On Oak Hill I

It's good to be in Norway again on Norse and Viking business and today I had a free day in Oslo. I'm almost ashamed to say that despite coming here regularly for many decades and even living here a long time ago, I had never been up to Ekeberg. Until, that is, when, on a previous trip in a brief Covid lull last December (on different Norse and Viking business), our group was taken up there for dinner one night, and a very fine dinner it was too. Seeing what a fabulous view there is from up there of the city, particularly the newer parts of the city in Bjørvika, I decided I really needed to go back up that hill on my next visit. So there I was today in Ekebergparken, on a slightly chilly but still beautifully sunny spring day, ready for both friluftsliv and cultural experiences. And, wow, there are certainly a lot of those!

Today, most of Ekeberg is a part of Ekebergparken, which is primarily a sculpture park, and more about these in a moment. But the area has associations and antiquities from the Stone Age to the twentieth century, all within a fascinating morning's walk. There's a good website explaining it all here. In the Stone Age, the plateau was actually an island, but as the ice receded and the land rose up, gradually it came to be the prominent hill it is today, rising up to 200m. above the sea level of the Oslofjord. There are rock carvings galore, including a helleristning (petroglyph) with hunted animals, and quite a few cup marks, those slightly more boring but still mysterious rock carvings. There are burial mounds, some possibly from the Bronze Age, most probably later, into the late Iron Age (early Viking Age to you and me), all as far as I know still unexcavated. Mostly they are not particularly visible except with the eye of archaeological faith (or expertise). Easier to see are a stone circle (or what remains of one) and a ship setting (ditto, and now reconstructed, as it was destroyed in the war). I particularly liked the way the ship setting was set off by a metal structure drawing attention to it and explaining it, even down to the little ship-shaped holes (click on the photo above to enlarge it and see!). There are dry stone walls from 2000 years ago and a cemetery wall which relates to the second World War. The Germans used a part of the area as a memorial cemetery for their fallen soldiers, with some monumental steps. These steps were removed and replaced with modern steps, and the spot has the most glorious view of the blue Oslofjord. 

Two nineteenth-century houses in the 'Swiss Villa' style beloved in Oslo at the time, and the slightly Art Decoish restaurant from 1929 complete that strong sense of travelling through time. All of these are to be seen in a glorious wood carpeted (today at least) in wood anemones. Now you might just wonder about the name of the place, for Ekeberg (Old Norse Eikaberg) means 'oak hill' but there are very few oak trees about. I could identify spruce and birch, and the lovely (free) museum on the site informed me there are also willow, ash, pine, black alder and maple. Oak is of course a very useful timber and so most of the oak trees which once distinguished the hill enough to give it this name were felled and used to build things. The whole area was opened as a scuplture park in 2013, and there are currently 43 sculptures dotted about along the paths that wind through this wood (as well as a 44th, a horrendous enormous red Santa at the bottom of the hill).

The sculptures are both traditional and modern, and it's fair to say whoever chose them has a fondness for the female form (by both male and female sculptors), as these seem to predominate. There are some pretty big names here, ranging from Salvador Dali to Damien Hirst via Gustav Vigeland, and many other names that even a non-sculpture person like me has heard of. The sculptures themselves are a pretty mixed bunch, as might be expected, but they often appear in unexpected places, or in startling ways that certainly make it an experience to walk around and look at them. Some of the best ones are by female sculptors:  Louise Bourgeois' couple, dangling from the trees, and Tori Wrånes' traveller both surprise and delight, while Ann-Sofi Sidén's self-portrait urinating is more engaging than you might think.

My favourite sculpture though was Sean Henry's 'Walking Woman', slightly larger than life, and confidently striding along the footpath as her slightly smaller real-life counterparts were doing around her.

From the Stone Age to the twenty-first century, with glorious views and a wonderful place for a walk, there is certainly something for everyone here. If you are ever in Oslo at a loose end, I highly recommend jumping on the no. 19 tram to Ekebergparken and checking it all out.

'On Oak Hill II' to follow in due course ...

St Olaf and Orkney

Doorway in Kirkwall
photo by Judith Jesch

Today is the feast day of Óláfr Haraldsson, king of Norway and saint, who died in battle, killed by his political enemies at Stiklestad, on this day in 1030. He soon became a popular saint in many parts of northern Europe and further afield, as can be seen in some interesting contributions on Twitter today (they tend to turn up every year on this day, and I have been guilty of some blog posts on this theme too). Thus, St Óláfr was venerated in England (Eleanor Parker and Francis Young), Denmark (Steffen Hope) and Ireland. So it is no surprise that he was an important figure in Orkney, too. The doorway pictured is what is thought to be left of a medieval church (possibly from the eleventh century) dedicated to St Óláfr in Kirkwall.

As an important saint and historical figure, Óláfr gets quite frequent mentions in Orkneyinga saga, the text I'm mainly working on these days. That he was considered to have a special bond with some of the earls of Orkney is also clear. Thus, in chapter 29, Earl Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason travels to Papa Stronsay to get some malt for the brewing of ale for the upcoming Christmas feast. While they were sitting by the fire there one evening, 

....he who was stoking the fire spoke about how the firewood was running out. Then the earl misspoke and said this, ‘We will be fully old when these fires have burned out’. But what he wanted to say was that they would then be fully warmed up. And as soon as he noticed, he said this, ‘I have not misspoken before, as far as I remember. What occurs to me is what my foster-father, King Óláfr, said at Stiklestad, when I heard him misspeak, if it ever happened that I misspoke, that I should prepare myself that I would stay alive for only a short time. It might be that kinsman Þorfinnr is alive.’ [my translation]

And indeed, Rǫgnvaldr's uncle and rival earl, Þorfinnr Sigurðarson and his men turn up and make short work of killing him to consolidate Þorfinnr's power.

South doorway
St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall
photo by Judith Jesch

The earls of Orkney were often in the habit of killing their kinsmen to ensure their own grip on power. The most notorious example involved the feud between Þorfinnr's grandsons, the cousins Hákon Pálsson and Magnús Erlendsson. The former killed the latter on the island of Egilsay at Easter, creating another much loved Scandinavian aristocratic saint, to whom the very beautiful cathedral in Kirkwall is dedicated, replacing the smaller church dedicated to St Óláfr.

