One Day Towards the End of Summer

The following is an extract from something I am working on at the moment - an analysis of the killing of Earl Rǫgnvaldr of Orkney, as reported in chapter 103 of Orkneyinga saga, on the 20th of August, in 1158 (all translations my own):

Replica of a statue possibly of Earl Rǫgnvaldr, Kirkwall, Photo © Judith Jesch 

It was one day at áliðnu sumri 'towards the end of summer' that the two joint earls of Orkney, Rǫgnvaldr, originally called Kali Kolsson, and Haraldr Maddaðarson, sailed over to Caithness to go deerhunting. By the end of the following day, the 20th of August, or five nights after Assumption Day as Orkneyinga saga has it (ch. 103), Rǫgnvaldr was dead and Haraldr was in sole charge of the earldom. For Haraldr, this was the beginning of a very long period of rule which is given rather short shrift in the saga. As for Rǫgnvaldr, it was some 34 years before his holy relics were taken up, ostensibly after some miracles and with the Pope's permission, and he was sanctified, though there is no official record of this. In the Icelandic annals, the death of Rǫgnvaldr is dated to 1158 and his translation to 1192. Discussion of this episode has tended to focus on its implications for politics, both ecclesiastical and secular. Whatever the politics of it all, the episode describing the killing of Rǫgnvaldr in chapter 103 deserves some more detailed attention.

Already the first words of chapter 103 are remarkable enough: 'When Rǫgnvaldr had been earl for twenty-two years since Earl Páll was captured...'. This reminds us that Rǫgnvaldr's grip on the Orkney earldom was consolidated when his rival Páll Hákonarson was eliminated through the actions of Sveinn Ásleifarson (chs 74-75). On that occasion, Rǫgnvaldr managed to keep a low profile despite clearly benefiting from Sveinn's actions. This first sentence is a clear signal that this chapter, too, will result in a similar situation: the reduction of two earls to one, with the survivor escaping any real responsibility for the events.

There is another echo of earlier events in the lead-up to the killing. Chapter 100 tells how Rǫgnvaldr and his eventual killer, Þorbjǫrn Cleric, get involved in a feud between their respective followers which turns violent after some drinking in Kirkwall. This feud was never settled and the implication is that this unfinished business contributed to the events that led to Rǫgnvaldr's death. This episode echoes a longer one back in chapter 61 in which there is a similar feud between followers of respectively Rǫgnvaldr and a Norwegian called Jón, also arising during some drinking, but this time in Bergen. This feud is eventually settled by no less than the king of Norway, who also uses the occasion to grant half of the earldom to Kali and to bestow on him the name of Rǫgnvaldr. This echo of an earlier episode at a crucial moment in Rǫgnvaldr's career serves to suggest that his luck has now run out, that what once served him well will no longer do so. This is further emphasised by two ominous events. On the first night in Caithness, Rǫgnvaldr sneezes, and on the next day when he sees Þorbjǫrn and wants to dismount to engage with him, he unfortunately catches his foot in his stirrup. Both of these are typical saga-motifs of omens signalling the death of the person to whom they happen. Other omens have happened before in the saga: in chapter 29, Rǫgnvaldr's namesake Rǫgnvaldr Brúsason anticipates his own death with the fateful misspeaking '"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 in chapter 47 a wave engulfs Magnús Erlendsson's ship as he is approaching Egilsay where he will eventually be martyred.

Rǫgnvaldr however does not come out of his 'martyrdom' quite as well as his uncle Magnús did. Or at least the story of Rǫgnvaldr's killing lacks the hagiographical tinge that one might expect of a future saint and there are some details which suggest that the narratorial sympathy is not entirely with him. Interestingly, it is Rǫgnvaldr's killer who is presented as a heroic figure in this account. Þorbjǫrn Cleric is the one who manages, despite severe injuries, to leap nine ells across a ditch. The extent of his injuries only becomes clear after his death: 'and when Þorbjǫrn’s wounds were inspected, his intestines had slipped out through the wound that Jómarr had given him'. The wound in question was given right at the beginning: 'And at that moment Jómarr thrust a spear into Þorbjǫrn’s thigh and the lunge continued into his intestines'. After receiving that wound, Þorbjǫrn and his men cross a swamp and defend themselves manfully, Þorbjǫrn makes a long impassioned speech to Haraldr and then jumps across the ditch, and he and his men make for some deserted shielings where again they defend themselves manfully, before eventually Þorbjǫrn expires. No one else in this chapter is said to have defended themselves manfully, certainly not Rǫgnvaldr, but the defence of Þorbjǫrn and his men is twice described this way in the chapter.

