by E R Eddison
Now the grand medium or vehicle of skaldic poetry is Metaphor. As Homer turned to simile for his great effects so (but far more constantly; indeed in line after line) the skald turned to metaphor. Always hesitate, in poetry, to call a king a ‘king’ (konungr): call him rather ‘Flinger of gold’, or ‘All-wielder’ or ‘God of the byrny’. And if you call him ‘Flinger of gold do not too readily be content with the plain word ‘gold’. Gold is a thing of splendour: it is fire: fire that bums even in the depths of the sea: it is the treasure of the dwarf Andvari coveted by the Gods, cursed with a curse: the treasure that the worm Fafnir slept on to guard it, till Sigurd the Volsung slew him. So (e.g.)—‘Flinger of the billow-fire’, rather than of plain ‘gold’.
These metaphors are technically called ‘kennings’, and Snorri Sturlason in his Prose Edda gives elaborate lists of them based on the practice of the skalds. Court poetry had by his time (the thirteenth century) become ‘conceited’ and lifeless, and its demise was hastened no doubt by the freezing effect of such a system as this when once the inspiration of high poetry flagged and weakened. But it is vital to realize that, so long as inspiration held, the ‘kenning’ and the strict formalities of skaldic verse were not fetters or hobbles, but living organs of the Spirit.
In this particular stave of Egil’s there are five kennings: (1) stafnkvígr (ship); (2) èla meitill (the chisel of the tempest); (3) jötunn vandar (the wind); (4) svalbúinn selju gandr (the wind); (5) Gestils alpt (ship). For the rest, for svalr (cold) cf. Swaledale. Gestill is the name of some sea-king. Gandr is a strange word, of uncertain derivation. Primarily it means a ‘stick’, and may have attained its ordinary sense of ‘monster’ or ‘fiend’ (a) from the riding of sorcerers on ‘broomsticks’, or (b) from the fact that sorcery deals with inanimate objects such as sticks and makes them ride. Cf. the terrible vision of the gandreið (which Dasent renders ‘the Wolf’s ride’) described in Nj. 124.
The power of this highly artificial verse-form, as a vehicle not of frigid conceits but of poetry, will be apparent to anyone who cares to spend twenty minutes in informing himself of the meaning of this stave and getting it by heart (I mean, of course, in the Icel.).* Its grandeur, as a picture of the wind at sea, has not often been surpassed: cf. the plunging effect of the last line; the violent word gandr (a fiend or ride-by-night) which, owing to the suspension of its appearance for two lines after the governing words svalbúenn seljo, comes like the buffet of the wind itself, followed by the galloping anapæstic rhythm of stále ok brande. (For want of a g-word here, I have been reduced to unalliterative paraphrase.)
V. THE SCORN-POLE (níðstöng): see ch. LVII.
Níð is, technically, a scurrilous or obscene contumely, a libel, a shaming; in law, punishable by outlawry. There were two kinds of níð or ‘scorn’: the ‘tongue-scorn’ (tunguníð) by word of mouth; and the ‘tree-scorn’ (trènið), by carving a person’s likeness (query, in an obscene position) on a ‘scorn-pole’, with or without the additions, as here, of a horse’s head and baneful runes.
For ‘tongue-scorns’ cf. (1) the mocking songs of Sigmund (dung-beards—beardless carle, etc.) against Njal and his sons, Nj. 44; (2) the story in Hkr. (O.T. 36) of the decision of the Icelanders that there should be made a scurvy rhyme on the Dane-King ‘for every nose in the land’ (i.e. for every man, woman, or child); one of these is quoted, based on a jest whose charms age, it seems, could not wither—the picture of the objects of the nið (King Harald Gormson and his bailiff) enacting their parts as stallion and mare under the public eye in the open countryside.
For ‘tree-scorns’ cf. (1) the insult laid on Slaying Skuta at the Althing, circ. 980, “that they should have Skuta’s booth-tofts for a privy that summer, and withal he bade Thorgeir raise up there a beam (áss), and carve a man’s head on the end of it’ (Reykdæla, 25); (2) the close parallel to the present scene in the Waterdale Saga, where Jokull carved a man’s head on the end of the post (sula) “and scored runes thereon with all that formular that was aforesaid. And now slew Jokull a mare, and opened her near the breastbone, and put her on to the post and let turn her homeward toward Burg” (Vatnsdæla, 34).
