Barbarians- Secrets of the Dark Ages

by Richard Rudgley

  In a book written in 825, Dicuil states that from the beginning of the eighth century it was the practice of hardy monks to set forth in small boats (probably currachs, leather or skin boats of a type in which legend would have St Brendan reaching America) and to settle on whatever desolate or windswept island they reached first, by God's will. These voyaging monks beat the Vikings to both the Faeroe Islands and Iceland. They were known to the Vikings as papar ('fathers'). The arrival of the Vikings usually led to the swift departure of the monks, who would either leave in search of a new uninhabited place to live or be forcibly removed by the Norse immigrants. The Vikings reached the Faeroes some time between 860 and 870.

  The founding father of the Viking colonisation is given in the account of the Saga of the Faeroe Islanders as Grim Kamban. Scholars see the name Kamban to be a Celtic one, and have therefore suggested that he may have been a Norwegian who set out from either Ireland or the Hebrides, both of which had already been settled by the Vikings. Archaeological evidence from the islands reveals traces of the Viking presence – farmsteads, pagan burials, coin hoards and, dating from the later period, the remains of a number of wooden churches. The Faroes lie about half-way between the Shetlands and Iceland and it was to the latter that a major migration was to take place.

  The Founding Fathers of Iceland

  The volcanic landscape of Iceland presented a new world to the Vikings in a number of ways. Its distance from other lands – over 250 miles from the Faeroes, 500 miles from the northern tip of Scotland and 620 miles from the Norwegian homeland – made it isolated and largely independent of the outside world. A twelfth-century source tells us that the voyage to Norway took a week, and to Britain five days. Iceland's climate and ecology differed from the other lands the Vikings knew, and farming land was limited by glaciers and mountain ranges. The fact that there were no indigenous people there (and only a handful of papar leading the lonely life of the hermit) meant that they did not have to fight to establish themselves, and there was no native culture to assimilate – they had the freedom to settle anywhere they wanted. The Vikings brought their own cultural baggage with them but, when they arrived to settle this new world, they were to create a different way of living – built on the past but adapted to a novel present.

  Twelfth-century sources credit a Norwegian named Floki with the Norse discovery of Iceland. He is said to have set out from the Faeroes some time early in the ninth century, travelling north. During the course of his voyage he released two ravens to see in which direction they would fly. By following them, he was led to Iceland. He is also supposed to have been the first to call it Iceland after enduring a particularly severe first winter on this new-found land. Apocryphal stories aside, the period between 870 and 930 was the time of the 'land-taking' (landnám) during which between 10,000 and 20,000 Vikings emigrated to Iceland. Men, women and children, along with their animals and supplies, poured into Iceland. The majority came from Norway directly but others came from the Norse settlements in Celtic lands – Ireland, the Scottish mainland and the Hebrides.

  After this original period of colonisation, the people of Iceland were brought together by the founding of the Althing, a general assembly along the lines of that which also existed in other Norse communities such as Gotland. It would be a mistake to think of Iceland as a unified state, for despite the existence of the Althing the emphasis was more on a loose-knit and decentralised society than an authoritarian and autocratic kingdom. The existence of local and regional things allowed each part of the island's community to continue to assert itself. There were no kings in Iceland and the leadership of the people fell to godar (chieftains; singular godi), whose role was more political and priestly than military. The godar had to persuade their followers, or thingmenn, drawn from the ranks of farmers who owned their land freehold, to support them on the basis of mutual interest. They were also repositories of the pagan religion and responsible for public ceremonies and rituals.

  Other familiar Norse beliefs have also been proved by archaeological discoveries to have travelled with the Vikings to Iceland. Excavations at the site of a farm on the coast of Patreksfjord in north-western Iceland led by Thórr Magnússon revealed the presence of a tenth-century boat burial. Many of its features reflect patterns that are similar to Viking ship burials elsewhere, and also to Saxon and Anglo-Saxon practices. It is one of the richest burials discovered in Iceland, despite the fact that it was robbed in former times and probably much of its contents have been lost.