Þorbjǫrn's speeches are also extraordinary. In asking Haraldr for a truce, his grounds are that the surviving earl is going to benefit from his crime: 'And this deed that I have done is a great crime, and I am responsible, but all the territory has fallen into your power'. It is only at this point, as Haraldr is dithering about what to do, that some of Rǫgnvaldr's followers intervene and put an alternative argument, emphasising Haraldr's potential role in the killing:

...if Þorbjǫrn is given a truce after this deed and also that he dares to tell you to your face in every word that he had done this evil deed for you or to honour you, it will bring everlasting shame and dishonour to you and all the earl’s kinsmen if he is not avenged. I think that Earl Rǫgnvaldr’s friends believe that you will have for some time been advising the killing of Rǫgnvaldr, which has now happened.'

In the end, Haraldr takes the easy way out, refusing to do anything to Þorbjǫrn but tacitly allowing him to be killed.

Stepping in at this late stage to chase Þorbjǫrn and his men are the sons of Hávarðr Gunnason, including one called Magnús, who made that speech, but it is noteworthy that these supporters of Rǫgnvaldr take no part in the earlier encounters. The only followers of Rǫgnvaldr mentioned when he is first attacked are two complete unknowns, a young Norwegian called Ásólfr who gets petulant when he loses a hand in the fight, and Jómarr, said to be a kinsman of the earl. Jómarr could be said proleptically to have carried out the vengeance for Rǫgnvaldr with his spear-thrust to Þorbjǫrn's intestines which was the ultimate cause of his death. It is therefore odd that he is not more celebrated for this, rather the focus is on Þorbjǫrn for heroically persisting despite such a grave injury.

This reading suggests that the narrative of Rǫgnvaldr's death did not come from his camp. He does not cover himself in glory, but then neither does Haraldr. Indeed, Haraldr's prevarications stand in contrast to the way in which Rǫgnvaldr himself managed totally to evade any responsibility for the elimination of his rival Páll Hákonarson twenty-two years earlier. It has been suggested that the narrative derives from the eyewitness account of the sons of Hávarðr, but as already noted these only come into the story at a slightly later stage. Certainly the close attention to landscape and place-names in chapter 103 does suggest origins in an account by someone who knew the area and perhaps even was present at the events. But the real import of the narrative is in the speeches of both Þorbjǫrn himself, and Magnús Hávarðarson, as cited above. These are both deeply political speeches, encapsulating what must have been a matter of much local discussion, at the time or afterwards, about responsibility and benefit in situations where a leader is ousted.

By contrast, the rather glowing obituary for Rǫgnvaldr in chapter 104 presents him as quite the paragon:

Earl Rǫgnvaldr’s death was much lamented, because he was very popular there in the isles and widely elsewhere. He had been of assistance to many people, generous with money, calm and loyal to friends, a man of many skills and a good poet.

This can presumably be seen as official church or court propaganda, especially since it follows the reference to his translation many years later, and so is likely to represent a later, whitewashed picture. There is little sense of this person in the chapter describing his killing and, as already suggested, Haraldr does not necessarily come off much better either. Chapter 103 resonates with a feeling of 'a plague on both their houses', the response of an exasperated population who is not particularly enchanted with the leadership available to them.

Street named after Earl Rǫgnvaldr, Lerwick. He had connections in Shetland. Photo © Judith Jesch

This is for all 'exasperated populations' around the world....

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.

 

The Tale of the 'Holiday Shocker'

 

Christine Fell in 1965
from a photo
kindly provided by
Gillian Fellows-Jensen 

One of my most treasured possessions is my copy of Sigurður Nordal's scholarly edition (1913-16) of Orkneyinga saga, which has been my constant companion for over two decades now, ever since I inherited it from my former colleague and friend Professor Christine E. Fell OBE (1938-1998; you can read about her on pp. 214ff. of this link). I have treasured this volume for its mere existence, because this edition is not always easy to get hold of and it is essential to my work on this saga and on Orkney generally. As a result, it's started to get a bit battered. Using it regularly always reminds me that it was Chris who encouraged me to go to a conference in Kirkwall in 1987, celebrating the 850th anniversary of St Magnus Cathedral. It was my first visit to Orkney and so she can be held responsible for my subsequent obsession with the place. But, although I have always been aware that the book has an interesting history, I've only just recently started to explore that history in more detail through the clues in the book itself.

