A Brief History of the Vikings

by Jonathan Clements

  The Roman author Tacitus recorded twin fertility gods among the Germans, the Alcis, a pair of heavenly brothers whose priests dressed as women.19 Myths of such twin deities can be found in as many northern European religions as in the south, and seem to have extended into many Baltic areas. There are references in Norse sagas to the mother of Thor, Fjorgynn, whose name also exists in an unexplained male variant, Fjorgyn. In the far north where Norway meets Finland, they were twin girls, Thorgerda and Irpa, or male and female skiers, Ull and Ullin. In farming regions (particularly in Sweden) they are a brother and sister, Frey and Freya, occasionally incestuous but always associated with fertility. South in Germany there are references to a Voll and Volla, possibly cognate. A different kind of fertility god could be found closer to the coast, where Tacitus recorded a German fertility goddess called Nerthus, possibly cognate with the Viking sea-god Njord, and if so, originally worshipped on Zealand, Denmark’s largest island and the location of modern Copenhagen.

  Njord and Nerthus, Frey and Freya are known collectively as the Vanir, a race of gods that was supplanted and largely replaced by a stronger, more warlike family of deities – perhaps earth-worshipping farmers overrun by sky-worshipping nomads, not once, but several times. Such an assumption may also help to explain the number of ungodlike enemies with which the Viking deities found themselves in conflict. A major group of rivals, for example, are the Jotnar, or Giants, a race whose names often contain elements of shifty duplicity, cunning and braggadocio. If the Jotnar were a race supplanted by proto-Scandinavians, then we might even guess at their original home, Jotunheim, in south central Norway.20 The Jotnar are despicable to Norse eyes, violent and uncontrollable, creatures of the mountains, formidable foes, yet whose females are often regarded as desirable brides – a conqueror’s view of the conquered. A leading adversary of the Jotnar is Thor himself, whose legends contain many hints that associate him as an unwelcome guest in the Jotunheim region. His mother, for a start, is a giantess herself, Fjorgynn, a mistress of Odin. In an area where goat-herding is a paramount local industry, we find that Thor quarrels with his neighbours over deaths of his flock. He rides in a chariot pulled by goats, and is sometimes referred to as Oku-thorr, the Charioteer – in both Old Norse and Sámi, the words for thunder and a wheeled vehicle are punningly similar.21

  In Lapland, some shamanic drums show a male figure bearing a hammer in one hand and a swastika (thunderbolt) in the other, said to be Horagalles, the Norse Thor-Karl, or ‘old man Thor’.22 One of the most famous stories of Thor tells of his fight with a giant who leaves a piece of stone permanently embedded in his head. This may be a reference to a ritual at sacred sites of Thor, involving the striking of flint. In other words, with his red hair and beard, and his mastery of lightning, Thor may have been a fire-god, whose trials in myth are allegories of the kindling of sacred fires, and the smiting of foes.

  Other races in the Viking mythos can be seen as similarly conquered peoples, associated in the Viking mind with a native mastery of the local woodlands and hills. Such peoples are the huldufólk, the ‘hidden folk’ identified in different parts of Scandinavia by different names, and ultimately combined by later writers to form a menagerie of supernatural creatures.23 The álfar or elves, for example, and their dark cousins the dvergar, or dwarves. Both are occasional allies of the gods, the dwarves renowned for their skills in metalwork, the elves as occasional bedmates and tormentors. At no point during the Viking Age was there any implication of diminutive size in either of these races – their role as the ‘little people’ of later centuries is thought to have been a function of the suppression of old religions with the onset of Christianity.

  Bad dreams were brought by mara, a creature often associated with the image of the horse, and surviving today in our ‘nightmare’. Other creatures seem to have been personifications of nature, bogeymen like the thyrs (ogre) or troll. Places of note gained their own guardian spirits, the landvoettir, while the ether was thought to crawl with other beings: nymph-like dísir, and the ghostly gandir and verdir. Verdir were often described as the spirits of the dead, able to communicate with the living or cause difficulties from beyond the grave. Other spirits said to interact with humans (or at least with their shamans) included the fylgjur (‘fetches’), shadows or familiars of a human who watch over entire bloodlines, and hamingjur, guardian totem-spirits. Many sub-categories of the supernatural seem to have two names, possibly implying two traditions, that of the Aesir and Vanir, married together in an uneasy and often confused meeting of cultures.

