by Neil Price;
The earliest Norse literary reference to such warriors is in the skaldic praise poem Haraldskvæði by Thórbjörn hornklofi. It in part describes the Battle of Hafrsfjörðr that took place c. 872; the poem was probably composed around 900. The details are graphic beyond the normal conventions of skaldic verse—the warriors are described as drinking blood, for example—and they were clearly seen as something separate from other types of combatant:
They [the ships of Harald’s fleet] were loaded with farmer-chiefs and broad shields, with Vestland spears and Frankish swords; berserkir screamed, the battle was on, ulfheðnar howled and shook their spears.
Of the berserkr-fury I would ask, about the drinkers of the corpse-sea [blood]: what are they like, these men who go happy into battle?
Ulfheðnar they are called, who bear bloody shields in the slaughter; they redden spears when they join the fighting; there they are arranged for their task; there I know that the honourable prince places his trust only in brave men, who hack at shields.
The most often-cited description is much later, and comes from Snorri’s Saga of the Ynglingas:
His [Odin’s] men went [into battle] without mail-coats and were as wild as dogs or wolves, they bit their shields, were as strong as bears or bulls; they killed people, but they themselves were hurt by neither fire nor iron; this is called going berserk.
There is no evidence whatsoever, in archaeology or text, for the berserkers’ use of hallucinogens, entheogens, or any other form of mind-altering drug or chemical, including the consumption of fly agaric (despite the fact that Wikipedia’s entry for berserkers recommends the reader also look up ‘Dutch Courage’ and, indeed, ‘Going Postal’).
The term berserksgangr (generally translated as ‘going berserk’, as above) literally describes a way of moving, ‘berserk-walking’, and not a fighting rage at all—something that might fit well with the strangely formal postures of the ‘weapon dancers’ and the pelt-wearing warriors on the metalwork. This could be a ritual, a sort of militarised performance, and one scholar has suggested that these theatrics were the real root of berserker-hood—effectively a symbolic preparation for war rather than reflecting any actual behaviour on the battlefield. The one need not rule out the other, especially given the generally dramatic nature of other Viking rituals perceptible in the archaeology. We must remember Þórbjörn’s poem and the non-Scandinavian descriptions of actions that truly sound like fighting rage.
In the sagas, berserkers appear mostly as stock villains—useful antagonists for the heroes to kill—although in the kings’ sagas they are sometimes present as regular parts of a royal retinue, a sort of Viking special forces. Interestingly, the motif of biting the shield, usually dismissed as a literary fantasy, is actually encountered earlier than most of the Icelandic texts in the form of the ‘warders’ in the Lewis gaming sets, ivory sculptures that probably date to the twelfth century. Difficult though they are to approach (something probably true at the time, too), for all the problems of interpretation, these unusual men must nonetheless be given their place as part of the Viking war machine.
Alongside the berserkers, another persistent symbol of Viking-Age warfare is the shield-maiden. They appear conflated with Valkyries and other female warriors several times in the heroic poems of the Eddic tradition, in skaldic poems, and with some frequency in the poetic citations of Snorri’s Edda. In the sagas of Icelanders, by contrast, armed women are not encountered at all other than in isolated contexts of self-defence, momentary rage, or planned revenge. However, shield-maidens do appear frequently in the legendary sagas: in the figure of Hervör retrieving her father Angantyr’s sword, and also in the Saga of Ragnar lothbrók, the Saga of Hrólf Gautreksson, and several others. Early parts of Saxo’s History of the Danes, begun in the late twelfth century, also includes many dramatic descriptions of shield-maidens. In several of these sources, the action is set not just in the Viking Age, but also in the centuries preceding it as far back as the Migration Period.