The book bears the mark of Weeks & Co. Binders. London. N.W.1., and it was when it was bound that the letter that explains the book's provenance was bound into it. Loosely inserted into the book (it's a miracle that I still have it) is a small, neatly written note that explains who that letter was from. More on the letter later, but first the note. It is signed (but not dated) by Edith C. Batho. The name rang a faint bell with me, so with the help of Wikipedia, I discovered that she was the Principal of Royal Holloway College of the University of London from 1945-62. There I thought I had a possible connection with Chris Fell, as she got her BA in English from Royal Holloway in 1959, and Batho was an English specialist. Chris Fell went on to do an MA in Old Norse at UCL, awarded 1961, and presumably her interest in the subject began during her undergraduate years. However I have not been able to find any evidence that the two met then, though it is quite possible - in the late 1950s, there were apparently fewer than 400 students in the college. There's a nice painting of Edith Batho in 1961 here and I would like to imagine that Batho had given Fell the book around then, but it could equally have been at a later date. I'm told by an authoritative source that Batho was a regular attender at meetings of the Viking Society for Northern Research until her death, suggesting that she was still interested in Old Norse topics even after her retirement. This could have been where they met if not before and it gives an extended window during which Batho could have given Fell the book, perhaps especially when Chris was the Society's President 1980-82. But I also know that Chris was an assiduous purchaser of secondhand books and had built up an impressive library before her own death in 1998, so she might have bought the book after Batho's death in 1986. At the same time, Chris was keen for her books to be passed on to people who would find them useful, which is how I and some other younger colleagues and students had the privilege of selecting items from her library after her death. I suspect that this attitude reflected her own experience as a grateful young scholar on the receiving end of important books, which is why I like to think she got it directly from Edith Batho, whenever that was.

But why did Edith Batho have this book in her possession? Well, she had a degree in English and, although Wikipedia only mentions her publications on Wordsworth and the Victorians, she also had an interest in Scottish texts. She published on James Hogg, the 'Ettrick Shepherd' (more on this below) and co-edited John Bellenden's 1531 translation into Scots of Hector Boece's Chronicles of Scotland for the Scottish Text Society. And she published an article on Sir Walter Scott and the sagas in the Modern Language Review for 1929. Well, that's more than enough to explain why she might want the edition of Orkneyinga saga, but how did she get it?

The answer is in the letter, which Edith's note explains is from Olivia Stuart Horner, 'my friend for 50 years'. While the note is not dated, the letter is, to '10.11.25', so the note cannot have been written any later than 1975 and could be quite a bit earlier. In 1925, Edith was 30, and Olivia a bit older (the note states that she married Sir Ernest Barker a year or two after writing the letter and the census records that she was baptised in 1891, though elsewhere it is suggested that she was born in 1894). Googling Olivia Stuart Horner certainly gave me a clue to what the letter says about the book. Olivia was the god-daughter of no less than William Paton Ker, a distinguished literary scholar usually known as W.P. Ker, who was himself Scottish and who wrote on both Old Norse and other medieval topics. Among his many achievements was the establishment of the teaching of Scandinavian Studies at University College London in 1917. Olivia was with him when he died on a walking tour of Italy, at a place called Macugnaga.

According to the letter, Olivia is sending Edith what she describes as 'W.P.'s "holiday shocker" as he called it in 1923 at Macugnaga'. The reason she had it was because 'it got among other paperbacked books' which she discovered as her family was moving house. Clearly Edith thought highly enough of this rough paperback (the original paper covers are bound into the back of my copy) to have had it bound in London, with the letter also bound in to indicate its provenance. Olivia notes that 'you are the right person to have it'. This is explained by the fact that not only did Edith get her degree in English from University College London in 1915, while W.P. was Quain Professor of English there, but her book The Ettrick Shepherd (1927) is posthumously dedicated to him. The preface makes clear that it is based on work she did for her MA, and one could surmise that he was her supervisor for it, but then perhaps these things worked differently in those days. I'm wondering if it was W.P. who introduced his promising student to his god-daughter.

W.P. Ker's literary interests were very wide, and when he wrote about Old Norse texts it was usually to place them in a broader literary context. Typical is his inaugural address when he became President of the Viking Society for Northern Research (then still known as the Viking Club) printed in its journal Saga-Book as 'Iceland and the Humanities'. He was very active in the Viking Club during the first two decades of the twentieth century and his obituary in Saga-Book notes that 'The thing for which he cared most was the study of what Scandinavia had given to the world' (p. 410).