  Whatever the origins of these categories and distinctions, many only known to us through asides in sagas or other accounts, the basic belief structure of the Viking world is not too different from that of other pagan religions. It asks the same questions about life and death – what is the difference between a dead body and a living one? If there is a difference, and let us call it the absence of breath or a soul, then what happens to that soul when the body dies? Where did it come from? Can souls survive outside the body? Do animals have souls? Do trees and rocks have souls? If such souls have power, can we communicate with them? Can we appease them? Can we make them angry? In all such cases, who is it among us who can best communicate with them? Such questions are common to the origins of all religions, and Viking beliefs share, at their basic level, assumptions about the natural and supernatural world cognate with beliefs all across Eurasia, as far afield as Japan. It is only in the last decade that scholarly opinion has truly begun to accept the implications of this – that Asian shamanism may have as much to teach us about Viking religion as European paganism. This is particularly notable in the case of the Vikings, when we appreciate that many of the Vikings’ shamans were not Indo-Europeans at all, but Finno-Ugric tribespeople of Lapland.24

  Here, again, is a sign of opposing traditions struggling together in some way, with each enjoying greater prominence in different places. Norse sagas are riddled with reference to Lappish sorcery, and particularly to the mysterious spell-casting abilities of Finnish women. Old Norse even has a verb, finnvitka, which means ‘to practise magic in a distinctly Finnish manner.’25

  It would appear, from Norse sources, that when the Vikings wanted magic, they would ‘pay a visit to the Finns’, a term that survives in modern Swedish as a euphemism for visiting a fortune-teller. Hints of such sorcerous capabilities survive in several sections of Snorri’s sagas, a Christian writing much later who wished to disassociate his true religion from the witchcraft of another race. Gunnhild Kingsmother, later to become the wife of Erik Bloodaxe, was supposedly sent among the Sámi to learn the ways of sorcery. As a mark of how she was hated by certain skalds, she was accused of seducing her teachers, using sexual favours to gain additional, secret magical knowledge from them. Much like witches or gipsies in other European traditions, Sámi women are rolled out by poets and skalds as the prophetic instigators of quests and missions. There are references in two sagas to a fateful party in Norway, visited by a sorceress who predicts that the host will soon leave his fatherland to settle in Iceland. Unwilling to leave his old life behind, the protagonist Ingjaldr instead hires three more Finnish seers to undertake a spirit-journey and verify the witch’s prophecy. This they do, voyaging from their bodies in a locked house (a drug-induced trance, perhaps?), waking after three days to give a detailed account of the area that would become known as Vatnsdale in Iceland. Another settler in Iceland, so say the sagas, refused to leave Norway until he had sent a Finnish sorcerer to scout the coast, transformed into a whale to make the journey easier.26

  Perhaps the greatest transformer of all is another of the Norse gods, all the more mysterious for not having any particular area of influence. Loki is a divine trickster, an unwelcome interloper in the hall of the gods, the instigator of childlike mischief that may have endeared him to younger audience members, even if his comedic misdeeds were later punished by the gods in loco parentis. Unlike other gods, Loki does not live on in place names in Scandinavia or Iceland.
He is as unpredictable as fire (an element with which he is sometimes associated), and like Thor is the offspring of a union between an Aesir (one of Us) and a Jotnar (one of Them); his mother Fárbauti was a giantess. He may also be cognate with Louhi, the Finno-Ugric goddess of the underworld, whose sacred island lay at the south-westernmost tip of Finland, on the Viking trade route with Russia.

  By the time Snorri compiled his sources, Loki had perhaps been influenced by several centuries of Christian lore, and was now seen as a far more devilish figure than he may originally have been. But even in his original tales, he appears to have been cunning. Loki works his way into many of the stories of the Vikings, appearing in cameo roles in tales of Odin, Thor and many other gods. But ultimately, it is he who is the cause of many of the gods’ troubles. If something goes missing or is stolen in Asgard, it is Loki who gets the blame, and usually with justification. Loki is the jester of Odin’s court, a figure of chaos in opposition to Odin’s law, constantly taunting the other gods and meddling in their schemes with schemes of his own.

