þonsi x eftiRx x osur x saksa x filaka x sin x harþa x kuþan x trik x saR x tu x xmana x mest x uniþikR x saR x ati x skib x miþ x arno +

Tosti(?) and Hofi jointly with Freybj�rn erected this stone in memory of�zurr Saxi, their félagi, a very ‘good’ drengr. He died as the greatestóníðingr among men; he owned a ship together with Arni.

The dead man is commemorated by his peers, they call him their félagi, andpraise him for having been a very ‘good’ drengr. It is not possible to tell whetherthe men commemorating �zurr Saxi were crewmen on his ship, or whether they,like him, were ship-owners who took part in military and/or mercantile expedi-tions along with him. Either way, it is clear that the relationship was one ofmutual support and trust, and that the dead man fulfilled what was expected ofhim, he did not betray that trust.45

Another example of óníðingr occurs in a very different context, on a memo-rial in which a father commemorates his son (Sm 5). Here, the exact import ofthe word is somewhat puzzling. The relationship between father and son isnormally one of trust, and it should occasion no surprise if neither of thembetrays that trust. In this particular context, then, calling someone an óníðingrseems like empty praise. But we are told that the commemorated man died inEngland, and it may be that the father was praising his son’s heroic behaviour inthat military context, perhaps on the basis of what the returning members of theexpedition reported of him and perhaps involving some unspecified acts ofloyalty to his military companions during the campaign. In another inscriptionfrom this part of Sweden (Sm 37) the word óníðingr is used in the context ofsomeone who is described as ‘generous with food, hospitable’, but that sense isunlikely here. A young man who died in England was commemorated by hisfather because he did not yet have a family of his own to do it and, even if he did,he is unlikely to have had the time to establish himself as a substantial and there-fore hospitable farmer before going off on his fatal English campaign. The otherexamples of óníðingr are in contexts which do not make clear what the wordmeant, beyond as a general term of approbation (Ög 77, Ög 217, Sö 189, Sm147). It is apparently used as a personal name in Sm 131 and possibly as aby-name in Sm 2.

D 68 and possibly Sm 5 show the semantic process identified by Wimmer(1895–1908, IV, 222) whereby the negative of the strong expression níðingr is anequally strong expression of its opposite. Naumann (1994, 495) also notes that,unlike classical litotes, there is no element of understatement in these examples.The other examples however conform to the rule in which the negation of a wordat an ‘extreme position’ on a scale of meaning ‘refers to the whole of the rest ofthe scale’ (Leech 1969, 169).


45 The opposition between someone who is a níðingr and someone who is a drengr can stillbe found in the thirteenth-century Norwegian Hirðskrá (NGL II, 420).

Contemporary evidence for the meaning of níðingr can be found outsideScandinavia. The Braddan inscription discussed above demonstrates that vikingcolonists in the British Isles took their values with them to their new homes.Similarly, the word niðing for someone who committed a particularly heinousact found its way into English. A fragment of a legal provision in the TextusRoffensis (GA I, 392) declares that Walreaf is niðinges dæde: gif hwa ofsacenwille, do þæt mid eahta � feowertig fulborenra þegena ‘Corpse-plunder is thedeed of a niðing: if someone wants to deny the charge, do it with 48 thegns ofnoble birth’. Although coming from a different context than the Scandinavianmaterial, this scrap of text from the late Anglo-Saxon period fits in with thesemantic range identified above, expressing the codes of behaviour for warriors,in particular.46

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the treacherous murder of hisDanish cousin Beorn by Swein Godwinsson leads him to be branded a niðing: �se cing þa � eall here cwædon Swegen for niðing ‘and then the king and all thearmy pronounced Swein a niðing’ (ASC 1049C). This entry is full of the OldEnglish vocabulary of treachery and duplicity, blackening Swein’s charactervery thoroughly, but the crowning verdict on Swein’s behaviour, the communisopinio as presented by the chronicler, is expressed using this Norse word. Itseems particularly appropriate for Godwin’s ‘wildest’ son, who was ‘not onlyreckless but completely Scandinavian in his interests’ (Barlow 1970, 90–91).The negative term unniðing appears in ASC 1087.

This condemnation of certain crimes from a moral standpoint is sometimesassociated with the influence of the Church, in contrast to the traditionalemphasis on compensation and atonement. Vinogradoff (1908, 10) identified‘the conception of honour in military societies’ as a ‘second channel’ by whichsuch moral reprobation could enter the criminal law, and identifies this ‘moralstandard’ as ‘an important progress in the criminal law’ which can be traced to‘the military class of the Scandinavian invasions’. However, the evidencepresented above has shown that the class of people who had such concepts ofhonour, and particularly of loyalty to each other, were not just a highly-trainedwarrior elite. In Scandinavia, at least, the armed merchants of the late VikingAge expected similar loyalty within their group, and enforced it with the samerigid concepts of praise and condemnation. The runic inscriptions demonstratethat this moral dimension of loyalty allowed a smooth transition to Christianconcepts of crime and punishment.

The Scandinavian sources show that treachery within the group wascondemned. In a few instances, loyalty was implicitly praised using the negative


46 On this code, which probably had its origins in the reign of Æthelred, though it survives ina twelfth-century manuscript, see Wormald 1999b, 371–2. Wormald assumes that ‘corpse-plunder’ is grave-robbery, but the six other OE examples of wælreaf indicate that it refersto the plunder of corpses on a battlefield (OEC). The ON equivalent valrauf occurs (twice)on the Rök stone (Ög 136), too early to be a part of the corpus, but also clearly referring towar-booty; see also NGL I, 66; V, 684.

óníðingr, but a positive vocabulary of loyalty is conspicuous by its near-absence.The closest either the runic or the skaldic texts come to an expression of ‘loyalty’as a positive virtue is in the adjective hollr and its derivatives. This, however, hasa double, even reciprocal, meaning, of both ‘loyal’ and ‘gracious, merciful’, andis most appropriate to an unequal relationship, for instance that between a kingand his subordinate. Even in the Hällestad inscription (D 295), discussed above,which contains a lot of the vocabulary of the in-group, the collocation hollrdróttinn is emphatically related to the commissioner of the monument Áskell(presumably the second-in-command) with the reflexive sér and elevates thedeceased, Tóki, to primus inter pares. Hallfreðr, in a personal stanza of hisErfidrápa for Óláfr Tryggvason, describes the attack of the Danes on Óláfr’sship, and notes his own sorrow, because þar fellu fleiri hollvinir mínir ‘several ofmy loyal friends fell there’ (Hfr III,5). The plural form indicates that it is not hisking of whom Hallfreðr speaks, but who these friends of his were, and in whattheir loyalty consisted, is not clear. Bersi, captured by Óláfr Haraldsson after thebattle of Nesjar, refuses to reject his hollvinir (Bersi I,3), one of whom wasÓláfr’s enemy, Sveinn jarl Hákonarson, even as he prepares to join Óláfr.

Treachery and politics

Although the norms condemning treachery and implicitly praising loyalty mayhave had their origins in Scandinavian war-bands, eleventh-century society inboth Britain and Scandinavia was changing, and the application of concepts oftreachery and loyalty changed along with it. In particular, treachery became anaccusation levelled at political adversaries, rather than close associates. Thus,Eyv II,12 says of the sons of Eiríkr blóðøx that they í tryggð sviku SigurðrHákonarson, jarl of Hlaðir (c.962). The authenticity of this poem (which is inkviðuháttr rather than dróttkvætt, and much of which is retrospective and genea-logical) can be challenged (Krag 1991, 201), but this particular stanza, preservedboth in Hkr and Fsk, seems reasonably secure, and deals with relatively recentevents, as the poem was apparently composed for Hákon, son of Sigurðr. Theparallel with the Braddan cross, of a similar date, is also striking.

There is a closer parallel to the expression on the Braddan cross in a skaldicstanza composed in praise of Earl Waltheof, the son of Siward earl ofNorthumbria, who was executed by William ‘the Bastard’ in 1076 (ÞSkall 2; HkrIII, 196):

Víst hefr Valþjóf hraustanViljalmr, sás rauð malma,hinn es haf skar sunnanhélt, í tryggð of véltan.Satt es, at síð mun létta,snarr an minn vas harrideyrat mildingr mærri,manndráp á Englandi.


Certainly has William, he who reddened weapons and he who sliced theicy sea from the south, deceived brave Waltheof in a truce. Truly it willtake some time for the killings in England to cease, no more gloriousking will die than what my bold lord was.

The poet’s conclusion is that his lord was betrayed by the new Norman king.This reveals his Anglo-Scandinavian bias, since William’s view must have beenthat it was Waltheof who was the traitor. Although preserved only in Hkr, thestanza, along with another one from the same poem, almost certainly originatesin an Anglo-Scandinavian milieu of the late eleventh century (Jesch 2001c).

While Beorn did not fear accompanying Swein Godwinsson with only threecompanions for þære sibbe ‘because of their kinship’ (ASC 1049C), concepts oftreachery and loyalty are increasingly applied to the relationship between a kingand his noblemen, rather than the more intimate, and more equal, relationships ofgroups of warrior-merchants, or family relationships such as that of Swein andhis Danish cousin Beorn. This development can be traced in the Scandinavianevidence, both runic and skaldic.

The earliest example is in a stanza from the late tenth century (Stefnir 1; Fsk,151):47

Munkat ek nefna,nær mun ek stefna:niðrbjúgt es nefá níðingi, –þanns Svein konungsveik ór landi,en Tryggvasoná tálar dró.

I must not name him (but I’ll come close: crooked is the nose of theníðingr) who tricked king Sveinn out of the country, and drew Tryggvi’sson into a trap.

The poet applies the term níðingr to Sigvaldi Strút-Haraldsson, leader of theJómsvikingar, who kidnapped king Sveinn of Denmark in order to engineer apeace between him and the Wendish king Búrizleifr, but who also, and more seri-ously, lured king Óláfr Tryggvason of Norway into a trap at Sv�lðr, the battle inwhich he was killed. In this instance, he was acting as a jarl of the Danish kingSveinn. Both actions are described using the usual vocabulary of treachery, theverb svíkja again, and the phrase draga á tálar, literally ‘to draw into a trap’.

However, treachery was not yet equivalent to treason. Even in the relationshipbetween a king and his subordinates, loyalty had to be reciprocal. The concepts


47 A Latin version of this stanza survives in Oddr, 194, where níðingr is rendered apostata.This Latin version is presumably Oddr’s translation of an ON original, and it is a mootpoint whether the surviving ON version has been translated from Oddr’s Latin in turn, orwhether it comes from some other (possibly oral) source and reflects Oddr’s original.

of loyalty and treachery were extensively used to explain the demise of ÓláfrHaraldsson. Because the army that killed him at Stiklarstaðir in 1030 containedhis own countrymen, poets and historians portrayed his death as the greatbetrayal of a king by his country, oiled by the bribes of his Danish rival Knútr.But if we look at the contemporary evidence of the skaldic poetry, it shows thestill-powerful pull of ideas of treachery and loyalty on the personal level, with anexpectation of reciprocity. To his contemporaries, even King Óláfr himself wascapable of betrayal.

A runic cross from Stavanger suggests some of the political tensions in thefirst third of the eleventh century (N 252):

al(f)---r : (b)r(i)str : raisti : stain : þina : aft : arlik trot(i)n : (s)(i)(n) :-(s)-(i)(n)(u)(a)s : --(a)--(n)-------- : (i)s(h)an (:) (b)ar(i)þis(k) : uiþol(a)if

Al[fgeirr] prestr reisti stein þenna apt Erling dróttin sinn [es einn vas úrarni véltr], es hann barðisk við Óleif.

Alfgeirr(?) the priest raised this stone in memory of his lord Erlingr [whowhen alone was tricked out of the ?poop/lypting], when he foughtagainst Óláfr.

Although the inscription is very worn, Liestøl (NIyR III, 245–58) managed tomake some sense of what can be read, and even attempted to restore that whichcan no longer be read (in square brackets, above). The cross was erected by apriest to commemorate his lord, called Erlingr, who fought against Óláfr. We canidentify two of these three men with a fair degree of certainty: anyone who hadhis own priest in the early eleventh century is likely to have been a nobleman ofsome substance, and the only one of that name known from southwest Norway atthat time was Erlingr Skjalgsson, who, as it happens, was killed after a battleagainst King Óláfr Haraldsson. Snorri Sturluson’s account of Erlingr’s death(Hkr II, 312–19) shows him defending himself valiantly until he was the onlyone left on his ship. The king then promised to spare him, but when he gavehimself up, one of the king’s men killed him instantly. Liestøl’s reconstruction ofthe central part of the inscription depends on the sources that show Erlingrfighting alone in the defensive rear superstructure of his ship (lypting) and thencoming out of his own free will only to be killed once he had given himself up.Liestøl’s suggested text accords well with the space available and what can stillbe made out of the runes in this portion of the text, but it must neverthelessremain conjectural, and the use of the verb véla ‘to trick’ is therefore uncertain.

The prose sources for this episode, such as Hkr, shift the blame for thisdishonourable episode onto the follower of King Óláfr who actually killedErlingr, and even in the inscription, Óláfr is not directly blamed. But, if Liestøl’sreconstruction is anywhere near the mark, the significant part of the storyremembered in this inscription is not so much that Erlingr was killed, but that hewas tricked into a situation where that killing could happen, i.e. he was betrayed.Whoever actually did the deed, the betrayal was surely a personal one by the


king, who had given him assurances that he would be unharmed if he gavehimself up.

The other contemporary evidence that the killing of Erlingr was seen asviolating the codes of honourable behaviour for this time comes in the poetry ofKing Óláfr’s poet Sigvatr Þórðarson. Sigvatr was also a friend of Erlingr, andcomposed a praise poem in memory of him (Sigv VII), managing to hedge hisbets by sorrowing over the death of Erlingr while praising the king for hisbravery in the battle. A close reading of some of the stanzas suggests howeverthat the poet did not find the king’s behaviour honourable:

3b (Hkr II, 315):Einn stóð sonr á sínusnarr Skjalgs, vinum fjarri,í lyptingu lengilætrauðr skipi auðu.

Alone stood Skjalgr’s bold son, far from friends, guileless, long on thelypting of his empty ship.

5 (Hkr II, 316–17):�ndurða bað, jarðar,Erlingr, sás vel lengigeymði lystr, né lamðisklandv�rn, klóask �rnu,þás hann at sig s�nnum,sá vas áðr búinn ráðaats, við Útstein hizi�leif of tók m�lum.

Erlingr, who ruled the land long and happily (his defence never failed),said eagles ought to face each other when fighting, when he, who hadbeen eager for war-plans before, addressed Óláfr with true words afterthe battle out at Útsteinn.

6a (Hkr II, 318):Erlingr fell, en olliallríkr skapat slíku,bíðrat betri dauða,bragna konr með gagni.

Erlingr fell, and that was caused by the all-powerful son of kings to hisadvantage, death will befall no better man.

7a (Hkr II, 318–19):Áslákr hefir aukit,es v�rðr drepinn H�rða,fáir skyldu svá, foldar,frændsekju, styr vekja.

Áslákr has increased kin-slaughter, the guardian of the H�rðar is killed,few should cause such conflict.


8a (Skjd B I, 230):Drakk eigi ek drekkudag þann, es mér s�gðuErlings tál, at jólumallglaðr, þess es réð Jaðri.

