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....

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 ...

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'.

From Nottingham to Arnarfjörður

As regular readers of this blog know, I quite often go to academic conferences in the Viking diaspora and usually manage to stay on for a few days to have a bit of a busman's holiday. This summer's big conference was the 17th International Saga Conference in Iceland, held in Reykjavík and Reykholt. The conference was both enjoyable and useful but rather large (over 400 attended). And Iceland is a pretty popular tourist destination these days. So where to go to get away from it all? A colleague and I decided that a tour to the Westfjords (Vestfirðir) was in order. This region has only about 7000 inhabitants (everyone having moved to the Reykjavík area), but some of the most beautiful and wildest scenery in Iceland. The trip was a great success and if you like you can follow some of our adventures on Twitter.

The region resounds with saga-echoes, mainly many sites associated with Gísla saga, but I was also delighted to visit Hrafnseyri, the home of Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson, whose maritime adventures in the Hebrides I once wrote about. But we were mainly there for the scenery and there was certainly plenty of that. I totally fell in love with Arnarfjörður (pictured above), the views of which were some of the most magical I have ever seen. The fjord is named after a certain Örn, a noble man from Rogaland, who first settled there to escape the tyranny of Haraldr Finehair. Clearly, he was not so impressed with the beauties of Arnarfjörður, for Landnámabók relates that he spent the winter at Tjaldanes because there the sun did not disappear entirely on the shortest days of the year. And not long after that he moved to the more forgiving landscape of Eyjafjörður.

Still, some people continued to live in Arnarfjörður, and at some point in the fifteenth or sixteenth century they acquired an alabaster sculpture of the Trinity, which is now in the National Museum of Iceland. The caption there states that it was made in Nottingham and found in Arnarfjörður, but not where. The sculpture is mentioned in an article by Philip Nelson in the Archaeological Journal of 1920, but its provenance is not given. There may be more detailed information I can track down in which case I shall report back. Certainly, Nottingham was famous for its alabaster carvings and they were widely dispersed at the time. In the meantime, let's hope that the refurbishment of Nottingham Castle Museum now underway will acknowledge this Icelandic connection, for there are certainly more of these alabasters there than the 'one' that is mentioned in this article in the Nottingham Post last year. Maybe they will even borrow one or two for an exhibition, in which case it will be Nottingham to Arnarfjörður and back.

Languages, Myths and Finds

Just wanted to give a little plug to a project I have had some involvement with. This has very much been the Year of Vikings, and in particular the splendid exhibition at the British Museum, now sadly finished, about which I have blogged before.

In connection with the exhibition, the Languages, Myths and Finds project had the aim of encouraging conversations between specialist university academics and advanced research students in Old Norse and Viking Studies, and local communities around Britain and Ireland who were interested in knowing more about their Viking heritage. The communities chosen for the project were Cleveland, Dublin, Isle of Lewis, Isle of Man and Munster. Five small teams of six academics and students were chosen to work with each community, in each case developing and researching topics most suited to that locality, as identified in dialogue with the community.

The result is now five gorgeous booklets, each very different, which can be downloaded in pdf form and for free from the project website.

Enjoy!

Vikings: Life and Legend

Tjørnehøj brooch
©Nationalmuseet, Copenhagen

The Mega Viking Show has finally come to town, and your faithful blogstress was honoured and privileged to be present when Margrethe, Queen of Denmark, and various other dignitaries opened it last Thursday, as well as to get an early viewing of the whole thing. I don't propose to review the exhibition - there are plenty of reactions of all types to be read in the media. The exhibition is designed for the general public, rather than the expert, and I firmly believe that the outsider's view is the one to seek out. Interestingly, the reactions vary enormously - do read more than one review to get a sense of it all. Another reason I would find it hard to review is that so many of the objects are almost too familiar. This is not only because I saw a version of the same exhibition in Copenhagen last September, but also because some of them I saw last time the British Museum did a Viking exhibition, in 1980, and in other exhibitions in various places since. Yet others are familiar from the many illustrated coffee-table books about the Vikings that flood the market on a regular basis.