Magnús' connection to St Óláfr is perhaps not quite as clear as that of his father's cousin Rǫgnvaldr, though the saga does connect their deaths chronologically, stating somewhat confusedly that the killing of Magnús happend 74 years after that of St Óláfr (ch. 51) - although we don't know the exact year it happened that is out by at least a decade.

As can be seen from the quotation above, Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason had been present at the battle in which Óláfr was killed, while Magnús in his turn became a saint like Óláfr, his cathedral sponsored by his nephew, also called Rǫgnvaldr, who was in his turn murdered by his political enemies in the interminable internecine warfare of those times. Despite his saintly powers, Óláfr could no more keep his Orcadian earls alive than he could keep himself alive, but it may have comforted these political martyrs that he was on their side. Certainly, through the powers of sanctity and the church they are remembered more than the kinsmen and compatriots who killed them.

 

International Women's Day

 

For International Women's Day it is always useful to remind ourselves that, even in the Viking Age, women were approximately half of the population. There seems to persist an idea that both Vikings and everything that went on in the Viking Age were somehow entirely a masculine domain. Naturally, I have been trying to nuance this picture for at least thirty years (this year being the anniversary of my Women in the Viking Age (1991), still to my amazement in print after all this time. I suppose it is still useful to people though I hope my ideas have moved on a bit since then.

Although I haven't been publishing on this topic too much recently, I still often get asked to talk about it, or write in a popular context. So here are some links to what I have said or written about women and other female figures in the Viking Age during the last few years:

• 'In Praise of Queen Astrid' 10-minute talk from the British Academy (March 2021)

https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/podcasts/10-minute-talks-praise-queen-astrid-norway/

[the image above is how the late nineteenth-century artist Christian Krohg envisaged Queen Astrid's speech at the Swedish assembly, public domain via Wikimedia Commons]

• ‘Inghen Ruaidh, the Birka Grave and Viking warrior women’ podcast on Not What You Thought You Knew with Fern Riddell and guests (September 2020)

https://play.acast.com/s/notwhatyouthought/inghenruaidh-thebirkagraveandvikingwarriorwomen

• ‘Valkyries: Fierce women of war’ on BBC World Service, Forum with Bridget Kendall and guests (July 2020)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszjvk

 

• 'Viking women at home and at war', History Extra (March 2019)

 https://www.historyextra.com/period/viking/vikings-women-home-matriarchs-traders-artisans/

 

For those particularly interested in shield-maidens, I do have an article forthcoming in the journal Viking. 

The Children of Ash and Elm

In what now seems like a completely other world, less than a year ago I wrote a blog post listing some recommended Viking reading. If I had been writing that blog post now, I would certainly have had to consider this very recent offering (it was published last month), all 599 pages of it, with the rather curious title The Children of Ash and Elm and the more prosaic subtitle A History of the Vikings. This book is by Neil Price, one of the best-known Viking specialists working today. He is professor of archaeology at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, and leader of a massive 10-year project called The Viking Phenomenon. By any account, this book, one of the outputs of that project, deserves serious attention.

I have to admit that not long ago I declined an opportunity to review the book, though this was only for practical reasons and not from any disinclination. Since then no one else has asked. So I thought I'd share some thoughts here. In fact, I rather like the freedom of writing as many (or as few) words as I like, and not having to follow the conventions of book reviews, or worry about who I was writing for, or explain the book to those who haven't read it and are wondering whether they should or not (the short answer is yes, though there's a longer and more complicated answer below). So this is not a review. Just some thoughts, mainly on those aspects of the book which particularly interest me, and which may or may not be of interest to others.

The first thing to note is that not only have I read it, but I have read it carefully and in its entirety and enjoyed doing so. You might think this goes without saying, but I can assure you that when it comes to popular or trade books about the Viking Age, this is very rarely the case for me... Too many books about the Vikings, aimed at a general audience, just say the same old things, in the same order, and in the dullest possible way. They might have their uses in providing the basics for those who know nothing, but I can rarely get past the first few pages... I assume this one is intended for a wide audience, as it is published by Allen Lane and will I guess eventually become a Penguin paperback, presumably to replace Else Roesdahl's The Vikings, which has now been around for quite a long time. So the very fact that I enjoyed reading it, and with attention, tells you a lot. However, its destiny as a popular book also makes it a bit difficult to review. How much should we expect of it? Who is it really for? We all know that it is really hard to encompass the whole of the Viking Age without making some mistakes, but how significant is that in this context? Does anyone care? I'm always being told that our first priority is to engage as well as inform the general public. But how far do we go in this process?

Well, this book is certainly very engaging. So what do I like about it? A variety of big and small things. Most important to me is how Neil's love of his subject shines through every word on these 599 pages. Here is someone who likes Vikings and the Viking Age a lot, as much as I do, almost certainly even more than I do, although probably for very different reasons. He resists the dreary tendency of some archaeologists to insist on the calling it the 'Viking period' and instead argues cogently (p. 9) for the validity of the notion of a 'discrete Viking Age'. He even admits that he is 'promoting the Vikings' worldview' (p. 26), something that sounds potentially dangerous these days. But it's not sinister, rather it is clear that his aim is deep understanding, an attempt to get inside the skin of the Vikings. Overall, I like this attitude. This is not a book for those who want battles and bling, rather I see it as an attempt to work out what motivated battles and bling (and of course much else).

Another good thing is that some of the book is about the centuries before the Viking Age, a period which is given a variety of names in different archaeological traditions (usefully tabulated on p. 66) and which is less well studied outside the circles of Scandinavian archaeology than the Viking Age itself. Very few books about the Viking Age consider this preceding period in any detail and it is illuminating to see both the continuities and the changes. In fact, you could argue that the author's idea of a 'discrete' and in many ways unified Viking Age is justified by that very contrast with the preceding period, with its multiple monikers and lack of a unifying narrative. Despite his over-fondness for Beowulf and the sixth-century 'dust veil', this focus on the pre-Viking period is still an important aspect of this book. I would also say the author is generally good on religion, even if I shudder at his adoption of the term 'religiolect' (p. 207), or when he overstates the evidence for worship of the Norse deities in England (p. 408).