I did not drink my drink very happily at Christmas, on the day I was toldof the tricking of Erlingr who ruled Jæren.

Sigvatr makes clear that Erlingr was ‘innocently beguiled’. In stanza 3 he callshim lætrauðr ‘resisting duplicity, guileless’ and in stanza 8 what happened toErlingr is called tál ‘deceit, treachery’, the same word used of the way in whichSigvaldi jarl lured Óláfr Tryggvason to his death. The use of the poet’s own voiceincreases the force of this condemnation, although exactly who is beingcondemned is not clear. In stanza 7 Sigvatr names Áslákr fitjaskalli as the manwho did the deed and condemns him several times for breaking the ties ofkinship in this way (he and Erlingr were cousins). But this comes almost as anafterthought after a couple of stanzas which make clear that the real adversariesin this episode were Erlingr and the king. In stanza 5, we have Erlingr’s ownwords (in indirect speech) indicating his desire to meet the king face to face and,in stanza 6, the king is identified as the cause of Erlingr’s death. When, in stanza8, the poet expresses his own unhappiness at the events, he may seem to becondemning the killer named in the immediately preceding stanza, but really hisunhappiness is at the behaviour of the king. Nevertheless, because of his ownrelationship with the king, the poet does not directly accuse him of treachery.The vocabulary of betrayal in the poem concentrates on the dead man’s kinsmanwho actually did the deed, whereas the king’s part is presented more as aninstance of Realpolitik, of the ordinary rough-and-tumble of politics.

The examples of Waltheof and Erlingr Skjalgsson show that, in the eleventhcentury, normal political conflict was still seen in personal terms of loyalty andtreachery, especially by the losers in that political conflict, though we havemoved far from the cohesive ideology of mutual support of the warriormerchants of the late Viking Age. Treachery can now be from above or below,rather than within. It is a part of the process by which kingship grew more andmore powerful, especially in Scandinavia.


7

Epilogue: Kings and Ships

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!

LONGFELLOW

From vikings to kings

Sibbi, son of Foldarr, commemorated in dróttkvætt on the Karlevi stone (see ch.1), is said, by implication, to have ruled land in Denmark (ráða landi íDanm�rku). Whatever the extent of his rule, it was not sufficient for him to makehis mark in any other source, and we know nothing about who he was, or wherein or how much of Denmark he ‘ruled’. Nor is it possible to date the inscriptionclosely enough to judge which king of Denmark he may have served, or indeedattempted to challenge. When we compare the inscription with that on the largerJelling stone, commissioned by the much more famous Haraldr Bluetooth ias

soR uan tanmaurk ala auk nuruiak ‘who won all of Denmark for himself, andNorway’ (D 42), we realise that Sibbi was probably no more than a minormagnate at home, and his activities as a warrior and sea-captain abroad probablygave more cause for his runic and poetic commemoration.

We have little or no skaldic poetry in praise of Haraldr Bluetooth, thoughEskál II, addressed to a Danish prince, might have been for him (see also Anon XI,A,Nid). However, it is characteristic of the growing ambitions of his descen-dants that some of them, such as Knútr, were frequently commemorated in thisway, and this poetry has been studied quite extensively (e.g. Frank 1994a, 1994b;Jesch 2000b). In the Danish context, this kind of royal praise was taken to itslimit soon after 1100, when King Eiríkr Sveinsson was celebrated in MarkúsSkeggjason’s Eiríksdrápa (Mark I), a poem much less extensively studied(though see Olsen 1921). This is not in dróttkvætt, but in the more flowingrhythms of hrynhent, with its lines of eight syllables, first used by ArnórrÞórðarson to celebrate Magnús góði (Arn II). Much of Markús’ praise of Eiríkr isquite traditional. He is shown as a successful sea-captain (Mark I,5–6,16) and asthe commander of a fleet (Mark I,24). He is the consummate war-leader (MarkI,17–19), who does his share of killing (Mark I,20) and successfully conquersfortifications and destroys habitations in Wendland (Mark I,21–23). He is, of

course, generous to his followers (Mark I,3,7), but stern and unyielding withanyone who tries to oppose him (Mark I,32). But this traditional picture is onlypart of the story. Much of the poem is concerned with building up a more modernimage of the ideal king c.1100. Eiríkr has not only a frœknligt hjarta ‘braveheart’, but also minni gnógt ok manvit annat mest ‘sufficient [i.e. a good]memory and most other forms of intelligence’; he also has snilli ‘eloquence’ andhe learned margar tungur ‘many languages’ as a youth (Mark I,9). He travelsextensively, making pilgrimages to Italy (Mark I,10–12) and the Holy Land(Mark I,28). He is fêted by and receives gifts from the rulers of Russia (MarkI,4), France and Germany (Mark I,26), and Constantinople (Mark I,29–30). Athome he punishes miscreants and is a just upholder of God’s law (Mark I,8).With the support of the Pope, he moves the archbishopric from Germany toLund, in Denmark, appointing �zurr as archbishop (Mark I,13–14,27). Hecauses many churches to be built, including five in stone (Mark I,25). It is nowonder that the poet declares that engi maðr veit fremra þengil ‘no one knows amore excellent prince’ (Mark I,2).1

This new view of kingship becomes clearer when we contrast Markús’ poemwith those in praise of Eiríkr’s exact contemporary, the Norwegian king Magnúsberfœttr (Bkrepp; Gísl I; Þham; see Jesch 1996, 117–27). Magnús is an old-styleviking, whose main achievements, according to the poems, are a series of raids athome and abroad, mostly in Britain and Ireland. It is entirely characteristic thatEiríkr died in Cyprus, on his way home from the Holy Land and Constantinople,while Magnús died on a raid in Ulster. However, other aspects of the skaldiccorpus show that the Norwegian monarchy was developing too.

The growing power of the Scandinavian monarchies in general and theNorwegian monarchy in particular can be traced in the vocabulary of the skaldiccorpus, as suggested for instance in the previous chapter. There, I showed howthe uses of drengr illustrate the shift from viking war-leader to medievalmonarch, while concepts of loyalty and treachery develop along with the powerof the monarchy. At the same time, words like húskarl show the developing insti-tutions of the monarch’s subordinates. The use of conventional topoi also illus-trates the change.

Thus, while old-style war-leaders could only be celebrated when they hadachieved their successes, the kings of the new order could be celebrated in thesame style even before they had really achieved anything. This can be seen quiteclearly when the poems in praise of Óláfr and Knútr are compared with those inpraise of Óláfr’s son and eventual successor, Magnús góði, who became kingwhen he was only ten years old (this contrast is discussed in more detail in Jesch2001a). By this time, the presentation of a king as a young warrior launching aship and thereby his career had become so conventional in skaldic praise poetry

Epilogue: Kings and Ships 267

1 This view of Eiríkr accords with that presented by Saxo Grammaticus, though there issome dispute over whether Saxo knew Markús’ poem. Christiansen (1980b, 261) thinks hedid not, Bjarni Guðnason (Knýtl, cxxxvii–xli) is inclined to think that he did.

that it could be used of Magnús, too, even though it was not exactly appropriate,as for instance in Arn III,1 (Hkr III, 3):

Nú hykk rjóðanda reiðuróg�rs, þvít veitk g�rva,þegi seimbrotar, segjaseggjum hneitis eggja.Vasa ellifu allraormsetrs hati vetra,hraustr þás herskip glæstiH�rða vinr ór G�rðum.

Now I plan to tell men the deeds of the battle-brisk reddener of thesword’s blades, because I know them in detail; the breakers of gold[generous men] should be silent. The disburser of the dragon’s bed[gold→generous man] was not fully eleven years old when the boldfriend of the H�rðar prepared (a) splendid warship(s) from out ofRussia.

Like his father before him (cf. Ótt II,3), Magnús’ career starts with the launch ofa ship, but though it is called a herskip ‘warship’ (a form which could also beplural), it is clear that someone who is only ten years old is not really leading aviking expedition. Instead, the emphasis on the splendour of the ship suggestssomething more like a triumphal voyage or royal progress. The stanza does notactually assert that Magnús engaged in any fighting, but limits itself instead tohints concealed in the complex warrior-kenning applied to him (‘battle-briskreddener of the sword’s blades’).

This opening stanza is partly conventional, building on the kind of openingstanzas in which the hero’s career begins when he goes out on his first militaryexpedition (e.g. Ótt II,3; Ótt III,1). But if we look at the other references toMagnús in Arnórr’s stanza, it is clearly doing more than just insinuating militarydeeds which a ten year-old could hardly have performed. As well as thewarrior-kenning, he is called a ‘disburser of gold’ and the ‘friend of the H�rðar[inhabitants of Hordaland]’. In skaldic poetry, kings are conventionally associ-ated with both military prowess and generosity, and geographical associationsare regularly used to suggest the extent of their power. In these three kennings,this first stanza paints an image of the ideal king of Norway: warlike, generousand powerful. While Knútr and Óláfr were the authors of the deeds that werecelebrated in the poems praising them, Magnús was too young to have achievedanything yet. It is the poem that creates a role for the king. Later in his short life,of course, Magnús was an effective warrior and, as Arnórr’s poem was probablyan erfidrápa, a posthumous memorial poem, the picture of the ten-year oldMagnús undoubtedly owes something to the later achievements of the fully-grown warrior. In Arn III,18, for instance, the praise of the king as a warrior is nolonger hidden in the kennings, but is brought out into the open. Arnórr usesactive verbs (sótti, rauð) to show Magnús attacking Denmark and reddeningbanners on Fyn. In the poem as a whole, Magnús’ achievement is not only to rule


two countries at a young age, but also quite literally to grow into the royal rolethat is sketched out for him at the beginning. The potential warrior becomes anactual warrior, and the poet suggests this change by switching from the nominalto the verbal, by moving from the noun-filled kennings which suggest whatMagnús’ role ought to be to the verbal constructions which show him actuallyperforming that role.

I have argued elsewhere (Jesch 2001a) that the poetry in praise of Magnúsdemonstrates the changing nature of kingship in Norway, as it moves from a‘viking’ model in which king’s sons fight their way to the top, to a more ‘medi-eval’ model with a growing emphasis on dynastic, ecclesiastical and nationalconcerns (on this model see Bagge 1991, 129–35). This is also the model thatinforms Markús Skeggjason’s view of King Eiríkr, as outlined above. A lot morecould be said about the nature of kingship in eleventh-century Scandinavia, forwhich there is much significant vocabulary in the skaldic corpus, some of it alsoattested in the runic corpus. But to explore this topic in full would require awhole book in itself.

Royal and other ships in the eleventh century

Any such exploration would also need to take into account the developments inshipbuilding of the late Viking Age and the ways in which kings used their ships.Although it is not possible to link the individual finds to specific kings, the largewarships of the eleventh century undoubtedly reflect their increasing power inthis period. The military might of Scandinavian monarchs grew out of their skillin deploying large fleets and the warriors who sailed them, as demonstrated inchapter 5. These are the kings and the ships that are celebrated in the copiousskaldic verse from the eleventh century.

The earliest of the large late Viking Age warships is Wreck 1 from Hedeby,dated to the end of the tenth century and reconstructed at 30.9m long and 2.7mwide.2 Several such long military vessels are known from the eleventh century.The longest of these now is Wreck 6 from Roskilde, discovered in February 1997and, at a reconstructed length of 36m (width 3.5m), the longest Viking Age shipcurrently known. The preliminary dating of this ship is to after 1025. Slightlybeamier than either of these two ships is Wreck 2 from Skuldelev, at 30m longand 3.7m wide, but still a substantial warship, which has been dated to after1055.

Contrasting with these undoubtedly royal warships, Wreck 5 from Skuldelevis a different class of ship altogether, although similarly dated to the middle ofthe eleventh century (built 1030–50, repaired 1060–80). It is only 17.2m long


2 All dimensions and datings in this chapter are taken from NAVIS, unless indicatedotherwise.

and 2.6m wide, and has been much repaired, so that Ole Crumlin-Pedersen(1997a, 191) found it ‘hard to believe that any prominent mid-11th centuryperson who was keen about his reputation would have had such a ship for hispersonal use’. Yet a ship of this size required twenty-six oarsmen and its charac-ter ‘is difficult to explain in terms of personal ownership’. Crumlin-Pedersenconcludes that Skuldelev 5 was a levy-ship, of the type for which the twelfth-century Norwegian laws indicate that farmers had to provide materials for theirconstruction and maintenance as well as manning them. The discussion aboutthe dating of the introduction of levy systems into Scandinavia has already beenalluded to in chapter 5, and cannot be resolved here for reasons explained there. Ibelieve, however, that Niels Lund’s interpretation of Skuldelev 5 is probablycloser to the mark than Crumlin-Pedersen’s. Lund (1996, 141) compares it withthe ships mentioned in runic inscriptions and owned by one or two men who tookthem on expeditions such as that led by Ingvarr, also in the mid-eleventh century.I have also tried to show (ch. 5, above), that there could be different types offleets, comprised of different types of vessels. Even if these were called togetherby one man, whether he was a Norwegian king or a private entrepreneur likeIngvarr, this need not have been on the basis of a centralised levy system such aswe find in the later Norwegian laws. What the social basis was on which a kingor other leader could call a fleet together in the eleventh century, however, stillremains to be discovered (though see Varenius 1998, 1999 for some sugges-tions). It may even be that some precursor of the later levy systems was in opera-tion. But it is important to distinguish between the levy systems as outlined in themedieval laws, and the unknown system or systems used to call up an expedi-tionary fleet in the eleventh century, which in any case will have varied fromplace to place. The transitional period seems to have come in the early twelfthcentury, at least in the case of Denmark, with Eiríkr’s successor, Níkulás, inwhose reign, Lund suggests (1996, 214), ‘der eksisterede en form for leding’ (‘aform of levy-system existed’). But until such developments, private fleets andexpeditions were also frequent, and runic inscriptions, in particular, provideevidence for these smaller-scale, lower-status undertakings, as shown in chapter5, above.

After the Viking Age

The large warships of the eleventh century were the precursors of even largerroyal ships of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Such ships are not yet knownarchaeologically, though this lack will surely be remedied with time. In themeantime, the sagas of that period give convincing, and probably quite accurate,descriptions of such ships, especially the sagas written in the thirteenth centuryabout events that took place shortly before they were written. There are twosuch sagas that give particularly frequent and detailed accounts of royal andother movements by ship in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Sverris saga


and Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar. Historians have long recognised the value ofthese sagas as sources for political history, once allowance has been made forthe authors’ propagandistic purposes, because they were written so soon afterthe events described and, especially in the case of Hák, because of theirdetailed and annalistic approach to the recording of events. But, although Falkmade some use of these sagas (AnS), they have not yet been fully plumbed,either for this kind of history, or as sources for the material culture of theperiod, in particular that of ships and shipbuilding. The approaches to ship-building and the attitudes to naval warfare of King Sverrir and his grandson,Hákon Hákonarson, as represented in their sagas, reveal the particular qualitiesand ambitions of these kings.