But some of the exhibits are relatively new and I thought I'd pick out a few of my favourites at random, for my and your delectation. My top favourite is probably the valkyrie figure discovered in 2012, but I have blogged about that before. Several other 'valkyrie' images can be seen in the exhibition, and they are a fascinating group, mostly relatively recent metal detectorist discoveries. Another recent (2007) metal detectorist find from Denmark of which I am inordinately fond is the ship-brooch pictured above and extensively used by the British Museum in its publicity for the exhibition. It is sometimes said to represent a dragon-ship, but it is quite clear to me that the two figureheads are those of horses, as indicated by their ears and manes. Although similar brooches are known, this is the only one I have come across on which the animals seem very definitely to be horses' heads, and is thus a unique representation of that figure so commonly found in skaldic poetry, by which ships are called 'horses of the sea'. I also like the little face between the horses' heads, though quite what he represents I do not know.

Oval brooches have always fascinated me because they are typical of Scandinavian women's dress, and when we find them around the world, they raise interesting questions about the role of women in Viking migrations. Many thousands of them are known, from a broad geographical and chronological range, and in a variety of styles. For me, the one that tops them all is definitely that found in 2004 in an archaeological investigation at Finglas, in Dublin. There's an interesting photo of how it looked when it first came out of the ground on the website of Icon Archaeology, but it can only truly be appreciated in its cleaned-up form, which shows very clearly its 'protruding animal ornament', as the archaeologists say. These include both whole animal figures, and animal heads, all of which strongly resemble bears. Although similar brooches with small animal figures are known, I think these are the only ones which are clearly bears. They look quite cute to us today, though the bear was of course a feared and fearsome animal, and widely significant in Viking language and culture. I haven't found a good photo of the brooch to show you, but it adorns the cover of The Viking Age: Ireland and the West (2010), edited by John Sheehan and Donnchadh Ó Corráin, shown above, and is discussed at length by Maeve Sikora in that volume.

Finally, although the exhibition is not strong on runic inscriptions, it was a real pleasure to see the Kirk Andreas III stone from the Isle of Man, with its simple (and incomplete) inscription 'Þorvaldr raised this cross'. While not the most exciting inscription, it is of interest because, along with most of its fellow Manx inscriptions, it records the earliest uses of the word kross in Old Norse, a word with a fascinating history which appears to be borrowed from Latin crux into Gaelic, from there into Old Norse (as suggested by the Manx inscriptions) and from there into English, as suggested by some place-names in the north-west of England. Oh, and the stone, which is clearly a Christian cross-slab, also has those well-known images of what appear to be Odin at Ragnarok on one side, and a Christian figure on the other (above, left). It was particularly nice to see it in London last Thursday, because on Friday I went off on another runological field trip to the Isle of Man, where we had to make do with a replica in St Andrew's church, Andreas, instead. But the display in the church did have a nice picture of the last time the stone went to the British Museum, for the 1980 exhibition (above, right).

Valkyries Revisited

Picture stone from Tjängvide, Alskog, Gotland.
Wikimedia Commons
 

Martin Rundkvist's recent blog on shield maidens has inspired me to air in a little more detail my views on women warriors by looking first a bit more closely at their close cousins, the Valkyries.

 

The valkyrie is a mythological being with widespread currency, since she appears in art, archaeology and a wide range of literary texts. Valkyries (valkyrjur lit. ‘choosers of the slain’) were defined by Snorri Sturluson as figures:

 

whose job is to serve in Valhall, bringing drink and looking after the tableware and the drinking vessels ... These are called valkyries. Óðinn sends them to every battle, they choose who is to die and allot victory. (my translation)

Snorri does not specify that they bear arms, though this might be deduced from the second aspect of their role. The figure is further developed in Old Norse literature, often with a strong romantic angle involving love between a valkyrie and a male warrior, and Snorri himself testifies to the enduring popularity of this figure in the thirteenth century. But the two functions of valkyries identified by Snorri have their origins in the Viking Age, where they can be traced in the material culture, as well as in both Eddic and skaldic poetry.

The first of the functions identified by Snorri is most easily identified in pictorial representations. Some of the earliest examples are scenes on several Viking Age (8th to 11th centuries) picture stones from the Baltic island of Gotland, which show female figures proferring drinking horns to warriors about to enter a building that can be interpreted as Valhall, the mythological hall of the slain, as in the Tjängvide stone shown above. This image is repeated in art, particularly metalwork, but also sculpture, from across the Viking world. Even the scene of Mary Magdalene at the Crucifixion on the tenth-century Gosforth cross in Cumbria has been seen by most scholars as owing something to this visual tradition.