I am of course very pleased that the author recognises the usefulness of the concept of 'diaspora' in understanding the Viking Age - this word is the title of the whole of chapter 13. Unlike many others, he is also alert to the fact that it is a difficult word to use and needs explanation and exploration rather than just appropriation (see especially pp. 363-5 and 555).

So, overall, this is a book which has many new and interesting things to say about Vikings and the Viking Age and already for that reason it is well worth reading. It's also a book which stimulates both thought and occasional disagreement, and I wouldn't be me if I didn't have some Thoughts about some of what Neil says.

The book is definitely the product of an archaeologist's mind, as indeed his predecessor Else Roesdahl's is. Allen Lane/Penguin still seems to belong to the class of publisher who believes only archaeologists are qualified to write about this topic. However, Neil is one of those archaeologists who is not only not embarrassed to use Old Norse texts to help understand his subject, but is also pretty knowledgeable about them. Indeed he has been supporting his archaeological interpretations with textual evidence for most of his career. This is laudable, but has some dangers. I have sometimes noticed that not only MA dissertations and PhD theses but also papers by more senior archaeologists have a tendency to use his work as a primary source to access these texts. While it is understandable that archaeologists cannot also be textual specialists, I think there is still some educating to be done here. But that is not this author's fault, rather that of those who use him in this way. This book is upfront about its use of sagas in particular, more than once urging its readers to 'read the sagas' - which can only be a good thing. I'm also totally with Neil when he notes (p. 23) that 'skeptical literary researchers' are probably too skeptical since they do not explain where all the Viking Age material in the sagas comes from, though his own justification (e.g. p. 222) is a bit thin. Let's by all means have more exchange and discussion of this topic which is sorely needed.

So I am disappointed to have to say that this book is not a particularly good advertisement for the use of sagas, or indeed any old texts, in archaeological narratives. At the most basic level, there are too many errors, often of a linguistic variety. So not only are we introduced to those weird Anglo-Norse hybrid dynasties the 'Ynglingas, Skjöldungas, and Völsungas' (p. 92) but, even more egregiously, the Saga of the Ljósvetningas (p. 160). I think our author has been reading too much Beowulf and not enough sagas. Constantine Porphyrogenitos' De Administrando Imperio is, despite the title, written in Greek not Latin (p. 366). Miðjarðarhaf  is a literal translation of 'Mediterranean Sea' and nothing to do with Miðgarðr (p. 374). A few such errors are forgivable but there are a little too many for my taste. Especially because they could easily have been eradicated by asking someone who knows about these things to read through the manuscript. But despite two pages of Acknowledgements to the Great and the Good of Norse and Viking Studies (pp. 574-6), this appears not to have been done, at least not successfully. The hubris of thinking you know everything affects us all in the end...and it's those who really do know a lot who have to be particularly careful. (I'm looking at myself here, too).

Similarly, some of Neil's reading of Old Norse texts is at least debatable and sometimes just wrong. On p. 55, he conflates without notice the texts of the poem Darraðarljóð and the prose narrative of Njáls saga in which it is cited. This is a pity for the argument because many people believe the poem is a genuine Viking Age product, while the saga definitively is not, and is therefore unlikely to be a reliable guide to what the poem really means. (I've more than once heard archaeologists at conferences claim they are citing the saga when in fact they are using the poem - when making a point about textiles, for example, this is an important distinction). Individual texts are in danger of being overinterpreted. Thus, Neil says (p. 110) that  Rígsþula 'describes an elaborate high-status wedding with fine linens and much ceremony',  but there is no such thing, only a very sketchy reference in st. 38 (40 in Larrington's translation) to Erna marrying Jarl and wearing linen. On the same page, he refers to the 'impotence' of Hrútr in Njáls saga, whereas most readers would I think say this character's marital problem was too much potence. We're told that 'sagas and poems are utterly saturated in magic' (p. 221). Well, yes, there is a fair bit of magic in these texts but 'utterly saturated'? Not in my experience. 'Professional mourner' is an odd concept to link to the Eddic heroine Guðrún (p. 253) in a context in which it is clear that she is mourning her own daughter - surely a genuine tragic figure rather than a hired weeper. It all smacks a bit too much of making the evidence fit the argument.

Runes are also not well-represented in this book, despite many of them being, unlike the sagas but like some poetry, contemporary texts from the Viking Age or earlier. It's disappointing when the author misses several opportunities to mention that important archaeological finds he discusses actually have runic inscriptions on them, such as some of the pre-Viking weapon deposits at Illerup (p. 70). Even more scandalously, the carved stones of the Isle of Man are mentioned for their Christian iconography beside images from Old Norse cosmology (p. 417) without any reference to their (more frequent, but perhaps less obviously exciting) runic inscriptions. Two Swedish rune-stones which Neil alleges (p. 112) provide evidence for men having two wives simultaneously are not only rather slim evidence for polygyny but could also be read in a variety of ways, even before we consider the problems of using these laconic inscriptions to write social history. And no, Ingibjörg did not have 'sex with me when I was in Stavanger' (p. 192). The medieval (not Viking Age) Bergen rune-stick N B390 M says that Ingibjörg unni mér þá er ek var í Stafangri or 'Ingibjörg loved me when I was in Stavanger'. You might argue that the verb unna is a euphemism here (though not always in runic inscriptions where it does seem to indicate romantic love). But I would argue that is interpretation which needs to be argued for, ideally with a consideration of how the word is used in other contexts. In this context, what is needed rather is just to get the translation right. Norse-speaking people are not known for euphemisms and did not shy away from the f-word when they needed it, as can be seen from several runic inscriptions including a famous one in Maeshowe (also post-Viking Age). 

