The Real Valkyrie

by Nancy Marie Brown

  16: A BIRKA WARRIOR

  horse archer: Based on grave Bj1126b, described by Fredrik Lundström, Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, and Lena Holmquist Olausson, “Eastern Archery in Birka’s Garrison,” in Olausson and Olausson (2009), 106–12. The goose-shooting episode comes from P. Lunde and C. Stone, trans., Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness (Penguin, 2012), 20.

  Warriors’ Hall: Hedenstierna-Jonson (2006), 51; (2015), 73–75, 78–81. Holmquist (2016), 38–42. Hervarar saga, ch. 4 (“any warrior”).

  Viking chess: Helena M. Gamer, “The Earliest Evidence of Chess in Western Literature,” Speculum 29 (October 1954): 734–50. Sten Helmfrid, “Hnefatafl, the Strategic Board Game of the Vikings,” April 23, 2005, http://hem.bredband.net/b512479/. Hervarar saga, ch. 9 (riddle). Grettis saga, ch. 70 (“difficult”). Þorgils saga skarða (“swept the pieces”), quoted by Willard Fiske, Chess in Iceland (Florentine Typographical Society, 1905), 12–13 (slightly revised). Droplaugarsona saga, quoted by Ármann Jakobsson, “Troublesome Children in the Sagas of Icelanders,” Saga Book 27 (2003): 9 (fart). Morkinskinna, quoted by Marilyn Yalom, Birth of the Chess Queen (HarperCollins, 2004), 156–57 (“sore foot”). Oskar Spjuth, In Quest for the Lost Gamers (master’s thesis, Lund University, 2012), 13. Mads Ravn, “The Use of Symbols in Burials in Migration Age Europe,” in D. S. Olausson and H. Vandkilde, eds., Form, Function & Context (Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2000), 275–96. Helene Whittaker, “Game Boards and Gaming Pieces in Funerary Contexts in the Northern European Iron Age,” Nordlit Tidskrift for Kultur og Litteratur 20 (2006): 103–12. Gavin K. E. Davies, From Rules to Experience (doctoral thesis, Swansea University, 2015), 26, 33–40, 43–61 (luck).

  tested: Bósa saga ok Herrauðs, ch. 3 (ball game). Ævidrápa in Örvar-Odds saga, st. 66 (“I never shot”). Egils saga einhenda og Ásmundar saga berserkjabana, ch. 4 (sword fight).

  Jomsvikings: Jómsvikinga saga, ch. 16. Tom Shippey, Laughing Shall I Die (Reaktion Books, 2018), 215 (“have a woman”), 230 (“lads”). N. F. Blake, trans., The Saga of the Jomsvikings (Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1962), vii (“monastic-type”).

  falcon symbol: Hedenstierna-Jonson (2015), 81, 84; “Rus’, Varangians, and Birka Warriors,” in Olausson and Olausson (2009), 161, 167, 169–73. Björn Ambrosiani, “Birka,” in Brink and Price (2008), 21.

  weapons: Hedenstierna-Jonson (2006), 38–39 (“plain”), 55 (“rare”), 56, 58, 61, 68. Lundström, Hedenstierna-Jonson, and Holmquist Olausson, “Eastern Archery,” 106–12. K. A. Mikhailov and S. Y. Kainov, “Finds of Structural Details of Composite Bows from Ancient Rus,” Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 62 (2011): 229, 236. Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, “Traces of Contacts,” in B. Tobias, ed., Die Archäologie der Frühen Ungarn (Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, 2012), 31–32, 37, 40–41; “Close Encounters with the Byzantine Border Zones,” in O. Minaeva and L. Holmquist, eds., Scandinavia and the Balkans (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 140–45. O’Brien Browne, “Medieval Weapons: The Composite Bow,” Warfare History Network (October 11, 2018) (“most effective”). Adam Clarke, “Psalm 78:57,” in Commentary on the Bible (Emory and Waugh, 1831), 3: 244 (“string one”). John Man, Empire of Horses (Pegasus, 2020), 13–14, 84 (“arms and shoulders”).