In the sources, such women may appear singly or in small bands—the latter sometimes specifically composed of female warriors—or more integrated into general fighting forces. In individual cases, they can assume positions of command by leading armies and directing campaigns. Occasionally these women are described as having different and sometimes transgressive attributes of appearance (wearing male clothing, for example). They fight both with and without armour. For some of these women, taking on this identity involves a change of name, and even of grammatical gender in that masculine forms of words are used. The tales adopt a variety of moral and social viewpoints, sometimes framing the women as rare exceptions to their sex, and in other instances giving little sign that they were regarded as out of the ordinary.
19. Warrior woman? A reconstruction of the person buried in Birka chamber grave Bj.581, based on the excavated data and with clothing details extrapolated from other Birka burials and contemporary graves in the Caucasus. Image: Tancredi Valeri, used by kind permission.
For all their literary qualities, however, it is clear that none of these sources represent anything close to a faithful historical record. The legendary sagas are particularly problematic, and textual specialists have almost universally interpreted the figure of the shield-maiden as a later literary product, developed within narratives that reflect the social preoccupations of the time. The existence of actual warrior women in the Viking Age, as opposed to a simulacrum of them sprung from a kind of medieval fiction, has been much debated.
This changed in 2017 when DNA analyses were conducted on the seated body from a Birka chamber grave discussed in chapter 5, confirming that this ‘warrior’ was female. The controversies that ensued from this claim, and their implications for the gendered study of the Vikings, have been reviewed earlier. In terms of further archaeological comparisons, among burials with a female sex determination on osteological grounds alone, there are some fifteen or so with single axes and a handful more with a spear or a knife, perhaps a few arrows, and occasionally a shield. In the conventional interpretations applied to male graves, not many of these would be considered ‘warrior’ burials. There are only a very few with full weapon sets like the Birka grave.
The exceptional nature of the Old Norse stories does not prove they were based on real-life individuals, at however great a remove, not least since such figures only appear in certain genres of saga-writing and not others. However, they certainly do not refute the existence of real female warriors. In truth, the medieval texts are interesting, but strictly speaking unnecessary, for the interpretation of the excavated data. These burials are decidedly not medieval saga, legend, or poetic licence but empirically observable Viking-Age reality.
Weapons in themselves do not necessarily determine or define a warrior, and neither does gender; there are always alternative possibilities. Some scholars attempt to draw fine distinctions between types of combatant that are often skewed in odd ways as they intersect with identity. After a certain point, these debates become absurd in the context of Viking-Age reality (one pictures a couple of monks peering over the monastery wall at an advancing troupe—“What do you think, are they warriors, or more like militia?”—as the chapel goes up in flames). But we must ensure that the same standards of data, evidence, and logic should apply regardless of sex, with our minds resolutely open to complexity. If scholars are prepared to claim that even a single male-bodied individual buried with numerous weapons can be gendered as a man and interpreted as a warrior (and there are hundreds of such examples across the Viking diaspora that are accepted with little controversy), then they must be prepared to come to the same conclusion if the sex determination is different.
Taking a clear-eyed look at the archaeological data, it seems that there really were female warriors in the Viking Age, including at least one of command rank. They were never numerous, and few have been even tentatively identified, though this may change as we re-examine our sources and our consciences. They were rare exceptions—unusu
al people, to be sure—but they were there.
It is hard to know what a Viking-Age raid, or battle, was actually like. Several books have been written claiming to give detailed treatments of tactics, battlefield formations, and the like, but these are almost entirely drawn from later practice applied retrospectively, and often from literal readings of textual sources with debatable reliability. In reality, we know comparatively little other than the impressions of noise, chaos, and violence that are conveyed so vividly in poetry and in the names of the Valkyries.
A basic division seems to have been between collective engagement and single combat; the former won battles while the latter enhanced prestige.
The primary battlefield strategy involved the shield-wall, in which a force formed up in a line several men deep with overlapping shields. As a cohesive unit, it could be used to advance and push opponents back by sheer impetus, while spears and knives could be employed to stab forward between the ranks. Swords and axes could also come into play, and the legs of anyone facing a shield-wall were especially vulnerable from underhand thrusts. The formation’s strength lay in unity as a collective and the greater degree of protection afforded from frontal attack. Shields could also be raised to deflect incoming arrows.