Any one of these slips, individually, is not significant on its own, but there are rather a lot of them when it comes to the texts. What is more concerning is the overall pattern, of exaggeration and dramatisation, of literally sexing up things that were originally perhaps more mundane. Too much of this ends up with a slightly cartoonish view of the Vikings which both feeds into and panders to the ways they are portrayed in popular culture. Boring as I am, I would argue that the Vikings are fun enough without having to exaggerate what they were up to, they don't need all this showmanship. The end result is that the book sits very uneasily on the border between scholarship and yet another 'popular' version of the Viking Age. This is a worrying tendency in several aspects of Viking studies today, one example being the controversial Viking display at the National Museum of Denmark, though this book is not I think in that league, mercifully. And yet many people will regard this book as the 'defnitive' view of the Viking Age (as can be seen from both journalistic reviews, and consumer reviews on Amazon). Once again, the drive to 'engage' the public seems to be at the forefront of all public-facing scholarship and is in danger of overshadowing the actual scholarship.

This popularising tendency may be responsible for the author more or less ignoring certain forms of evidence which are not so easily tied into a colourful narrative (though others do manage it). So, place-names, a really important source of evidence, get very short, and sometimes inaccurate, shrift. It is simply not true that there are 'no non-Norse place-names in the Hebrides' (p. 404). I wonder if the author meant the Northern Isles in this instance, but even there this is not true. According to him, place-names provide the 'greatest evidence for the Scandinavian presence' in Normandy, 'as in several areas in the British Isles' (p. 419), but this point regarding the latter (and especially England) is not taken up elsewhere. The author could, I would suggest, also do with reading up on some of the recent (and older) discussion about the  name of Norway which I,  in agreement with others, no longer believe means the 'North Way' (p. 86). It's perfectly understandable that this is an area in which our multi-talented archaeologist author feels less confident, but I would really have liked to have seen more about this in a 599-page book which calls itself 'A History of the Vikings'.

Even in areas where he is more knowledgeable, the author is not always entirely reliable. I didn't know that ringed pins were a 'uniquely Norse invention' (p. 135) and I doubt it, but admittedly that's not my area of expertise. Snaptun (the find location of a carving beloved of my students which ostensibly shows Loki with his mouth sewn up) is not 'near the Norwegian border' (p. 136) - Denmark does not share a land border with Norway. It did in the Middle Ages, but that is still not where Snaptun is. I do wonder how we can be sure that Sámi traditions recorded in early modern times go back to the Viking Age and beyond (p. 89). This could well be true, but I'd welcome some comment on the question, especially in light of the author's semi-skepticism about the (earlier-recorded) sagas. His disappointingly brief comments on genetic research (p. 381) add nothing to what is an important and current discussion.

So, despite the stated commitment to interdisciplinarity, and a voluminous bibliography (in which I have happily discovered many items I knew nothing about), I'm not convinced that the author has fully digested everything he has read, especially in other disciplines. The saga-references in particular read a bit like someone who once read a saga some years ago and is retailing it from memory. Personally, I do not mind these errors, they are easily made and I can recognise them and filter them out. I can also tell when the narrative slips from fact to speculation and I for one enjoy speculation even when I do not fully agree with it, because it stimulates thought. A case in point is the author's new-found conviction that the Vikings were non-binary or queer, which seems a bit tacked on here and there to a narrative which otherwise still assumes a highly gendered society (my considered views on shield-maidens will, I hope, be published elsewhere soon, in the meantime you can get an idea from this recent podcast). The speculation is not always signposted though careful reading will reveal it. But I do wonder how many students and less experienced readers will look at the range of evidence cited and assume the author is equally expert in all of it. And then continue to cite him, rather than the original sources, for literary and linguistic detail... I'm almost tempted to say that you should study the Vikings for a few years before reading this book - you'll get more out of it and not be led astray. But is this the right kind of book for The Penguin Book of the Vikings? I'm already dreading some of Neil's more colourful exaggerations turning up in student essays for years to come.

Despite these disappointments, I do still really like this book. I hope it is recognised that engagement at this level of detail is a form of praise for this book - there are very few books I would take so much trouble to write about, especially in this informal way. I fantasise that I could even use this slightly uneven character of the book to train students in distinguishing between old news, new news and fake news, but it wouldn't be easy. The narrative is, I imagine, pretty seductive to those (almost everyone) who have less knowledge than Neil Price.

To end on a more positive note, the book has some insights or generalisations that are sufficiently interesting and provocative that I want to take them away and really chew over them, which is one reason I like this book. While it should not always be taken literally, the following random selection of observations shows some of the ways in which this book successfully stimulated my thought processes at least:

• 'trickster ... nomenclature may not help in understanding [Loki] from the point of view of the Vikings themselves' (p. 46)
• 'The mythology of the Vikings is one of only a tiny handful in all world cultures in which the divinities also practised religion' (p. 50)
• [with reference to the Migration Period, but also relevant to the Viking Age, and here's looking at you 2020] 'Some were fleeing, and others were those they fled from. Most were looking for economic security, safety, and a quieter life while a powerful minority were trying proactively to shape a world more to their liking' (p. 68)
• 'it is the man's gender that was limited and intensive, while the gender of women was to a degree unlimited and extensive' (p. 172)
• 'the Rök stone ... was deeply socially embedded (and visible) in a way that the book cultures of the Continent never wished to be' (p. 195)
• the importance of planning and preparing for Viking expeditions (p. 308)
• the 'armies' in England were 'continuously evolving migratory communities' (p. 339) or 'armed family migrations' (p. 357)
• 'There is little evidence of racism in Viking society' (p. 398)
• 'the Vikings live on today primarily as tourist magnets, as the draw of heritage trails and "experiences". The Scandinavians of the Viking Age were acutely concerned with memory; they might have been happy at this.' (pp. 498-9)

Dad Runes

The 29th of this month would have been Terje Spurkland's 72nd birthday. I first encountered him in the academic year of 1980-81, when I was on a scholarship in Norway and attended his lectures on Old Norse grammar, to improve both my Norwegian and my Old Norse. He was certainly a memorable lecturer, even then, but I didn't really get to know him until about ten years later. That was when I attended my first of what have come to be known as the 'Annual Meeting of Field Runologists' which on that occasion in 1990 ranged from Cambridge to Scotland, but with a focus on Northumbria. From then we met regularly at runic and other Norse and Viking events. The last time I saw him was again at one of the annual runologist meetings, in Västergötland, Sweden, in September 2017, where I took this runatic selfie (right) with him. Terje was a devoted runologist, a good colleague, and really excellent company on any runic excursion. He died on Christmas Day in 2018 from an aggressive form of brain cancer, and is deeply missed by all runologists, but also remembered by them and others with great affection.