Although Olivia Barker is less well-known than the other actors in this little saga, there's actually quite a bit more to say about her and her family, even if it is not especially relevant to my book and its history. She was born in Cheshire, but by the 1911 census was living in Surbiton, and may have spent time in the family's ancestral home of the Manor House in Mells, Somerset. At the time of writing the letter she was, on the testimony of the letter itself, still living in Surbiton but about to move to Sussex. One of her brothers, Maurice, was murdered in London in 1943, a murder that was never solved. Another, David, wrote a novel based on this murder and was the long-term partner of no less than Osbert Sitwell.

I still need to find out whether the Scot W.P. Ker had a particular interest in this 'Scottish' saga, or whether he was just omnivorous when it came to Old Norse-Icelandic literature. So far I have not discovered any specific references in his works (but there are very many!) to Orkneyinga saga, but maybe he was reading it for the first time on that fateful Italian holiday. After all, it had only quite recently been published. So there may still be more to be found out about my treasured book. In the meantime, I'm delighted to have learned a bit more about its adventures.

So it's wonderful to think that my copy of this book has been to northern Italy with W.P. Ker, sat on the shelves first of Edith Batho and then of Christine Fell, and here I've been bashing it about for 20-odd years. I really must take better care of it! And from a personal point of view, I am delighted that this book links three Past Presidents of the Viking Society (Ker, Fell and myself) and three women scholars (Batho, Fell and myself), and that it is all down to Olivia Stuart Horner's clearout.

Ardnamurchan Vikings

Lighthouse at the Point of
Ardnamurchan

As I have previously pointed out, many of the poetic-sounding names of the shipping forecast have Viking associations, as does the Point of Ardnamurchan, in the inshore waters section. Plus it sounds wonderful, too. So who could resist a little trip up there, especially when someone else was paying and there was a work reason to go? (More information on why exactly I was there will follow in its own good time). So last month I went and it turned out to be easier than I thought - fly to Glasgow, then it's a four-hour drive. Well, easy or easy. The drive is quite something, along Loch Lomond (the bonnie banks don't have room for more than a narrow road with lots of traffic), through Glencoe (stunning), a fun ferry crossing to Ardgour, and then the last thirty-five miles of single-track road, dodging confident locals, hesitant tourists, and a variety of fauna. You can see why the Vikings preferred to arrive by boat.

The Viking grave at Swordle Bay

The main reason for being there was in connection with the Viking grave found at Swordle Bay in the northern side of the Ardnamurchan peninsula a few years ago, which had me pretty excited. It's touted as being the first Viking boat burial found on the mainland of Britain, but that is somehow to see it with our contemporary landlubber eyes. Certainly modern technology makes it easy enough to get there overland, but even a few decades ago that would not have been the case, let alone a millennium ago. Even getting to Swordle by car from the south side of the peninsula involved quite a steep climb over the central ridge. The bay has excellent views of Eigg and Rum and other Hebridean islands - and for all practical purposes it might as well have been an island too. Certainly it was on a main Viking Age transport route.

Swordle Bay, Ardnamurchan

The burial is in a stunning location - a great place to spend all eternity. There are many interesting aspects of the grave (it was in all likelihood a man, buried with both weapons and practical items, in a boat) and you can read all about it in this academic publication from a couple of years ago. Or read a shorter presentation on the website of the Ardnamurchan Transitions project of which it is part. Now of course, there is not much to see, only the shape of the burial marked out in stones, and a sense of the site, which looks like an ideal spot for a Viking to settle in. Further archaeological investigations might reveal whether the person buried there also lived there or was just passing through when he decided to take a detour to Valhalla. I have my reasons for thinking the former is more likely. Or at least that there were Vikings living there at the time.

Sanna, a small settlement on the western

end of the peninsula

One of the reasons for thinking this is the small but significant number of place-names on the peninsula that have an Old Norse origin. Swordle Bay itself contains the element svörðr, cognate with English 'sward' (as in 'greensward'), plus dalr 'valley', and it is indeed very lush and green round about. Sanna, now a small settlement on the western end of the peninsula is indeed next to a sandy beach, and if it does come from Sandey 'Sand Island' as it seems to, then there are some small islands in the bay which this could I suppose refer to. The place-names have not been studied in any detail since Angus Henderson in 1915, so there's a job for someone!

Ockle

Many might think there's not much to do on Ardnamurchan, and certainly what we think of as civilisation is thin on the ground at its western end. But for me the landscape and seascape, the lighthouse, the place-names, the burial, were all of great interest. I was also taken by the tiny settlement of Ockle, where the sun came out, enhancing the faded colours of this derelict cottage. I also like old tractors, sheep, cast iron mileposts and many of the other things to be seen there and I know I could amuse myself there for more than the two days I had on this visit.