Professor Magnus Olsen has shown that a correct runic transcription of Egil’s ‘formular’ carved on the níðstöng will give exact numbers of runes, repeated in such a way that they must necessarily have a magic meaning.
Possibly this use of dead horses originated from the desire to convey opprobrious suggestions of the kind referred to above. But, apart from this, the theory underlying Egil’s procedure was no doubt that the ugly and ghastly spectacle of the horse’s skull would frighten the land-spirits into obeying the injunctions contained in the runes. Cf. Landn. where it is said that it was the beginning of the heathen law that men should remove (or cover up?) the dragon-heads on their ships when they came in sight of land, “and not sail to land with gaping heads or yawning snouts, so that the land-spirits should be frightened with it”.
The locus classicus for land-spirits (who, it is to be noted, are properly of the gentle sex, in spite of instances below to the contrary) is O.T. 37: King Harald Gormson “bade a wizard shape for a skin-changing journey to Iceland…. So he fared in the likeness of a whale. And whenas he came to the land he went west round about the north country; and he saw all the fells and hills full of land-spirits both great and small. But when he came off Weaponfirth he went into the firth, and would go up aland; but lo, there came down from the dale a mighty drake, followed of many worms and paddocks and adders, and blew venom at him. So he gat him gone, and went west along the land till he came to Eyjafirth. Then he fared up into the firth. But there came against him a fowl so great that his wings lay on the fells on either side, and many other fowl were with him, both great and small. So he fared away thence, and west along the land, and so south to Broadfirth, and there stood in up the firth. But there met him a great bull that waded out to sea and fell a-bellowing awfully, and many land-spirits followed him. Thenceaway he gat him, and south about Reekness, and would take land on the Vikars-Skeid. But there came against him a mountain giant with an iron staff in his hand, who bore his head higher than the fells, and with him were many other giants. So thenceaway fared the wizard east endlong of the south country”.
The idea of níð is comparable with the legal idea of ὕβρις. Cf. one of Demosthenes’s prosecutions where the offence charged was ὕßρις of an aggravated kind, the defendant having stamped on his prostrate enemies and flapped with his arms and crowed like a cock.
VI. EARL HAKON THE GREAT: see ch. LXXVIII.
One of the greatest figures of his century in the North; son of Earl Sigurd of Hladir, of the great house of the Earls of Halogaland who claimed divine descent from Saeming, son of Odin. The sons of Gunnhild burned Earl Sigurd in his house in 962, two winters after the fall of King Hakon Athelstane’s-fosterling, upon which Hakon was taken for earl and captain by the Thrandheimers. For three years he held Thrandheim against Gunnhild’s sons, fighting many battles with them: then made peace, sharing Thrandheim with his enemies, “and now befell great love betwixt Earl Hakon and Gunnhild, though now and again they baited each other with guile”. War broke out again, and Hakon at length fled to Denmark where he had good welcome from King Harald Gormson. From Denmark he stirred up rebellion against Gunnhild’s sons in Thrandheim. Gold-Harald, brother’s son to King Harald Gormson, was minded at this time to claim a share of kingdom from the King his uncle: Hakon was in the confidence of both sides, and used the situation with Machiavellian skill to serve his own turn. He counselled the Dane-King to invite his fosterson, King Harald Greycloak, to visit Denmark, then betray him and satisfy Gold-Harald by giving him kingdom in Norway. King Harald Greycloak, after some misgivings, came with but three ships to the Neck in the Limfirth to meet the Dane-King his fosterfather. Here he was fallen upon by Gold-Harald with nine ships and slain with Arinbiorn and nearly all his men. But Earl Hakon in the meantime disclosed to the Dane-King a former saying of Gold-Harald’s t
hat he would slay the King his uncle, might but time and place serve, and so wrought upon the King that he gave Hakon leave to slay Gold-Harald and win Norway for the Dane-King. This agreed, Hakon fell upon Gold-Harald, defeated, captured and hanged him; after which King Harald Gormson sailed north and laid Norway under him, giving Hakon (as his earl) Rogaland and Hordaland, Sogn, the Firths, Southmere, Northmere, and Raumsdale. All pretence of vassalage came to an end when, after a great defence of the Danework against Kaiser Otto II, the Dane-King was forced to make peace with the Kaiser and took christening, and then “let christen Earl Hakon will he nill he”. The King gave him priests and other learned men, and bade him christen Norway. But Hakon, when he saw his time, “cast up aland all those learned men”, made offering to the Gods, and sailed home to Norway, where he ruled henceforth for twenty years (975–995), in everything but name a king. He restored the temples of the Gods, that were neglected during the time of civil war and famine under Gunnhild’s sons, and in later years (date uncertain, but after 986) achieved his “crowning mercy”, the victory over the Jomsburg vikings at Hiorungwick. On that occasion he is reputed to have offered up one of his sons to secure victory.