The Faroese upstart, Sverrir, spent much of his reign consolidating his internalposition in Norway. There are frequent references throughout Sverr to voyagesby ship, battles at sea, and the general difficulties of assembling sufficientvessels and their crews to make these happen. Sverrir’s ambition is alwayspresented as greater than the circumstances might seem to warrant, as exempli-fied in the account of the building of the Maríusúð (Sverr, 85–6). The ship fellapart at the seams at its launch because the king had wanted a longer vessel thanthat which was at first produced. He instructed the shipwright to cut it in two andextend it in the middle, and it was these many joins which failed at the launch.Despite these imperfections, the ship played an important part in the battle ofFimreiti (1184), in which Sverrir finally defeated and killed Magnús Erlingsson.Even the saga author admits that this result was unexpected (Sverr, 99), but it isclear that the large size of the Maríusúð played an important strategic role in thevictory (Bagge 1996, 44).

Fifteen years later, despite his stronger political position, Sverrir is shown stillproducing ships by the ‘cut-in-half-and-lengthen’ method when assembling afleet against the Baglar in 1199. But this assembling of a fleet is more organisedas befits Sverrir’s increased authority – he persuades the inhabitants of everydistrict in Trøndelag to produce ships for his fleet, none of them with fewer thantwenty-five rowing-benches. The king’s aim is to have ships at least as large asthose of his opponents: leiddisk mér . . . er brandarnir á skipum Bagla stóðu íaugum mér ‘I grew tired of having the brandar of the Baglars’ ships at myeye-level’ he says (Sverr, 162).

The much longer reign of Hákon Hákonarson enabled this posthumous son ofSverrir’s son Hákon to consolidate his position in Norway thoroughly and to turnhis attention to foreign policy. After his coronation in 1247 (thirty years afterbecoming king), Hákon was very much the powerful monarch, commandingimpressive naval and other resources, rather than the hands-on military leaderthat his grandfather was. Though Hák also has many descriptions of royalvoyages and expeditions, it shows very little of naval warfare. Hákon seems tohave understood the effectiveness of display and intimidation in his foreignpolicy, at least against the Swedes and the Danes.

In chapter 266, Hákon is shown gathering a fleet to meet the Swedes. Thisconsisted of his own ship the Óláfssúð, his son Hákon ungi’s ship Drekinn, and


[m]örg . . . önnur stór-skip ‘many other large ships’ of great splendour (Hák,261),3 as described by the Icelandic poet Sturla Þórðarson (Sturl IV,39; Skjd B II,126):

Var leiðangr,sem logi væri,gulli glæstr,of grams flota,þars b�ðtunglblíkja kn�ttuof háreiðhvert við annat.

The levy was embellished with gold, as if there were a flame over theprince’s fleet, where the war-moons [shields] gleamed, one next to theother, over the oarport-wagon [gunwale?].

The intimidatory intention and effect are revealed in a conversation between aSwedish jarl who complains about the size of King Hákon’s fleet, and the king’sman Gunnarr who replies at hónum gékk ekki ótrúnaðr til þess, heldr var þat siðrhans at fara með stór-skipum ok vel búnum ‘that it was not faithlessness thatcaused him [Hákon] to do this, rather that it was his custom to go about withlarge and well-equipped ships’ (Hák, 262). Naturally, the Swedes soon maketerms with Hákon.

The Danish problem was a harder nut for Hákon to crack, as demonstrated inthe description of the fleet he calls up for an expedition to Denmark (Hák, 273).The description is essentially the same as that of the Swedish expedition, but thebasic list of the king’s Óláfssúð, his son’s Drekinn and ‘many other large ships’ isexpanded by the naming of five other ships and their commanders. The fleet isalso augmented by a new ship, the Krossúð, which is entrusted to the king’syounger son Magnús. This was skip allra þeirra miklu mest er þar vóru ‘by farthe largest of all the ships there were then’ and it is said that old men had neverseen jafn-mörg stór-skip í einum leiðangri ‘as many large ships in one levy’(Hák, 274). So it is not surprising that this fleet sent a mikit ógnar-boð ‘greatmessage of fear’ throughout Halland (and the rest of Denmark). The descriptionis again rounded off with some stanzas by Sturla emphasising the size and fear-someness of the fleet.

However, the Danish truce is not as easily achieved as the Swedish one.Hákon has to make bigger and bigger expeditions, for instance 300 ships in 1256(Hák, 282), and a truce is only reached when he sails to Copenhagen thefollowing year with 315 ships. Again, a verse by Sturla is used to emphasise thestatement of the prose that [þ]essi floti var all-glæsiligr ‘this fleet was entirely


3 Not all mss of the saga have this phrase at this point. I follow Vigfússon’s edition (Hák),based on AM 81 fol. as far as it goes. The textual history of this saga has not yet been fullyclarified.

splendid’ (Hák, 296). The Danes declared they had never before seen a fleet ofsuch size in Denmark and, not surprisingly, they vóru mjök fúsir til sættanna,þvíat þeim sýndisk mikill afli Hákonar konungs ok torsóttligt lið ‘were very eagerfor the truces, because they thought Hákon’s strength was great and his troophard to attack’ (Hák, 297). On this expedition, Hákon has the Maríusúð, the‘most beautiful of all ships’ (Hák, 293), with gilded stems and decorated sails(Sturl III,14; Skjd B II, 116):

Digla eldr var sénn í segli,sviptilundr, á dýrðar skriptum(rísa tóku roðnir hausar),Rínar logs, of dreka þínum;unnar, þóttu eisur brennaUllar fars af slegnu gulli,fasti rauð of flota glæstumflesta r�nd, á skeiða br�ndum.

Crucible-fire [gold] was seen in the sail, on the glorious figures aboveyour dreki [i.e. on the sail], quick distributor of the fire of the Rhine[gold] – the reddened skulls rose; the fire of the wave [gold] reddenedmost of the shields above the embellished fleet, flames from the struckgold of Ullr’s ship [shield] seemed to burn on the brandar of the skeið.

Sturla uses the same vocabulary as the eleventh-century praise poets (cf. segl,skript, hauss, dreki, floti, glæsa, skeið, brandr), but in more concentrated form.His extravagant interest in the golden appearance of the fleet far outdoes theirperfunctory descriptions of the embellishment of warships, or rather it is moresingle-minded in its attraction to display. In contrast, Arn II,10, for example,describes a gold-embellished ship but is more concerned to show Magnússuccessfully steering it through a violent storm than to linger on its splendour.Sturla’s stanza is almost certainly rhetorical rather than realistic, although if anyking ever had golden ships, it was likely to have been Hákon Hákonarson. Thevalue of the stanza is in any case no greater than the description of the prose, asboth were composed by Sturla himself, on the basis, presumably, of both writtenand oral sources close to the king.

On Hákon’s expeditions it is clear that it is his men who do any actualharrying that might be required (e.g. Hák, 282–5; see Bagge 1996, 139–40). Thispicture of the king as a non-combatant commander is even clearer in the descrip-tion of Hákon’s preparations for his final expedition to Scotland in 1263. Hisship is bigger and better than ever – made entirely of oak, it has thirty-sevenbenches and has gold on both the ‘heads’ and ‘necks’ of its dragonhead stems(Hák, 329). The saga also gives a detailed roll-call of the men on Hákon’s ship(Hák, 331–2). His mjök valið lið ‘carefully-chosen troop’ included one abbot,five priests, and some other clerics. The long list of laymen includes several ofthe king’s herbergis-menn ‘men of the chamber’, his féhirðir ‘treasurer’, andseveral skutilsveinar ‘pages’. This is not a picture of a shipborne war-leader withhis close and small following of warrior-sailors. Rather it is a description of the


complex and hierarchical retinue of a powerful monarch aboard thecommander’s vessel.

Hákon met his end in Scotland, but not in battle. He died aged fifty-nine onhis sickbed in Kirkwall, just after the completion of a reading of Sverris saga, thestory of his grandfather who also died in his bed. It is certainly a measure of bothmen’s military successes that they were not killed in battle, on land or at sea, likeso many of their predecessors. But it undoubtedly also reflects the changingnature of kingship between the eleventh and the thirteenth century, by whichtime the king had become a glorious commander-in-chief, whose shield was redwith gold, rather than a war-leader whose shield was red with the blood of hisopponents.

The ships of Sverrir’s and Hákon’s time are not as well-known as the earlierships of the Viking period. Finds from the twelfth to the fourteenth century havegenerally been interpreted as belonging to the cargo-ship, rather than thewarship, tradition, including the fragments from Bergen, now shown to havebeen from one very large ship, built in Bergen in 1188, the timbers of which werereused for buildings after 1248 (Bartholin and Englert, 2000).4 However, some ofthe ‘large cargo ships’ of this period may actually have been royal ships(Christensen 1985, 208).5 In general, these ships are larger, and have lowerfloor-timbers and higher cross-beams, than the Viking-period ships, giving alarger space below the deck, and hence presumably more storage space forcargo. But, as seen above, Hákon’s commander’s ship was more of a floatingoffice than a traditional viking warship. A close reading of chapters 108–9 ofSverr suggests that this may already have been the case in his grandfather’s time.In the spring of 1188, Sverrir prepared a mikit lið ‘great fleet’ which he sailedfrom Trondheim to Bergen (Sverr, 114). He stayed there for a long time beforesailing on to the Oslofjord, where he clashed with the Kuflungar. The saga notesthat the king had thirty ships and that he sent five of them into shore to provokean attack. The king himself joined them, but too late to engage with theKuflungar. In the following chapter, the Kuflungar are attacked by thirteenlongships (langskip: Sverr, 116) of Sverrir’s Birkibeinar and their leader is killed.The king was not present, intervening only to transfer the Kuflung leader’s bodyto a church when he heard what had happened. The chapter ends by noting thatSverrir was now king of Norway. Whether or not the Bergen ship-fragmentsbelonged to a ship from Sverrir’s great fleet of 1188, the saga shows a peripateticking with a mobile force that would have required supply- and other ships as wellas those used in sea-battles.

There is now a whole new body of evidence to consider since the discovery in1996–7 of no less than nine wrecks at the doorstep of the Viking Ship Museum in


4 Christensen 1985, 221, notes that a keel found in Bergen is ‘[t]he only possible warshipfragment’ from there.

5 On the difficulties of distinguishing between ‘warships and trading vessels’ in thethirteenth century, see Roberts 1994, 19.

Roskilde (Bill et al., 1998). Most of these have been provisionally dated to after1100. Although the excavators describe all except the Viking Age warship(Roskilde 6) as ‘cargo vessels’, other functions can also be imagined in the royaltown of Roskilde. Wreck 4 is large, at 20.5m x 6.4m and has been provisionallydated to 1108 (Bill et al. 1998, 148). Wreck 2, also quite large at 16.5m x 4.5m,is made of pine and may have been built in Norway, and is provisionally dated toaround 1200 (Bill et al. 1998, 146). Soon we should have some much betterinformation on the construction of ships from the twelfth to the fourteenth centu-ries, and on whether the Danish finds can shed any light on the accounts ofNorwegian ships given in Sverr and Hák.

Conclusion

Although the words ‘viking’ and ‘ship’ so often seem to go together, ships werenot necessarily more important to Scandinavians in the Viking Age than at anyother time in their history. The Viking Age may just have been when othernations became most keenly aware of Scandinavian nautical prowess. The rockcarvings of the Bronze Age show the importance of ships in the Scandinavianculture of that time, the Wasa is a potent symbol of Sweden’s Golden Age in theseventeenth century, while twentieth-century Norwegian expertise in thebuilding of oil platforms grew directly out of a strong tradition of naval engi-neering as well as an interest in dominating the North Sea of much longerstanding. Yet the Viking Age is a pivotal moment in Scandinavian nauticalhistory. Before the Viking Age, ships can only be studied through the archaeo-logical finds or the enigmatic rock carvings. After the Viking Age, theartefactual, iconographical and textual evidence grows fast, and can becomeoverwhelming. Prehistorians have no texts, while later historians may takelanguage for granted. So it is first in the Viking Age that it is possible to comparethe evidence of the ships themselves with that of the words in which the peopleof that period referred to them. And it is first in the Viking Age that there aretexts which can help to reconstruct the social, political and economic contexts inwhich ships were used. This availability of both artefactual and textual evidencemakes the Viking Age the true beginning of Scandinavian history. In particular,the copious evidence of runic inscriptions and skaldic verse sheds light on boththe linguistic and the social dimensions of the activities of men and their use ofships in the late Viking Age.


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Appendix I: The Runic Corpus

Abbreviations and index of inscriptions cited

This list provides references to the standard editions, but citations of inscriptionsin my text are normally taken from SamRun.

* = not a Viking Age rune stone

Berezan = Jansson 1987, 61. 96, 235

Braddan 2 = Olsen 1954, 191; Page 1983, 140. 256–7, 260

D + inscription number = DR.D 1 107, 109–11, 181, 225, 231–2,

235–6D 3 70, 107, 109, 185, 235–6D 6 59, 70, 73D 37 58D 42 266D 63 109D 66 59, 232D 68 58, 120, 180, 190, 225, 231–4,

258–9D 77 120, 159, 230–1D 78 227D 82 185D 98 227D 99 227D 108 89D 110 59D 117 107, 204–5D 119 120D 125 235D 127 225, 235D 143 227D 154 235–6D 155 235–6D 190 178D 209 13, 188, 226–7D 216 48, 107D 218 185

D 220 120, 159D 230 124D 258 120, 128, 159D 259 107D 262 225, 235D 266 70D 268 231D 270 235D 271 120, 128, 159D 275 185D 276 231D 277 227D 279 59, 114, 224–5, 232, 243D 280 190D 288 231D 289 231D 293 190, 227D 294 227D 295 59, 114, 222–3, 227, 229, 236,

243, 261D 296 222–3, 227, 235–6, 243D 297 222–3, 227, 235–6, 243D 316 235D 318 227, 235D 321 235D 328 120, 128D 330 54, 56, 225, 234D 334 54, 56, 107, 180

D 335 56, 120, 180, 190D 337 73D 339 225, 235D 345 226D 363 185

D 379 14, 178, 184D 380 14, 58–9, 107, 230D 387 14, 58, 230, 255D 389 14, 230–1

D EM1985 + page number = Moltke 1985.D EM1985:265 120, 180 D EM1985:253 120

FR 1 = Simonsen 1961. 14, 80

G + inscription number = SR XI–XII.G 111 58G 114 96G 134 96, 257–8G 135 90G 136 190G 138 58G 207 57, 64

G 208 64* G 216 13, 79, 99, 101, 104

G 220 58, 97G 270 59G 280 97G 370 48, 70

Gs + inscription number = SR XV.Gs 7 178Gs 8 70

Gs 13 94, 195–6

IR + inscription number = Barnes et al. 1997.* IR 6 80 IR 10 190

Kirk Michael 3 = Olsen 1954, 215–17; Page 1983, 140. 190

M + inscription number = cited from SamRun.M 2 59

N + inscription number = NIyR.N 61 190N 62 90, 95–6N 84 237N 163 237

* N 171 15N 184 66, 70, 73, 188

N 239 6, 58, 108N 252 59, 205, 263

* N 527 120, 128* N 532 159* N 540 80, 229

Nä + inscription number = SR XIV.Nä 15 107Nä 18 230

Nä 23 230Nä 29 230

Ög + inscription number = SR II.Ög 8 45, 58, 89Ög 30 89, 102Ög 40 237Ög 64 65, 228–9, 239Ög 68 70, 125–6Ög 77 259Ög 81 57–8, 77, 89, 99, 107–8, 230Ög 83 70Ög 94 99Ög 104 58, 70, 230

