Children of Ash and Elm

by Neil Price;

  And then there is the population itself, in death as in life. To continue with the Danish example, some 1,350 burials are known from Hedeby, distributed across seven cemeteries. The majority are situated outside the wall to the south and contain a mix of cremations and inhumations, the latter sometimes located between mounds. Dating from the late ninth and tenth centuries, these burials clearly include some Christian graves. Most do not include any grave-goods, although the area also holds spectacularly pagan monuments. A core group of 350 burials—including high-status chamber graves—extended from the harbour area into the settlement. The hillfort is associated with about sixty cremations under mounds, while a northern cemetery holds inhumations dating from the mid-ninth to the mid-tenth centuries.

  The towns of Scandinavia were home to true urban professionals—housebuilders, carpenters, thatchers; ditch diggers and manual labourers; night-soil folk, who emptied the latrines; and of course, the whole range of craftworkers, metalsmiths, jewellers, wood-turners, potters, and the like.

  There is compelling evidence that the larger market centres also had major implications for the lives of women. In Norwegian rural cemeteries, for example, female graves make up about 20 percent of the total where sex determinations can be made, but in Birka town the proportion is up to 60 percent across its several grave-fields. In other markets such as Hedeby, the figure is lower, at 38 percent, but still significantly higher than in the countryside. What does this ‘urban’ visibility of women mean? It has been suggested that it might depend on textile production and the shift of very specialised, high-end spinning to the new urban centres—perhaps that this was in fact one of the main rationales for their creation.

  These fledgling towns were not only places for the production and sale of goods, but also meeting places for the exchange of information and knowledge. Much of it would be familiar even to us. A stroll along Birka’s streets would have taken you through the scents of different dinners, perhaps with a variety of spices and flavours representing international cuisine. Feel like a Frisian meal this evening? Try Radbod’s tavern by the docks—those Saxon merchants we met last month in Hedeby said it was amazing. And you should taste Ulf’s beer next door, he uses heather!

  The same is true of language; your walk would also have brought you past the polyglot conversations of others—merchants from the empires of the Franks and Germans, from the eastern waterways, from Rus’, and from the Caliphate of the Arabs. Adam of Bremen mentions Norwegians, Slavs, Prussians, and others in Birka. In the Hedeby excavations, weapons were found from the Volga-Bulghar area and of Magyar origin. There must have been a lingua franca, even forms of creole, and probably everybody knew many words for silver, furs, and slaves. Here and there in the streets, you might even meet a few far-travelled blámenn, ‘blue people’, whom we would know as people of colour. There is little evidence of racism in Viking society and, as far as I am aware, not a single example of a denigrating epithet or attitude on the basis of skin colour. It sounds idealistic in the twenty-first century, but for the Vikings, who you proved yourself to be, rather than your outward shell, really does seem to have counted for something. We all have a hamr, a shape, but it is the hugr, the mind or soul, that counts more.

  The urban mind in Scandinavia was another product of the Viking Age, a changed perspective on lifestyle and economy that would continue for centuries as another gift to the North. But what of the wider world with which this all connected? How did this change and develop in the tenth century and into the later Viking Age?

  15

  SILVER, SLAVES, AND SILK

  IT IS NO EXAGGERATION TO say that the last thirty years of academic study have enlarged the Viking world dramatically, as the artificial barriers of the post-war years slowly faded. Two aspects of this are paramount. In the East, a new understanding of the organic creation of social and political identities along the rivers, expressed in the developing ethnicity of the Rus’, has led to an acknowledgement that their range extended beyond Byzantium and even the Arab world, onto the Asian steppe itself to connect with the fabled Silk Roads. In the West, Viking contacts with the British Isles have been illuminated by archaeological finds that have changed how their activities there are perceived, with implications for all western Europe.