In this, what would have been his birthday month, I have been reading a memoir by his daughter Marte, Pappas runer ('Dad's runes'). It really is a most extraordinary book. Terje had been working for some years on a book about runes, but also about literacy more generally, with a particular focus on the 300 or so years when Norway in particular was a two-script society, in which both runes and the roman alphabet were used side by side, often by the same people. A substantial draft of this book was in existence when Terje's cancer was diagnosed at Christmas 2017. His daughter had the idea to work on it with him as a way of distracting them both from the tedium and anxiety of all the hospital appointments, treatments and general misery of the illness. In the end, it turned out to be a different sort of book, in which a very personal account of Terje's illness and its effect on his family is interwoven with an introduction to runes and runic inscriptions. The ideas about runes and inscriptions are very much Terje's, and derived from his manuscript, but seen through the eyes of his daughter, whose interest in runes only came during this last year of her father's life. Like dad dancing, her father's interest in runes was just an embarrassment to the younger Marte, along with his clogs and old rucksack, his firm opinions on some aspects of the modern world, his oft-repeated stories, and his generally friendly grumpiness. This book is the story of how, just in time, she discovered why runes are so fascinating and why her father was such a gifted communicator of that fascination.

Obviously, the book is of great interest to those of us who knew Terje and who also love runes and runic inscriptions (though I think few people loved them quite as much as Terje did). Terje was a very popular teacher, and an engaging speaker, and his voice shines through much of what Marte writes about runes. In this way the ideas he had for his book find their way into print, though in an unusual context. It's hard for me to judge how the book would strike those who do not share these obsessions, or do not know the people concerned. However I believe the book has done very well here in Norway and even won a prize. It is certainly well-written and Marte switches between the two threads expertly. What I find fascinating is how well she has woven together the story of the rise and fall of runic writing with the story of Terje's last year on earth. There is an obvious metaphorical connection, and also many surviving runic inscriptions, especially on stone, are memorials to the dead. But some were raised by living people to commemorate themselves, and the book recalls how Terje commissioned the lovely stone pictured above right for himself and his wife Marit.

Marte finds even more intricate connections, discussing runic inscriptions that echo the events and memories of the book. For instance, the 8th-century human skull with runes from Ribe, in Denmark, comes at the point in the book when Terje has had an operation on his brain. The Ribe skull has a hole in it which might be evidence of Viking Age trepanation, also a form of brain operation. The Jelling stone erected by Harald Bluetooth is linked to her father's late adoption of a very simple mobile phone, which nevertheless also had Bluetooth technology. The Eggja stone, which probably recounts a shipwreck, recalls Terje's feats of rowing. These took place in Terje's childhood tracts of Nordmøre, and visits there during the last year of his life evoke other inscriptions, like the Kuli stone and the very fine inscription in Tingvoll church, near the family cabin. In fact, much of the book evokes Terje as he was before struck down by illness, strong, reliable, often taciturn, kind, and with a wicked sense of humour. To me it's a familiar picture, and yet I also learned a lot about Terje the father, the husband, and the human being, as well as the runologist. He's lucky to have had such a daughter, even if her runic enthusiasm came a little late! Thanks, Marte.

Víkingr in Oslo

Here in dismal, grey, snowless Oslo it was a delight to visit the Historical Museum and especially its exhibition called Víkingr. The museum is currently being renovated, so this exhibition is a pared-down version of its old Viking Age exhibition, but also a long-term stop-gap while we wait for the new Viking museum on Bygdøy in 2025. It's quite minimalist, in terms of both the way it is presented and what it presents. I suppose that is partly because of limited space during the renovations and partly from a recognition that the Viking Age is such an extensive and complex phenomenon that it is hard to encompass it all in one exhibition. So on entering the room the visitor is told to expect 'a selection of exceptional objects that reflect the world of the Vikings and what they valued'. This seems to me like a good idea - it admits it's only a partial view of the subject and gives the exhibition focus, even if it does lead to a slightly clichéd emphasis on war and bling. There is no 'daily life in the Viking Age' as we were also promised there wouldn't be in the big exhibition of 2013-14 - which was a shame in the much bigger exhibition, but fine for this one.

Entering the room is a delight. It's a beautiful room in its own right, but is also very beautifully lit and laid out. The cases are all the same size and it is easy to follow them through the room in a logical order, with each row of three given an introduction on the wall to the right. The labels on the cases are very low down (for smaller people, or those in wheelchairs?) but there is a booklet you can borrow which gives general information and full details of all the exhibits. (You can also download the booklet in either Norwegian or English.) The massive Dynna rune-stone at the end and the logo behind it break up the monotony and draw the eye through the room, and you get to appreciate the art nouveau details of this very fine building from 1902.

The exhibits themselves move logically from international contact and the riches acquired from there to war and its accoutrements, ending with religion and new ways. This does mean that the vast majority of the items displayed are of metal, with just a few beads and the rune-stone breaking up this heavy metal emphasis. But I'm not complaining, for some of the absolutely top metal objects from the museum's collections are on display: the gold hoard from Hoen, the Gjermundbu helmet, and plenty of coins, jewellery (including some made from bits of metalwork acquired in the west), Thor's hammers and weaponry. The other non-metal exhibit is the skull of the young lady from Nordre Kjølen that featured in a recent National Geographic documentary on women warriors which I discussed in a previous post. The curators of the exhibition are suitably cautious as to whether or not this burial represents a female warrior, I was glad to see, and present alternative explanations.