Ög 111 73, 230–1Ög 122 231, 234Ög 130 231Ög 136 260Ög 145 58, 89, 103, 202Ög 155 57, 103, 200, 202Ög 181 120, 159Ög 184 59Ög 201 231Ög 217 259

296 Appendix I: The Runic Corpus

Ög 224 120, 159

Ög FV1950 + page number = Jansson 1950.Ög FV1950:341 70

Ög FV1965 + page number = Jansson 1965.Ög FV1965:54 231

Ög FV1970 + page number = Svärdström 1970.Ög FV1970:310 70

Ög HOV + inscription number = Jansson 1962.Ög HOV32 59

Ög MÖLM1960 + page number = Jansson 1960–61.Ög MÖLM1960:230 65, 120, 229, 231,

239, 242

Ög NOR1997 + page number = Gustavson 1997.Ög NOR1997:28 73

Öl + inscription number = SR I.Öl 1 (Karlevi) 1–6, 9–13, 15, 32, 114,

200–1, 266Öl 58 96, 230Öl 69 190

Sm + inscription number = SR IV.Sm 2 259Sm 5 58, 70, 259Sm 10 37, 45, 47Sm 11 45Sm 16 59Sm 27 57, 70Sm 28 59Sm 29 57, 70Sm 35 114Sm 37 259Sm 42 185Sm 46 57, 89, 99

Sm 48 58, 230Sm 51 70Sm 52 59, 107, 114–15Sm 77 70Sm 89 237Sm 93 230Sm 101 13, 70, 73–4Sm 104 70, 73Sm 105 237Sm 131 259Sm 146 237Sm 147 259

Sö + inscription number = SR III.Sö 9 57, 103Sö 13 45Sö 14 70, 73Sö 15 59Sö 16 107, 112Sö 33 57, 89, 192–3Sö 34 89Sö 39 92, 178Sö 40 57Sö 45 92Sö 46 70Sö 49 126, 128Sö 52 190Sö 53 70Sö 54 45

Sö 55 59, 70, 230Sö 62 70Sö 65 57, 87, 89, 148, 177Sö 82 99Sö 83 70, 178Sö 85 57, 99Sö 92 89Sö 96 103Sö 105 103Sö 106 60–2, 70Sö 107 103Sö 108 103Sö 113 229, 237Sö 121 89Sö 122 59, 120, 229, 231

Appendix I: The Runic Corpus 297

Sö 126 58–9, 89Sö 129 237Sö 130 58, 96, 229, 237Sö 131 89, 103–5Sö 137 70Sö 145 190Sö 148 57, 89, 96Sö 154 120Sö 155 229Sö 158 120Sö 159 70Sö 160 70, 188Sö 161 181, 184Sö 163 99, 230Sö 164 58, 70, 120–1, 145, 203, 205,

230–1Sö 165 99Sö 166 60, 66, 70, 73, 80–1, 99Sö 167 230Sö 170 58, 99Sö 171 58, 97, 124, 126, 184Sö 173 58, 69–70, 89, 103–4Sö 174 58, 107–8, 243, 253Sö 177 230Sö 179 58, 89, 102, 104, 230, 246–7Sö 182 45Sö 189 259Sö 196 70, 194Sö 197 45Sö 198 63–4, 90, 128, 173

Sö 202 190Sö 203 45Sö 207 70Sö 216 57, 89Sö 217 58, 188, 201Sö 254 103, 188, 201Sö 256 92Sö 260 70Sö 266 45Sö 269 45Sö 277 103Sö 279 102–4Sö 281 89, 103–4Sö 287 103Sö 292 234–5Sö 298 234–5Sö 308 89Sö 312 45Sö 318 178Sö 319 70Sö 320 89, 103–4, 230Sö 333 58, 108Sö 335 58, 89, 103–4, 185Sö 338 58–9, 89, 96, 187, 188, 190,

237–8Sö 345 57, 99Sö 348 58Sö 351 58, 120Sö 352 120

Sö ATA6163:61 = cited from SamRun. 58

Sö FV1948 + page number = Jansson 1948.Sö FV1948:289 48–9, 107 Sö FV1948:291 58, 122

Sö FV1954 + page number = Jansson 1954a.Sö FV1954:20 89, 99 Sö FV1954:22 57, 87, 89

Sö FV1959 + page number = Jansson 1959.Sö FV1959:266 (= Sö 40) 108

Sö NOR 1998 + page number = Gustavson 1998.Sö NOR 1998:23 59

U + inscription number = SR VI–IX.U 11 159U 16 159U 29 6, 13, 58, 178U 34 45U 72 99U 73 58, 99U 104 99U 112 58, 99, 188U 115 190

U 127 181, 190U 130 114, 257U 133 57–8, 87U 135 13U 136 13, 57, 66, 99U 140 57, 99U 141 58, 87U 143 230U 153 89


U 154 58, 89U 158 58U 164 181, 190U 165 190U 166 230U 170 59U 175 45U 180 58, 108U 184 237U 194 73, 99U 201 57–8, 99U 209 89, 96–7U 212 181, 190U 214 108, 128–9, 178U 240 237U 241 71, 73, 99, 237U 243 58U 258 58, 126, 128, 203U 260 45–6U 261 181, 190U 270 92, 100U 281 237U 283 58, 89U 289 230U 324 58U 330 237U 331 181, 190U 335 237U 337 181, 190U 344 72–3, 99U 346 58, 94U 347 88U 348 122, 181, 183, 190U 349 58, 184U 356 13, 58, 94U 358 57, 99U 363 58U 364 59U 366 89U 370 120U 374 58, 99U 375 107U 379 65, 239–40U 385 185U 391 65, 234, 239, 241U 395 116–17U 414 190U 431 99U 432 45U 433 257U 439 89, 92, 103–4, 120, 173–4, 187U 446 58, 99U 454 92U 455 178

U 462 237U 479 201U 489 190U 498 45U 504 69–70, 89U 518 57, 99, 108U 527 237U 532 6U 533 58, 94U 539 70, 107U 540 99U 577 58U 582 58, 94, 108U 605 67–8, 89U 610 230U 611 58, 188, 201U 613 58U 614 108U 616 58, 70, 92U 617 48U 620 59U 631 88U 636 89, 96U 641 239U 642 239U 644 58, 89, 103–4U 649 45U 654 58, 89, 103–4, 128–9, 173–4,

184U 661 89, 103–4U 668 70, 190–2U 669 190U 681 45U 687 97U 691 254–5U 698 58, 92U 699 59U 729 230U 760 230U 767 230U 768 230U 778 89, 103–4, 120, 173–4, 181–2,

187, 190U 785 104U 792 99–100U 802 45, 230U 808 229U 812 70U 813 45U 837 103, 188, 201U 895 237U 896 59U 898 58, 89U 922 99, 181, 184

Appendix I: The Runic Corpus 299

U 951 6U 954 58, 234, 255, 258U 956 92, 100U 973 190U 978 70, 92U 979 120, 128, 159U 984 237U 1001 120, 160U 1011 181, 184U 1016 58, 99–100, 128–9, 170,

173–4, 181, 184U 1025 237U 1026 237

U 1028 258U 1036 59U 1037 181U 1048 58, 109, 112U 1052 120, 159U 1086 237U 1087 99U 1139 237U 1143 103U 1160 237U 1161 120, 159, 188, 201U 1181 70, 92

U ATA4909:78 = cited from SamRun. 58

U FV1912 + page number = von Friesen 1912.* U FV1912:8 64–5, 92

U FV1946 + page number = Jansson 1946.U FV1946:258 120

U FV1976 + page number = Gustavson 1976.U FV1976:104 181, 184

U FV1992 + page number = Gustavson et al. 1992.U FV1992:157 89, 103–4

Vg + inscription number = SR V.Vg 3 237Vg 4 6, 190Vg 17 45Vg 18 237Vg 20 56, 58, 70, 226Vg 32 230Vg 40 59–60Vg 51 120Vg 61 36, 54–6, 70, 226, 230Vg 90 230Vg 112 225, 235Vg 113 36Vg 114 231Vg 119 120, 159Vg 122 235Vg 123 230Vg 125 231

Vg 126 230Vg 127 230Vg 130 231Vg 135 58, 89Vg 153 230Vg 154 230Vg 157 231Vg 162 230Vg 174 178Vg 178 99Vg 179 231Vg 181 36, 58, 92–3, 230Vg 182 235Vg 184 36, 89, 188, 230Vg 187 56, 58, 70, 226Vg 197 56, 69, 70, 89, 226

Vs + inscription number = SR XIII.Vs 1 57, 89, 96Vs 3 230Vs 5 58, 70Vs 9 70

Vs 17 120Vs 18 70, 230Vs 19 89, 103–4, 230Vs 22 230

Vs FV1988 + page number = Strid and Åhlén 1988.Vs FV1988:36 89


Appendix II: The Skaldic Corpus

Abbreviations, reconstruction of poems, andindex of stanzas cited

See also Other Poems Cited, starting on p. 315 at the end of this list.

AnonX = anonymous poets of the tenth centuryAnonX I,A,Nid = níð-poem on Haraldr blát�nn 266AnonX I,B = lausavísur 2,4,10

4 21AnonX III,A = fragments about poetryAnonX III,B = fragments about battles and bravery

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 167, 176AnonX III,C = fragments about sea-journeys 1–3

3 134, 175AnonX Karlevi = Öl 1 [see Appendix I]

Anon XI = anonymous poets of the eleventh centuryAnonXI D-o-v = dream- and prophetic poems 8, 10–11

8 70, 90AnonXI Flokkr = flokkr on Sveinn Alfífuson 124, 145, 205, 208, 210, 215, 231, 252

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 165, 175.AnonXI Harst = Haraldsstikki 201

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 165, 175.AnonXI Knútr = from a praise poem (on St Knútr?) 90, 134

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 168, 176.AnonXI Lv = lausavísur 4–16

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 167, 176.4 127, 137, 154–5, 175–66 120, 122, 1687 62, 112–13

11 2116 120, 122, 140, 205, 209

AnonXI Magnús = from a praise poem (on Magnús góði?)Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 168, 176.

AnonXII = anonymous poets of the twelfth centuryAnonXII B = stanzas on persons and events 1–4

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 167, 176.3 134–5, 155, 160

Arn = Arnórr Þórðarson jarlaskáldArn I = R�gnvaldsdrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 131–2, 172.Arn II = Hrynhenda, Magnúsdrápa 266

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 127–9, 172; Whaley 1998, 327.2 65, 131, 140–13 154, 166, 1764 98, 123–4, 140, 143–4, 147, 160,

165, 170, 172, 174, 1765 90, 198, 2516 90, 2517 123, 147–8, 2519 98, 133, 137, 156–7, 165, 171, 173,

195, 19710 123, 133, 150, 153, 159, 161–2,

175–6, 197, 273

11 94, 120, 122, 134, 140, 148, 170,173

12 9413 94, 202, 25114 251–215 134, 205, 214, 25116 133, 137, 153, 164, 175–617 123, 170, 172, 24418 177

Arn III = Magnússdrápa 268–9Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 129–30, 132, 172; Whaley 1998, 327.

1 98, 123, 172, 2682 90, 116, 143, 156–7, 172, 1773 904 2455 62, 2516 140, 1477 2218 94, 250–19 78, 9411 251

12 205, 207–9, 211, 25113 114, 123–4, 154, 205, 21414 205, 22115 205, 212–13, 25116 114, 17917 114, 25118 113, 251, 253–4, 26819 134

Arn IV = poem on Hermundr Illugason 17Notes: see Whaley 1988, 35, 328.

Arn V = ÞorfinnsdrápaNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 131–2, 172; Whaley 1998, 34, 328.

1 186, 249, 2513 1865 249, 2516 78, 124, 126–7, 205–7, 244–5, 2477 62, 77, 120, 122, 151, 205, 210–118 78, 205, 207, 244–5, 247, 249, 2519 78, 192, 25110 7711 7712 78, 124, 249–5113 176

14 7715 78, 20216 77, 251, 25317 62, 251, 25318 7819 164, 250–120 61, 78, 205, 20721 78, 140–1, 153, 205, 207, 211–1222 7723 7824 78

Arn VI = Erfidrápa on Haraldr harðráðiNotes: sts 5–6,19 not necessarily from this poem (Fidjestøl 1982, 130–32, 172); Whaley(1998, 35–6, 328–9) omits 5–6, but not 19.

1 1132 127, 140, 145, 173, 175, 205, 207,

2513 124, 205, 209, 211, 2374 126, 135, 175, 205, 211–125 205, 212, 2516 251

8 1149 7610 25312 76, 179, 20213 25115 62, 19816 116, 123, 140, 173

302 Appendix II: The Skaldic Corpus

17 251 19 98, 100Arn VII = fragments and a lausavísa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 132, 172; Whaley 1998, 33–6, 328–9.1 172 123, 126, 175, 177, 205, 211, 251–2

5 221

Atli = Atli lítliAtli = poem on Óláfr kyrri

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 149, 173.

Bárðr = Bárðr á Uppl�ndumBárðr = lausavísa

Bersi = Bersi SkáldtorfusonBersi I = flokkr on King Óláfr

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 165–6, 176.1 131, 1753 172, 237, 261

Bersi II = lausavísa 21

BjH = Bjarni Hallbjarnarson gullbrárskáldBjH = Kalfsflokkr

1 205, 207–8, 2512 140, 144, 205, 207, 2113 98, 150, 177

4 70, 765 253

Bkrepp = Bj�rn krepphendiBkrepp = Magnússdrapa 267

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 150–52, 173.2 2523 504 251–25 78

6 77–8, 251–27 77–89 78, 205, 207

Brúlf = Brynjólfr ulfaldiBrúlf = lausavísa

B�lv = B�lverkr ArnórssonB�lv = drápa on Haraldr harðráði

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 143, 172.1 90, 251–22 62, 100, 124, 126, 135, 141, 147–8,

157–9, 1753 1944 88, 139, 148, 153, 178, 188

5 89, 124, 141, 150, 153, 160, 1768 120, 122, 124, 128, 147, 153, 172,

177, 196

Edáð = Eyjólfr dáðaskáldEdáð = Bandadrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 111–14, 171.1 2512 145

3 127, 1315 50, 145, 205, 207, 251

Appendix II: The Skaldic Corpus 303

6 987 123, 205, 207, 211

8 95, 170

Eil = Eilífr GoðrúnarsonEil I = poem on Hákon jarl


Eindr = Eindriði EinarssonEindr = lausavísa

Eirm = Eiríksmál 17

Eldj = EldjárnEldj = lausavísur

1 139, 143, 176

Eskál = Einarr Helgason skálaglammEskál I = drápa on Hákon jarl

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 96, 170.Eskál II = poem on Haraldr blát�nn 266

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 96, 170.Eskál III = Vellekla

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 96–101, 170.1 492 135, 1863 134, 173, 1767 1958 25111 17519 14020 16023 175

24 9425 25126 14128 9429 25130 25133 22036 251

Eskál IV = lausavísur2 251

EValg = Eyjólfr ValgerðarsonEValg = lausavísa

Eyv = Eyvindr Finnsson skáldaspillirEyv I = Hákonarm�lEyv II = Háleygjatal

12 26113 195, 205–6

14 188, 205–6

Eyv III = lausavísur 172 1959 136

14 79

Eþver = Einarr þveræingrEþver = lausavísa 2


Gizsv = Gizurr (svarti) gullbrárskáldGizsv I = from a praise poem

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 124–5, 172.Gizsv II = lausavísa

Gísl = Gísl IllugasonGísl I = erfikvæði on Magnús berfœttr 267

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 152, 173.3 154–5, 188, 1956 2028 34, 66, 134, 1719 77–810 77, 205, 20911 78, 205, 20712 201, 205

13 20514 161–2, 164, 18815 127, 163, 16516 127, 145, 147, 17617 19819 251, 253

Gísl II = lausavísa 221

Glúmr = Glúmr GeirasonGlúmr I = poem on Eiríkr blóðøx

Notes: st. 2 possibly belongs to Glúmr II (Fidjestøl 1982, 91, 170).2 78, 1353 90

5 90

Glúmr II = GráfeldardrápaNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 90–92, 170.

