Children of Ash and Elm

by Neil Price;

  The sources for the missions include Rimbert’s Vita of Anskar, which has not been translated into English for many years; see Charles H. Robinson, Anskar: The Apostle of the North 801–865 (Society for Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, London, 1921). For other key works, see also Widukind of Corvey, Deeds of the Saxons, trans. Bernard S. Bachrach and David S. Bachrach (Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC, 2014) and The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel, trans. G. Ronald Murphy (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992). For an overview of the debate on the names of Askr and Embla, see Lennart Elmevik, ‘Embla: Ett bidrag till diskussionen om den nordiska urmoderns namn’ (Saga och Sed 2012: 47–54).

  The political history of Denmark is covered in two general works, now quite old but still sound, each taking a slightly different approach: Klavs Randsborg, The Viking Age in Denmark (Duckworth, London, 1980) and Else Roesdahl, Viking Age Denmark (British Museum Press, London, 1982). More recent surveys can be found in volume 4 of Jørgen Jensen, Danmarks Oldtid (Gyldendal, Copenhagen, 2006) and in the relevant sections of the general works on the Viking Age referenced above.

  The ‘stone book’ at Jelling is discussed by Else Roesdahl, ‘Jellingstenen—en bog af sten’, in Ole Høiris et al. (eds.), Menneskelivets mangfoldighed (Aarhus University Press, Aarhus, 1999: 235–244). Harald’s great circular fortresses are published as Poul Nørlund, Trelleborg (Nordiske Fortidsminder, Copenhagen, 1948); Olaf Olsen, Holger Schmidt, and Else Roesdahl, Fyrkat, en jysk vikingeborg (2 vols., Lynge, Copenhagen, 1977); Andres Dobat, Kongens borge (Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab, Moesgård, 2013); Else Roesdahl et al. (eds.), Aggersborg: the Viking-Age Settlement and Fortress (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 2014); and Helen Goodchild, Nanna Holm, and Søren Sindbæk, ‘Borgring: The discovery of a Viking Age ring fortress’, Antiquity 91 (2017): 1027–1042. The distinctive longhouses are discussed by Holger Schmidt, Building Customs in Viking Age Denmark (Kristensen, Copenhagen, 1994).

  The analysis that revealed Harald’s mercenaries is by T. Douglas Price et al., ‘Who was in Harald Bluetooth’s army? Strontium isotope investigation of the cemetery at the Viking Age fortress at Trelleborg, Denmark’, Antiquity 85 (2011): 476–489. The Danevirke and its environs are most recently surveyed by Matthias Maluck and Christian Weltecke (eds.), The Archaeological Border Landscape of Hedeby and the Danevirke (State Archaeological Department of Schleswig-Holstein, Schleswig, 2016). The bell in Hedeby harbour is discussed by Björn Magnusson-Staaf, ‘For whom the bell tolls’, Current Swedish Archaeology 4 (1996): 141–155. Harald’s presumed robbing of Norwegian royal burials is reviewed by Jan Bill and Aiofe Daly, ‘The plundering of the ship graves from Oseberg and Gokstad: An example of power politics?’, Antiquity 86 (2012): 808–824. The later histories of Gotland and Kievan Rus’ are all referenced above.

  The Trendgården mould, early crucifixes, and cross-hammer pendants can all be found in Pocket Museum: Vikings by Steve Ashby and Alison Leonard (Thames & Hudson, London, 2018). Birka grave Bj.660 is discussed in Neil Price, The Viking Way: Magic and Mind in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (Oxbow, Oxford, 2019: 85–88). Christian burial practices, including the early evidence from Götaland, are discussed by Jhonny Thérus, Den yngre järnålderns gravskick i Uppland (Uppsala University, Uppsala, 2019); see also Gunnar Andersson, Gravspråk som religiös strategi (Riksantikvarieämbetet, Stockholm, 2005).