  Crucially, in order to make sense of the diaspora as it expanded during the late ninth and tenth centuries, this geographical dichotomy must be erased and the ‘Viking world’ restored to a unified whole—the way it was actually experienced by those who lived in it. In practical terms, we need to recapture a time when silk purchased by an intrepid Scandinavian in the markets of Persia could end up being made into a bonnet for a woman living in the towns of the Danelaw—and moreover, that while this might have been thought luxurious or expensive, nobody would have been surprised.

  This globalised Viking Age also connects with the development of new economies in Scandinavia, as we have seen—shipbuilding on an unprecedented scale, underpinned by urban transformation, all connected with a growing slave state. This, too, was part of the diaspora. Scandinavian territorial ambitions fuelled the mercantile networks and a near industrial acceleration of naval power, but the one also enabled the other.

  In the West, three areas above all show the lasting effects of Scandinavian migrations and political contact, ranging from among the earliest of their overseas ventures to the latest: the maritime worlds of Scotland and the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland, the Irish Sea, and the Channel coasts of Frankia. The Viking diaspora, by definition, involved a conscious maintenance of links back to Scandinavia and an active notion of original belonging. The process by which these ties were expressed, supported, and eventually let go is one that charts the overall trajectory of the Viking Age itself.

  The west coast of Scotland is one of only two truly sheltered coastlines in western Europe, and in terms of cultural connections, it is significant that the other is the west coast of Norway. It is hardly surprising that these maritime environments were in contact.

  Due to their proximity to the Norwegian coast, the ‘Northern Isles’ of Shetland and Orkney have often been assumed to be among the first territories to feel the impact of Viking raiding and seaborne expansion. Their geographical relationship is best appreciated by turning a map of the North Sea upside down, to view the natural sailing route of shortest open-water distances from the ‘North Way’ across to the Isles, then to the coast of the Scottish mainland, and thence south and west past the Hebrides (the ‘Western Isles’) and into the Irish Sea.

  The nature of this region’s interaction with Scandinavia is still unclear, especially concerning relations between the incoming Norse and the indigenous Picts, descendants of the Iron Age tribes of Scotland mentioned by Roman authors. Interpretations range from relatively peaceable exchange through to enslavement and subjection, all the way to outright genocide. There was raiding at vulnerable, insular Hebridean monasteries early in the ninth century, so the Vikings were definitely there, but there is a real shortage of clear sources for what happened in the Isles. Perhaps the very silence of the record is eloquent. The larger picture, however, is of a steady trickle (occasionally a stream) of Scandinavian immigration to Scotland, and especially the Isles, developing over time into a distinctive regional culture of the Viking diaspora.

  In the Orkneys and Shetland, the earliest secure evidence for Norse settlement is from the mid-800s, but there may have been earlier contact. The surviving textual sources for the Isles are all medieval, and indeed the main ones are explicitly framed as legitimating hindsight histories of the Orkney earls. The most comprehensive of them, Orkneyinga saga, is a wonderful read, but its veracity is problematic. It is not even certain if there really was an Orkney earldom until the Middle Ages, when a retrospective sheen may have been applied to what were essentially raiding enclaves. Over the longer term, it is clear that the Norse established themselves throughout the Isles, often building sizeable farms of the familiar type with longhouses of turf and stone a
long with ancillary buildings.

  The Viking presence in mainland and eastern Scotland is less well represented. Interestingly, the folklore traditions of the east coast preserve many tales about Vikings, mostly concerning raids and battles, with other stories of ‘Danish’ camps and burials. While this region was not subject to the serious Scandinavian settlement that we find elsewhere, contacts were nonetheless frequent, and it is obvious the Norse brought their institutions with them. At Dingwall on the Scottish mainland, recent investigations have identified a potential thing site—an assembly place—comprising a mound and surrounding ring ditch. A number of other potential thing sites have been identified across Scotland, not only on the mainland but also in the Northern and Western Isles.