2 775 94

Glúmr III = lausavísaNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 92.

Grani = Grani skáldGrani = poem on Haraldr harðráði

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 143, 173.2 113–14, 248–9, 251–2

Gunnl = Gunnlaugr ormstunga IllugasonGunnl I = Aðalráðsdrápa 17, 76

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 111, 171.Gunnl II = Sigtryggsdrápa 17

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 111, 171.3 251

Halli = Halli stirðiHalli = flokkr

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 145–6, 173; Poole 1991, 73–85.1 70, 123, 141, 143, 145, 147, 170,

205–6, 2512 124, 145, 188, 205–6, 251

3 205–6

Hallv = Hallvarðr háreksblesiHallv = Knútsdrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 125, 172; Jesch 2000b.


1 139, 1752 70, 145, 1743 76, 120, 122, 157–8, 175–6, 195,

251

6 76, 251

Hár = Hárekr Eyvindarson í ÞjóttuHár = lausavísur

1 1232 21, 127, 133, 170

Hfr = Hallfreðr Óttarsson vandræðaskáldHfr I = Hákonardrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 102–6, 171.2 2516 170

Hfr II = ÓláfsdrápaNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 106–9, 171; st. 1 probably influenced by Arn III,1 (pp.106–7).

1 98, 123, 147, 159, 1722 90, 983 2524 945 112, 170, 173

6 80, 2517 80, 2518 76–8, 2519 63, 77, 251

Hfr III = Óláfsdrápa Erfidrápa 205Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 58–9, 109–10, 171.

1 2432 186, 216–173 2175 211, 2616 123, 2117 94, 2519 14411 7713 136–7, 174–5, 188, 212, 23114 123, 140–1, 211, 21315 207

16 137, 169, 175, 21117 52, 20718 136, 144, 147, 174, 213–1419 243–420 212, 25121 53, 207, 21222 21223 21224 21225 21227 251

Hfr IV = EiríksdrápaNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 110–11, 171.

Hharð = Haraldr Sigurðarson harðráðiHharð = lausavísur

3 984 88, 98, 139, 153, 175, 177, 2315 986 987 989 133, 166–7

11 23815 10616 76, 139–40, 147, 151, 17318 120, 122

Hókr = Halldórr ókristniHókr = Eiríksflokkr 205

1 188, 206, 251 2 123, 161, 206


3 136–7, 140, 148, 206–7, 2104 136, 207, 213, 219–205 136–7, 210, 213, 251

6 94, 123, 151, 209–11, 217, 2207 94, 123, 2208 28, 31, 123, 136–7, 214

Ill = Illugi bryndœlaskáldIll I = poem on Haraldr harðráði

Notes: Fidjestøl 1982, 142–3, 172.1 2522 87, 90, 2513 87

4 87

Ill II = lausavísa

Jómsv = a JomsvikingJómsv = stanza

J�k = J�kull BárðarsonJ�k = lausavísur

1 120, 122, 147, 174

Kali = Kali SæbjarnarsonKali = lausavísa 70, 151

Kolgr = Kolgrímr lítliKolgr = poem on Magnús góði


Korm = Kormákr �gmundarsonKorm I = Sigurðardrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 92–4, 170.3 161, 1724 251

Leiðolfr = LeiðolfrLeiðolfr = unidentified poem

Liðsm = Liðsmannaflokkr 41, 51Liðsm = Poole 1991, 86–90

1 179, 1993 76, 2514 52, 765 76

8 34, 76–79 76, 25210 76

Mark = Markús SkeggjasonMark I = Eiríksdrápa 15, 266, 269

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 152–3, 173.2 2673 49, 2674 49, 90, 98, 2675 90, 95, 98, 134, 140–1, 143, 147,

172–3, 178, 202, 2666 147, 266

7 131, 222, 2678 56, 95, 2679 26710 88, 26711 68, 87, 26712 68, 87, 267


13 80, 26714 26715 9516 95, 120, 122, 141, 143, 148, 175–6,

26617 26618 222, 253, 26619 62, 26620 63, 26621 266

22 95, 26623 95, 26624 134, 209, 26625 80, 134, 26726 88, 98–9, 26727 26728 68, 101, 26729 62, 98–9, 26730 101, 123, 26732 267

Mark II/III = KnútsdrápaNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 153, 173.

Mark IV = lausavísur

Mgóð = Magnús Óláfsson enn góðiMgóð = lausavísur

Mberf = Magnús berfœttrMberf = lausavísur

1 1436 66, 78, 90

Okík = Oddr kíkinaskáldOkík I = poem on Magnús góði

1 94, 205, 207–82 238

Okík II = lausavísa

Ólhelg = Óláfr Haraldsson enn helgiÓlhelg = lausavísur 1,4,6,7–11 (n.b. Ólhelg 2,3,5 = Liðsm)

7 133–4, 1419 123–4, 205, 207, 211

11 98

ÓTr = Óláfr TryggvasonÓTr = lausavísur

Ótt = Óttarr svartiÓtt I = Óláfsdrápa sœnska

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 123, 171.2 894 2515 140, 176

6 251

Ótt II = H�fuðlausnNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 123–4, 171.

1 21, 773 153, 172, 2684 90, 120, 122, 134, 154–5, 162–3,

172, 1765 2516 90, 95, 2517 27, 51, 61, 738 27

9 27, 73, 77, 120, 12210 27, 61, 7311 2712 85, 18613 66, 70, 123, 130, 140, 174, 176, 18814 134–5, 174, 176, 23115 123, 165, 25119 70, 77


20 145, 159, 161, 163, 170, 177Ótt III = Knútsdrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 124, 171.1 120, 122–3, 157–9, 172, 2682 53, 70, 145, 163–4, 198, 2443 53, 635 52–3, 61, 70, 76–76 76, 2517 76, 80

8 76, 2519 7610 76, 170, 25111 25, 205, 251

Ótt IV = lausavísur1 21, 78–92 77

Sigv = Sigvatr ÞórðarsonSigv I = Víkingarvísur 32, 82–3

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 117–18, 171; Sigv XIII,2 is ‘loosely’ connected with thispoem.

1 123, 134, 2512 953 50, 54, 90, 95, 123, 148, 1785 82, 123, 1476 27, 50–1, 73, 787 27, 738 27, 49, 73, 76

9 27, 61, 73, 7710 27, 50, 83, 18811 27, 8412 27, 84, 25113 61, 8514 85

Sigv II = Nesjavísur 205Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 118–19, 171. Sigv XIII,5 is a part of this poem.

1 140, 176–7, 206, 2082 144, 207, 2533 120, 122, 1704 137, 207, 2106 120, 122, 169, 211, 215, 236–7, 2537 120, 122–3, 140, 211–12, 2148 120, 122, 211, 251

9 123, 145, 150, 201, 210, 213–14,251

10 21212 15114 208

Sigv III = Austrfararvísur1 892 123, 1355 2216 539 123–4, 139, 162, 164, 17610 120, 122, 166, 17111 22113 49

14 170, 22115 78, 22116 25117 23718 221, 23819 7021 89

Sigv IV = drápa on King Óláfr 153Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 122, 171.

Sigv V = Vestrfararvísur 1791 62, 86, 148, 150, 178–98 194

Sigv VI = poem on Erlingr Skjálgsson 238Sigv VII = flokkr on Erling Skjálgsson 205

1 120, 122–3, 132–3, 210, 2512 123, 151, 186, 207, 211–123 123, 153, 186, 207, 211, 213, 264–55 207, 264–5

6 62, 211, 2647 49, 63, 211, 264–58 63, 26510 61, 186


Sigv VIII = Tryggvaflokkr 206Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 122, 171

Sigv IX = poem on Queen ÁstríðrNotes: see Jesch 1994–7.

1 89Sigv X = Knútsdrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 119–20, 1711 76, 2513 116, 1884 139, 155, 1755 176, 1887 70, 134, 175

8 70, 127, 139, 162, 164, 17510 6811 68

Sigv XI = Bers�glisvísur1 2513 614 629 61

12 2113 19418 63

Sigv XII = Erfidrápa Óláfs helgaNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 121–3, 171; Fidjestøl would drop st. 1–3, however, st.3 isalmost certainly a part of this poem.

1 2442 2443 137, 147, 2444 2516 49–507 2538 8910 15711 253

12 25315 6116 16118 6219 7721 6222 61, 24427 251

Sigv XIII = lausavísur2 1653 2384 65, 130, 2515 belongs to Sigv II (see Fidjestøl 1982,

118–19, 171) 78, 186, 188, 205, 2097 19417 5318 238

19 76, 120, 122, 19822 24423 120, 122, 170, 175, 25125 6826 65–6, 13027 90, 9828 21

Sigv XIV = unidentified fragments2 131

Sindr = Goþþormr sindriSindr = Hákonardrápa

1 1542 123, 148, 160, 2115 77, 188

7 1268 253

Skúli = Skúli ÞórsteinssonSkúli I = poem on the battle of Sv�lðr 205

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 166, 176.2 206–73 251

4 207

Skúli II = lausavísa


Snegl = Sneglu-HalliSnegl I = poem on Haraldr harðráði

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 143–4, 173.

Stefnir = Stefnir ÞórgilssonStefnir = lausavísur

1 2622 165, 221

SteigÞ = Steigar-ÞórirSteigÞ = ditty 21, 235

Steinn = Steinn HerdísarsonSteinn I Nizarvísur 205

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 147, 173.1 2102 120, 122, 177, 2063 207, 209–10, 2124 188, 209–10

5 207–8, 2526 2517 251

Steinn II = Ulfsflokkr 120, 122, 154–5, 205, 210Steinn III = Óláfsdrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 147–9, 173.2 763 54, 2524 62, 2325 76, 120, 122, 134, 139–40, 145,

173, 1896 70, 90, 159, 176, 1897 1888 205, 207

9 140, 205, 212, 23210 6611 123, 140, 18813 7714 120, 122, 130, 144, 157–916 130–1, 220

Stúfr = Stúfr enn blindi Þórðarson kattarStúfr = Stúfsdrápa, Stúfa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 146–7, 173.1 2512 1013 101

5 114, 2526 114

Tindr = Tindr HallkelssonTindr I = drápa on Hákon jarl 205

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 102, 171.1 211, 2153 186, 2514 94, 123–4, 188, 211, 2515 49, 123, 154, 206, 2116 147

7 2518 2519 134, 196, 21110 123, 137, 140, 212

Ulfr = Ulfr stallariUlfr = lausavísa 145, 192


Vagn = Vagn ÁkasonVagn = stanza

Valg = Valgarðr á VelliValg = poem on Haraldr harðráði

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 144, 173.1 88, 124, 1893 54, 614 100, 2025 90, 116, 120, 122, 135, 174–5, 1786 114, 124, 127, 161, 163, 1657 113, 252

8 1149 124, 12710 120, 122, 124, 127, 144, 147, 175–611 123, 145, 176–7

Vígf = Vígfúss Víga-GlúmssonVígf I = poem on Hákon jarl 205, 232

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 165, 176 (a lausavísa).Vígf II = lausavísa 130

Þfagr = Þórleikr fagriÞfagr = flokkr on Sveinn Ulfsson

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 144–5, 173.1 94, 112, 2523 140, 144, 147, 160, 205–64 120, 122, 157, 159, 161, 170–1,

205–6, 2515 120, 122, 144, 174, 205, 253–46 113, 178, 205

7 205, 2088 90, 120, 122, 134, 205, 2149 21511 134, 144, 147, 170, 176

Þfisk = Þórgils fiskimaðrÞfisk = lausavísur

1 2322 89, 251

3 94–5, 106, 232

Þflekk = Þórgeirr flekkrÞflekk = lausavísa

Þham = Þórkell hamarskáldÞham I = Magnússdrápa 267

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 152, 173.2 70, 147, 176, 2513 2054 78, 89, 252

5 179

Þham II = lausavísurNotes: on st. 1, see Fidjestøl 1982, 152, 173.

ÞHjalt = Þórvaldr HjaltasonÞHjalt = lausavísur

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 95–61 2512 49


ÞjóðA = Þjóðólfr ArnórssonÞjóðA I/IV,1–9 = Magnússflokkr

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 133–4, 172.I,1 90, 176I,2 116, 120, 122, 126, 160–3,

172–3, 178I,3 90, 251I,4 120, 122–3, 133–4, 139, 141,

160–3, 165, 197I,6 94, 112I,7 94, 252I,8 61I,9 252I,12 124, 126, 139, 145, 170, 205,

211, 213, 238I,13 205I,14 205, 208, 212I,15 120, 122, 205, 211, 213I,16 176, 205, 212

I,17 114, 253I,18 254I,21 205, 207, 212I,22 120, 122, 205, 212, 245I,23 205, 207–8, 214I,24 70, 114, 124IV,1 145, 178IV,3 113IV,4 253–4IV,5 114IV,4 114IV,7 113IV,8 114IV,9 124, 170, 172, 175

ÞjóðA II = rúnhent poem on Haraldr harðráðiNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 134, 172.

1 198–94 63

ÞjóðA III/IV,18–24 = Sexstefja and related stanzasNotes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 134–42, 172; Poole 1991, 59–72.

III,1 100–1III,2 62, 88, 106III,3 89III,4 251III,5 87III,6 90, 100, 251III,7 251–2III,8 90, 116, 124, 133, 139–40,

163–4, 175–7III,9 128, 134, 140, 177III,11 222III,12 127, 176, 188, 196, 202, 205,

251III,13 127, 156–7, 205, 207, 209III,14 205, 208III,15 186, 205, 212, 251III,16 120, 172, 205, 211III,17 205

III,19 136III,21 194III,23 114III,29 251–2III,30 251III,31 160III,34 135, 144IV,18 124, 127, 139, 170, 173, 196–7IV,19 70, 118, 124, 127, 154–5,

165–6, 173–4, 188, 196–7, 231IV,20 154–5, 196–7IV,21 127, 133, 140, 154–6, 176,

196–7IV,22 123–4, 126, 145, 147, 157–9,

196–7IV,23 126, 148, 163, 167–9, 196–7IV,24 114, 196–7, 202, 251

ÞjóðA IV = other lausavísur 10–17, 25–711 133, 16713 106, 25417 135

27 90

Þjsk = Þórleifr jarlsskáld RauðfeldarsonÞjsk I = Hákonardrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 101, 170.1 2522 206


Þjsk II = drápa on Sveinn Forkbeard 76Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 101–2, 170.