“Whiles Earl Hakon ruled in Norway was the year’s increase good in the land. And good peace there was betwixt man and man among the bonders.” But he made many enemies in his last years by his ‘mannerless’ dealing with women, which pleasant vice was made the instrument of his undoing; for Olaf Tryggvison landed in Norway at the happy moment when the bonders of Thrandheim were in open revolt against the Earl for an outrage of his upon the wife of one of them. On this tide of hatred against his great opposite, the young King rode into power, and the Earl ended his days murdered sleeping by a traitor’s knife, in a pig-stye where he had been hidden for safety from King Olaf’s men by Thora of Rimul, “a wealthy lady, and one of the Earl’s best beloved”.
Snorri says of Earl Hakon that “for many things was he worthy to be lord; first, for the great stock he was come of, and then also for the wisdom and insight wherewith he dealt with his dominion; for his high heart in battle and his good hap withal, for the winning of victory and slaying of his foemen…. Most bountiful also was Earl Hakon. But most evil hap had such a lord in his death-day. And this brought it most about, that so it was that the day was come, when foredoomed was blood-offering and the men of blood-offerings, and the holy faith came in their stead, and the true worship” (O.T. 56).
For history, indeed, he stands mantled with the grandeur of sunset and of night; in his tragedy is gathered up the death of the old pagan North, the passage into darkness of the old Gods and the ancient way. It is characteristic of the historical génius of the Icelandic mind that Snorri’s story of the Earl’s life (Har. Gr. and O.T.) leaves us, if we follow it fairly, in no mood to take sides. It leaves us in a mood, rather, to look and reflect and pity; and to be aware perhaps of a divine Watcher at our elbow (grey-eyed Pallas, I suppose), to Whom these things are not so clear as they seemed to the people who “set up a whooping and stoned the heads [of Earl Hakon and the thrall who murdered him], crying out that there they fared meetly together, rascal by rascal”. It is beside the great figure of the Earl that the virtues and heroics of the darling young herald of the new day who strode into power over his head, Olaf Tryggvison, can most soberly be measured: the old against the new.
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES
CHAPTER I
1 VIKING. Icel. has two words, víkingr, m., the practitioner; viking, f. (as here), the profession. This, the accepted occupation of a gentleman, was held in good esteem at home and in reprobation abroad. So to us, “The Unparalleled Exploits of Sir Henry Morgan, our English Jamaican Hero, who sacked Porto Bello, burnt Panama, etc.”; but to the Spaniards our far more respectable hero, Sir Walter Raleigh, was “Guatarral, an English pirate”.
For the derivation, O.E.D. hesitates between O.N. vík (creek, inlet, bay) and A.S. wic (camp), thus tracing this martial name to quiet roots among longshoremen or villagers; just as the buccaneers are etymologically but cattle-hunters. Vík is probably right; as all beasts of prey have their lurking places from which they pounce, so the first vikings lurked in bays, and peaceable chapmen learnt to know what sort of men were likely to come out of these ‘wicks’. In any case, the word has nothing to do with ‘sea-king’. O.E.D. gives no quotation earlier than the nineteenth century. The pronunciation ‘vicking’ and spelling ‘wicking’ may be set down as pedantical affectations.
2 BERSERK (berserkr). See special note.
3 OLIVER HNUFA (Ölvir Hnúfa). Surnames of the United Kingdom (Harrison, Morland Press, 1918) says, “Almost certainly Scandinavian nomenclature has had its influence on the great vogue of Oliver—if not the common O.N. Oleif-r itself (Dan.-Norw. Olaf), at any rate the O.N. Oelver”. Hnúfa: (?) ‘snub’. By the old laws of Norway, if a female thrall stole the third time, “Then shall they shear off her nose; then is she named stúfa and hnúfa, and let her steal aye as she will” (D., s.v.).