Images of armed female figures are less common. However, the exciting metal detectorist discovery from Hårby on the island of Fyn in Denmark in 2012 appears to represent just such a figure, as discussed here some months ago. This is a very rare, perhaps unique, visual representation of a female figure with a sword. When valkyries are represented in literary texts as being armed, their weapons of choice tend to be a spear and protective armour, but not swords, as in stanza 15 of the Eddic poem Helgakviða Hundingsbana I. There, the valkyrie Sigrún arrives with some of her mates in the middle of Helgi's battle with Hundingr, and they are said to have helmets, blood-spattered mailcoats, and shiny spears. The figurine from Hårby has none of these attributes.

However, a closer study of skaldic poetry does show an occasional association of valkyries with swords, though mostly indirectly, in kennings. In a large number of kennings, battle is figured as a storm, or tumult, or din, or meeting, which is further determined by a term for weapons, or for a valkyrie, either her name, or a further kenning for her. Using examples from vol. I of Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, there are simple kennings which call battle þing hrings ‘assembly of the sword’ or gný Gunnar ‘din of Gunnr’, with Gunnr a valkyrie-name. A more complex battle-kenning such as snerra geirvífa ‘onslaught of the spear-women’ incorporates a valkyrie-kenning with her traditional attribute of the spear. Occasionally, such valkyrie-kennings do associate them with swords, though most often embedded in more complex kennings where the direct association of valkyries and swords is less clear. Thus, a kenning for ravens or eagles figures them as the gjóðir dísar dolgeisu ‘ospreys of the woman of battle-fire’, in which ‘battle-fire’ is an embedded kenning for sword. But in the same way, valkyries can be associated with other weapons such as bows, or just with weapon-points in general. Thus, the skaldic evidence suggests the possibility that any female figure associated with weapons of any kind can be interpreted as a valkyrie.

In themselves, though, these figures from art and literature do not yet prove the case for warrior women, or for any association between women and the weapons of war other than as an aspect of myth and ideology. It would be difficult in any case to pin down any such association in real life, though burials, despite their heavily symbolic nature, might give a clue. We know that warriors were men, and we know that many men were buried with weapons. This does not make every man buried with weapons into a warrior, but the association is widespread and consistent. There are a few examples of women buried with weapons, though their number is not great. Most of these burials are problematic in some way, many of them antiquarian finds with inadequate contexts. Nevertheless, it seems likely that occasionally people could be buried with items more commonly associated with the opposite gender (and of course there are many grave-goods that are gender-neutral). The reasons for these very occasional deviations from the norm are difficult to discern from this distance, and could be various, including the items belonging to someone else in a double or mass burial, or the finds from two adjacent burials becoming mixed, or even people being buried with items belonging to their (deceased?) partner. But that the very few women buried with weapons were warrior women in life seems the least likely explanation of all.

A Church is Made of Many Assembled Parts

Twice in October conference invitations drew me to Norway and I can resist anything except temptation. One conference was in Bergen, where my cool Søs Jensen raincoat (bought quite cheaply in Nottingham) made a return visit to its birthplace and came in very handy indeed. Bergen is lovely, but I have been there quite a lot over the years. Bø i Telemark, on the other hand, is a place I hadn't been to for around twenty years, so it was a real pleasure to go there, and to think about Viking women, a topic I similarly hadn't thought much about in twenty or so years. Both trips were full of visual delights, despite the gloomy autumnal weather, and I saw so many lovely things, I might try to get more than one blog out of them. So today's blog is about churches, and its title is a quotation from the sermon In dedicatione tempeli, popularly known as the 'Stave Church Homily', and found in a manuscript written around 1200 in Bergen, no less.

 

Norwegian churches and church art are special, partly because of their very abundance. Stave churches are nowadays thought to be typically Norwegian, but there were probably many such elsewhere in the world (or in Northern Europe) which have not survived. Even in Norway, only 26 remain out of originally many hundreds. But the stone churches are wonderful too (more on this below), and the church furniture, altar frontals and statues from the 12th to 14th centuries combine spirituality and aesthetics in a most pleasing way. A good place to see a lot of this stuff is the Historical Museum in Bergen, very well worth a visit if you're ever there. Its medieval exhibition is beautifully presented and awash with painted altar frontals, statues of saints, including several wonderful St Óláfrs, carved portals and much else. But probably my favourite object is the model of a church pictured above - they don't know what its function or purpose was, though it might have been a reliquary. I like to think it had no real function except to be lovely.