ÞKolb = Þórðr KolbeinssonÞKolb I/III = Eiríksdrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 115–17, 171. All stanzas can be assigned to the same poem.I,1 205, 251III,1 123–4, 139, 170, 173, 205–6III,2 123, 126, 130, 134, 176, 205–6III,3 141, 145, 154–5, 205–6, 251III,4 123, 141, 175–7, 196, 205–6,

211III,9 77, 123–4, 144, 178

III,10 123, 139, 155, 178III,11 76, 192III,12 73, 77, 251III,13 77, 123, 188, 251III,14 251

Þloft = Þórarinn loftungaÞloft I = H�fuðlausn 100

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 125–6, 172.Þloft II = Tøgdrápa

Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 126–7, 172.2 188, 195, 197, 2513 120, 122, 1974 134, 144, 155, 175

5 145, 1756 116, 139, 175

Þloft III = Glælognskviða2 1167 63

Þorf = Þórfinnr munnrÞorf = lausavísur

1 21, 251

Þórm = Þórmóðr Bersason KolbrúnarskáldÞórm II = lausavísur 10–11, 15–25

10 21, 2311 21, 23, 25115 21

20 251

Þór = ÞórarinnÞór = lausavísa 145, 154, 159

ÞSjár = Þórðr SærekssonÞSjár I = poem about Klœingr BrúsasonÞSjár II = Þórólfsdrápa Skolmssonar

1 61, 1712 251

4 251

ÞSjár III = Róðudrápa 25, 251Notes: see Fidjestøl 1982, 127, 172.

ÞSjár IV = lausavísur

ÞSkall = Þórkell SkallasonÞSkall = Valþjófsflokkr



1 252 2 24, 76, 261–2

ÞSkegg = Þórarinn SkeggjasonÞSkegg = lausavísa 100


Þskúm = Þórleifr skúma ÞórkelssonÞskúm = lausavísa 49

OTHER POEMS CITED

Anon XI = anonymous poets of the eleventh centuryAnonXI D-o-v = dream- and prophetic poems (other than 8, 10–11, which are in the corpus)

3 61

Bjbysk = Bjarni KolbeinssonBjbysk = Jómsvíkingadrápa

4 221

Bbreiðv = Bj�rn breiðvíkingakappiBbreiðv = lausavísur

6 28–9

Egill = Egill SkallagrímssonEgill I = Aðalsteinsdrápa 17Egill II = H�fuðlausn 17, 20Egill VII = lausavísur

1 5410 94

14 2615 26

Gr = Grímnismálcited from Edda, 56–68.49 192

Hfr = Hallfreðr Óttarsson vandræðaskáldHfr V = lausavísur

28 63

Hkv = Haraldskvæðicited from Jón Helgason 1968, 15–21.7 130, 132, 148

HHj = Helgakviða Hj�rvarðssonarcited from Edda, 140–49.13 159

HHuI = Helgakviða Hundingsbana I 38cited from Edda, 130–39.23 135, 175

24 14526 160, 163, 173


27 15428 13929 162, 16631 134, 17532 189

33 16237 15749 145, 154, 162, 18850 14453 61

Hildr = Hildr Hrólfsdóttir nefju 53

Oddm = Oddmjór 21

Pl = Plácitus drápa 21–2, 86–7

Rv = R�gnvaldr jarl kali KolssonRv = lausavísur

1 177

Sjórs = Sigurðr jórsalafariSjórs = lausavísur

1 21

Snæbj = Snæbj�rn 17

Sturl = Sturla ÞórðarsonSturl III = Hrynhenda

14 272–3Sturl IV = Hákonarkviða

39 272

Yt = Ynglingatal25 94

Þjsk = Þórleifr jarlsskáld RauðfeldarsonÞjsk III = lausavísur

5 221

Þórálfr = Þórálfr/-valdrÞórálfr = unidentified poem 201


Index of words and names

Italic numbers refer to illustrations.

Affríkir 89, 107Agðir 207akkeri 166–7akkerishringr 168Aldeigja 98almenningr 196–7andas(k) 63askr 134–5asks�gn 135, 186Assatúnir 76atróðr 210aurborð 141, 170ausa 176austan 90, 134, 171austarla 87, 89, 104, 148austmaðr 90austr (noun) 176austr (adv.) 57, 69, 89–90, 95, 98, 103–4,

134, 176–7, 181, 187, 192austrf�r 87, 90austrvegr 87, 89, 96, 99ár 154–5, 176Áróss 207Baðar 73, 74barð 88, 136–7, 140, 148, 150, 158, 176–8Barði 136–7, 210barmfagr 141barmr 141Bálagarðssíða 95, 148, 178bára 176bátr 135beit 126, 135beita 174bella (viðr) 53beraberja(sk) 59–61bifja(sk) 151, 160, 176biti 151blað 154blakkr 211Blákumenn 96

Bláland 89blár 144, 162, 164, 176–7, 192blásvartr 144Bolgarar 100borð(-) 123, 134, 140, 143, 151, 153, 173,

176, 209, 211–12(-)borg 54, 60–62, 85, 106, 113, 159bógr 147Bókn 207Brandfurða 76brandr 147–8, 196, 273breiddr 150breiðhúfaðr 143breiðr 61, 140, 164, 195Bretar 77brezkr 77brimskíð 95, 148, 178brjóta 60–62bróðir 22, 225, 247bryggja 51(-)brynjaðr 124, 157–9byrr 150byrskíð 178búa 147, 171–2, 176, 214bytta 176B�r 87Danaskógar 76dauði 63dauðr 59, 63, 112deyja 58, 63, 108Dómisnes 63, 90, 95dreginn 170dreki 124, 127–8, 136, 145, 176, 188,

196–7, 273drengila 102, 120, 145, 203, 229, 231, 247drengr 36–7, 41, 45, 56, 58, 109, 120, 130,

174, 184, 209–10, 212, 215–32, 234,236–7, 239, 255, 259, 267

drengspell 222drepa 58, 63, 107, 255drífa 144, 153, 164–5

dróttinn 221–3, 261dru(n)kna 108, 178, 184Dyflinn 78dynja 176Dýrnes 78dýrr 63–4, 128, 153eið(-) 194Eifur 97eiga 181, 190eik(i) 132–3, 136eikikj�lr 133, 139, 177eisa 176Eist(a)land 89, 92Eistfari 92ekkja 34Ekkjall 78endas(k) 57, 108England 76Englandsfari 70, 92Englar 77, 253en(g)skr 77, 178erja 148, 177etja 176Eydanir 206Eyjar 77–8eybúar 77Eyrasund 205, 207Eysýsla 95eyverskr 63, 77fagrbúinn 134fagrdrifinn 144falla 58, 62, 108, 155Falstr(byggvar) 114far 135fara 70, 103, 175–6faras(k) 57–8, 62–3farligr 133farskostr 135feldr 64, 140fellisúð 140Feney 88ferja 135ferkleyfr 154festa 178Fetlafj�rðr 84félagi 45, 56, 58, 96, 109, 180, 184, 225,

227, 232, 234–6, 255, 259Finnheiðr 114Finnland 94Finnlendingar 95Fjón(byggvar) 113flaust 90, 134, 139, 171, 173, 176–7, 214fleinn 167Fljót 76

fljóta 175floti 159, 173, 195, 203, 206, 272–3flug- 243–4flýja 59, 243–5Flæmingjar 80folkorrosta 61forungi 187–8Frakkar 87Frakkland 88framstafn 145, 213Frísland 80, 82Frísir 80fróðr 1fulldrengila 221, 230fura 133fylking 157gaddr 168ganga (noun and verb) 175, 179, 211Garðar 89–90, 95–6, 98, 100, 171Garðstangir 114Gautar 95gengir 243gerzkr 98, 165geysa 172gildi 65, 80, 239Girkir 98, 100–01gjald 99, 108glæsa 172, 177, 272–3goði 1Goðnarfj�rðr 167goll(-) 147góðr 1, 36, 225–6, 230grafa 148gramr 34grár 176Grikkfari 92, 100Grikkhafn 170Grikkir, Grikk(j)ar 57, 89, 99Grikkland 99Gríkir 100Gríkland 100gríma 147, 176Gríslupollar 84gull(-) 99, 159, 272g�fugr 133halda 174–5, 189Halland 207hallr 175hamla 156–7, 172hanki 166harðbrynjaðr 157–8, 171hauss 127, 147, 212, 273hábrynjaðr 124, 130, 157–9hár (adj.) 145, 157, 159

318 Index of Words and Names

hár (noun) 124, 155, 159, 272háseti 156heið(-) 236–7Heiðabýr/-bœr 94, 109, 112heiðþegi 236–7heimþegi 109, 223, 235–7helf(n)ingr 57, 103, 200, 202Helganes 207helmingr 202–3Hemingaborg 61, 76Herdalar 95herskip 122, 126, 147, 172–3, 196–8, 211,

268hélugr 170, 173, 176Hjaltar 77Hjaltland 77Hjaltlendingar 77hlaða 124, 172, 178hléborð 140, 175hlumr 154hlunnr 141, 170, 172–3hlunntamiðr 171hlynr 133–4hlýða 141hlýr(-) 143, 147, 172–3, 176, 214hlœgiskip 123, 135hnika 176hníga 175hollr 261hollvinr 261Holmgarðr 96–7, 126Holmr 129, 207Hóll 50, 83Hrafnseyrr 76hrefni 141, 176hrinda 172–3, 176Hringmaraheiðr 73Hringsfj�rðr 83Hringstaðir 114hrista(sk) 176hrjóða 211Hróiskelda 114húfjafn 144, 214húfr 143–4, 176–7húnn 160–2, 171húnskript 116, 161, 163, 178húskarl 221, 237–9, 267hverjafn 144hvítaváðir 58–9hýndr 161–2h�fn 170h�fuð 145H�rðar 268Íl 78

Írar 77írskr 77Ísland 78–9Íslendingar 79íslenzkr 78Ívist 78Jaðarr 207, 265jarn(-)/járn(-) 159, 168Jóm 94Jórðán 101Jórsalir 89, 101Jórvík 76kaldnefr 167kaldr 176Kantaraborg 61, 73karfi 135Karlh�fði 137kaupangr (also Kaupangr) 66, 116kaupf�r 65, 131kaupmaðr 66kaupskip 66, 123, 130keipr 155Kinnlimafj�rðr/-síða 82kinnungr 147kjóll 136kj�lr 139kljúfa 177kløkkr 140, 211knarri 65, 131, 140knýja 155, 176kn�rr 42, 63–6, 100, 120, 126, 128–32,

136, 144, 158, 173, 184, 203, 205kolsvartr 144, 175konungr 34krapti 170kross 36krókr 167kum(b)rskr 77kuml 227kylfa 150, 213Langbarðaland 57, 86–7, 89(-)lang(-) 123–4, 145, 165langskip 123–4, 145, 178laukr 160láta fj�r 58leggja (at/framm/saman/við) 209–10leiðangr 94, 156, 188–90, 195–8, 202, 272Leira 85lenda 178lendr maðr 61léttr 198(-)lið(-) 51–2, 99, 103, 126, 173, 181,

187–95, 198–9, 202–3, 209–10, 226,236, 238, 273–4

Index of Words and Names 319

liði 52, 200, 201liðsmaðr 198–9liggja (við) 197, 210lind 134Lindisey 76líða 175Lífland 92Ljóðhús 78ljótr 176lopt(-) 153Lund 115Lundúnir 73, 76lung 123lypting 151, 153, 176, 213, 263Manverjar 77mágr 234málamaðr 194máli 194, 236meginhúfr 143merki 253–4mikill 195Miklagarðr 96, 100–01, 158–9mjór 124, 140morð 63, 254–5myrða 254–5myrðir 94myrkblár 165mýlskr 77Mœri 206M�n 78m�tunautr 186naðr (or Naðr) 127, 137, 140, 211naust 171neglðr 140neyta 163Nið(aróss) 116Niz(aróss) 207níðingr 255, 258, 262níðingsverk 255, 258norðan 175Norðimbrar 76norðr 107Norðvík 76Nóregr 174Nýjamóða 73Ormr 127, 136–7, 210orrosta 59, 61ólítill 195óníðingr 234, 258–9Partar 76Peituland 85Péttlandsfj�rðr 78, 207rakki 162Rauðabj�rg 78, 207

rauðr 144, 176reiði 165, 174renna(sk) 178, 209Ré 94réttr 198rif 163rísta 150–1, 177rjóða 147róa 144, 154, 210róðr 154, 159, 210Róm 87Rúðuborg 62, 178Rúfsteinn 97rœði 154–5r�ng 151r� 162saklauss 255Sandey 78Sandvík 78, 207Sanntíri 78Saxar 80Saxland 80saumf�r 140, 211segl 162, 273Seimgalir 63–5, 90Seljupollar 85Selund(byggvar) 114Serkir 106Serkland 62, 88–9, 92, 102–4, 106–7, 247sess(i) 186sigla (noun) 160sigla (verb) 173–4Sigtún(ir) 116, 178Sikiley 88, 106skafa 145, 159, 162skald 6skaut(-) 163–4Skáney 114skarsúð 140skeið 50, 94, 97, 123–4, 126–7, 130, 133,

136, 143, 145, 147, 165, 174, 176, 184,197, 206, 210–11, 215

skeina 150skelfðr 176skera 177(-)skip(-) 120, 122–3, 136, 139, 145, 158,

174, 176, 186, 189, 209–10, 214skipan 184skipari 184–5skiplið 122, 181, 183, 190skipun 184, 186skipv�rðr 48–9, 122Skía 73skíð 171, 177–8


Skíð 78skjaldborg 159, 209skjaldrim 141, 211skjalfa 143, 150, 160skjóta 173, 201skolla 166, 176, 196skokkr 151, 153, 211skolptr 127, 147skorða 171Skorsteinn 76Skotar 77Skotborgará 94Skotland 78skreyta 154, 165, 172skríða 175(-)skript 116, 161, 163, 178, 273sk�r 140, 143, 177Sk�nungar 114sléttr 170slitna 177slíta 154–5, 164snekkja 126–7, 130, 136, 145, 147, 173,

177, 197, 206sníða 177snjallr 230snœri 169sollinn 176sortaðr 154sókn 186(-)stafn(-) 120, 145, 150, 173, 203, 210,

215stafnrúm 145, 192stafntjald 173stag(-) 162, 165–6staglútr 165Staurr 207stál 150, 177steina 144, 158steinn 36, 144Steinn 76stinnr 140, 170, 172, 176stirðr 150stólþengill 100strangr 176strengr 168–9stýra 173–4, 181, 187, 189, 214stýri 159, 176–7stýrimaðr 109, 181st�ð 170st�ng 253suðr (see also sunnr) 73, 83, 88, 90, 173,

195, 207sunnan 207, 214sunnarla 104

sunnl�nd 87sunnr (see also suðr)súð 73, 124, 139–40, 177súðlangr 124, 139Súðvirki 73svartr 147, 150sveigðr 141svíkja 255, 257svíri 147Svíþjóð 89Sv�lðr 206–7sylgh�r 176sýsla (or Sýslur) 95sædrifinn 162, 164sædríf 178sæfang 154Sæfari 92sælútr 175, 177sæmeiðr 123, 134sœkja 60, 66s�gn 186Tafeistaland 94Temps 76Thesa 76tingl 148, 210tjald 154, 164–5, 173tjaldaðr 166Torfnes 78Trana/Trani 137, 211tré 160trygg(ð) 256, 261Tungur 207Túskaland 85typpi 161–2Tyrvist 78týna aldri 58uppganga 179Uppsalir 114Úsa 76útf�r 257–8úti 58, 165, 177, 187Útsteinn 207, 264vaða 253Valkerar 80valrauf/valrof 260valskr 77–8vandlangr 133, 160Varrandi 85varrláð 155Vatnsfj�rðr 78vefja 174vefr 163–4, 174Venðr 94vengi 153