The flying wedge formation, known in Old Norse as svínfylking (the ‘boar’s snout’), also seems to be of ancient origin. Although it is described mainly retrospectively in medieval texts, according to the first-century Roman author Tacitus it was also employed by the Germanic tribes of his time. The confluence of such independent sources a millennium apart suggests the Vikings practised this tactic, just as the sagas say. The ‘boar’ would see armoured warriors forming up in a triangular array, with the point towards the enemy, moving forward at speed and using momentum and weight to punch through the opposing ranks.
In combat at sea, the strategy was much the same as on land, and sometimes a line of ships was even roped together to form a mobile, floating platform so as to make a maritime fight as much like a terrestrial one as possible. Such ship platforms could then be rowed against each other, the jagged lines formed by the prows clashing and interlocking, creating an even larger wooden field of combat. The fighting proceeded from ship to ship, and the sagas reveal how each vessel would be ‘cleared’ in turn. Casualties were left where they fell or thrown into the sea. All such battles were accompanied by showers of arrows and other projectiles.
Individual duels are recorded not only on the battlefield, but also as a means of formally resolving insults, as in many cultures. In such cases, combatants used whatever weapons they preferred. Single combat in war was especially praiseworthy, appearing in poetry and sagas—such as the lone Norwegian who allegedly held the English army at, and literally on, Stamford Bridge in 1066. Fighting with an axe, he supposedly kept the river crossing until he was stabbed from the water below with a spear.
Ultimately, any experience of war was personal. In the late eighth century, an expedition such as Lindisfarne might well have been a young Viking’s first taste of such things. If he survived, it was a memory that would never leave him, and this too we should remember. None of this was without context or rationale.
We’re on the west coast of Norway. The second or third son of the farm, not much hope of a landed inheritance but just about content with his lot. He’s been walking out with Sigrid from up the valley—they’ve kept each other company since they were children, and ‘everyone knows’ they’ll get married. But now she’s suddenly wearing a new brooch with that curling ornament they have over the sea, and she’s spending time with the boy from the big house, the stocky one who borrowed his father’s sword and sailed off with the lads last summer.
Faced suddenly with a whole different future, it’s not hard to see how our man starts to adjust his plans for the following season and begins to make enquiries among the ship owners. The same situation can be viewed from other perspectives, including that of the family at home.
You heard about the Christ-house that the Vikings burnt, the river of gold that flowed back with them—well, it was our boy who killed the boss man there, the one with that funny stick. Good to see our youngest getting his act together, making something of himself, you know? He doesn’t realise, but of course it was me who set it up, got him a place on board; the lord’s always listened more to me than to my husband.
Or the women who feel their prospects shifting—their choices expanding—with each boat that returns, with every present and proposal. Some of it is just baubles and glitter, offered by the usual idiots who can’t grasp that they’re out of their league with someone much brighter than they are. But there are also openings, windows onto what could be a different life, in a bigger house, on better land, with a world of possibilities.
And there’s that tall one again, good-looking despite the scar, with the gold-hilted blade (which he didn’t have last year). This is the third ship he’s sailed with, and he’s got another stripe on his teeth. Ignore that frightened girl he brought home with him—that’s just to be expected, and anyway she can’t even speak the language; and he does keep looking at you. But you’ll be the judge of where that might lead.
And then there are the ship-lords, the planners—with the helmets and the rings and the brightly coloured cloaks—who take the biggest cut but also the financial risk (Ólaf lost a whole crew last season). They enjoy the plunder but see it as a means to an end, as the fuel for their fame, as power.
You’ve told your boat-builder to start laying down a new keel—or why not two?—and you’ve put the word out that a poet could find a welcome in your hall. Last year, that sea-king from Jæren walked straight past you at the assembly, but next time he’ll look you in the eye.