4 A GREAT LADY (skörungr mikill). Skörungr is one of those words that make a translator despair. It is derived from skara (to jut out; poke the fire): used metaphorically both of men and women it carries the idea of prominence and of stirring, and refers both to character and disposition and to outward appearance. Cleopatra, Meredith’s Diana of the Crossways, and Queen Elizabeth were skörungar; so were Don John of Austria, Hector, and Webster’s Brachiano. Arinbiorn is called a skörungr (p. 161), where I have translated it ‘lordly’ man: so is Olaf the Peacock. Morris (Gunnl. I) renders it ‘a stirring woman’, which misses the particular overtone of nobility: in Yngl. 32 he has “the greatest of noble women”; and (Eb. 28) ‘stately’ for Icel. sköruligr. Dasent (Nj. 13) has ‘brave woman’, which is unsatisfactory. Indeed, we have no word for it.
5 LANDED MAN (lendr maðr). Probably what is meant is that Kveldulf was a hersir.* In that time, before the uprising of King Harald Hairfair, there were, strictly speaking, no landed men in Norway and the titles of dignity were but three: KING, EARL, and HERSIR. These titles signified in ancient times degrees rather than distinct kinds of eminence. The hersir, the folk-king, and generally the earl, was each supreme in his own countryside, wielding the powers spiritual and temporal, war-lord and temple-priest. All three seem to have been commonly hereditary, and although the earl was sometimes definitely subject to a king, as Earl Hroald to King Audbiorn (ch. II), it seems likely that many of the earls mentioned in Landn. (notably the great line of earls of Halogaland whose seat was at Hladir) were independent sovereigns, differing from kings only in name. The hersir was bound to aid the king if he was attacked, but not necessarily to follow him to war outside his borders.†
When Harald Hairfair laid all Norway under him, these old rulers, whether kings, earls, or hersirs, had the choice of three things: fight, or flee the land, or become his men. The Landed Men were (a) those who, having become the King’s men, held their old lordship at his hands: if kings, they might henceforth be styled earls (as befell in Naumdale, ch. III); if hersirs, they might retain their titles, as did Thorir the Hersir (ch. XXV); and (b) creatures of the King raised up by him to a new dignity, like Thorolf Kveldulfson. Snorri says that “they are named hersirs or landed men in the Danish tongue [i.e. O.N. or Icel.] but greifar in Saxland and barons in England” (Ed. 226). In this new order, the hersir ranked below the earl; next came, apparently, the landed man proper; next the franklin (höldr), who was a freeholder by birth (óðalborinn); next the bonder (bóndi), plain farmer or gentleman; then the freedman (leysingi); last, the thrall (þræll).
6 SHAPE-STRONG (hamrammr). See special note.
7 KVELDULF (Kveldúlfr). I.e.‘Evening-Wolf’.
8 THE YOUNGER, GRIM. Afterwards called Skallagrim (p. 37); Egil’s father.
9 HOUSECARLES (húskarlar). As distinct from thralls: free-born retainers or servants, followers of their master (húsbóndi) as farm-men or fighting men as need might arise. So honourable a name was ‘house-carle’ in the old days that we fi
nd it as late as the eleventh century used of kings’ courtiers.
10 LONG-SHIP (langskip). A ‘ship of war’, as distinct from the ship of burden or cheaping-ship (knörr, byrðingr, kaupskip). Long-ship is the generic term: drake (dreki), racer (skeið), snake-ship (snekkja), and cutter (skúta) are specific.
The dreki, or dragon of war, was named from the head and tail of that monster which stood at prow and stern. Magnússon (Hkr. IV, 431) thinks the terms skeið, snekkja, and skúta indicated decreasing order of size; the skúta beginning with 15 oars aside and going up to 20, the snekkja from 20 to 30, the skeið over 30. The Long Worm, King Olaf Tryggvison’s famous ship, was a 34-bencher, and her length probably 180 feet. Viking ships have been found in varying degrees of preservation at Gokstad, Nydam and elsewhere.
The karfi (which I have called ‘caravel’) was a small ship, apparently comparable with the shúta, used probably by kings and great men as a private yacht. The specimen found at Oseberg a few years ago has been identified with some certainty as that of Queen Asa, mother of Halfdan the Black.
The long-ship was a galley, primarily built for rowing, with a sail to help. She was not meant for ocean voyages, and there is no record of a long-ship sailing to Iceland in the days of the settlement. Cf. the report by Harald Gormson’s wizard, sent by him to spy out Iceland: “So great is the main betwixt the lands that all unmeet it is for long-ships” (ekki er þar fært langskipum) O.T. 37.