  The boat was buried under a mound, and when it was excavated the archaeologists found little trace of the vessel except the iron nails that once held it together. The layout of the nails was sufficiently preserved for the dimensions of the boat to be calculated: about 6 metres (20 feet) long and 1 metre (just over 3 feet) wide. Fragments of wood led the excavators to propose that it was made of spruce or larch. Two whalebone pieces were also found; these were originally attached to the inside of the gunwale and used to limit the friction caused by anchor or tow lines.

  Bones of seven young people – four female, three male – were found in the area where the boat would have been, but Magnússon believes that six of these were thrown in some time after the burial, possibly by the looters. The original and intended occupant of the grave was probably one of the young women. The body was accompanied by an array of objects which, like King Raedwald's much richer grave goods, seem to show a mixture of pagan and Christian elements. Alongside some small bronze items including a pin and two bracelets, two bone combs, thirty glass and amber beads, part of an Arabic coin and some lead balance weights, was a little Thor's hammer made of silver and a tiny broken bronze bell.

  These last two items show the transition was under way from paganism to Christianity. The Thor's hammer is just over 3.5 cm (11/2 inches) long and was a common kind of pagan amulet believed to protect its owner from baleful influences. The bell is similar to a few others found in Viking Iceland, and has been identified as Celtic or Anglo-Saxon but certainly from the British Isles; such bells are known to have been used in Christian ceremonies. Interestingly enough, as Magnússon points out, there are early written records stating that the people who came to colonise the Patreksfjord area were Vikings from earlier settlements in the British Isles. The boat burial shows how the Christian communities among which the Vikings had previously lived before coming to Iceland had started to influence their religious beliefs.

  This gradual transition was soon to be formalised by the Althing, which ratified the peaceful and painless conversion of Iceland to Christianity in the year 999 or 1000. Many of the pagan godar moved fairly effortlessly into the role of Christian priest. The free state of Iceland was increasingly coming under the expansionist eyes of the Norwegian kings, and by the 1260s was paying tax to the sovereign – formal acceptance of the end of its independence, which it was not to regain until 1944.

  Icelandic society was something of an anomaly in early medieval Europe. Jesse L. Byock, a leading specialist on early Icelandic society, notes just how precocious their social order was: 'To succeed, a godi had to have charisma as well as skill in managing relationships with thingmenn, in supervising disputes and feuds, especially in the final court and arbitration stages, and in winning legal cases. Despite the deference accorded to successful godar, the society's egalitarian ethos was so strong that the godar participated in governmental processes that were often proto-democratic' Icelandic society was probably more democratic than any other society in the Europe of its time. It was not racked by the wars and displacements of population that almost routinely disrupted the peace of mainland Europe. Yet it was not free of disputes and troublesome individuals.

  One of these, a violent and disreputable man named Eirik the Red, was tried for murder by one of the regional things (the Thorsnes thing in the west of the country). He was found guilty and temporarily banished from Iceland, probably in the year 982. He had heard about a land further to the west discovered by a seafarer named Gunnbjörn
after he was blown way off course by a storm on his way from Norway to Iceland. Eirik set out on an expedition to discover this new land for himself, and thus took the first step towards the Norse colonisation of Greenland. According to a short but informative historical text written in the early twelfth century and entitled The Book of the Icelanders, Eirik discovered that unlike Iceland, Greenland was not an uninhabited land but it was sparsely populated by Skraelings, that is, the Inuit (Eskimo) people. He returned to Iceland, having served his time in exile, in 985 or thereabouts and set about persuading others to follow him back to the new land.

  A Green and Treeless Land

  Eirik knew the importance of a name in trying to 'sell' the new land to would-be settlers; he chose to name it Greenland to make it sound as inviting as possible. Although he has been berated for what many believe was little better than a confidence trick, parts of Greenland were actually very suitable for farming. Certainly his description of the new country was far more accurate than that of Adam of Bremen, who expressed the opinion that Greenland was so named on account of the colour of its salt water – which made its inhabitants greenish in colour too!