  Unlike the Scandinavian settlements in England and Ireland, no urban centres were founded here. Instead, there are traces of beach markets—relatively simple affairs of basic, temporary structures along the strand at reliable harbours and waterways. Probably dating back to Norse contacts with Scotland in the pre-Viking period, these deceptively rudimentary sites were conduits for trade and exchange, not least in timber, which seems to have been a major commodity. As in the Western Isles, the Scandinavian settlers seem to have intentionally situated their new homes in close proximity to pre-existing Pictish settlements, as at Old Scatness and Jarlshof in the Shetlands, and at Buckquoy and Pool in the Orkneys. In the extensive cemetery at Westness on the island of Rousay, the men buried with Norse objects are significantly taller than the average males in unequivocally Pictish burials elsewhere, so the populations can be clearly distinguished.

  The nature of the interactions between Norse and local peoples has left faint traces in the archaeology, especially that of Orkney. The Scandinavian settlement at Buckquoy has produced objects decorated with Pictish art styles, suggesting that, in at least some cases, the Vikings settled among the indigenous population rather than displacing or removing them. At Quoygrew, on Westray, it seems the indigenous inhabitants quickly adapted to imported goods such as soapstone vessels and Norse-style combs. Traditional pastoral and agricultural practices also survived, implying quite close interaction between new arrivals and the existing population. This argues against the notion of a ‘Pictish genocide’, at least for Orkney.

  Elsewhere, the picture was more violent, as seen at the Brough of Deerness, a spectacular sea stack (a near-offshore pillar of natural rock, produced by the erosion of sea and wind) towering above the water on Orkney’s mainland and joined to the cliffs by a narrow path. Once thought to have been a monastic settlement, excavations have shown it to have been a residence of a Norse chieftain, with longhouses and what appears to have been a private chapel. From the tenth century onwards, Deerness clearly had an armed garrison and perhaps functioned as part of a chain of offshore watch stations. The group based there may have had other tasks, including actively monitoring or patrolling shipping lanes. According to the medieval Sverre’s saga, Earl Harald actually cites piracy as one of the key sources of revenue needed to maintain his power in Orkney. Coupled with this is an explicit recognition that he cannot afford to exercise too much direct control on the raiders for fear they will turn against him—an uneasy alliance of ‘pirate fishermen’. Deerness may have been the kind of base from which these seaborne predators operated, under variable degrees of higher sanction. Orkneyinga saga has some fascinating descriptions of várvíking and haustvíking—literally ‘spring-viking’ and ‘autumn-viking’—showing the seasonal cycle of raiding that operated in places like this.

  In the Hebrides, despite more than a millennium of earlier Celtic occupation, there are no non-Norse place-names at all. This suggests a total break without any continuity of habitation, and provides disturbing support for the theory of total population removal or replacement. In the Scottish islands as a whole, there is a high proportion of female genetic lineages shared with Norway, implying that Scandinavian women eventually settled in large numbers.

  Over time, the settlements in the Northern Isles took on a distinctly Norse character. On the Bay of Skaill in Orkney, for example, near the famous Neolithic village of Skara Brae, a substantial farm has been excavated with evidence for far-flung contacts with regions as distant as Normandy. Some of the buildings contained runic inscriptions and tally marks scratched into the stonework, as have been found at other Orcadian sites. It was a site of some status, and it is clear that Skaill’s inhabitants expressed their social standing through impressive architecture and landscape engineering. Great artificial mounds were made with rubbish, consolidated with earth and stone. These strange creations were a distinctly colonial endeavour, and mounds like them have been identified in a number of other North Atlantic colonies, including the Faroes. Just as Scandinavian rulers demonstrated their status through the building of royal halls and monumental burial mounds, so these Orkney magnates did likewise on a smaller scale, creating cenotaph-like copies to project their ambition. It was a distinctly Norse visual language of power.