Strontian

One last little tidbit of information which I had not known until I travelled all the way there was the significance of the village of Strontian. It turns out that this place gave its name to the element strontium, which is key in so much Viking Age research these days, as the bioarchaeologists use isotopes to work out where people came from. If you want to know more about the element, then I recommend the Strontium video from the very fun series of videos about the periodic table made by my amazing colleague Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff.

Just goes to show how educational following the Vikings can be!

One Day Without Vikings?

I am a serial migrant. Twice in my life I have made the move to a new country (not including shorter stays of a few years in yet other countries), in both cases becoming a citizen and intending to stay. It looks like the second one is my forever home - I have now been a UK citizen for a quarter of a century and have no plans to move. In my first adopted country, I was schooled from a young age in the slogan 'No taxation without representation!' and that motivated me to become a citizen in my second adopted country - I was by then paying taxes and wanted to take a full part in the life of the country that was now home. I therefore naturally have an interest in tomorrow's National Day of Action on Feb 20th to Celebrate the Contributions of Migrants to the UK, or @1daywithoutus / #1daywithoutus.

But I also have a professional interest in the contributions of migrants, at least those in the past. If we take the long view historically, then of course everyone in these islands is a migrant, at least since the last Ice Age covered them, and I do think everyone should reflect on that simple fact, as well as on the contributions of migrants, whether over the last 10,000 years, or the last 10 years. Among the many identifiable groups who have made an enormous contribution to the life of these islands are the people of Scandinavian origin we call 'Vikings', who settled here between the ninth and eleventh centuries. To some they are best known for raiding and pillaging, as if they were the only people in the Early Middle Ages who did these things (they weren't). But most people also know that they moved into large swathes of eastern and northern England, into large parts of Scotland, and that they founded towns and other settlements in Ireland. These immigrants were not raiders and warriors, but farmers and traders, and families with women and children as well as men.

What was their contribution? Well, by farming the land and engaging in local, national and international trade, they made the contribution to the economy that we normally expect of immigrants (and the indigenous inhabitants, too?), and they paid their taxes. They came in sufficient numbers for their language and culture to become an indelible part of the language and culture of these islands. Even the first word in the previous sentence comes from Old Norse, this infiltration of some of the most basic features of the language (in this case a pronoun) being unprecedented in any other migration other than that of the Anglo-Saxons before them. At the other extreme, the English word 'law' comes from Old Norse - the Vikings gave us the very foundation of this nation's existence. It is not possible to have one day without Vikings, even now in the twenty-first century.

Words and place-names of Old Norse origin are around you, everywhere, everyday. You can find out more about the Vikings' contribution to the English language through the Gersum project. You can learn more about English place-names of Old Norse origin at the Key to English Place-Names. You can also find out about physical objects from the Viking period through for example the Portable Antiquities Scheme and the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture. And this year is the Year of the Viking, when you can come to Nottingham for a special British Museum / York Museums Trust exhibition opening in November. As well as the exhibition, there will be a lot of different events dedicated to explaining the contributions of those migrants, the Vikings, branded as 'Bringing the Vikings Back to the East Midlands'. These will be advertised on the website of the Centre for the Study of the Viking Age at the University of Nottingham, so keep your eye out there! Or just follow Viking Midlands on Twitter - the project is currently in its infancy but more information will follow soon.

In the meantime, remember the migrants, not just tomorrow, but every day!

The Poetry of the Shipping Forecast

Britannia Designs, Dartmouth

Despite being the world's greatest landlubber, I have always loved the Met Office shipping forecast, especially when broadcast late at night on Radio 4, and I know I am not alone. Undoubtedly my own reason for this lifelong devotion is partly its splendid litany of place-names, beginning with that most evocative word of all, Viking, followed by North and South Utsire, named after Norway's smallest municipality Utsira. The forecast then ends its ramblings round the rocks and waters of the northwest European archipelago (and some nautically nearby places) in suitably Norse and Viking fashion with Fair Isle, Faeroes and South-East Iceland.

But it's not just this abundance of Norse and Viking references that I love. I would go so far as to argue that the shipping forecast follows some rules that make it into a kind of poetry, the kind of poetry I like.

(1) It is formulaic. The basic structure of the shipping forecast is the same every time, and it makes use of a pre-determined and traditional vocabulary and phrases with which both author and listeners are familiar. Occasionally moderate. Showers. Good. Cyclonic. 6 or 7 at first in west.

(2) But like all good formulaic poetry it rings the changes through variation. Moderate or rough. Rain or showers. Poor. Variable 4 becoming northwesterly for a time.