  17: THE KAFTAN

  kaftan: Nobuko Kajitani, “A Man’s Caftan and Leggings from the North Caucasus of the Eighth to Tenth Century: A Conservator’s Report,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 36 (2001): 85–124. Elfriede R. Knauer, “A Man’s Caftan and Leggings from the North Caucasus of the Eighth to Tenth Century: A Genealogical Study,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 36 (2001): 125–54. Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonsson, “Borre Style Metalwork in the Material Culture of the Birka Warriors,” Fornvännen 101 (2006): 315–16. Fredrik Lundström, Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, and Lena Holmquist Olausson, “Eastern Archery in Birka’s Garrison,” in Olausson and Olausson (2009), 111. Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonsson, “Traces of Contacts,” in B. Tobias, ed., Die Archäologie der Frühen Ungarn (Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, 2012), 31–34.

  silk: Larsson (2011), 125. Vedeler (2014), 7–8, 27 (“queen”), 35, 38, 68, 77–80, 85, 90, 116. Elena S. Zubkova, Olga V. Orfinskaya, and Kirill A. Mikhailov, “Studies of the Textiles from the 2006 Excavation in Pskov,” in E. Andersson Strand et al., eds., North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles X (Oxbow Books, 2010), 291–98. N. M. Brown, The Far Traveler (Harcourt, 2007), 93. Larsson (2007), 194. Egils saga, ch. 67, 79. Njáls saga, ch. 123.

  East Way: Mägi (2018), 165, 190. Larsson (2007), 194; (2011). Ingrid Gustin, “Trade and Trust in the Baltic Sea Area During the Viking Age,” in J. H. Barrett and S. J. Gibbon, eds., Maritime Societies of the Viking and Medieval World (Maney Publishing, 2015), 25–40.

  urban style: Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, interviewed June 14, 2018. Hedenstierna-Jonson (2006), 79, 82; “Borre Style,” 312–22; “Rus’, Varangians, and Birka Warriors,” in Olausson and Olausson (2009), 159–61, 168; “Traces of Contacts,” 31; (2016), 189–90; “Creating a Cultural Expression,” in Callmer, Gustin, and Roslund (2017), 94–96.

  Rus: Homilies of Photius Patriarch of Constantinople, trans. Cyril Mango (Harvard University Press, 1958), 82, 84, 88, 96–99 (“obscure”), 101 (“swords raised”). Photius, encyclical of 867, quoted by Wladyslaw Duczko, Viking Rus (Brill, 2004), 83 (“Rhos”; I added “the”). Ibn Rustah, trans. P. Lunde and C. Stone, Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness (Penguin, 2012), 126 (“fight best,” “slaves”). Mägi (2018), 192 (“Ruotsi”). Liudprand, quoted in Androshchuk (2013), 46. F. A. Wright, in The Works of Liudprand of Cremona (Routledge & Sons, 1930), considers their skin to be red, not their hair, 185. Ibn Khurradadhbih, trans. Lunde and Stone, Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness, 111 (“farthest reaches,” “camel”); I amended “Slav” to Saqaliba, per Mägi (2018), 199–201. Ibn Hawqal, trans. Lunde and Stone, Ibn Fadlan, 173 (“eunuchs”).

  Buddha: Helen Clarke and Björn Ambrosiani, Towns in the Viking Age (Leicester University Press, 1991), 70–71. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough, Beyond the Northlands (Oxford University Press, 2016), 173–77. Knauer, “A Man’s Caftan,” 144.

  Islamic world: Duczko (2004), 62–63. Gene W. Heck, Charlemagne, Muhammad, and the Arab Roots of Capitalism (De Gruyter, 2006), 285. Sebastian Wärmländer et al., “Analysis and Interpretation of a Unique Arabic Finger Ring from the Viking Age Town of Birka, Sweden,” Scanning 37 (March/April 2015): 131–37.

  Annals of St-Bertin: trans. Janet L. Nelson (Manchester University Press, 1991), 44. See also Mägi (2018), 195–99.

  Russian Primary Chronicle: trans. Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Medieval Academy of America, 1953), 64–69, 71–73 (“innumerable ships”), 236.

  Viking silk: Vedeler (2014), 57, 75, 77, 85, 90 (Jurjan), 98–104 (Book of the Eparch).

  bezant: The dinar-to-dirham rate in Baghdad in 970 was 1:15, according to the project “Measuring the Medieval Islamic Economy,” directed by Maya Shatzmiller at Western University, Ontario, Canada.

  “fire-throwers”: Wright, Liudprand of Cremona, 184–86.