These are speculations, of course, but they are not unreasonable. Though some of this may be unpalatable to us, there is nothing overtly mercenary or mechanistic here, just people living their lives and hoping to improve them. Their norms were not necessarily ours, at all, and none of this should be applied uniformly across society—why would anyone imagine that?
The ‘Viking Age’ was never a process, something with a firm direction. This was not a Blitzkrieg or, yet, an assault on the West (or East). Instead, these were initially isolated events occurring over a matter of days once or twice a year, across vast spans of territory. It might take weeks or months to hear the news that they had happened at all. Over thirty years, this would not dominate anyone’s everyday concerns.
But this was only the start, the very first raids. Within a decade or so, the nature of these expeditions would change. For some of the Scandinavians, it would be a ride they were glad to share, a flow they slipped into for the profit and, yes, the adventure. Initially, it took some people away from home, and brought them back altered; it also changed the lives of those who stayed behind. Before too long, the definition of ‘home’ would be fluid, mobile, before coalescing again around quite different places across the sea. For others in the North—just a handful, at first, but in growing numbers—all this was a path they dreamt of, pursued, and shaped. Perceptible to us but probably only to a very few of them, it was the beginning of something new.
12
HYDRARCHY
THE RAIDS ON THE NORTHUMBRIAN monasteries seem to have been isolated events along the northern coasts (though who knows what the compilers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle chose to discreetly omit). For southern England, they were a prelude to Viking assaults clearly severe enough to require the construction of defences against them.
In Ireland, the raids definitely got worse, beginning with attacks on Inishmurray and Roscam in 807. There are references to military successes against the Vikings in 811 and 812, in Ulster and Munster, but also of Irish defeats at Connaught in the latter year. Howth, in the north of Dublin Bay, and Wexford Harbour were both attacked in 821. There are general references to widespread raiding.
It is hard to know how much, if any, of this affected Frankia. The English cleric Alcuin, chronicler of the Lindisfarn
e raid, mentions attacks in Aquitaine (south-west France) in 799, which may have been what prompted Charlemagne to strengthen the security of the coast the following year. The exception is that allusion in the Royal Frankish Annals to a fleet of two hundred Danish ships raiding Frisia in 810. The figure is such an enormous escalation of the smaller forces implied in all other raiding accounts of this period that it is difficult to interpret, and can reasonably be regarded as suspicious. Ten years later there was another burst of activity in Frankia, with attacks in Flanders, Aquitaine again, and the Seine estuary.
The raids during the first three decades of the ninth century seem individually to have been of similar character and size, and presumably were driven by similar kinds of initial motors as their predecessors. A successful formula was repeated—with even greater profit but for essentially the same combination of individual motives and the sociopolitical aims of local elites—but still within relatively modest parameters. A clear escalation can be seen in the Irish and Frankish raids, collectively involving dozens of ships, at least, and perhaps more. This is certainly implied by the attack on Frisia, an imperial buffer zone and already an area of border tensions between the Franks and Danes. Whether or not the Viking fleet that ravaged the region in 810 really numbered two hundred vessels, it was big enough to demand payment of one hundred pounds of silver after defeating the Frisians three times in open battle. By the time the Franks could respond by sending troops, the Danes had already left (to add to the disappointment, the emperor’s pet elephant suddenly died at the same time—one of those useless bits of historical information that tell us the past was real).
The organisation of these ventures—and the fact that at least in Ireland the raiders are described as coming in ‘flotillas’, with caveats for what that might mean in reality—also indicates that the scale of the Viking attacks was increasing into the 820s. At the same time, we should remember that this was thirty years after the first recorded western raids, and seventy years after Salme. In context, this is actually a generation or two, which gives the lie to any sense of ‘waves’ of attacks overwhelming western Europe. Nonetheless, the Vikings were developing a system of sorts, and it clearly worked in relation to their objectives. They excelled at hit-and-run tactics and ambushes, and had proved themselves unexpectedly capable of assaulting fortified targets. They followed very different rules from their victims.