  Loki was a great shape-shifter, although his transformations often brought him even more strife. When he wished to interfere with the building of the halls of Asgard, he transformed himself into a mare in order to distract the builder’s stallion. The offspring of that union was Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged steed. It is Loki who can transform into a fly to distract dwarven smiths, or a flea in an attempt to divest the goddess Freya of her precious necklace. He evades pursuit by transforming into a salmon, and even ‘borrows’ a bird-form from Freya (the sagas report this as if he is simply taking her car for a spin). Loki is the progenitor of all disasters, and the father of both the fearsome Fenris wolf, and Hel, the ruler of the underworld.

  There are two disasters for which Loki is most famed. One is better known to Western civilization through its modern retellings. While wandering with Odin by a riverbank, Loki sees an otter eating a salmon, and flings a rock at it, hoping thereby to obtain two kills with one stone. Later, they discover that the otter was the shape-shifted form of their host’s son, and that Loki has accidentally instigated a blood feud between the gods and the otter’s brothers, Fafnir and Regin. There are elements here, perhaps, of ownership and hunting rituals – an animist need to somehow gain permission from a higher authority before hunting in the forests. Viking culture recognized that feuds and vendettas might arise, but also that the injured parties might be bought off with ransom or manngjöld – ‘man-gold’ or blood money. Hreidmar, father of the deceased, determines that the otter skin should be filled with gold, and then piled with further gold, until it is completely covered. Already in this tale we see history shining through the cracks – how might a skin be filled with gold? For the tale to make logistic sense, the gold would need to be in a readily usable form, anachronistic coins perhaps.

  True to Viking form, Loki agrees to pay the manngjöld, and then sets off to steal it. Why? Surely he is a god, can’t he do what he likes? Not if he is a ‘god’ in a story by an Icelander who would expect social retribution for misdeeds. Just as Loki seems peculiarly shifty for a divinity, he is also suspiciously poor. It would seem that the Viking gods might be able to transform themselves into animal figures, but lack any alchemical abilities to make wealth. As gods they seem rather impoverished, but this again may be a feature of the late telling of the tale. By the time of Snorri’s compilation, the Norse gods had already been relegated to secondary status in the eyes of Christians. Although they may have been mighty in the eyes of their surviving followers, to the majority of the Icelandic audience their powers were in doubt.27

  Loki realizes that the only way to gain that much gold is to steal it from the dwarf Andvari. Here, perhaps, we see a shaky justification for the persecution of a nearby rival tribe – necessity dictates that the gods, Our people, must appropriate resources from the dwarves, Their people. Andvari himself is able to change shape, and almost manages to hide from Loki by transforming himself into a fish. But Loki finally catches him, and pries every last piece of gold from him, including a golden ring to which Andvari clings desperately. The ring, says Andvari is the most precious artefact of all, for with it comes the power to gain a new hoard of treasure. Loki will hear none of it, which is fortunate, for when the skin of the otter is filled and covered as Hreidmar dictates, a single whisker can be seen poking through the top of the pile. Andvari’s ring is vital to plug the final gap, and the ransom is paid.

  The ring, however, is cursed, and Hreidmar’s family eventually squabble over the hoard. Hreidmar is killed by his sons, and Fafnir transforms into a dragon to guard the gold. In what may be another reference to sibling rivalries over power in the Scandinavian region, Fafnir’s brother Regin enlists the help of the young hero Sigurd, who kills the dragon, but steals the cursed ring for himself, ushering in another cycle of betrayal and revenge.

  Thanks to the operas of Richard Wagner, the story of Andvari’s ring is the most familiar to contemporary audiences, albeit in altered form. At the time of Snorri, however, greater resonance would have been felt among his audience for another tale of Loki – that of his greatest misdeed. As with many Viking myths, the story of Loki’s betrayal of the god Balder presents an intriguing mess. There are elements of the story of Christ, and of Achilles, both tales that would have been known to the Icelandic audience, that would have muddied the original tale, whatever it may have been. It may even have had its origins as little more than a historical accident, for which a trickster god got the blame – Beowulf mentions a prince Herebeald, accidentally shot and killed by his brother Haethcyn.28 The story also exists in two forms, one from Snorri and a partly contradictory one by Saxo, serving to remind us just how much of the rest of our knowledge of Viking lore issues from the pen of a single, uncontested writer.