In addition to the burial from Nordre Kjølen, women are well represented, in part by their jewellery (there are plenty of both oval and trefoil brooches) and by the magnificent Dynna stone. This has always been a striking element of the museum's exhibitions. It is a roughly 3-metre high pillar of sandstone on which a mother commemorates her deceased daughter Ástríðr, the 'handiest maiden in Hadeland' (her name is in the picture to the right) with a runic inscription and Christian images, particularly of the Epiphany (so very seasonally appropriate, even if a few days late).

On the whole, I would say the exhibition is small but perfectly-formed, like the little gold serpent from the Hoen hoard pictured left, and well worth a visit. Also, if you buy a ticket to the Historical Museum, you also get in free at the current Viking Ship Museum on Bygdøy, also a beautiful building containing some fabulous objects. I only wonder why they called this exhibition Víkingr (just one Viking?). I myself would have gone for Víkingar (Vikings) or even Víking (a Viking expedition). Oh well, you can't have everything.

Viking Warrior Women - More of the Same? I

MM131 Andreas II
Viking Age runic cross from the Isle of Man,
commemorating a certain Arinbjǫrg

I never for a moment thought the fascination with the possibility of female Viking warriors would go away. After all, I have already argued that this fascination goes back at least as far as the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus writing in Latin around 1200, and since then it has come back at regular intervals. Way back in 1991, I suggested (and I was not the only one) that Saxo's warrior women owed more to Amazons than to Vikings (Women in the Viking Age, p. 178). This is an aspect I have touched on in some talks over the past year, and which I am developing for a proper academic article in the near future, for those who think (with some reason) that blogs are not an appropriate venue for such discussions. In the meantime, of course, the proponents of the Birka warrior (Bj 581) continue to pop up all over the place. I have already discussed a brief reference in the Channel 4 programme Britain's Viking Graveyard, last April, so won't repeat myself about that. Howard Williams will fill you in on the Megan Fox approach to the topic. What I thought I would survey in this blog post and the next are three recent television programmes which take the discussion in new directions, not all of them entirely negative. I'm not going to rehearse arguments which have already been aired ('what is a "warrior" exactly?', 'do board games really indicate military leadership', etc. etc.) but try to see what directions these programmes are taking the debate in, since judging by the number of TV programmes just within the last year, the debate is being conducted on the airwaves more than in academic fora.

Den kvinnliga vikingakrigaren

This programme , the title of which translates as 'The female Viking warrior', was first aired on Swedish television in August of this year and is still available (in Swedish, though some interviews are in English). Although the main heading on the website describes it as a 'documentary', this is nuanced a bit in the paragraph below, which claims it is a 'drama documentary' based on 'research results'. It is basically a dramatisation of what the life of the person buried in Bj 581 'could have been like'. I will leave others to decide how well they think it works as a drama - in these contexts fiction is not my business. However, it seems clear enough to me that the dramatisation (which is only about half of the programme, interspersed with more academic content) seems designed to give further credence to those 'research results' to a wider audience. The programme makes brief reference to the 'international debate' those results caused back in 2017, without giving any sense of what the debate might have been about. Some of the interviews are with the archaeologists involved in the original research, and Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson in particular is worth listening to in her explanation of the importance of roles, and of belonging to a group, which I agree is an important aspect of the Viking Age. Other interviews are clearly designed to give the drama bit a sheen of academic credibility but they don't really explain anything. Thus Elisabeth Ward gives some useful information about Iceland, Greenland and North America, based on the sagas of Icelanders, but there is no explanation of why or how these sagas might be relevant to understanding the Bj 581 burial, it is just assumed that they are. This assumption that what happened in one part of 'Viking society' can explain what happened in another part of 'Viking society' is shared by Janina Ramirez who also generalises about 'Viking society' without reference to any actual evidence - her comments are all based on, and obviously meant to support, the narrative of the drama. At the same time, and somewhat paradoxically, the programme refers to 'Byzantine sources' as evidence for female warriors. This idea is crucial to the development of the narrative, which envisages the Birka person as having travelled to and to some extent developed her martial skills in the East - here we are presented with a rather distinct part of 'Viking society' when it suits the story. The programme several times makes the suggestion that Freyja was a goddess of war (the evidence for this is actually quite limited and mainly from Snorri), and the implication that she was therefore a goddess for female warriors. Also, my favourite bugbear, the word 'Viking' itself, makes some annoying appearances. The archaeologist Leszek Gardeła, asserts that 'Saxo talks about Viking women', but Saxo never used the word 'viking', and of course Saxo is problematic as I keep saying. And Ramirez asserts that 'the Vikings did not call themselves Vikings', but they did! She also says that what they did say is that they would 'go a-viking', implying that it is a verb, which it patently is not. Yes, yes, I know I'm nitpicking, but even so, let's get it right folks.

The programme is yet another example of what I have called 'a view of research ... which fills out our meagre evidence with speculation and imaginative reconstruction' which 'can lead to the blurring of the line between primary research and public presentation'. It's a difficult balance to manage in these days when academics are practically required to engage with the general public and I know how difficult that can be. I'm not sure how successful this programme is as drama - the story is interesting enough but could have been more so. It is clearly devised to reinforce the research results and the interspersed interviews tend to disrupt any flow it might have had. I cannot see this programme as anything more than yet another attempt to lodge the interpretations of the 2017 and 2019 articles even more firmly in the minds of the general public and cut off further discussions. I am still uneasy with the 'docudrama' format, since the 'docu' bit is just there to support the drama, and doesn't allow for any ambiguities in the interpretation of the evidence, let alone any counter-evidence. A proper documentary, however, can be expected to present different interpretations, no?

Viking Warrior Women

So is this programme such a documentary? It was first aired (in Britain at least) on the National Geographic Channel earlier this month, I assume it is regularly repeated. This programme is more closely focused on archaeology, which is I think a good move, since previous attempts have come a bit unstuck on the literary and linguistic aspects. Nevertheless, the credits show that Neil Price was a consultant on the show, so it is once again a show with a mission (as the presenter, an 'archaeologist and National Geographic explorer', admits). As the presenter, Ella El-Shamahi, is not to my knowledge a Viking archaeologist, she plays the traditional role of the non-specialist presenter being informed by a variety of experts, most of whom have already appeared in previous TV shows about this topic. One could almost get a bit bored... (Disclaimer: a few years ago, when National Geographic was first thinking about this programme, they got in touch with me with a view to interviewing me for it. For whatever reason known only to them, that never happened).