  18: THE EAST WAY

  little boats: I based Hervor’s boat on the Viks Boat, as reconstructed by Larsson (2007) and by Lennart Widerberg, “Med Fornkåre til Novgorod 2012,” Situne Dei: Årsskrift för Sigtunaforskning och historisk arkeologi (2013): 4–10, and “Med Fornkåre genom Ryssland 2013,” Situne Dei (2014): 82–87. Larsson (2007), 65 (coin). Christian Keller, “Furs, Fish, and Ivory,” Journal of the North Atlantic 3 (2010): 1–23. Larsson (2011).

  Bengtsson: Lars Lönnroth, “Det våras för Bengtsson och hans vikingar,” Svenska Dagbladet (February 9, 2012): 63 (“enjoy”). Joan Klein, “A Distant Mirror,” in George Whitley-Smythe, ed., A Round-up of Recent Essays in Twentieth Century Cultural Issues (“Viking heritage”). Both cited from “The Long Ships” Wikipedia page.

  mighty vessel: Larsson (2007), 24 (“fantasy”), 25 (“dragging beer,” “not possible”); she translates the conclusions of experimental archae
ologist Rune Edberg, 223 (“unproven,” “improbable”). John R. Hale, “The Viking Longship,” Scientific American (February 1998): 57 (“ideal form”). Magnus Magnusson, Vikings! (Elsevier-Dutton, 1980), 40 (“poem”).

  Viks Boat: Larsson (2007), 34–39, 85, 93–95, 115, 169, 223–33. Widerberg, “Med Fornkåre genom Ryssland 2013,” 87 (“proved”). Ernst Manker in Larsson (2007), 225 (“whistled”).

  women: Frans G. Bengtsson, The Long Ships (1955; rpt., New York Review Books, 2010), 382, 431, 503. Larsson (2007), 231 (“set a drag”), 367 (quoting Arne Emil Christiansen, “male field”), 368 (“myth”), 369 (Tacitus, Germania, ch. 45–46), 370–73 (“different picture”).

  ice roads: Larsson (2007) 60 (seal products), 115, 142 (salt). Price (2020), 103 (tar).

  Birka to Russia: Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, trans. F. J. Tschan (1893; rpt., Columbia University Press, 2002), 201n. Widerberg, “Med Fornkåre til Novgorod 2012.”

  first stage: Larsson (2007), 57–59, 93, 99, 151–60. Helen Clarke and Björn Ambrosiani, Towns in the Viking Age (Leicester University Press, 1991), 68. Elin Ahlin Sundman and Anna Kjellström, “Signs of Sinusitis in Times of Urbanization in Viking Age–Early Medieval Sweden,” Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (2013): 4460. Óláfs saga helga, ch. 7 (“Logrinn”).

  19: AT LINDA’S STONE

  Saaremaa: Mägi (2018), 101, 173, 181 (kura), 428. Njáls saga, ch. 119. Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar, ch. 6 (Astrid). T. Douglas Price et al., “Isotopic Provenancing of the Salme Ship Burials in Pre–Viking Age Estonia,” Antiquity 90 (2016): 1022–37. Ashot Margaryan et al., “Population Genomics of the Viking World,” Nature 585 (September 17, 2020): 390–96. Price (2020), 275–79.

  Aland: Yiyun Li, “A Mother Journeys Through Grief Across Finland’s Many Islands,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine (November 12, 2019). Ingmar Ögren, “Pilgrim Sail ‘Following the Franciscans’ from Norrtelje/Arholma to Kökar the 26th June to the 5th July 2009,” posted on his personal website, http://fridhem.etanet.se/pilgrim_english.html (“substantial stillness”). Larsson (2007), 170–80 (“high sea”). Max Vinner, “Unnasigling—The Seaworthiness of the Merchant Vessel,” in B. Clausen, ed., Viking Voyages to North America (Roskilde Viking Ship Museum, 1993), 104 (“worst”).

  Finland: David Kirby, “Skerries, Haffs, and Icefloes,” in P. Miller, ed., The Sea: Thalassography and Historiography (University of Michigan Press, 2013), 235–36. Sami Raninen and Anna Wessman, “Finland as a Part of the ‘Viking World,’” in J. Ahola et al., eds., Fibula, Fabula, Fact: The Viking Age in Finland (Finnish Literature Society, 2014), 329–36. Ingrid Gustin, “Contacts, Identity, and Hybridity,” in Callmer, Gustin, and Roslund (2017), 216–24. Mägi (2018), 98, 112, 272–73, 330, 335, 410. Torsten Edgren, “A Viking Age Resting Place and Trading Post on the Sailing Route to the East,” http://vikingislands.com/historik.htm (Hitis). Óláfs saga helga, ch. 9 (“watchfire coast”).