Index of Words and Names 321

verða dauðr 59, 63, 107, 128vestan 70vestarla 70vestr 69–70, 84, 174, 190vestrvegr 56, 70, 230vé 253véla 263viðr 134, 144, 175–6Viljálmsbœr 84Vindau 90Vinðr 94–5Virland 92, 94Visundr 137Vitaholmr 90, 95Víðfari 92vígamaðr 194Vík 208víking 44, 54–6, 180, 230, 234víkingr (also Víkingr) 44–54, 61, 68, 84,

216, 237Vína 94vísi 97, 124, 184, 196Væringjar 100v�ndr 160, 174v�r 145, 170v�rðr 48–9, 175v�rr 155v�ð 163–4ýta 173þegn 56, 219, 225–7, 229þella/þelli 133þengill 220–21, 236, 267þil(-) 151þilja 151, 211þing 57, 192, 193þinga 194þingalið 190, 191, 192, 194þingamaðr 192þingi 194þingmaðr 194þíðr 141, 211Þjóð 114Þjólarnes 113–14, 248þjóta 176þopta 151, 186, 211þopti 151, 186Þrándheimr 116

þryngva 173þr�mr 141, 153, 211–12þungr 176þunnr 177Þursasker 78þyrja 175þ�ll 133, 154ægir 175–6, 212æra 154�ngulsey 78, 207�ngulssund 78, 207�rðigr 176–7�r 154, 176

Old English

æsc(-) 123, 135brondstæfne 147brycg 51burh 61ceol 136(-)cnear(r) 131dreng 217–18eorl 155, 235feolaga 235flota 195, 199ha, hasæta 155hamele 156–7hleowþ 143huscarl 238–9langscip 123licgan 189lid 189, 199lidan 175liþ 189liþsmenn 199nægledcnearr 131niðing 260sce(i)gð(mann) 124scipere 185snacc 126suð 73unniðing 260upgang 179walreaf 260Witland 90


General Index

Italic numbers refer to illustrations.

Aakjær, Svend 218–19Adam of Bremen 49, 63, 94, 112, 114,

207Adémar of Chabannes 84, 86Æthelred, English king 76, 124, 186, 199Æthelstan, English king 76Africa 89, 104, 106–7Agder 101, 207Ágrip 17, 21Alexius I, Byzantine emperor 101Alfred, English king 123, 135, 166Ambrosiani, Björn xi, 190Andreas 147, 189Anglo-Saxon charters 76, 238Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 38, 76, 123–4,

155–7, 185, 189, 195, 199, 235, 239,252, 260, 262

Anund Jakob, Swedish king 114, 155Arabs 89, 106Ari Þorgilsson, Íslendingabók 65armour see weaponsArnórr jarlaskáld Þórðarson, Icelandic

poet 38–9, 41, 65, 78, 94, 116, 122–3,126, 131, 137, 148, 150, 153–4, 157,161–2, 164–5, 172, 178, 202, 207, 212,221, 244–5, 249–51, 266, 268

Baltic Sea 48, 70, 90, 94–5, 108, 130baptism 58–9Barði, ship 136–7, 210–11Bates, David 86battle, ideology of 243–54Battle of Brunanburh 38, 131, 189,

249–50Battle of Finnsburh 250Battle of Maldon 38, 135, 179, 217, 244battles 59–62, 82, 107, 124, 187, 192, 244

Áin helga (Holy River) 205Anglesey/Menai Strait 77–8, 201, 205,

209Áróss (Århus) 205, 208, 211–12, 238,

245

at sea 43, 59, 78, 88, 107, 120, 124,128, 145, 150–1, 156, 172, 188, 201,203–15

Bókn 59, 151, 153, 186, 205, 207–8,212–13

Brunanburh 94, 131Dýrnes (Deerness) 122, 205, 206–7,

244Fimreiti 271Fitjar 61–2Fulford 201Fyrisvellir 49Helganes 122, 205, 207–8, 212, 245Hj�rungavágr 49, 94, 130, 205–7,

211–12, 232Hlaðir 202Hlýrskógsheiðr 205Nesjar 122, 137, 150, 201, 205, 207–9,

211–14, 261Niz 202, 205–12Øresund 205, 207on land 51–2, 88, 131, 188, 209Rauðabj�rg (Ro[e]berry) 78, 207Stamford Bridge 54, 76, 198Stiklarstaðir (Stiklestad) 61, 68, 98,

101, 244, 253, 263Sv�lðr 136–7, 151, 205–7, 211–14,

216, 219, 243, 262Uppsala 114

Bayeux Tapestry 84, 143beasts of battle 103, 203, 208, 247–52, 254Beowulf 109Bergen 32, 127Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson 20, 39, 50, 137,

157, 186, 192, 198Bjarni Einarsson 16Bjarni Guðnason 53, 192, 267Bj�rn stallari 62Black Sea 96–7Blekinge 59B�lverkr Arnórsson, poet 62, 89, 135

booty 214Bornholm 14, 129, 184, 231, 255Brate, Erik 103Breese, Lauren 86Brentford 76, 80Brink, Stefan 201Britain, British Isles 48, 63, 70, 77, 86, 90,

252, 260–1Brittany, Bretons 50, 83–5Bugge, Alexander 197–8Bugge, Sophus 201Bulgaria, Bulgarians 100–01burials 13, 114Byzantium, Byzantines 86–90, 96,

99–102, 104, 106, 129, 170, 194, 202Caithreim Cellachain Caisil 151, 184, 198Canterbury 61, 73Carroll, Jayne xi, 38cenotaphs 13, 56cheese 168Christiansen, Eric 192, 267coins 116Constantine Porphyrogenitos, De

Administrando Imperio 97Constantinople 62, 86, 96, 99–101, 135,

159, 267see also Byzantium

Cormack, Margaret 88, 241Craigie, William 122Crumlin-Pedersen, Ole xi, 132, 139, 270Danish language 124, 143, 194, 217de Vries, Jan 82death 57–9, 65, 128, 186Denmark, Danes 13–14, 45, 48–9, 62, 64,

69–70, 80, 86, 94, 106, 108–9, 112–14,116, 118, 122, 155–8, 166, 168, 172,176, 178, 189, 197, 201, 205, 207, 212,214, 219, 221, 225–6, 229, 231, 238,247, 253, 266, 268, 270, 272–3

Dniepr, River 96–7drowning 59, 178Dublin 78, 80, 133, 142Düwel, Klaus 63–4, 99, 128–9, 181, 185,

219, 232, 239Dvina, River 92, 94Edda see Snorri SturlusonEddic poetry 9, 17, 38, 136Edward, English king 155, 199, 238Egill Skallagrímsson, Icelandic poet 17, 20Egils saga 17, 22, 26, 94Einarr þambarskelfir, Norwegian

nobleman 238Eiríkr inn sigrsæli Bjarnarson, Swedish

king 49

Eiríkr Hákonarson, Norwegian jarl 49–50,76, 95, 98, 130, 136, 176, 178, 206–7,212–14, 217, 219

Eiríkr inn góði Sveinsson, Danish king 15,56, 62–3, 68, 80, 87–8, 90, 94–5, 98–9,101, 122, 131, 134, 137, 171, 173, 178,202, 266–7, 270

Eiríksmál 17Encomium Emmae 247, 252England, the English 14, 38, 45, 51–3, 56,

58–9, 61–3, 66, 70, 73, 76–7, 82–3, 90,122, 130, 158, 173–5, 178, 186, 189–90,192, 199, 202, 226, 244, 247, 259

English vocabularyMiddle English 77, 151, 189Modern English 44, 143, 151, 163,

184, 192Old English 38, 44, 51, 76, 123–4, 126,

131, 135–6, 143, 147, 151, 155–7,166, 175, 179, 185, 189, 195, 217–18,235, 238–9, 253, 260

Erlingr Skjalgsson, Norwegiannobleman 59, 61–3, 122, 151, 153,186, 207, 213, 238, 263–5

Estonia, Estonians 92, 94–5etymology 33, 44, 124, 126, 131–2, 135,

147–8, 164, 187, 195, 202, 236expeditions, see fleets, Ingvarrexploration 43Eyrbyggja saga 28–9Eyvindr skáldaspillir Finnsson, Norwegian

poet 17Exodus 164Fagrskinna 17, 21, 23, 198, 207, 214Falk, Hjalmar 42, 124, 126–7, 138–41,

143, 147–8, 150, 158, 160, 163, 166,170, 203, 271

Faroes 14, 80Faulkes, Anthony xi, 39, 62, 201Fell, Christine xi, 33, 44, 49–51, 82, 84–5,

123Fidjestøl, Bjarne 16–17, 19–20, 29, 50, 78,

80, 205, 244, 248, 250, 253Finland, Finlanders 90, 94–5, 129Finnur Jónsson 18–19, 39, 50, 53, 61–2,

134, 141, 148, 156, 158, 172–3, 179,194, 198, 232

fleets 156–8, 173–4, 176, 179–80, 187–90,195–8, 202–3, 205–6, 210, 270, 272, 274

Foote, Peter xi, 42, 73, 124, 132, 135, 165,174, 192

fortifications and defences 43, 60–62, 98,113, 178

France 85–6, 88, 267

324 General Index

Frank, Roberta 7, 192Franks 78, 80, 87French vocabulary 39, 131, 186Frisia, Frisians 65, 80–82, 229, 234, 239Fritzner, Johan 218–19Fuglesang, Signe H. 14, 104Fyn 113, 268German language 131, 143Germany 267gifts 98, 101, 130–31, 158, 222, 236Gísl Illugason, Icelandic poet 38, 127, 202Gísli Sigurðsson 29Götaland 95, 219Gotland 48, 58, 64, 70, 90, 97, 243, 257

picture-stones 120, 160Gräslund, Anne-Sofie 14–15graffiti 128, 150, 159–60Grágás 65‘Greece’, ‘Greeks’ 66, 98–100, 129, 184

see also ByzantiumGreenland 80guilds 65, 239Gustavson, Helmer 190Hákon Aðalsteinsfóstri Haraldsson,

Norwegian king 61–2, 126Hákon Sigurðarson, Norwegian jarl 94,

186, 211, 261Hákonar saga Ívarssonar 17Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar 270–5Halland 173, 272Halldórr ókristni, poet 136–7, 217, 219Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld Óttarsson,

Icelandic poet 63, 80, 112, 137, 212–13,216, 243–4, 261

Hallvarðr háreksblesi, poet 76Haraldr Bluetooth, Danish king 266Haraldr hárfagri Hálfdanarson, Norwegian

king 130Haraldr harðráði Sigurðarson, Norwegian

king 54, 61–2, 68, 70, 76, 87–90, 98,100–01, 104, 106–7, 109, 112–14, 116,122, 127, 135, 150, 153–4, 157–9, 165,167–8, 172–6, 178, 188–9, 192, 194,196, 198–9, 202, 206–11, 214, 238, 248

harbours and landing-places 155, 165–6,170, 178

Harold Harefoot, regent of England 199Harthacnut, English king 155–6, 238Hedeby 62, 108–9, 112–13, 166, 184, 232,

236see also ship-finds

Heimskringla see Snorri Sturlusonheiti 34Hellberg, Staffan 50–51, 53–4, 84

Hines, John 20history 6–8, 32–3, 35, 37, 61Hofmann, Dietrich 175hogbacks 128, 159Holland 80, 83horses 34, 176–7Hübler, Frank 247Hugh, Earl of Chester 77, 207Hugh, Earl of Shrewsbury 77, 205, 207Iaroslav, prince of Kiev 96, 98, 198Iceland, Icelanders 17, 29, 65–6, 78–80,

83, 88–90, 201, 241Icelandic language 141, 171, 194, 218Illugi Bryndœlaskáld, poet 87Ingvarr, expedition leader 57–8, 89, 92,

102–4, 120, 129, 181, 185, 187, 202,247, 270

inheritance 13, 59, 99–100, 257Ireland, the Irish 14, 63, 70, 77–8, 86, 90,

131, 189, 267Irish vocabulary 39, 131, 136, 151, 184,

197–8Italy 86–9, 267Jansson, Sven B.F. 254Jarring, Gunnar 107Jerusalem 62, 66, 68, 88–9, 101Johnsen, Oscar A. 84Jómsvíkinga saga 17, 22, 212Jómsvíkingar 28, 49, 94, 206, 212, 262Jón Helgason 28, 50, 165Jón �gmundarson, Icelandic bishop 15Jutland, Jutes 63, 186, 207, 244, 248Kálfr Árnason, Norwegian nobleman 98Karlh�fði, ship 137, 210Kekaumenos, Byzantine author 88,

100–01kennings 34, 40, 50, 79, 123, 127, 133,

134–7, 139–41, 144–5, 147–8, 151,153–5, 160–5, 168–71, 173, 175–7, 186,188, 201, 248, 251–2, 268

kings 49, 59, 68, 83, 90, 98, 116, 175–8,185–7, 195–7, 225, 232, 236, 238, 243,245, 247, 262, 266–75

Knútr inn ríki Sveinsson, Danish king ofEngland and Norway 48, 53, 61, 63,68, 70, 73, 76–7, 80, 98, 100, 114, 116,122, 157–8, 162, 171, 175, 178, 190,192, 219, 225–7, 235, 238–9, 244, 263,266–7

Knýtlinga saga 17, 62, 199Kock, Ernst A. 19, 39, 50, 53, 141, 144,

147, 150, 159, 194, 213Krag, Claus 18Kuhn, Hans 22, 205

General Index 325

Ladoga, Staraia 97–8Landnámabók 16Larsson, Mats G. 103Latin vocabulary 123–4, 262laws 10, 65, 143, 156, 192, 196, 244, 254,

256, 260, 270Lerche Nielsen, Michael 188levy, see fleetsLewis, Isle of 78Liestøl, Aslak 263Lincolnshire, Lindsey 45, 53, 76Lindow, John 187–8, 219literacy 2, 6, 9–12, 15–16, 37Livonia 92, 178London 50–51, 61, 73, 76Longobardia 86–8Louis-Jensen, Jonna 21, 28loyalty 194, 258, 260–1Lund 114, 267Lund, Niels 190, 197, 270Magnús inn góði Óláfsson, Norwegian

king 61–3, 90, 94, 98, 112–13, 116,122, 131, 137, 147, 150, 153, 156, 160,165, 172–4, 176, 178, 198, 202, 205,207–8, 211, 213–14, 238, 244–5, 253,266–8, 273

Magnús berfœttr Óláfsson, Norwegianking 50, 70, 77, 127, 135, 160, 201–2,205, 207, 209, 253, 267

Malmros, Rikke 42, 136, 157, 195–6Man, Isle of 13–14, 36, 77–8, 256–7manuscripts 19, 21–32, 39–40

