Northmen: The Viking Saga AD 793-1241 (7 page)

Most of the imported Roman gold was melted down and turned into spectacular jewellery and other prestige objects for the aristocracy. It was in the early part of the period that goldsmiths and silversmiths in southern Scandinavia developed the Scandinavian-Germanic animal art style, which used the stylised and enormously elongated bodies of real and imaginary animals to create interlaced patterns of astonishing complexity. The new art was probably a response to the turbulent times, creating a new language of symbols that were full of meaning to those who had the knowledge to read them. Unfortunately, that knowledge is now lost. Taken to Britain by the Anglo-Saxons, the animal style merged with indigenous Celtic art styles to create the hybrid Hiberno-Saxon style, whose finest expressions are found in illuminated manuscripts such as the
Lindisfarne Gospels
and the
Book of Kells
. In Scandinavia, animal art developed through a succession of styles until it was replaced by the imported Christian Romanesque style at the end of the Viking Age.

One of the characteristic items of Migration Period jewellery are bracteates, gold medallions modelled loosely on Roman medallions, which were worn as pendants. Bracteates frequently have the motif of a man’s head and a horse – thought to represent Odin and his steed Sleipnir – and sometimes also runic inscriptions, most of which have defied interpretation. Few artefacts, however, could have displayed the wealth of their owner more impressively than the two ornate gold drinking horns found at Gallehus in Jutland, the larger of which was 30 inches (75.8 cm) long and weighed over 7.7 pounds (3.5 kg). Horns like this, together with other precious tableware, fine jewellery and weapons, would have been displayed at the lavish warrior feasts that were, after wars, a chief’s or king’s most important opportunities to enhance their reputations by feeding their followers heroic portions of meat, filling them with ale or mead, and showering them with valuable gifts. Another example of Roman influence in this period are
guldgubber
(‘old men of gold’). These are tiny gold foil votive plaques impressed with figures of men or, more rarely, women or couples, which are thought to be inspired by Roman temple money. Around 75 per cent of the 3,000 guldgubber found so far come from Sorte Muld, a trade and cult centre on Bornholm. Guldgubber were mass produced as many were clearly stamped with the same moulds.

The turbulent times shaped Norse legend as well as metalwork. It was in this period that the
Volsunga
Saga
, the most important of the Norse legendary sagas, began to take shape. The saga centres on the deeds of the legendary hero Sigurd, the forging of his magical sword Gram, his slaying of the dragon Fafnir and his acquisition of its cursed treasure hoard, and his eventual murder at the instigation of his spurned Valkyrie lover Brynhild. While a plot like that is unlikely to have any basis in historical fact, several of the saga’s leading characters are historically identifiable figures from the Migration Period. Brynhild’s husband Gunnar is based on the Burgundian king Gundahar, who was killed in battle with the Huns in 437; King Atli, who kills Gunnar is a barely disguised Attila the Hun (d. 453); and Jormunrek, the husband of Sigurd’s daughter Svanhild, is inspired by Ermanaric, a king of the Goths who committed suicide after being defeated by the Huns in 375. Sigurd himself is thought by some to be based on the Frankish king Sigibert (d. 575), who was murdered as a result of family feuding between his wife, his brother and his brother’s lover. If so, Sigibert’s Burgundian wife Brunhilda may, then, be the inspiration for Brynhild.

The first Scandinavian kingdoms

The Late Germanic Iron Age (550 – 800) saw the emergence of powerful regional kingdoms in Denmark and Sweden. Scandinavia was still largely beyond the horizons of literate Europeans so these kingdoms’ existence is deduced primarily from archaeological evidence such as major defence works, planned settlements, richly furnished burials and feasting halls, all of which point to the presence of strong centralised authorities that controlled considerable material and human resources. One of these kingdoms was probably centred in southern Jutland where a 19-mile long (30 km) earth and timber rampart, known today as the Danevirke, was built across the neck of the peninsula between Hollingstedt and Schleswig. Although the Danevirke is now in Germany, in the early Middle Ages, this sparsely populated area’s marshlands and infertile heaths made it a natural frontier between the Danes and the Saxon tribes to the south. The Danevirke began as a simple earth bank, built around the middle of the seventh century. About eighty years later the height of the rampart was raised and a timber palisade was built on top, turning it into a much more effective obstacle. Thanks to the science of dendrochronology the date of the palisade’s construction can be fixed precisely – the timbers used to strengthen the rampart were felled in 737. The Danevirke, which still survives to a height of nearly 20 feet (6.1 m) in places, was strengthened several more times during the Middle Ages before it fell out of use in the fourteenth century. The construction of the Danevirke was probably overseen from a recently discovered high-status settlement at Flüsing, near Schleswig. An eighth-century feasting hall, roughly 100 feet (30.5 m) long by 30 feet (9.1 m) broad, excavated here was surrounded by up to 200 smaller buildings, which could together have accommodated up to 1,000 warriors on a temporary basis.