  Runestones have been referenced for chapter 3, above, but in the context of conversion and gender, see also Anne-Sofie Gräslund, Runstensstudier (Uppsala University, Uppsala, 1994); Lars Wilson, Runstenar och kyrkor (Uppsala University, Uppsala, 1994); Linn Lager, Den synliga tron: runstenskors som en spegling av kristnandet i Sverige (Uppsala University, Uppsala, 2002); and Cecilia Ljung, Under runristad hall: tidigkristna gravmonument i 1000-talets Sverige (Stockholm University, Stockholm, 2016). The non-lexical runestones and their implications are discussed by Marco Bianchi, Runor som resurs: vikingatida skriftkultur i Uppland och Södermanland (University of Uppsala, Uppsala, 2010). The Christian knowledge revealed by runestones comes from the work of Henrik Williams. The Timmele stone is Vg 186; the Måsta stone is U 860; Ingirún’s Jerusalem declaration is on U 605; and the stone with the large Thor’s hammer is Sö 111 from Stenkvista in Södermanland.

  The impact of the Christian ritual calendar is discussed by Alexandra Sanmark in her book referenced above. For changes in the fishing industry, see James Barrett and David Orton (eds.), Cod and Herring: The Archaeology and History of Medieval Sea Fishing (Oxbow, Oxford, 2016).

  The new urbanism of the late Viking Age has generated a significant literature. As above, a general overview to the mid-1990s can be found in Helen Clarke and Björn Ambrosiani, Towns in the Viking Age (2nd edn., Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1995), updated with the papers in Lena Holmquist, Sven Kalmring, and Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson (eds.), New Aspects on Viking-Age Urbanism c. AD 750–1100 (Stockholm University, Stockholm, 2016). The latter volume includes the latest work on Sigtuna by Sten Tesch, who led excavations there for many years. Ongoing work in the town is presented in the Situne Dei series from Sigtuna Museum, which has also published reports from the many excavations in the settlement. See also Jonas Ros, Sigtuna: staden, kyrkorna och den kyrkliga organisationen (Uppsala University, Uppsala, 2001) and Stad och gård: Sigtuna under sen vikingatid och tidig medeltid (Uppsala University, Uppsala, 2009). In Denmark, Aros (Viking-Age Aarhus) is discussed in Annette Damm (ed.), Viking Aros (Moesgård Museum, Aarhus, 2005) and Hans Skov and Jeanette Varberg (eds.), Aros and the World of the Vikings (Moesgård Musuem, Aarhus, 2011). The many excavations in the towns of Trondheim, Bergen, and Oslo can be explored through the reports published by the Norsk Institutt for Kulturminneforskning (NIKU). The idea of the towns as ‘ports of faith’ is from the work of Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide. The demographics of Sigtuna are discussed by Maja Krzewińska et al., ‘Genomic and strontium isotope variation reveal immigration patterns in a Viking Age town’, Current Biology 28:17 (2018): 2730–2738.

  For later Viking-Age political history, see Niels Lund, Fra vikingeriger til stater: træk af Skandinaviens politiske udvikling 700–1200 (Museum Tusculanum, Copenhagen, 1993); Andres Dobat, ‘The state and the strangers: The role of external forces in a process of state formation in Viking-Age South Scandinavia (c.900–1050)’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 5 (2009): 65–104; Sverre Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom: State Formation in Norway c.900–1350 (Museum Tusculanum, Copenhagen, 2010); and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson and Anne Irene Riisøy, Norsk historie 800–1536 (Det norske samlaget, Oslo, 2011). An excellent corrective to the kings-and-battles perspective can be found in Anna Lihammer’s study, Bortom riksbildningen: människor, landskap och makt i sydöstra Skandinavien (Lund University, Lund, 2007). Svein Forkbeard has his own biography by Poul Skaaning, Sven Tveskæg (Hovedland, Copenhagen, 2008); and Knút has several, of which the best is Timothy Bolton, Cnut the Great (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2017). The social impact of the later raids is discussed with insight and eloquence by Thomas Williams, Viking London (Collins, London, 2019). A somewhat controversial overview is also provided by Angelo Forte, Richard Oram, and Frederik Pedersen, Viking Empires (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005). The Orkesta runestone is U 344. The last of the dynasty is discussed by Ian Howard, Harthacnut: King of England (History Press, Stroud, 2008).