  The establishment of Scandinavian colonists in the Scottish Isles also transformed the economies of the region. Flax production increased, as did dairying (although not in the Hebrides) and agricultural investment in general. Fishing also intensified and extended into new areas of the ocean, and there was an increase in the intake of fish protein all across society, showing how the resources of the sea were utilised more than ever as a central part of the everyday diet. This overwhelmingly marine economy was probably an introduction from Norway during the ninth century, the period of the first major Norse migration to the Northern Isles.

  The close links that communities shared with the sea are reflected in the relatively high number of boat burials that have been identified in Scotland. While these are almost unknown elsewhere in the British Isles, six boat graves are known from the Hebrides, three from the Northern Isles, and one from the mainland. Rather than true ship burials, the Scottish boat graves contain small, coastal craft up to five metres long of the type known as a færing. Powered by oars and a small sail, such vessels were the main means of transport around the offshore waters of the Isles, and were a natural symbol of status for those accorded such a boat as their last resting place.

  In 2011 the first Viking boat burial from the Scottish mainland was found at Ardnamurchan, near the westernmost point of island Britain. Sometime in the tenth century, an individual had been interred in a five-metre-long boat, with a bent sword and spear by his or her side. Other finds included a drinking horn, a shield, and tools associated with agriculture and smithying—an assemblage that would not be out of place in graves on the Norwegian coast. Like other Scottish boat burials, the færing at Ardnamurchan seems to have been carefully filled with stones as part of the funerary rituals. Isotopic analysis of the person’s teeth suggests the buried individual originated from Scandinavia, although north-eastern Scotland or eastern Ireland are also possibilities.

  The central belt of mainland Scotland, stretching roughly across the country from modern Glasgow to Edinburgh, was also an arena of Norse operations, though the evidence has mostly survived as burials and remnants of plunder. Here are the northernmost finds of a special kind of stone grave marker known as hogbacks, a uniquely colonial monument that seems to have been commissioned by the Norse elites. There is also a group of elaborate Viking-Age burials at Loch Lomond, near Dumbarton, and a spectacular tenth-century hoard of silver, gold, and jewellery in Galloway. The ecclesiastical nature of a number of the hoarded items indicates they may well have been plundered from a monastery.

  The west coast of Scotland was part of a much wider arena of Norse activities, facing as it did onto the Irish Sea. This body of rough but shallow water drew several kingdoms and small states into its orbit. To the west was Ireland, fragmented into warring clans; to the north, Scotland and the Western Isles of the Hebrides; to the east, Wales and the whole coast of England; in the centre, occupying a key strategic position, was the Isle of Man. To a greater or lesser degree, all these regions c
ame under Scandinavian influence in the course of the Viking Age: the Irish Sea was the most important axis of Norse activity in the West.

  Its north-eastern shoreline was a gateway to one of the enduring Viking power blocs of the ninth and tenth centuries—the combined strength of the Kingdom of York and the Danelaw. These were the polities carved out by the hydrarchy, the ‘Great Army’, and the other Viking forces that had fought the English to stalemate, and then proceeded to settle the lands they had won.

  In practice, by the late 800s, the eastern half of England, and most of the north, was under Scandinavian control. The Danelaw boundary with Wessex and the lands of the southern English is well known from the treaty agreed between King Alfred and the Viking leader Guthrum at some point between 878 and the latter’s death in 890. This famously records the border between Wessex and Scandinavian-held East Anglia as travelling “up the Thames, and then up the Lea, and along the Lea to its source, then in a straight line to Bedford, then up the Ouse to Watling Street”, although one imagines that the reality was a messier, shifting zone of cross-border conflict.

  Inside the Danelaw, power seems to have been divided between numerous autonomous political factions whose bases were distributed among the regional settlements. In the Midlands, a group of townships known as the Five Boroughs began to flourish as market centres: Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, Stamford, and Leicester were tightly connected with the surrounding countryside in webs of settlements dominated by Scandinavians. Even today, some of their road names end in -gate, still the modern Scandinavian word for street (gata or gade).