 

The event in Bø  was one of those in which the organisers properly recognised that the key to a successful conference lies in some good excursions. So the very first item on the programme was a visit to Bø gamle kyrkje (follow the link for some nice pictures of it in winter), a stone church from the 12th century dedicated to our favourite St Óláfr. The church is lovely in itself, sitting on a very prominent hill with views all around, and was particularly atmospheric in the gloaming, illuminated inside only by candlelight. Most of the surviving furniture is 17th-century, but medieval pieces included a splendid candelabra, a crucifix, some fascinating runic inscriptions (more on this in a future blog), and a painted altar frontal just as good as those in the museum in Bergen. It's a bit damaged (see picture above), but it was wonderful to see this one in its original location rather than a museum.

  

The high point was the second day of the conference when we were all bussed to Heddal, one of Norway's largest surviving stave churches, though much rebuilt. We had some of the lectures in the church itself, then some in the nearby former parsonage barn, now transformed into a 'barn church' where most religious activity now takes place. Sitting in the church was very atmospheric again, even though illuminated by electric light rather than candles this time. I guess they can't risk candles in wooden churches (!), though they must have done in the Middle Ages. No doubt that's why 1000 got reduced to fewer than 30... The best thing in Heddal was not so much the church itself, fine though that is, nor its one measly runic inscription (more on this in future), but the amazing episcopal chair still kept in the church. There are several of these around the country, mostly in museums, so again it was good to see this one in its original location. It is beautifully carved all over, and includes a scene (pictured above) which has plausibly been related to the Sigurðr legend. The figure in the middle seems to be Brynhildr, welcoming either Sigurðr or Gunnar, depending on which one you think she thinks is riding the encircling flame to spend the night with her, and ignoring the other one.

 

What's fascinating is that the Sigurðr legend was so popular in this part of Norway (Agder and Telemark) in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is, as is well known, depicted on several of the famous carved stave church portals, as well as on various bits of church furniture, somewhat less well known. Although it is usual to link these objects with other depictions of this legend, such as the 10th-century carvings from the British Isles, or the 11th-century Swedish runestones, it was argued, recently and plausibly, by Gunnar Nordanskog that the Norwegian examples of this phenomenon served a rather different cultural purpose and came from rather a different cultural context than those earlier representations. By this time, of course, we are well within chronological reach of known written versions of the story. Thinking about Sigurðr brings me back to Bergen, and one of my favourite sights there, now a bit faded, this advertisement for Per O. Moe's machine-tool shop, wittily based on the Hylestad portal.

 

 

Old Stones

... are actually some of my favourite things, especially when fashioned by human beings into something meaningful to them. Yesterday was excursion day here at the Fifteenth International Saga Conference in Århus. I naturally chose the excursion likely to include the greatest variety of interesting stones. The excursion was to Djursland, the peninsula north-east of Århus, with lots of interesting features, including a dialect that has kept the three genders of Old Norse, that Danish has otherwise done away with. The lithic delights on offer went from the Stone Age right through to the medieval period. We started off with Poskær Stenhus (pictured), apparently the largest Neolithic cairn in Denmark. Not perhaps the largest Neolithic monument on the planet, but a very nice one in a lovely location on a sunny day, in one of the hillier parts of Denmark (more on this later).

The Danish landscape is littered with extremely handsome stone churches, mostly apparently first built around 1200, but then added to later. So there were plenty of medieval delights, like the wall paintings at Hyllested (the link will take you to a lovely picture of the church and detailed information on the paintings), or the Romanesque portal at Rimsø, (which I confess I missed, being too interested in the rune stone at the same place), or the oldest stained glass (c. 1300) in Scandinavia at Virring church. Stonewise, I particularly liked the two little heads (pictured) on an outside wall of Ålum church.