The non-specialist presenter is of course allowed to say things like 'It's always been assumed that Viking warriors were all men' or 'what is being revealed right now is transforming everything we thought we knew about the Vikings and how their women might have gone to war' to big up the programme, even though they are patently untrue. Again, there is the formulaic reference to the fact that Bj 581 is 'causing controversy in Viking archaeology' but without really explaining what that controversy might consist of. But heyho, a good controversy will make the programme seem even more cutting-edge and relevant and all that. And I'm afraid the word 'badass' is used of the occupant of Bj 581...sorry but it grates in something intended to be serious.

The content of this programme is really rather interesting, as it draws on the research of the aforementioned Leszek Gardeła, and Marianne Moen from Oslo, regarding certain Viking Age graves in Denmark and Norway which could also be interpreted as being those of 'warrior women'. What interests me is the questions that the programme raises without answering, or sometimes even without recognising that they are interesting and important questions (I suppose the downside of having a non-expert presenter). An example is how an examination of the Bj 581 skeleton moves very quickly from the width of the greater sciatic notch being 'in keeping with a female pelvis' to it is 'of course female'. But OK, I'm willing to take the osteoarchaeologist's word on this matter. In other cases, there is a real lack of information.

The programme is about two graves, in addition to Bj 581, one Danish and one Norwegian. On the Danish island of Langeland, there is apparently one (out of 49) graves that has been identified as female, but never before as a warrior. (Leszek admits at this point that 'I don't think this [i.e. women warriors] was very common but they certainly existed'). What makes her a warrior? Well, she has an axe, a battle-axe in fact, and indeed one that was 'crafted hundreds of miles to the east'. Does one axe (especially an exotic one) make a woman a warrior? I'd like to have heard more about that. But it is a high-status chamber grave, so with some parallels (including the eastern connection) with Bj 581. Lots to discuss here, but it is not discussed much.

The presenter and Moen then make a pilgrimage to Åsnes, in Hedmark, Norway. Here, there is a grave discovered in 1900 which contained a 'kvinneskjelett med mannsutstyr' (a woman's skeleton with a man's equipment), according to a contemporary monument on the spot (a fascinating object in its own right, as Moen points out). This skeleton is the piece de resistance of the programme, since her grave goods, along with a wound on her forehead interpreted as a battle-scar, are the evidence for her having been a warrior. What I'm interested in is how, in 1900, the archaeologists decided it was a female skeleton? They certainly didn't have the advanced techniques used on the Birka 'warrior'. Given what we're told about Victorian (and later) preconceptions about Viking warriors being all male, what led the 1900 archaeologists to decide the skeleton was female? And do specialists still agree with this assessment? We are not told. We are only told by the presenter that 'not everyone agrees', but we are not told who disagrees, nor are any such people interviewed. Academic discussion is reduced to a one-way monologue by experts on a mission. I was particularly annoyed by the presenter's comment about these '[n]ew discoveries that I really hope will challenge what some people still refuse to believe, that there's evidence out there that not only did elite female viking warriors exist but that they had the skills and the weapons to fight on the battlefield alongside men'. It's not a matter of 'belief', dear TV presenters all, just let us into the secrets of the evidence!

Despite these caveats, there were one or two good bits in the programme. I did quite like the suggestion that the occupant of Bj 581 was a high status mounted archer. But does this imply that s/he was a warrior or a leader? Could she have been an aristocratic lady who liked hunting? I can't help but remember the riding and hunting imagery on some of the Manx Viking Age crosses, several of which commemorate women. This needs some more digging, including the implication that burials with horses suggest that the occupants were riders.  Well, yes, people with sufficient wealth probably did ride horses (in the summer), but does this make them a warrior, or a hunter, or could the horses have other meanings? I don't know, just asking for a friend.

The excellent Cat Jarman was also a refreshing interviewee on the programme regarding the female skeletons at Repton. Ignoring the presenter's astonishment ('it's previously been thought that Viking women were left at home' - no, Dr El-Shamahi, see Jesch 1991 and others), Cat made the important point that, yes, 'women were in some way part of moving out of Scandinavia, they weren't just sitting at home, looking after the farm'. But what part they played in this process is certainly multifarious, complex, and still to be discussed.

While these two programmes had some good bits, on the whole they were both mainly designed to reinforce the PR machine that has grown around the Bj 581 project. There is one other recent programme which does, however, in my view, begin to really have the more nuanced and important discussions that this topic needs. I'll let that programme have its own blog post, so stay tuned for 'Viking Warrior Women - More of the Same? II'.

Westfjord Stories II

My recent visit to the Westfjords, and to Hrafnseyri in particular, sent me back to re-read Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar. A relatively little-discussed saga, it is set in the Sturlung era, and recounts the life history of Hrafn up to his execution by his rival Þorvaldr in 1213. Much of the saga is taken up with feuds of various kinds, over sheep or whales, or the more serious political rivalries which characterised the Sturlung period. But there is much of general interest in the saga, not least the fact that Hrafn was a famous medical practitioner. He inherited this skill from his great-grandfather Atli who acquired it at the battle of Hlýrskógsheiðr when St Óláfr appeared in a vision to his son Magnús the Good and told him to select twelve of the best men to bind the wounds of the warriors. That slight touch of sanctity accompanied Hrafn throughout his life and in his martyr-like death. In general the saga has a vast cast of characters, including quite a few women, lots of poetry, and the hero has some interesting adventures abroad. But most of all it has a lot of detail about life in the Westfjords at the time. Here I just look at a few anecdotes which particularly caught my eye after being in the place.