(3) It has a fixed structure, each part introduced by a formula to keep the listener orientated: 'The shipping forecast is issued...', 'The general synopsis at midday', 'The area forecasts for the next 24 hours'. Within each part the content is formulaic and always in the same order, though making use of variation as described above.

(4) Its formulaic nature gives it a regular, fairly predictable, if somewhat staccato, rhythm.

(5) It is primarily oral, though you can also read it on the page.

(6) It has a function (even if not for me). I like poetry that has a function other than that of being poetry. Because of its important function the shipping forecast has to be read in clear and unemotional tones, which thereby emphasise the drama of 'rough or very rough', or 'severe gale 9'.

As you snuggle in your warm bed tonight, just spare a thought for those in peril on the sea.

P.S. I'm not the only lover of the shipping forecast who owns the charming little dish pictured above. Thanks to my ever-vigilant other half who found it for me.

All Over the Place

Inspired by the news that that stupid organisation Facebook apparently has located the lovely Baltic island of Gotland (see the view of Visby to the right) in the equally lovely country of Norway, I turned to that monumental mine of information on Norwegian farm-names, Oluf Rygh's Norske Gaardnavne, published 1897-1936, but available on the internet since 1999, thanks in part to Norway's special arrangements for conscientious objectors to military service....

There I did indeed discover that there are at least three farms called Gotland in Norway, two of them in Hedmark, which is I believe where Facebook located the Baltic island. There are also four occurrences of Danmark, for one of which Rygh notes that the names of foreign countries were often used in more recent farm-names, and indeed there is even a Sverige in the north of Norway. The Finlands are more complicated, since there the first element might be the word Finnr, meaning a 'Lapp, Sami'. Other explanations are also possible.

Moving over to the British Isles, it gets interesting. There are four Englands in Norway - which could be named after the country, or could contain the first element eng meaning 'meadow, pasture'. How do you tell the difference? Well the tones (pitch contours) of spoken Norwegian help! With Tone 1, the meaning is the country England, with Tone 2, it is the meadow-word. Similarly, the two examples of Skotland are pronounced differently, so only one of them is likely to be named after the country. Ireland, however, does not appear in this collection of farm-names.

And moving across the North Atlantic, we find four examples of Island. The etymologies (based on the earliest recorded forms) of all of these are quite complicated, but at least one of them seems to be named after the country, at least according to Rygh. And of course anyone who has been to Oslo knows about Grønland near the central railway station...once upon a time it was a farm, of course. All five of the Norwegian occurrences have Tone 1 and so appear to be named after the country.

Who says Old Norse is a useless subject? I do think those good folks at Facebook should study that and onomastics as well!

'I Must Go Down to the Sea Again...'

There is a veritable flurry of Viking ship reconstructions and launchings going on at the moment, no doubt inspired by the very successful Havhingsten fra Glendalough / Sea-Stallion from Glendalough, which sailed from Roskilde to Dublin and back a few years ago. Only a few days ago, a copy of the Oseberg ship was launched in Tønsberg. It's called Saga Oseberg and there is a good video of its rather less than smooth launch here - I do hope it sails a bit better than some of its predecessors! The so-called Dragon Harald Fairhair was launched on the 5th of June, though I do wish the people responsible for the latter had consulted more, both about calling it a 'dragon' and Harald's nickname. Grrr. Unlike most modern Viking ships, this is not a replica of any actual ship, but rather a reconstruction based on a variety of sources. Meanwhile, Archaeology4Schools has embarked on a copy of the Ardnamurchan boat, found last year, though since not much more than some rivets survived of the boat, I do wonder what the basis of this reconstruction really is. At any rate, it sounds like lots of people are having lots of fun, and the seas this summer will be alive with Viking ships!

Lights of the Isles

Like all good teachers (I hope), I don't have any real favourites among my Norse and Viking rambling locations - from Newfoundland to Estonia, I have loved them all. But careful readers of this blog may nevertheless have noticed I have a bit of a soft spot for Orkney. So I am delighted to report that I am here again! The kind folk of the Thing project have invited me to give lectures in both Orkney and Shetland this week. And I wouldn't be me if I didn't tack on a few days extra to make it a proper busman's holiday...

This time I decided the extra in Orkney was to be North Ronaldsay, the northernmost of their isles, a place I visited once before in 2003, and home to some seaweed-eating sheep and the really rather colourful Ragna, about whom Earl Rögnvaldr composed a very strange poem (see ch. 81 of Orkneyinga saga, or my edition in Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages vol. 2).