But the real reason for going on the excursion was, of course, the eight rune stones we were promised. I had seen most of them before, but that was nearly two decades ago, so it was great to revisit them. The two I'll mention are the two outside the church at Ålum (pictured). As usual when runologists are gathered, we stand around and discuss every aspect of both the object and the inscriptions and this pair offer much rich material for discussion. The larger one (which by the way has an image of a mounted warrior on its reverse) has the inscription 'Végautr raised this stone in memory of Ásgeirr, his son. May God well help his soul.' The smaller one says 'Þyrvé, Végautr's wife, had this stone raised in memory of Þorbjörn, son of Sibba, her sister's son, whom she cared for more than a dear son.' So many questions... Why did the two young men die? Were they together when they died, was it on an expedition abroad, a local accident, an illness? Were they young men or only children? But even more so, what was the family situation? Why did Þyrvé not participate in the raising of the larger rune stone? Was she not Végautr's wife at the time, or was Ásgeirr perhaps not her son but that of some concubine? Why was she so fond of her nephew Þorbjörn? Had her sister died and she perhaps looked after him? If Ásgeirr was her son, was she telling the world she preferred her nephew to her own son? These lapidary texts give no real clue, and various other possible explanations spring to mind.

My final old stone for today comes not from yesterday's excursion, but today's. After a full day of papers (several of them very interesting indeed), we went on an evening excursion to Himmelbjerget, apparently Denmark's third highest eminence at 147 metres (don't ask me about the other two, but they're certainly not much higher). Outside the hotel there, I saw this beautiful stone, which reminded me of the stones I had seen on the Isle of Lewis over two years ago, particularly those at Callanish. The little plaque on it had a trite little verse which nevertheless concludes with lines also appropriate for signing off this blog:

I en tid hvor alting forgår, er det visse ting som stadig består.
(When everything passes away, some things are here to stay.)

I guess that's just what I think of old stones, too.

Jorvik Revisited

Some specialists are a wee bit sniffy, I'm told, about the Jorvik Viking Centre, but I've always thought it's rather a good thing. It has certainly been around for nearly three decades now, so it has had to have a few revamps along the way, and it's been a while since I last saw it. Taking a relative for a mini-break in York the other day gave me a welcome chance to view its latest incarnation, and I've come away with the conviction that it's still excellent edutainment. It simplifies, as it has to, but not in a bad way.

What's interesting is that the balance seems to be swinging more and more to the edu-, but still with sufficiently good -tainment for the punters to keep flocking there. The ride is more or less as ever, though regularly tweaked, and not so long ago spiced up with new dialogues (written and voiced by a colleague and students at the University of York). But the before and after the ride are both impressive, with some real nuggets of knowledge presented in an accessible way. The before gives you a useful summary of the excavations which form the basis of the ride, and lets you stand on the site, as it were. The after plays a bit to the gallery with skeletons, the famous Great Viking Turd, and so on, but also smuggles in a lot of useful stuff about palaeopathology, isotope analysis, metalworking techniques, and much more. All kinds of multimedia are used, prerecorded speakers, live intepreters with horns for you to blow if you dare, computer graphics, touch screens. The main criticism of the after bit is only that it's too small. It's a tribute to how interesting the stuff is that the rather narrow corridor with all this excitement was jammed with people looking, reading and learning, rather than heading straight for the shop.

We also dropped into the new temporary exhibition, Valhalla: In Search of the Viking Dead, around the corner. It had far fewer bells and whistles and for me it didn't fully explain the links between the various skeletons, sculpture and reconstructed artefacts on show, while the children's section had some nice things about Norse mythology, without for obvious reasons going too much into death and dying in Norse life and myth... Still, at least it was free with a Jorvik ticket, and the York Minster sculptures were well worth seeing.

Runic Ramblings

When the budget allows, as this year it did, the best place to take runology students for a field trip is the Isle of Man. It's been a few years since I've been myself, so I was keen to go too! As we were taking the ferry from Heysham, it seemed appropriate to get in the Viking mood by visiting the antiquities there, in particular the hogback at St Peter's. It really is one of the most extraordinary examples of its type and I was very pleased that we could arrange to see it (thanks to the kind gentleman who made this possible). In pictures and drawings it often looks tacky and naive, but I found it rather beautiful, quite carefully carved and very well-preserved. The images are as enigmatic as they come, and give rise to much speculative interpretation, but I am convinced that serious work would elucidate at least some of its mysteries. Sigurd? Sigmund? Ragnarök? The four dwarves holding up the world? That's just for starters... Heysham has many other attractions of the early medieval variety, so do visit if you can, and lunch at Squirrel's Bistro (especially the chips!) is highly recommended.

After a very smooth crossing (unusual for the Irish Sea!) we arrived at our Viking-themed B&B in Foxdale (Old Norse foss-dalr 'waterfall valley'), and very nice it was too, well supplied with Manxies. A delicious and convivial dinner with some old friends in Castletown set us up very nicely for the following runic day.