Codex Frisianus 28–9, 30–31English 199, 260Flateyjarbók 17, 87, 133–4Hulda-Hrokkinskinna 17, 28, 87, 196Icelandic 9–10, 15, 29, 236–7Kringla 20, 21–2, 25, 28, 51, 198Norwegian 21see also Fagrskinna, Morkinskinna,

Snorri SturlusonMarkús Skeggjason, Icelandic lawspeaker

and poet 56, 62, 95, 148, 202, 222,266–7, 269

Marwick, Hugh 78Megaard, John 206metaphor 145, 150, 157, 160, 171–2,

176–7metre

confirms word forms 123dróttkvætt 2, 9, 11, 16–17, 34, 122,

188, 261, 266fornyrðislag 102, 201hrynhenda 266

influence on poet's choice ofvocabulary 122–3, 129, 134–7, 141,148, 188

kviðuháttr 261rhyme 129

Michael IV, Byzantine emperor 87, 106Michael V, Byzantine emperor 100Moltke, Erik 14, 48, 180, 226Morkinskinna 17, 22, 106, 168, 192, 205,

214Morris, Guy 8murder 254Musset, Lucien 86myths 169–70Nicholas, St 87–8Nið, River 116, 118, 188Niðaróss 65–6, 116, 173, 198

see also TrondheimNielsen, Karl M. 218, 227Níkulás Sveinsson, Danish king 15, 87–8,

270Normandy, Normans 84–7Northern Isles (i.e. Orkney and

Shetland) 70, 77–8Norway, Norwegians 13–14, 18, 21, 45,

50, 53–4, 65–6, 69–70, 79–80, 83–5,89–90, 98, 116, 130, 133, 162, 165, 168,171, 173–4, 186, 196, 203, 206–8, 214,221, 238, 245, 263, 268, 270–5

Norwegian language 155, 171, 218Novgorod 96–7Öland 1, 114, 201Östergötland 65, 226, 229, 231Ohthere, Norwegian in England 163, 166Óláfr inn helgi Haraldsson, Norwegian king

and saint 50–51, 59, 61–3, 65–6, 68,73, 78, 82–5, 89, 95, 97–8, 101, 114,116, 122, 130, 137, 150–1, 154, 162,172, 174–8, 186, 188, 199, 207–8, 211,214, 220, 236–8, 244, 253, 261, 263–4,267

Óláfr kyrri Haraldsson, Norwegianking 54, 76, 144, 158, 173, 189, 194,207, 212

Óláfr Tryggvason, Norwegian king 63, 80,94, 98, 112, 136, 186, 206, 212–13,216–17, 243–4, 261–2

Óláfr Þórðarson, Icelandic author 29Óláfs saga helga 17

‘Legendary Saga’ 21, 82, 85‘Oldest Saga’ 21, 23see also Snorri Sturluson

Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 17by Oddr Snorrason 22

326 General Index

Old English language see Englishvocabulary

Old English poetry 38, 247–9Old Norse-Icelandic texts 37, 40–41, 54,

82, 89–90, 104, 143, 185, 192, 194, 203see also sagas

Olsen, Magnus 15orality 9–12, 15–16, 22Orkney, Orcadians 78, 249Orkneyinga saga 17, 221Ormr (a.k.a. Naðr), ship 127, 136–7, 174,

201, 211, 213–14Óttarr svarti, Icelandic poet 61, 66, 78, 80,

122, 130, 154, 162–4, 172, 244Paasche, Fredrik 137Page, Raymond xi, 9payments to mercenaries 99, 101–2, 236philology 6–7, 33, 37pilgrimage, pilgrims 62, 66, 68, 101place-names 69, 80

identifying battles 205–7in Britain 77–8in England 45, 61, 73, 76–7in Denmark 108–14in Ireland 77–8in Norway 66, 116in Scandinavia 107–8in Scotland 77–8in Sweden 114, 116in Wales 78on the Continent 80, 82–8on the eastern route 89–90, 92–104,

106–7see also Index of Words and Names.

Plácitus drápa 21–2, 86–7Poland, Poles 198–9Poole, Russell 20, 52, 82, 157, 192raiding 56, 60–62, 64, 68, 80, 83–6, 107,

109, 112, 120, 122, 130, 154, 171, 181,232

Randers(fjord) 166, 168Randsborg, Klavs 219Richard II, Duke of Normandy 83–6Riga, Gulf of 63, 90, 92, 95Rodger, N.A.M. 156R�gnvaldr, Swedish jarl 238R�gnvaldr Brúsason, jarl of Orkney 221,

250R�gnvaldr Kolsson, jarl of Orkney 177Rome, Romans 68, 87, 166Roskilde 114

see also ship-findsRoueché, Charlotte xi, 88, 100, 258Rouen 62, 85–6, 148, 178–9

rune stones 6–7, 9, 12–14, 79–80chronology 14, 104, 109, 227, 257contemporary evidence for the Viking

Age 1, 8, 11–12, 37, 40, 42–3, 88,270

decoration and iconography 8, 14, 37,104, 120

definition of corpus 7–8, 12–15, 39–40location of 11, 13–14, 103problems of interpretation 45, 103,

126, 184transliteration of 40verse on 1–2, 9, 11, 102, 114, 120, 128,

181, 243vocabulary of 36, 39, 41–2, 120, 124,

138, 177rune-carvers 2, 6, 11, 177, 188, 201runic inscriptions other than rune

stones 12, 15, 29, 32, 36, 64–5, 79–80,99, 104

Ruprecht, Arndt 106, 181, 219Russia, Rus 58–9, 86, 89–90, 95–100, 104,

116, 122, 126, 150, 160, 165, 171, 178,184, 187, 237, 267

Russian vocabulary 100, 151, 160, 253sagas 15–17, 28–9, 42, 65, 78, 85, 87,

98–9, 107, 113, 123, 194, 207, 212, 214,270

Samplonius, Kees 83, 229Saracens 104, 106Sawyer, Birgit 219, 227Sawyer, Peter 219, 225–7Saxo Grammaticus 267Saxony, Saxons 80Sayers, William 131–2, 153Scandinavia, Scandinavians 48, 59, 61–2,

69–70, 77, 79–80, 83, 90, 95–7, 99, 108Schleswig 109, 112–13Scotland, Scots 14, 77–8, 249, 274Semigallia 63, 65, 90, 92, 128sex 135Shepard, Jonathan 58, 103–4Shetland, Shetlanders 77–8ship finds 42, 119, 137–8

Bergen 150, 274Gokstad 119, 132–3, 138, 141, 151,

153, 159, 162, 166Hedeby 109, 113, 119, 128, 138, 144,

151, 176, 269Ladby 138, 169Oseberg 119, 128, 129, 133, 135, 138,

148, 154, 162, 164, 166, 168, 170,176

Roskilde 138, 160, 170, 269, 275

General Index 327

Scar 143Skuldelev 119, 128, 131, 133–4, 136,

138, 140–41, 143, 145, 146, 150–1,152, 153, 166, 170, 269–70

Tune 132, 138ship types

boats, esp. leaky 135cargo-ships, merchant ships 128–32,

134, 141, 274–5levy-ships 270royal ships 139, 166–7, 269–74warships 120, 123–4, 126–7, 130–32,

140, 153, 156–9, 165, 172–3, 180,196, 206, 211, 268–9, 274–5

ship-burials 109, 143, 166ship-owners 56, 120, 180–1, 203, 234, 259ships

armouring of 124, 157–9captains and crews of 153, 155–7,

172–4, 176–7, 179–81, 184–8, 201,213, 259, 270, 273–4

construction and materials 132–4,138–40, 144–5, 150–1, 159, 163, 165

decoration and tarring of 130, 144, 147,154, 158–9, 161–3, 165, 172, 177,272

manœuvring and motion ofanchoring and mooring 133, 148,

157, 166–71, 178beaching, landing, disembarking 88,

141, 148, 170–1, 178–9, 199launching 148, 158, 170–3rowing 154–7, 162–3, 165, 175,

177, 186, 210sailing 133, 148, 150, 154–5,

157–8, 160, 162–4, 171, 174–7,198

steering 145, 148, 154, 159, 173metaphors for 127names of 127, 136–7parts and equipment

anchor 166–9awning, cover 154, 164–6bailers 176boat-house 171benches and cabins 126, 143, 151,

156, 186cross-beams, frames, thwarts 144,

150–1, 157, 211deck(-planks) 144, 151, 153, 211dragonhead stems 127–8, 144–7,

150, 176hull 139–41, 143–4, 150–1, 159keel 133, 139, 150

mast 135, 144, 160–3, 165, 178nails 140, 143, 211oars, oar-ports, tholes 126, 141,

145, 154–7, 172, 272planks and strakes 139–41, 143–4,

147–8, 150, 155, 159, 166, 177,211, 272

rigging, ropes, tackle 160, 162–6,168–70, 214

rollers, slipway 170, 172rudder, tiller 144–5, 154, 159, 174,

176–7sail, sailyard 144, 154, 160–6, 174,

178shields and shield-rails 141, 148,

156–9, 209, 211, 272stems 144–50, 158–9, 162, 170,

173–4, 203, 205, 213, 215vanes 162

pictures of 120, 127–8, 138, 159, 161,230, 239

preparation and loading of 158, 171–2,175, 214

replicas of 119, 138, 145, 150, 153,164

size and shape of 123, 127, 132, 136,160

words for 120–36ship-settings 124Sicily 88, 106, 178Sigtuna 64–5, 92, 116, 174, 178, 234, 239,

241Sigurðr Hákonarson, Norwegian jarl 261Sigvatr Þórðarson, Icelandic poet 50–51,

61–3, 65–6, 68, 73, 76, 78, 82–6, 89, 95,130, 135, 139, 150–1, 161–2, 178–9,186, 194, 209, 211, 219–20, 236, 238,244, 253, 264–5

Siward, Earl of Northumbria 239, 261Sjælland 114, 207, 253Skåne 13, 54, 59, 107, 114, 207–8, 225–6,

235Skänninge 241skaldic verse 6–7, 9–12, 15–36

chronology of 15–18, 21–2definition of corpus 7–8, 12, 15–18, 32,

39–41editorial problems and

emendations 18–22, 28, 39–41, 50,73, 83, 88, 124, 126, 130, 133–4,139–40, 144, 147, 150, 158–9, 165–6,177, 188, 198, 213, 217, 236, 244

evidence for the Viking Age 8, 11–12,16, 18, 32–3, 42–3, 156, 197

328 General Index

narratives in 32, 205naturalism in 35, 43, 171orality of 9–11, 15–16, 28–9pastiche 29, 54reconstruction of 18–22, 28, 35, 41relationship to prose context 15–16, 19,

32, 36, 106, 112–13, 126, 131, 137,158, 186, 194, 196–7, 201, 208,214–15

vocabulary of 33–6, 39, 41–2, 120,138, 171, 184, 205

see also kennings, metaphor, metreskiing 177–8Småland 114Snorri Sturluson, Icelandic author 15–16,

18, 65, 107Edda 15–17, 54, 61–2, 175, 201, 214,

217, 236Heimskringla 17, 21–2, 28, 82–3, 86,

95, 112, 130, 137, 139, 158, 186, 196,198, 205, 208, 214, 245, 262–3

Óláfs saga helga 22, 27, 82Södermanland 102, 120, 128, 225–6, 234Sogn 61Southwark 51, 73Spain 84–5Springer, Betsy xi, 34Steinn Herdísarson, poet 54, 130, 158,

207, 210, 219Stoklund, Marie 227Stúfr Þórðarson, Icelandic poet 101Sturla Þórðarson, Icelandic poet 272Sveinn Hákonarson, Norwegian jarl 65,

122, 150, 172, 177, 201, 261Sveinn tjúguskegg Haraldsson, Danish

king 76, 85, 109, 113, 262Sveinn Knútsson (Alfífuson), Danish regent

in Norway 98, 147–8, 208, 210Sveinn Úlfsson, Danish king 109, 113–14,

122, 144, 157, 172, 174, 197, 202,205–8, 211–14, 238, 245

Sven Aggesen, Danish author 192Sverris saga 270–5Sweden, Swedes 13–14, 28, 45, 48, 54, 66,

69, 89–90, 95, 108, 116, 135, 154, 162,172, 203, 206, 220, 239, 241, 271–2

Swedish language 37, 124, 130, 217Swein Godwinsson, English earl 260, 262Tacitus 244taxes 65, 155–7tents and camping 164–6Thames, River 76, 82Thier, Katrin xi, 126Third Grammatical Treatise 16, 29, 131

Þjóðólfr Arnórsson, Icelandic poet 38, 88,106, 116, 118, 122, 127, 154, 158, 165,167–9, 172–3, 186, 197–9, 205, 208,214, 245

Þorfinnr Sigurðarson, jarl of Orkney 62,77, 122, 127, 186, 202, 207, 244, 249–50

Þorkell geysa, Danish chieftain 168Þorkell inn hávi Strút-Haraldsson 52, 73,

76Þorkell Skallason, poet 76Þorleikr fagri, Icelandic poet 113, 157Tosti, viking leader 73Townend, Matthew 51, 73, 76towns 60–62, 65, 106, 109, 113, 116, 241trade, traders 43, 56, 63–6, 68, 80, 82, 86,

95, 99–100, 107–8, 128, 171, 181, 190,203, 229–32, 235, 241, 260, 262

Trani, ship 137, 211treachery 58, 101, 230, 234–5, 255–8,

260–5Trøndelag 116Trondheim 32, 66, 116, 164–5, 197

see also NiðaróssUlfr stallari, Norwegian official 145, 192,

210Uppland 13–14, 96, 102, 107, 114, 116,

128, 226, 234, 258Uppsala 39, 59, 114, 181, 225, 232, 243Västergötland 56, 225, 227, 229, 231Valgarðr á Velli, poet 54, 116, 178van Houts, Elisabeth xi, 84–5Varangians 86–7, 96, 99–101, 107, 202Varenius, Björn 181, 223, 270Venice 88, 96Vésteinn Ólason 8Vígfúss Víga-Glúmsson, Icelandic

poet 232vikings and viking 44, 48–9, 53–4, 56, 59,

62–3, 69, 107, 180–1, 216, 230, 232,252, 267–8

Vince, Alan xi, 51Virumaa 92, 94Visundr, ship 133, 137, 153, 175Vlachs, see WallachiansVladimir, prince of Kiev 98Wales, the Welsh 77Wallachians 257–8Waltheof, English earl 76, 201, 261–2, 265weapons and armour 43, 52, 59, 77–8, 98,

130–31, 136, 156–7, 165, 203, 209, 212,214

Wendland, Wends 50, 56, 62–3, 94–5, 112,122, 148, 173, 202, 207, 262, 266

Wessén, Elias 109, 190, 234, 237–8

General Index 329

Whaley, Diana 39–41, 78, 124, 147, 162,164, 172, 174, 198, 244

William the Bastard, Normanconqueror 76, 261–2

William of Jumièges, Gesta NormannorumDucum 83–6

Wimmer, Ludvig 218–19, 223, 232, 259women 34, 58, 68, 89, 98–100, 114, 116,

123, 133, 136, 163–4, 166–7, 215

Wormald, Patrick 260Wulf, Fred 59, 219Wulfstan, Anglo-Saxon traveller 90, 166Ynglingatal 94Yngvars saga víðf�rla 102–4York 76, 253

330 General Index