Another construction work possibly commissioned by the same king is a canal across an isthmus on the island of Samsø, off Jutland’s east coast. This has been dated by dendrochronology to exactly 726. It was probably built to make it easier for warships to control the sea routes on both sides of the island. The foundation of Scandinavia’s oldest town, Ribe on Jutland’s west coast, can also be dated to this period. A site about 220 yards (201 m) long and 70 yards (64 m) wide was drained, levelled with a layer of sand over 2 feet thick, and divided up into rectangular plots. Oak planks from a timber-lined well date the event to between 704 and 710. Around 720, a central street was laid out and this was paved with planks around 730. No traces of permanent buildings have been found on the site but there are signs of temporary huts and craft workshops so Ribe functioned at first as a seasonal market place. The market place was surrounded by a ditch and fence. These were too small to be for defence so were probably intended to make it easier for Ribe’s ruler to manage access and collect tolls.

Ribe was linked in to extensive trade networks, extending to Italy, Byzantium and Norway, but the most common imported artefacts originated in the Frankish kingdom: lava quernstones from the Eifel Mountains, and glass and pottery from the Rhineland. Large amounts of unworked amber have been found on the site so this was presumably an important export. There is evidence that large quantities of cattle were brought to the market, so perishable goods like hides were probably also exported. Ribe’s foundation demonstrates the existence of a ruler who could control where and when trade was conducted in his territory and presumably also guarantee traders’ security when visiting the site. Scandinavia’s earliest coins, imitations of a Frisian coin type known as a
scaetta
, were produced at Ribe
c.
720, so this ruler could also to some extent control the means of exchange. A permanently inhabited site about 250 yards (229 m) south-east of the market may have been the ruler’s compound. The identity of the ruler cannot be ascertained with certainty but there is a good chance that it was Angantyr, a Danish king who was visited by the Anglo-Saxon monk Willibrord on the first Christian mission to Scandinavia in
c.
725. Willibrord’s biographer described Angantyr as ‘crueller than a wild animal and harder than a stone’, but he greeted the missionary politely enough even though he showed no interest in converting to Christianity.

Angantyr was not the only king in Denmark. In ‘Beowulf’, the hero’s Danish host, Hrothgar, is described as a member of the Scylding dynasty. The same dynasty appears in semi-legendary saga traditions and in the
Gesta
Danorum
(‘Deeds of the Danes’) by the twelfth century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus as the Skjöldungs. Opinion about the historical reality of the Skjöldungs has wavered over the years: the consensus today is that the dynasty really did exist but that the stories that have come down to us belong more to the realm of legend than fact. Traditionally, the Skjöldungs were associated with the village of Gammel Lejre (‘Old Lejre’) on the island of Sjælland. An extraordinary concentration of impressive prehistoric barrows, dating from the Neolithic through to the late Viking Age, surround the village, marking it as a place that once possessed intense and enduring spiritual significance. In the last thirty years, archaeological excavations at Gammel Lejre have revealed that a succession of great timber feasting halls were built there between the sixth and tenth centuries, confirming that it was also a royal power centre in the period when the first Danish kingdoms were being forged. The attraction of the site for the kings of Sjælland must have been its many ancient monuments: they will have hoped to strengthen their authority by associating themselves with a place of such obvious ancient power.

Halls and
hørgs

The earliest hall at Gammel Lejre was built at Fredshøj, close to a prominent Bronze Age burial mound on a low ridge overlooking the marshy valley of the Lejre river. The bow-sided hall was around 150 feet (45 m) long and 20 feet (7 m) wide and has been dated to around the second quarter of the sixth century. If Hrothgar was a real historical figure, this would likely have been his hall. Nearby was a
hørg
, a sacrificial offering place or altar made of a pile of stones. Pits surrounding the
hørg
contained the remains of broken pots and thousands of sacrificial animals. In the early seventh century, Fredshøj was abandoned in favour of Mysselhøjgård about 550 yards (500 m) to the south. Like the Fredshøj site, this was also on a ridge overlooking the river and was 160 feet (48.5 m) long by 38 feet (11.5 m) wide, covered an area of 600 square yards (500 sqm), and was subdivided into a central hall and storerooms and residential rooms. Several large houses around the hall were probably built to accommodate household warriors and guests. A timber palisade surrounded the hall and houses so that access to them could be easily controlled.