Having arrived in glorious sunshine on Monday evening, my one whole day on North Ron was wiped out by the really rather atrocious weather that pummelled the whole of Orkney pretty much all of Tuesday, necessitating a day spent indoors with some academic work. I cannot complain, since I consider the weather to be an essential part of the authentic Viking experience, but I was disappointed.

Today, I was to leave on the 11 am flight and the weather was of course heart-wrenchingly better. But thanks to two of my fellow-guests at the North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory (an excellent place to stay, by the way), my last few hours were saved and I got a little adventure to boot.

It transpired that my two fellow guests were the engineers who maintain the lighthouses of Orkney and Caithness for the Northern Lighthouse Board. They, too, were leaving on the 11 am flight, but had a few things to clear up at the lighthouse before going, and graciously allowed me to accompany them. So I had a special tour of the highest land-based lighthouse in Britain, managing to climb all 176 steps to the top, where there was a splendid view of the whole island, glinting in the sunshine. There is a webcam, if you want to get an idea, and the two keepers' cottages have now been turned into very nice self-catering accommodation.

So what's all this to do with the Vikings, you ask? They who sailed without benefit of lighthouses (and therefore probably got shipwrecked a lot)? Well, it transpired that one of the lighthouse engineers was none other than Hrolf Douglasson, a Viking re-enactor I had met once before, now leader of the Norðreyjar branch of Regia Anglorum, author of several books about Vikings, and now with this really rather cool job of looking after the lighthouses of Orkney and Caithness. So thanks Hrolf, and your colleague Rob, for the tour!

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme Dat Ding

Some years ago, on one of my rambles to Orkney, I stopped off in Dingwall, Ross-shire. As all Viking aficionados know, the place-name comes from an Old Norse word for an assembly site, found most notably at Þingvellir in Iceland, but also at several places in these islands, the two Thingwalls on either side of the Mersey, or Tynwald on the Isle of Man, plus a few scattered about the Scottish islands. On that brief visit to Dingwall, I wandered into the museum, and saw a few signs of Viking awareness, but not many. Otherwise, it was a charming place.

Now I read in The North Star that the very town centre car park in which I parked my car on that day is reported to be the site of the Viking Age assembly mound, according to some rather vaguely unspecified archaeological investigations (though not yet excavations) carried out last month. The various worthy persons interviewed in the article all foresee a great future for Dingwall as a Viking tourist hotspot. How things change in a few years...

While searching for a suitable image for this post, I came across the above golden bull on a handsome black plinth. If you look carefully, there is an attempt to render the name Dingwall in both Old Norse and runes, but, oh so sadly, such a dismal attempt, especially the runes. They are really neither one thing nor tother, and I'm not even that sure what exactly they are meant to spell. I predict a rash of dodgy 'runic' inscriptions in Viking tourist spots around the country, each one feebler than the last. Please, please, please guys, if you want to do something like that, get in touch with a real runologist, like those splendid chaps at Hotell Svava and Kirkwall Airport did.

Ships and Men

The exciting recent discovery of an intact Viking Age male weapon burial in a 5m. boat on the Ardnamurchan peninsula has been widely reported in the media today, for instance The Guardian. Apparently, the artefacts are fantastic - the electronic version of the Guardian article has a nice short film of an axehead being dug up. We all await further details. And luckily, a few of the guy's teeth have been preserved, so we will soon know what he ate and where he grew up, once Janet Montgomery has done her work of stable isotope analysis. Ardnamurchan, though isolated today, is of course on the main seaway from Norway, through the Northern and Western Isles, and down to the Irish Sea, so it is not at all surprising to find such a burial there, rather than on the islands, which is where all previous ones have been found.

The excitement is tinged with sadness at the almost simultaneous announcement of the death of Ole Crumlin-Pedersen, the nestor of Viking boat and ship studies. He's the third eminent Viking to die (all of them far too young) within the last six weeks or so, following hard on the heels of Mark Blackburn and Richard Hall. May they all have a splendid feast in Valhalla together, while the surf pounds outside, as Ormr Barreyjarskáld might have said at the Ardnamurchan funeral:

Útan gnýr á eyri
Ymis blóð fara góðra.

Ymir's blood [the sea] crashes out there on to the sand-bank of good vessels.