  Kalevipoeg: The Hero of Esthonia, trans. W. G. Kirby (Nimmo, 1895), 7–31. On the brooch bound with thread, see Edgren, “Viking Age Resting Place.”

  Rafala: Heiki Valk, “The Vikings and the Eastern Baltic,” in Brink and Price (2008), 492. Mägi (2018), 99–100, 112, 122–26, 174, 258–60, 273–79, 282, 331. Ynglinga saga, ch. 12 (Sveigdir), 32 (Yngvar). Price (2020), 278–79 (“one wonders”).

  Estonian society: Joonas Ahola, “Kalevalaic Heroic Epic and the Viking Age in Finland,” in Ahola et al., Fibula, Fabula, Fact, 381. Mägi (2018), 41–45, 80–88, 83n (“sounds irrelevant”), 86–87 (“his goods follow”), 134, 154–55, 423–24.

  20: “GERZKR” CAPS

  Ladoga: The people Hervor sees in the fictional scene are based on burials excavated near Staraja Ladoga and Gnezdovo. Duczko (2004), 65–70, 76, 86–89. Androshchuk (2013), 18 (“prince’s palace”). Mägi (2018), 162, 261. Tatjana N. Jackson, “Aldeigjuborg of the Sagas in the Light of Archaeological Data,” in A. Ney, H. Williams, and F. C. Ljungqvist, eds., Á Austrvega: Saga and East Scandinavia (Gävle University Press, 2009), 438–42. Søren Sindbaek, “A Site of Intersection,” and Johann Callmer, “The Rise of the Dominion of the ar-Rus,” in Callmer, Gustin, and Roslund (2017), 76–90 and 136–67. T. Douglas Price, Vyacheslav Moiseyev, and Natalia Grigoreva, “Vikings in Russia,” Archaeological Anthropological Sciences 11 (2019): 6093–109. Anatoliy N. Kirpichnikov, “A Viking Period Workshop in Staraya Ladoga,” Fornvännen 2004 (99): 183–96. Helen Clarke and Björn Ambrosiani, Towns in the Viking Age (Leicester University Press, 1991), 120. Dan Carlsson and Adrian Selin, In the Footsteps of Rurik (Northern Dimension Partnership on Culture, 2012), 39. D. A. Avdusin and Tamara A. Pushkina, “Three Chamber Graves at Gniozdovo,” Fornvännen 83 (1988): 24–28. Hervarar saga, ch. 1–3. Óláfs saga helga, ch. 66 (“fine cloth,” “furs”). Laxdæla saga, ch. 9 (Gilli Gerzkr). In the Jomsvikinga saga, an earl not otherwise linked to Russia is called Strut-Harald for the elaborate strútr, or “cone,” on the top of his hat.

  chëln: Anne Stalsberg, “Scandinavian Viking-Age Boat Graves in Old Rus,” Russian History 28 (2001): 368–76.

  Rurik: Russian Primary Chronicle, trans. Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Medieval Academy of America, 1953), 58. Zena Harris and Nonna Ryan, “The Inconsistencies of History: Vikings and Rurik,” New Zealand Slavonic Journal 38 (2004): 105–30; they quote August-Ludwig Schlötzer (1735–1809), 115 (“boorish”).

  Novgorod: Duczko (2004), 66. Mägi (2018), 108, 117, 202 (Ibn Rustah, “waterlogged”).Clarke and Ambrosiani, Towns, 121, 124. Robert Wernick, The Vikings (Time-Life Books, 1979), 104. Carlsson and Selin, In the Footsteps, 46–51. Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar, ch. 8, 21.