It is possible to see all of the accessible rune stones in the Isle of Man in one day if you have a car and are determined, but we took it a bit more slowly, as the aim was to train the students in the skills of field runology - so quality rather than quantity was the name of the game. Still, we saw everything there was to see, runic or non-runic, 'Celtic' or 'Viking' (or even 'Anglo-Saxon') at Braddan, St John's, Kirk Michael, Ballaugh, Jurby, Andreas and Maughold. By the end of the day everyone was quite proficient in distinguishing their Manx bs from their fourth runes, and had learned how to record and interpret these often fragmentary or confused inscriptions. The late Ray Page was constantly in our minds, as we referred constantly to his notes and interpretations; he has done more work than anyone on these inscriptions, and the lucky person who in the end does the definitive scholarly edition (still awaited) will relay heavily on his spadework.

And of course we couldn't ignore the wonderful pictures on so many of the stones, and wondered at the rich mixtures of geometrical and figural ornament, Norse and Celtic names, runes and ogham, and much else. Sigurd, Odin and Christ were obviously the top chaps in tenth-century Man, along with their attendant figures of various kinds, but also so many animals - goats, rams, boars, stags, horses, wolves, dogs ... What does it all mean? By the end of the day, our heads were spinning with ideas and questions.

Man has the advantage of being able to play up both its Viking and its 'Celtic' heritage, depending on which is more fashionable at any given moment. We of course noticed the Viking stuff more, such as this splendid modern stained-glass at Jurby, taking its theme from one of the Andreas crosses. The day ended with a meal at the appropriately-named The Viking hostelry on the outskirts of Castletown, with its most inappropriate collection of smiling Viking heads adorned with horned helmets.

The runic thumbscrew was loosened slightly on our final day and we did a bit of site visiting (Balladoole) and museum study in the fine Viking room of the Manx Museum. We admired the snow on the appropriately-named Snaefell, which had come on the cold (and I mean cold) wind of the night before. This usefully blew the clouds away but also threatened a rough crossing back, as it proved, exacerbated by the fact that we were on the catamaran to Liverpool rather than the ferry. Some indeed suffered. It may not be much consolation, but I always advise those who are seasick that some of the best Vikings were too - in fact the Faroes are said to have been populated entirely by those Vikings who were too seasick to carry on to Iceland!

Vatnsdœla Saga

After a lightning trip to Oslo on academic business last week, your intrepid blogstress was off on her rambles again, this time the annual postgraduate field trip to the north-west of England with some enthusiastic students. The cultural high point, as ever, was the Gosforth Cross, though all the familiar old hogbacks, runes and place-names we visited were also wonderful. But for a stunning landscape, the undoubted gem was, as ever, our overnight stay in Wasdale.

Although Wasdale in Cumberland is not so very like Vatnsdalr in Iceland (about which I blogged recently), it is after all the same name, and since my return I have amused myself by seeking out some parallels between the two. It had always struck me that the account in ch. 15 of Vatnsdœla saga of Ingimundr's arrival in Vatnsdalr must represent the reactions of many a Viking settler to their new homeland, wherever that may have been. As Ingimundr said:

'... ek sé nú ok land at víðleika með vexti, ok ef þar fylgja kosti, þá má þat vera, at hér sé vel byggjanda.'

'... I now see a land expansive in its spaciousness, and if the conditions are as good as the size, then it may be that this is a good place to settle.'

After a brief interlude in which Ingimundr's wife gives birth to a daughter by the riverside, they proceed in their explorations:

Síðan sótti liðit upp í dalinn ok sá þar góða landakosti at grösum ok skógum; var fagrt um at litask; lypti þá mjök brúnum manna.

Then the party made their way up into the valley and saw good agricultural conditions with respect to pastures and woods; it was beautiful to look at; people's brows unfurrowed.

Driving from Gosforth to Wasdale Head reveals both woods and pastures, the latter populated by large numbers of sheep (pictured above). Ingimundr, too, had lots of sheep, indeed a valley called Sauðadalr is said to have taken its name from some of his sheep which disappeared but were then found later on in the woods having spent the winter out of doors. The Herdwick sheep of Cumbria, too, are famous for their hardiness and for knowing their way around their patch. Ingimundr also had some problematic swine, and the Lake District is awash with Swin(e)dales and Grisedales. Natural resources are good too. In ch. 22 of the saga, we're told that there was veiðr mikil ... í Vatnsdalsá, bæði laxa ok annarra fiska 'much fishing ... in Vatnsdalsá, of both salmon and other kinds of fish'. Near Wasdale is Waberthwaite, the first element of which seems to come from an ON veiði-búð or 'fishing hut'.