Outside the royal compound there was a small colony of craftworkers who supplied the royal family with the prestige metalwork they needed to display their own status and to hand out as gifts to their warriors. A large farm about 550 yards (500 m) to the north would have supplied the community’s food. As at Fredshøj, there was a
hørg
, close to the feasting hall. The German Thietmar of Merseburg, writing around 1016, described a religious festival involving the sacrifice of ninety-nine humans, the same number of horses and an unspecified number of dogs and cocks, which was held at Gammel Lejre every ninth year on 6 January. So far, no evidence of human sacrifice has been found at the site. During the period when Mysselhøjgård was occupied the largest of all the religious monuments at Gammel Lejre was built. This is a now incomplete 282-foot (86 m) long stone ship that was used for burials and religious ceremonies. The Mysselhøjgård compound remained in use for over 350 years. During this time the feasting hall and its secondary buildings were completely rebuilt many times, replaced by a new hall of approximately the same size and plan. This too was eventually pulled down and replaced by a new hall sited a few yards to the north. Halls continued to be pulled down and rebuilt at Gammel Lejre until around 1000, when the site was abandoned, probably because of its pagan associations, in favour of the new Christian centre of Roskilde, five miles to the north.

Prehistoric monuments frequently become associated in folklore with historical or legendary figures. Until it was proven to date to the Neolithic, one of the barrows at Gammel Lejre was believed locally to be the burial place of the most famous of the Skjöldung kings, Harald Hildetand (‘Wartooth’). Harald most likely lived around the same time as Angantyr of Ribe, so the barrow could not have been raised for him, and, in any case, the legendary traditions agree that he is buried in Sweden on the site of the Battle of Bråvalla, in which he was killed fighting against the Swedish king Sigurd Ring. The location of Bråvalla, the greatest battle of Scandinavia’s proto-historical period, is unknown but was traditionally thought to have been near Bråviken Fjord, in Östergötland. Harald had no political motives for invading Sweden. He had enjoyed a long and successful career of raiding, conquest and plundering, but having reached the ripe and improbably old age of 150, he was becoming seriously worried that he would die in bed and so forfeit the chance to go to Valhalla. Harald’s sole motive was, therefore, to seek an opportunity to die fighting in battle. In some versions of the story, Harald was felled by the hand of Odin himself, who battered him to death with a club. The victors burned Harald on a funeral pyre, bidding him ride straight to Valhalla, together with the fifteen kings and 30,000 other warriors who had fallen in the battle. Plenty of mead would have been drunk that night in Valhalla.

Gamla Uppsala and the kingdom of the Swedes

In Sweden the last period of the Germanic Iron Age is known as the Vendel Period after a remarkable cemetery of fourteen high status graves at the modern village of Vendel, a few miles north of Uppsala in Uppland in central Sweden. This fertile region was the homeland of the Swedes. The burials at Vendel are the richest in Sweden for this period and most probably belong to members of a royal dynasty. The bodies were interred, without cremation, in large boats of up to 32 feet (10 m) in length, perhaps to transport them to the realm of the dead, and were surrounded with valuable grave goods, food and cooking gear for the journey, glass, superb weapons and armour, including a bronze-decorated iron helmet, hunting dogs, horses and saddles and, in one grave, a falcon. The distinctive animal-interlace ornament found on much of the metalwork gave its name to the Vendel art-style. Also near Vendel is a 16 feet (3 m) high barrow known as Ottarshögen (‘Ottar’s barrow’) after King Ottar of the Swedish Yngling dynasty who, like the Danish Skjöldungs, belong to the shadowlands between legend and history. The barrow contained the remains of a man and a woman. A well-worn Roman gold
solidus
minted in 477 was found in the burial, probably dating it to the sixth century. Ottar is the Swedish King Ohthere who is mentioned in ‘Beowulf’ as a contemporary of the eponymous hero, so it is not impossible that the barrow could really be his grave.