  CHAPTER 17: LANDS OF FIRE AND VINES

  For Iceland, in addition to the general works on the North Atlantic referenced for chapter 13, above, a good starting point is Jesse Byock’s book Viking Age Iceland (Penguin, London, 2001), linking with the same author’s Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988). The early settlements (and the diaspora in general) are discussed by Orri Vésteinsson, Helgi Þorláksson, and Árni Einarsson, Reykjavík 871±2 (Reykjavík City Museum, Reykjavík, 2006) while the classic archaeological survey of Icelandic farms is by Mårten Stenberger et al., Forntida gårdar i Island (Munkgaard, Copen
hagen, 1943). Among recent work is Davide Zori and Jesse Byock (eds.), Viking Archaeology in Iceland (Brepols, Turnhout, 2014), along with regular archaeological reports published by the Institute of Archaeology in Reykjavík and in the journals Archaeologica Islandica and Árbók Hins Íslenzka Fornleifafélag.

  A massive programme of work has been undertaken on human-environmental interaction in early Iceland, much of it within the orbit of the North Atlantic Biocultural Organisation (NABO; www.nabohome.org) and in their online Journal of the North Atlantic. On Icelandic legal structures and the nature of feud, see Jesse Byock, Feud in the Icelandic Saga (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1982) and William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1990). Icelandic burials are surveyed by Kristján Eldjárn, Kuml og haugfé úr heiðnum sið á Íslandi (3rd edn., National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík, 2016), augmented by the work of Adolf Friðriksson.

  Aud Ketilsdóttir, known as the Deep-Minded, appears in many sources, including the Book of Settlements, the Saga of Burnt Njál, the Saga of the People of Laxardal, and others. Flosi is the leader of the Burners in the Saga of Burnt Njál; the man who spoke the verses, alive or dead, was Njál’s son Skarphédinn. Gudrún Ósvífrsdóttir is the complicated heroine of the Saga of the People of Laxardal. Thorodd appears in the Saga of the People of Eyri, a tale rich in hauntings of every kind. Freydís Eiríksdóttir features in the two Vinland sagas. Grettir has his own saga of that name. Gunnhild Gormsdóttir, also known as the Mother of Kings, features strongly in the Saga of Egil Skalla-Grímsson (the poet she tried to distract) and other sagas.

  Hofstaðir is published as a book of that name, edited by Gavin Lucas (Institute of Archaeology, Reykjavík, 2009). For the conversion of Iceland, see Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak (Uppsala University, Uppsala, 1978) and Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir, The Awakening of Christianity in Iceland (University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, 2004).

  There are many papers on Greenland in the North Atlantic volumes referenced above. For syntheses, see Kirsten A. Seaver, The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America ca. AD 1000–1500 (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996) and The Last Vikings (I. B. Tauris, London, 2010); see also Jette Arneborg, Georg Nyegaard, and Orri Vésteinsson (eds.), Norse Greenland (Eagle Hill, Steuben, 2012). The Danish series Meddelelser om Grønland, published 1879–1979 by the Commission for Scientific Studies on Greenland, contains most of the early archaeology—work continued since by the scholars at the National Museum of Denmark and their SILA unit. See especially Jette Arneborg and H. C. Gulløv (eds.), Man, Culture and Environment in Ancient Greenland (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 1998).

  The environmental work at the GUS site has generated many papers, but for an overview, see Paul C. Buckland and Eva Panagiotakopulu, ‘Archaeology and the palaeoecology of the Norse Atlantic islands: A review’, in Andras Mortensen and Símun V. Arge (eds.), Viking and Norse in the North Atlantic (Faroese Academy of Sciences, Tórshavn, 2005: 167–181). For general ecology, see Kevin J. Edwards, Egill Erlendsson, and J. Edward Schofield, ‘Is there a Norse “footprint” in North Atlantic pollen records?’, in Svavar Sigmundsson (ed.), Viking Settlements and Viking Society (University of Iceland, Reykjavík, 2011: 65–82), which contains extensive references to the same team’s important work in Greenland and elsewhere in the region. For runes, see Lisbeth M. Imer, Peasants and Prayers: The Inscriptions of Norse Greenland (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 2017).