  Balder is an enigmatic god among the Vikings – if he had tribal worshippers at any time, they must have died out, perhaps in a genocidal massacre of which his mythological death is a dim recollection. His name is cognate with ‘Bright Day’, leading some to believe that he was a sun- or sky-god after the fashion of Tiwaz, once highly regarded in Scandinavia, but supplanted by Odin- and Thor-worshippers before the commencement of the Viking Age. In both variants of the tale, Balder’s story is one of supposed invincibility laid low. Snorri claims Balder to be Odin’s most cherished son (shades here of the Biblical Joseph story) – unlike the bastard Thor, he is a child of Odin’s true wife Frigg, who secures a promise from all birds, beasts and plants not to harm him. He is therefore invulnerable to all weapons, save mistletoe, a parasitic growth that escaped Frigg’s notice. Consequently, Loki is able to find a loophole, fashioning a dart from the forgotten plant and enlisting the unwitting aid of Hoder, a blind god, whose functions in the saga seems solely to play Loki’s patsy on this fateful occasion.29 Hoder hurls the dart at Balder, who proves to be not so invulnerable after all, and is sent to the underworld, where further intrigues by Loki keep him.

  The Saxo story is palpably different, and gives a much more prosaic interpretation. Saxo still spins a yarn, but one that seems much closer to the allegorical tribal feuds that inform so many other Norse tales. In Saxo’s version, Balder is a warrior, raised by a race of amazons not named as valkyries per se, but with equivalent powers to choose the slain. He is rendered invulnerable by a peculiar diet of food drenched in snake poison, building a gradual immunity both to that and other sorts of danger. Balder is a god, hence one of Us, and keen to win the hand of the fair maiden Nanna. She, however, is also desired by Hoder, a human warrior (one of Them). Hoder realizes that he must fight Balder in order to gain Nanna, but to defeat him he will require a magic sword, guarded by the satyr Mimingus.30 Saxo describes several battles between the forces of Balder and those of Hoder (suddenly, armies and fleets are involved, inflating the tale from simple argument to some sort of war). At the end of the prolonged conflict, Balder lies dying, wounded by the charmed sword. Hoder marries Nanna, but is later slain by Boe, a child of Odin conceived
with the deliberate purpose of avenging Balder’s death.

  Both versions of the story also include a section in which a god (Odin in Snorri, Hermod in Saxo) must journey into the underworld, accounts whose origins could be anything from outright steals from the Odyssey or Aeneid, to allegories of spirit-trances, to poetic allusions to mundane hostage-taking and negotiations. Saxo’s account is most notable for its lodging of the Balder myth firmly in the real world. Although elements of the tale are undeniably fantastical, Saxo includes details of Balder’s tomb, and even the account of one Harald, a tomb-robber who broke into the burial mound in the twelfth century, only to be thwarted in his quest for treasure by subterranean floodwater.31

  While slightly more believeable and rooted in reality, Saxo’s tale lacks the big pay-off of Snorri’s, for Snorri’s version holds that the death of Balder will ultimately lead to the end of all things. Loki was held responsible both for Balder’s death and for the technicalities that kept him in the underworld – Loki, it is assumed, transformed himself into a woman of the Jotnar who refused to weep for Balder, perhaps a reference to botched funereal rites. Rightly fearful of the fate that lay in store for him, Loki transformed himself into a salmon. Inventing the net in order to catch him (an idea the gods appear to have while staring drunkenly at the crossed charcoal twigs in the remains of a fire), the gods tie him to flat stones in the entrails of one of his sons. In an echo of the legend of Prometheus, he is left bound, beneath the mouth of a snake that drops poison on to his face. His wife holds a bowl to catch the poison, but each time she goes to empty it, Loki is left unprotected for a few moments, and his agonized writhing causes earthquakes.