  Gnezdovo: Alexander M. Schenker, “The Gnezdovo Inscription in Its Historical and Linguistic Setting,” Russian Linguistics 13 (1989): 210. Carlsson and Selin, In the Footsteps, 74–75, 79–81. Tamara Pushkina, “Viking-Period Pre-Urban Settlements in Russia and Finds of Artefacts of Scandinavian Character,” in J. Hines, A. Lane, and M. Redknap, eds., Land, Sea, and Home (Maney, 2004), 49–51. Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, “Rus’, Varangians, and Birka Warriors,” in Olausson and Olausson (2009), 164. Avdusin and Pushkina, “Three Chamber Graves,” 20–33. Olga Orfinskaya and Tamara Pushkina, “10th Century AD Textiles from Female Burial II-301 at Gnezdovo, Russia,” Archaeological Textiles Newsletter 53 (Fall 2011): 35–51.

  silver cone: Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, interviewed June 14, 2018; “Women at War?” SAA Archaeological Record 18 (May 2018): 29, 31. Wladyslaw Duczko, The Filigree and Granulation Work of the Viking Period: Birka Untersuchungen und Studien 5 (Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1985), 66, 98–100. For the example found near Kyiv, see Fedir Androshchuk, “Female Viking Revised,” n.d., posted on his Academia.edu page.

  21: QUEEN OLGA’S REVENGE

  Kyiv: Androshchuk (2013), 31, 52. Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, “Introduction,” in Russian Primary Chronicle, trans. Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Medieval Academy of America, 1953), 43 (Könugarðr, or “King’s Fort”). Kevin Alan Brook, The Jews of Khazaria (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 25–27 (“settlement on the river bank”). Anabella Morina, “Pochaina River: Legendary Place of Baptism of Kyivan Rus-Ukraine,” Public Movement Pochaina (April 20, 2018), www.ukinform.net. I. I. Movtjan, “Royal Guard Grave in Kiev,” in K. Berg and O. Olsson, eds., Olga & Ingegerd (Statens Historiska Museum Stockholm, 2004–5), 54–57. The fictional archery demonstration comes from Al-Masudi’s 934 account of Magyars in battle, quoted by Hedenstierna-Jonsson (2006), 56. I base some details on the description of the Saqaliba by Ibn Rustah, trans. P. Lunde and C. Stone, Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness (Penguin, 2012), 124–25.

  Khazars: Duczko (2004), 2. Brook, Jews of Khazaria, 2–4, 12, 61, 73–75, 135 (King Joseph). Miskawayh, trans. Lunde and Stone, Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness, 151 (“swords”).

  Pechenegs: Androshchuk (2013), 216–17.

  Queen Olga: Androshchuk (2013), 5 (“fabulous”), 65–68, 73, 84. I base Olga’s description in the fictional scene on the eleventh-centu
ry fresco in Sofia Cathedral, Kyiv, assumed to depict her meeting with the emperor in Constantinople. Some details of her dress are from G. J. Ivakin, “Scandinavian Grave Finds in Kiev,” in Berg and Olsson, Olga & Ingegerd, 53. Russian Primary Chronicle, trans. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, 78–81 (“hunting-grounds”); “Introduction,” 31 (“picturesque,” “largely legendary,” “empty years,” “scanty data,” “tradition”). Elisabeth Löfstrand, “Olga: Avenger and Saint,” in Berg and Olsson, Olga & Ingegerd, 15.

  Dniepr: Androshchuk (2013), 119, 122. Constantine VII, De administrando imperio, quoted by Robert Wernick, The Vikings (Time-Life Books, 1979), 106 (“high rocks,” “lay their boats”); quoted by Robert Ferguson, The Vikings (Viking Penguin, 2009), 124–26 (“Ashore they go”). Hraundal (2013), 27 (rapids).

  Constantinople: While there is no consensus on the date of Olga’s visit or her baptism, neither is in doubt. Androshchuk (2013), 176–79, 218 (“handmaidens”). Constantine VII, De ceremoniis, quoted by Jonathan Shepard, “The Viking Rus and Byzantium,” in Brink and Price (2008), 502 (“nodded”). The Works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. F. A. Wright (Routledge & Sons, 1930), 209 (“golden bowls”). Russian Primary Chronicle, trans. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, 82 (“her intellect”).

  world was shifting: Mägi (2018), 336.

  Sviatoslav: Russian Primary Chronicle, trans. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, 83–84 (“laugh,” “light as a leopard,” “kettles”), 87–88 (“head falls,” “carnage”), 90. Alice-Mary Talbot and Denis F. Sullivan, trans., The History of Leo the Deacon (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2005), 126 (“hot-headed”), 194–99 (“die gloriously,” “white horse,” “intelligent general”).