When he died, Ingimundr was given a boat burial, presumably with a mound (ON haugr) over it. The EPNS volume for Cumberland lists some 17 minor names with 'how' in Wasdale alone, though, as Diana Whaley points out in A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names, the element is prolific and can be used for both natural and artificial features, the latter including burial mounds. Disappointingly, the first element in the evocative Boat How was nothing to do with a burial but is from búð 'booth, hut' again.

Not that any of this proves anything at all, only that Viking settlers sought out similar landscapes, and used their well-established vocabulary to name those landscapes. But it's fun, and it's no wonder that those 19th-century antiquarians found themselves inspired by the links between Iceland and Lakeland.

Here a Thor, There a Thor, Everywhere a Thor

I mentioned in my previous post that I had been on various other Norse and Viking rambles, one was to an academic conference in Copenhagen on molecular views of colonisation which, being a serious academic topic, I'll slide by here in this frivolous blog. The conference took place on the old Carlsberg brewery site where, I'm told, beer is no longer brewed except for a few very special barrels. But it's a glorious place which, I confess, I had never been to before, despite numerous visits to Copenhagen over the years. Among the eclectic architectural marvels there, I spotted Thor in his goat chariot on top of the old brewhouse. So I picture him here since it's his week, with the new film just out.

'The Lover of Islands May See at Last...'

Yours truly is now back from her most recent septentrional excursion, to Orkney this time, a perennial favourite (see my 'About Me' photo). I think I'll devote two blogs to this particular rambling!

The occasion, as so often for me, was another academic conference, the splendid Inaugural St Magnus Conference, organised by the Centre for Nordic Studies in Kirkwall. Another stimulating event, packed with facts and interest, lots of interesting people, and well worth the trip in itself. But it wasn't all hard speaking and listening - it seemed crazy to go all that way for just three days, so I tacked on a few extra days and did some visiting of locations, sites and antiquities.

First stop was Hoy, the High Island, site of the Everlasting Battle between the father and the abductor of Hildr, a valkyrie-like female figure who resurrected the dead each night so they could fight again the next day  - though it's not at all clear why (for the full story, see Snorri Sturluson's Edda). The 'dark hills of Hoy' certainly conjure up macabre thoughts, even on a nice sunny day, and I think that particular story found its ideal location on it. I walked to Rackwick (a lovely south-facing bay much celebrated by Orcadian author George Mackay Brown) and back. That was around 11 miles, I reckon, including my detour (see below), not too bad when you are the Viqueen's age, I can tell you, and fighting against a fierce Orcadian wind for half of the way.

The main goal was, however, the Dwarfie Stane, a Neolithic rock-cut tomb (pictured above) which I have discussed in a recently-completed (but not yet published) article. What, you may ask, has a Neolithic rock-cut tomb to do with Norse and Viking stuff? Those in the know already know, of course, the rest of you can do some research, or await my forthcoming article. But I'll give you a clue - it's all to do with giants...

I have been to Hoy before, but every trip to Orkney I try to make it to another island that I have not yet visited (I think I am still only about halfway through the inhabited islands). This time, the destination was Papa Westray, or Papay as it is known both in Orkneyinga saga (Papey in meiri) and by the locals. Getting there is half the fun (on an eight-seater plane, pictured above), but this small island (roughly four miles long by one mile wide) has many attractions in its own right. How about the oldest standing dwelling in Europe at the Knap of Howar, ca. 5000 years old? Or a clearly-defined, though eroding, Norse naust? Or the delightfully-situated St Boniface Kirk, with its gravestones from many periods but also a late example of a Norse hogback memorial? And right in the middle, a fabulous large Orkney farm, Holland, with buildings going back to the 17th century, and a fine little local museum. Despite all the much older antiquities, I have chosen to illustrate this with something that really caught my eye, a golden version of the Maeshowe dragon painted on one of their large green tanks (containing I know not what, city girl that I am). All in all, a place with plenty to explore and enjoy on a sunny (if windy) day.