  Twenty-five ships are reported to have left Iceland on course for Greenland, but only fourteen arrived at their destination; the others either turned back to Iceland or were lost. In some respects, Greenland was more attractive than Iceland – the pasture was good, having never been used by farming people before (the Inuit were hunter-gatherers). On the other hand, there were no trees to greet the settlers and their houses were thus usually made from turf and stones and driftwood when available. Nevertheless, the wildlife offered numerous opportunities for trading. Luxury items and crucial imports such as iron and timber could be bartered for marine ivory (in the form of narwhal and walrus tusks), exotic furs, falcons and even the occasional live polar bear.

  The most well-known Viking site in Greenland is Brattahild on a plain close to Eiriksfjord, the inlet that Eirik claimed on his arrival in the new colony. Archaeology has so far revealed only one pagan image among the artefacts from Greenland – a broken loom weight with a hammer of Thor etched on it, found at the site of a barn at Brattahild. There is also a small church with thick turf walls at the site, and this is thought to be the earliest place of Christian worship in Greenland. It is usually identified as the church built by Eirik's wife Thjodhild shortly after she was converted to Christianity by her son Leif the Lucky. Legend has it that Eirik remained an unrepentant pagan and his newly converted wife refused to live with him.

  Sagas, Maps and Artefacts

  Eirik's son Leif had tired of Greenland and was restless to explore even further to the west. In 985 a ship en route from Iceland to Greenland was blown off course and a previously unseen wooded land was sighted. Bjarni Herjolfsson, who was on board, named it Markland (meaning 'Woodland' or 'Forestland'). His vessel then proceeded north past a barren rocky land he called Helluland ('Flatstoneland') and eastwards back toward Greenland. Leif is said to have heard about this accidental voyage and tried to retrace the route taken by Bjarni. To do this he had, of course, to start in Greenland and proceed from there to Helluland (now thought to be Baffin Island) and on to Markland (the Labrador coast). From there Leif pressed on further south for two days until he reached a place he called Vinland ('Vineland' or 'Wineland', now thought to be Newfoundland) on account of the wild grapes he is said to have found growing there. Leif and his crew landed and wintered over in this new world before returning to Greenland in the spring. The following year Leif's brother Thorwald voyaged to Vinland, and was killed by an arrow fired by a Skraeling (in this case the term refers to an Indian native of the region rather than an Inuit, as was the case in Greenland).

  Despite these references in the sagas and other early sources, there was no concrete proof to demonstrate the Norse presence in North America. Then in 1957 a map was launched into the scholarly world that seemed to provide a dramatic vindication of the Viking voyages. The Vinland map, as it is known, is drawn on vellum and was described by the curator of the map collection at Yale University Library as 'of late medieval type… [it] contains the earliest known and indisputable cartographic representation of any part of the Americas, and includes a delineation of Greenland so strikingly accurate that it may well have derived from experience'. The curator went on to note that it may be the only surviving medieval example of Norse mapmaking. Despite having certain reservations about its authenticity (it seemed too good a find to be true), Yale University Press decided to go ahead and publish it in 1965 with a detailed analysis of its contents and its implications. Since its publication, analysis of pigment in the ink used to draw the map indicates that it was of a type that would not have been available until the late nineteenth century. Such analysis has led most experts to reject the Vinland map as a forgery.

  The sagas and early records of the Viking period had not, after all, been proved by the discovery of this map. Yet during the 1960s another more tangible means of proving the Vikings were the first Europeans to reach the Americas was under way. A Norwegian explorer named Helge Ingstad was convinced that Vinland was northern Newfoundland, and decided to try to find archaeological proof of the Norse presence there. Ingstad describes how a fortunate meeting with a local man named George Decker led to his momentous discovery. Ingstad had been surveying a number of possible sites along the north coast of Newfoundland and had reached a small fishing village named L'Anse aux Meadows, the last place on his list. It was there that Decker directed him to a cluster of overgrown bumps in the landscape, which Ingstad could see must be the site of long abandoned houses. This was where he decided to dig for the evidence he was looking for.