  The Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Erik the Red are translated together as The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America, by Magnús Magnússon and Hermann Pálsson (Penguin, London, 1965). The early excavations at L’Anse aux Meadows are published by Anne Stine and Helge Ingstad, The Norse Discovery of America (2 vols., Norwegian University Press, Oslo, 1985) while the later seasons are summarised, with a very comprehensive bibliography, by Birgitta Linderoth Wallace, Westward Vikings: The Saga of L’Anse aux Meadows (Parks Canada, St. John’s, 2006). The new environmental work at the site is by Paul M. Ledger, Linus Girdland-Flink, and Véronique Forbes, ‘New horizons at L’Anse aux Meadows’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116 (2019): 15341–15343. The follow-up report on the search for Norse occupation at Point Rosee is unpublished, but was lodged with the provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador by Sarah Parcak and Gregory Mumford on November 8, 2017.

  For general overviews, see Erik Wahlgren, The Vikings and America (Thames & Hudson, London & New York, 1986); Birthe Clausen (ed.), Viking Voyages to North America (Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde, 1993); and Shannon Lewis-Simpson (ed.), Vinland Revisited: The Norse World at the Turn of the First Millennium (Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John’s, 2003). A work that explicitly takes up Norse interactions with First Nations peoples is Kevin E. McAleese, Full Circle, First Contact: Vikings and Skraelings in Newfoundland and Labrador (Newfoundland Museum, St. John’s, 2000); see also Ingebjorg Marshall, A History and Ethnography of the Beothuk (McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 1998). Several papers on Norse activities in the high Arctic can be found in William Fitzhugh and Elizabeth Ward (eds.), Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga (Smithsonian, Washington, DC, 2000).

  CHAPTER 18: THE MANY ENDS OF THE VIKING AGE

  The later political history of Scandinavia is referenced for chapter 16, above, and the longer-term regional trajectories of the Viking diaspora (not least the North Atlantic colonies) can be found in the studies of those areas in the respective sections of the book.

  Readers interested in the dramatic life of Gudríd Thorbjarnardóttir can turn to her lively biography by Nancy Marie Brown, The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman (Harcourt, Orlando, 2007).

  EPILOGUE: GAMES

  The story of Ragnarök and its aftermath is related in several of the Eddic poems, especially the Seeress’s Prophecy and Vafthrudnir’s Sayings, as well as in Snorri’s Prose Edda; references to all these can be found above. The two best modern works are Terry Gunnell and Annette Lassen, The Nordic Apocalypse: Approaches to Vǫluspá and the Nordic Days of Judgement (Brepols, Turnhout, 2013) and Anders Hultgård, Midgård brinner: Ragnarök i religionshistorisk belysning (Royal Gustav Adolf Academy, Uppsala, 2017). The problems of the pastoral sequel to the Ragnarök, and its ecocritical dimensions, are imaginatively explored by Christopher Abram in his Evergreen Ash (see references to chapter 1, above).

  Also by Neil Price:

  The Vikings in Brittany

  Cultural Atlas of the Viking World

  (with James Graham-Campbell and others)

  The Archaeology of Shamanism

  The Viking Way

  The Viking World

  (with Stefan Brink)

  The Vikings Begin

  (with Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson and John Ljungkvist)

  1 Þrúðr: a Valkyrie; her battle-tree: chieftain

  2 Viðurr: Odin name, ‘killer’ or ‘warrior’; Endill: sea-god; his carriage: ship; ship-warrior of the sea

  *

  THE SCANDINAVIAN IRON AGE

  CHRONOLOGY AND REGIONAL TERMINOLOGIES

  Subdivisions: EARLY IRON AGE

  Dates: 500–0 BCE

  Norway: Pre-Roman Iron Age

  Sweden: Pre-Roman Iron Age

  Denmark: Celtic Iron Age

  Dates: 0–400 CE

  Norway: Roman Iron Age

  Sweden: Roman Iron Age

  Denmark: Roman Iron Age

  Subdivisions: LATE IRON AGE

  Dates: 400–550 CE

  Norway: Migration Period

  Sweden: Migration Period

  Denmark: Early Germanic Iron Age

  Dates: 550–750 CE

  Norway: Merovingian Period

  Sweden: Vendel Period

  Denmark: Late Germanic Iron Age

  Dates: 750–1050 CE

  Norway: Viking Age

  Sweden: Viking Age

  D
enmark: Viking Age