The saga-author was particularly partisan as regards his hero, and spends considerable time outlining his virtues. Hrafn lived at Eyrr (now Hrafnseyri) for most of his life and was apparently a very benevolent local leader. He was a generous host who fed everyone who visited, he ferried people across the Arnarfjörður for free, and also kept a ship on Barðaströnd for the use of people who needed to cross the Breiðafjörður. Certainly, a ferry across Arnarfjörður would have been a lot quicker than the long road around every fjord that is so typical of the Westfjords today. Hrafn also took no fees for his medical interventions. As the pious author remarks, 'For that reason, we expect that Christ will have provided Hrafn with spiritual healing with him for free on his death-day'.

Early on in his career, Hrafn was able to help out when a walrus beached in the Dýrafjörður during the spring assembly. The animal proved difficult to capture, so Hrafn called on St Thomas of Canterbury for help and promised to give him the tusks, still attached to the skull, in return. The walrus was duly caught and the following year Hrafn went to England where he donated the tusks, as well as some money, to the minster in Canterbury. The walrus skull and tusk (of unknown antiquity) pictured here was in the splendid local museum at Hnjótur. There is archaeological evidence for walrus hunting in the first century of Norse settlement in Iceland, but this seems to have died out and the export of walrus ivory became a mainstay of the economy in Greenland. More recent captures of walrus in Iceland will be of stray walruses (who do however seem to be arriving in greater numbers in recent years).

The course of true love did not run smoothly in the Westfjords, according to the saga's account of the tribulations of a woman called Jórunn. Her father was Snorri, a great chieftain in Ísafjörður, who had many children, none of whom were legitimate. A half-brother of Jórunn's was Hrafn's great rival Þorvaldr, and her love life undoubtedly contributed to the start of their feud. Jórunn's first admirer was a certain Sveinn, who just happened to be her brother-in-law. Sveinn was a follower of her brother Þorvaldr, but it was her other brother Þórðr who organised an attack on Sveinn, in which he was severely wounded, eventually being healed by Hrafn. Sveinn then left the country and Jórunn's next suitor was a priest called Magnús, who took her away from Ísafjörður to Dýrafjörður. This displeased a man called Bergþórr, who had previously fancied her and came looking for her. Magnús concealed Jórunn elsewhere and sent Bergþórr off with a dog as a parting gift, along with a couple of satirical verses. Bergþórr and Þorvaldr then chase Magnús who hides in a cave. Eventually Magnús and Jórunn make their escape to Norway, with her disguised as a man. In Norway they have many children and presumably live happily ever after. The saga's editor, Guðrún P. Helgadóttir, draws attention to a similar episode on Sturlu saga (in the Sturlunga compilation) in which a widow, Yngvildr, cut her hair and dressed as a man to escape to Norway with her lover. That episode took place in 1158 and may have been a model for this one, though no doubt such things also took place in real life. The Sturlu saga episode also had the complication of a possible love-child, though there is no mention of such a thing in Hrafns saga.

For some more stories from the Westfjords, I can recommend Emily Lethbridge's Saga-steads blog.

Westfjord Stories I

Although the Westfjords (Vestfirðir) of Iceland are sparsely populated nowadays, they do figure quite largely in a variety of Old Icelandic texts. Several sagas are set, wholly or in part, in the region, including some very well-known ones like Gísla saga, which has its own trail mainly around the Dýrafjörður area. Here however I will just look at a few anecdotes from my favourite text Landnámabók which both interested me and are linked to places I visited on my recent tour of the region.

Flying to Ísafjörður, our Air Iceland Connect plane was named after Þuríðr sundafyllir 'sound-filler'. The lady was a settler from Hálogaland, in Norway, where she had the particular talent of filling every sound with fish at a time of famine. She continued her fishing leadership role in Iceland. Having settled Bolungarvík (where we stayed at the splendid Einarshúsið guesthouse), she established a fishing ground at Kvíarmið out in the mouth of the Ísafjörður and took as payment one ewe from each of the farmers in the region. She could be seen as the founder of the fishing industry which is still such an important part of the economy of the Westfjords. The name Ísafjörður nowadays refers to the fjord in which the town of the same name is situated, but then seems to have referred to the whole of what is now known as Ísafjarðardjúp, as discussed by Svavar Sigmundsson. Ísafjörður is particularly associated with the little-known saga of Hávarðr. This saga is several times referred to in Landnámabók which appears to have used an earlier version of it as a source.

A memorable experience on our trip was the extremely hairy drive down to Rauðasandur, near Patreksfjörður. The eponymous beach is extremely beautiful and, as the name suggests, the sand is indeed fairly reddish. The explanation seems to be that this colour derives from some scallops with reddish shells which form the sand. However, the sand did not strike me as particularly red on our visit, but I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'red'. This colour term was a bit wider in Old Norse than in modern English, also being applied for instance to gold. Although I don't have a convincing picture to demonstrate, I could just about see the sand as reddish gold (as indeed in the picture here). Landnámabók provides an alternative explanation, namely that the place was named after a certain Ármóðr inn rauði 'the red'. The area is still being farmed and one can see why it would be an attractive proposition for a settler, particularly one who would arrive by boat rather than the vertiginous road over the mountain that we took. Since Landnámabók does not have much to say about Ármóðr, we can perhaps assume that his nickname was derived from the place-name, rather than the other way around, and that the colour and size of the beach were sufficiently distinctive for it to be an important navigational marker. Uncertainty about the origin of the name could explain the alternative forms, Rauðisandur 'Red Sand' and Rauðasandur 'Sand of Red'.

My third anecdote relates to what is now called Hrafnseyri, but is in the old texts mostly known as Eyrr or Eyri (along with Flateyri and Þingeyri - spits of land sticking out into the fjord were the ideal settlement sites in this region it seems). As mentioned in my previous blog post, the place was eventually named after Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson, a topic to which I will return in another post. But the first settler there was a certain Ánn rauðfeldr 'red-cloak' who received the land from the eponymous settler of Arnarfjörður, Örn, when the latter moved over to the more clement Eyjafjörður. Ánn had married a certain Grélöðr while harrying in Ireland, and she had thought there were bad smells emanating from the ground at their first residence in Dufansdalur. But when they moved to Eyri, she thought the grass had the fragrance of honey. While we were there, someone was cutting the grass around the church and the whole place was indeed very sweet-smelling!.