  The site of L'Anse aux Meadows turned out to provide the firm evidence that the Vikings were in America, yet the site also showed signs of being temporary. The remains of eight structures were found by Ingstad and subsequent archaeologists. They were made of turf and were very similar in style to Norse buildings found in Iceland and Greenland, but they lacked the stone foundations that characterised the permanent houses of these Viking colonies. There was no question that Vikings had stayed here for a time – a bronze pin, a spindle whorl and the signs of a smithy were all identified as their artefacts. Is this site just a vindication of their fleeting presence in the New World or was it, as some have suggested, a transit camp used sporadically by Vikings probing further to the south, making other journeys of which we know nothing?

  Whichever role L'Anse aux Meadows played, it is ironic that just as the Vikings were in the process of discovering a new world, their old pagan world was coming to an end.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  RAGNAROK: END OF THE VIKING WORLD

  In this conflict all the great gods must be destroyed, and the monsters with them.

  Hilda Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

  Ragnarok is the name given in Norse mythology to the end of the world. At this time, after a number of cataclysmic events – an interminable winter, earthquakes and the darkening of the sun – all the gods are killed in conflict with giants and monstrous beings. Such is the mythic view of the final apocalypse. From the perspective of history, the pagan gods (the Aesir and the Vanir) were destroyed by the coming of a new set of beliefs in the form of Christianity. The changes wrought by this missionary faith went far beyond the realm of worship: society itself was changed, literacy and books began to exert more and more influence over the destiny of the European continent, and the roots of modern science began to emerge out of the strivings of religiously motivated individuals.

  Christianity was not the only religious force that the Vikings came in contact with during their countless voyages through numerous parts of Europe and beyond. The influence of Islam and the Arabs during the Dark Ages is often overlooked. The Arabs, like the Vikings, were great merchants and travellers and the two did business together. Probably the most important Arabic source concerning the Vikings is Ibn Fadhlan, who encountered them on the banks of the river Vo
lga and left a record of the experience in 922.

  To a Muslim like Ibn Fadhlan, cleanliness was an important religious duty and one that he noticed was very much neglected by the Vikings. He recounts his horror on observing that they did not wash after eating, urinating, defecating or having sexual intercourse. He says more positive things about their appearance, which he admires: they are 'perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy'. He tells us too that they had simple prayers, in which they asked their god to send them a rich Arab merchant who would be willing to buy all their goods and not haggle too much!

  An Eyewitness Account of a Viking Ship Burial

  Although these snapshots of cultural exchange are interesting in their own right, Ibn Fadhlan also recounts more detailed information about the funerary rites that surrounded the death of a Viking chieftain. His account is an extremely valuable one because it adds many eyewitness details that archaeological discoveries can never provide. There on the Volga the familiar practice of boat burial was performed, but with many unfamiliar details.

  Ibn Fadhlan first describes how the dead chieftain was placed in a grave for ten days accompanied by fruit, beer and a lute. During this time special grave clothes were made for him. If a man was poor, then a modest boat would be made for his funeral; his corpse would be placed in it and the both of them burned on a pyre. A wealthy man's worldly possessions would be split three ways: a third was left for his family, a third for the cost of his grave clothes, and the other third for making beer for the funeral. On his death, his family would demand a volunteer from among their slaves to the with their master. Normally – and as on the occasion witnessed by Ibn Fadhlan – it was a female slave who would agree to this ultimate self-sacrifice. Once the slave had consented, there was no turning back. While the (presumably lavish) clothes were made for the dead chieftain, the condemned slave would be constantly attended by two other slaves whose tasks even included washing her feet. She would drink and sing as though she was happy to be going to the other world. As the female spirit or Valkyrie that was believed to greet the dead warrior in Valhalla with a drinking horn, so the female slave was to accompany her master across the divide between the two worlds, that of the living and the dead.