The Viking In All Of Us

It seems there is still a bit of the old Viking spirit in the residents of the Wirral, who have successfully fought off local government plans to close most of their libraries. This news report on Channel 4 this evening notes that the library at Irby was one of those scheduled to close, and also shows this fine old signpost of the footpath to Thurstaston. Both Irby and Thurstaston are places that can trace their origins to the Viking settlement of Wirral in the tenth century, as you can read, if you are interested, in Paul Cavill et al., Wirral and its Viking Heritage, 2000.
Today's Guardian editorial is 'In praise of ... British cheeses' - hear, hear! I think we can all assent to that... News to me, however, is that a Scottish cheese called crowdie 'traces its origin to the Viking invasion'. I suppose this is part of the general tendency to ascribe all good things to the Vikings, so I can second that. However, the OED claims its derivation is unknown, merely noting that 'Jamieson conjectured some connexion with GROUT, and Icel. groutr [sic] porridge; this suits the sense, but leaves phonetic conditions unsatisfied'. Quite. Thus do scholarly conjectures turn into newspaper fact... The 'porridge' meaning, by the way, is now obsolete according to the OED, but the second meaning it lists is 'in some parts of the north of Scotland, a peculiar preparation of milk' (eh?). The northern distribution may I suppose reflect Viking influence, and here I must recall one of my earlier posts on this blog, just over a year ago, about Crowdie Vikings, so maybe there is something in it.
Happy New Year to one and all, Viking or no Viking!

Lewis Chesspersons Again

Everyone's favourite Vikings, the Lewis playing pieces, are in the news again. There is an article in Medieval Archaeology (which I haven't fully digested yet) propounding new theories about what kind of board game the pieces were used for (hnefatafl rather than chess), and why they were found on Lewis (belonged to a rich person who lived there, rather than just accidentally shipwrecked there). No doubt the press accounts (e.g. the BBC website) oversimplify a more nuanced academic article, so I am looking forward to reading that (there is also a bit more detail in the press release). The article is in fact available free online, so it will save me a trip to the library! I have a particular interest, because I have recently argued that one of Earl Rögnvaldr's verses contains a reference to chess, and draw the parallel with the roughly contemporary Lewis pieces.

The other bit of news is that a selection of the playing pieces will go on tour around Scotland in 2010-11: full details are available from the National Museums of Scotland website.

Valhalla Rising X 2

One of our students has drawn attention to the fact that there is a Danish-produced film called Valhalla Rising in preparation for release in 2009, having filmed in Scotland in 2008. I wonder what that's about? The synopsis on IMDb does not suggest it has any connection with Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt techno-thriller with the same title (2001), though both do seem to involve strange voyages to North America (maybe they've just taken out the techno bits). The film will apparently be about 'One-Eye, a mute warrior of supernatural strength' who 'discovers his true self'. Sounds riveting. Actually, there's a more normal-sounding synopsis here, though it still sounds a bit overwrought for my taste... Here's some info about it from the Daily Record - for those who know about these things, it will star Mads Mikkelsen.

Crowdie Vikings

I've been reading Finlay Macdonald's Crowdie and Cream (1982) after just catching a bit of the third episode on BBC4. As well as being a good example of Celtic Fringe autobiography, it has some interesting Harris folklore, in particular a story about how Viking invaders are bamboozled by the local fairies:

...long ago, an army of warriors from a foreign land had come ashore on the beach and had set about plundering and pillaging the land as they had done up and down the whole of the rest of our coast. But here, in this very hollow, they had come face to face with a host of little people - fairies who, instead of fighting the foreigners, made them welcome and made them sit down and rest and eat and drink their fairy food. And as the fierce Norsemen nibbled the tid-bits their tiredness and their fierceness left them, and they began to hear the most beautiful music that they had ever heard in their lives and they began to dream dreams of unsurpassed beauty. One by one the warriors fell asleep and when the last of them had nodded off the fairies pulled them down into their own world on top of which we were sitting now. It was a world of music and milk and honey and the wild men had liked it so much that they never came back from it again, and never again troubled the people of Harris.

This all takes place in Scarista, a Norse name if ever there was one...

The Vikings Were Fishmongers!

Good to see James Barrett's research reported in a 'cod-piece' in today's Guardian. James has been a fish-bone nerd for many years, but also knows everything there is to know about Vikings in Scotland.

Lewis Chess Pieces

I am just catching up with the controversy about the Lewis chess pieces, which Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland, is demanding are returned to Scotland. I do think it would be nice for the Isle of Lewis to have some, since they were originally found there (there are of course some in Edinburgh, in the National Museum). But these nationalistic arguments do tend to gloss over the fact that the chess pieces were almost certainly made in Norway, and were probably on their way to somewhere completely different, such as Dublin. There is a fairly balanced article in The Scotsman for 7 January 2008, citing very reasonable comments from Alex Woolf and James Fraser, and less reasonable ones by Ted Cowan, who argues that they should all be in Lewis.