Social Scandinavia in the Viking Age

Preface

It is hoped that this book may be of service not only to the serious student of history and allied subjects but also to the general reader who desires to learn more about a people who for a long period played a leading and unique part in European history, and who, to an extent rarely realized, made, directly and indirectly, a lasting contribution to the cultural development of Europe and America.

The literary sources drawn upon in the preparation of the volume are listed in the Bibliography at the end of the book. Considerable attention was also given to an examination of the relics to be found in the archaeological museums of Scandinavia.

So far as the confusion caused by the World War permitted, permission has been secured for the reproduction of illustrations ; and in all cases proper acknowledgment has been given. The quotations at the heads of the chapters are, for the most part, selections from English translations of the sagas and eddas.

I feel deep obligation to the many kind and courteous ones who gave ready aid towards the preparation of the book. This includes members of museum and library staffs, whose names in some cases were never known but whose services are not forgotten. Special acknowledgments are due to the late Professor Gabriel Gustafson of the University of Christiania and to Mr. Halldor Hermannsson, curator of the Fiske Icelandic Collection of Cornell University. Through the kindness of Professor Gustafson, while in Christiania I had the opporx PREFACE

tunity to examine the contents of the Oseberg ship, — which throw much light upon Scandinavian culture during the Viking Age, — though they were not yet ready for public exhibition; and during the periods when I worked at Cornell, gathering material from books in the Fiske Icelandic Collection, Mr. Hermannsson placed his extensive bibliographical knowledge at my service and extended aid in innumerable other ways.

When the book was in manuscript large portions of it were read and helpfully criticized by two friends at Goucher College — Dr. Mary Emma Armstrong, of the Latin department, and Dr. Ella Lonn, a colleague in the history department.

M. W. W.

Baltimore, Maryland, February 26, 1920.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Land and the People 1

II The Ties of Kinship and Nationality 23

Chapter I

The Dani and Sueones and the other peoples beyond Dania are called by the Frankish historians Normans, whilst however the Romans similarly call them Hyperboreans, of whom Martianus Capella speaks with much praise. . . . When one has passed beyond the islands of the Danes a new world opens in Sueonia and Nordmannia, which are two kingdoms of wide extent in the north, and hitherto almost unknown to our world. Of them the learned king of the Danes told me that Nordmannia can scarcely be traversed in a month, and Sueonia not easily in two. . . . On the borderland of the Sueones or Nordmanni on the north live the Scritefini, who are said to outrun the wild beasts in their running.

Adam of Bremen.

The people of Scandinavian stock, during the surprising activity characterizing them from the close of the

eighth century to the middle of the eleventh,

Greater spread far beyond the limits of their early Scandinavia

base in northwestern Europe. In the New World they established themselves on the west coast of Greenland, and for a brief period they abode upon the mainland of North America, in Vinland the Good; eastward, they extended their sway to the heart of the present Russia, and were not without influence even as far as Constantinople, where they formed the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor; their movements towards the North Pole were arrested only by the barriers of the Arctic climate; in the balmier regions to the south they made many conquests, setting up victorious standards in Normandy on the French coast, in scores of places in the British Isles, in Sicily and Southern Italy, and they even threatened to gain a foothold in the Iberian Peninsula and Northern Africa, in which places for a short time they occupied territory.1 Such, broadly speaking, were the remotest frontiers of the ethnic empire of Greater Scandinavia, but with the geographic character of the whole of the territory within the boundaries indicated this chapter is not concerned, for non-Scandinavian peoples influenced to a considerable extent the manners and customs of the Northmen in the border population, though the latter often formed the ruling element. Hence, conditions here were less representative of Scandinavian culture than they were in the original swarming ground — Denmark, Norway, and Sweden — and in Iceland, the first Scandinavian colony of the Viking Age. The population of these ancient lands was chiefly and fundamentally of Scandinavian blood, and the culture was primarily of Northern origin. Since these countries form the theatre in which took place the events producing and reflecting the social characteristics, a glance at their geography should make more comprehensible not only the Northern culture, but also the actors of the drama, the ancient Scandinavians themselves.

The physical features of the units making up inner Scandinavia vary greatly. Denmark, composed of the attenuated peninsula of Jutland and a group of scattered islands to the eastward, is, — except for the high, rocky island of Bornholm, forming the extreme eastern limit of the Danish archipelago, — rather flat and low-lying, and is marked here and there

i The following works treat of the spread of the Northmen during the Viking period: Gjerset, History of the Norwegian People; Haskins, The Normans in European History; Hovgaard, Voyages of the Norsemen to America; Johnson, Normans in Europe; Kluchevsky, A History of Russia; Larson, Canute the Great!; Mawrer, The Vikings; Nansen, In Northern Mists.

by white chalky cliffs suggestive of the coasts of France and England. The great rocky peninsula lying northward shows a broad, gradual incline from the sea and gulf limiting it on the east to the crest of the Scandinavian Alps, at the west of which there is a short, rapid drop to the North Sea. In the rugged mountains on the broadest side of the water-shed, rise the long, crooked rivers which expand into the thousands of lakes characterizing the Swedish landscape. Here and there along the coast of Sweden are occasional good harbors, and beyond them are a few isolated islands, closely bound with the early history of the peninsular mainland. In Norway, on the steeper side of the mountain crest, scarcely a river worthy of the name exists. Instead, there are short, rapid, vestigial streams, often originating in the snow-fields and glaciers high up among the mountains and terminating in the countless cataracts and waterfalls which tumble madly over the lofty cliffs, contributing greatly to the majestic beauty of Norway's fiord-indented coast. These fiords, the sheer-walled "drowned valleys," which give the Norwegian coastline its peculiar character, are very deep, and range from one half mile to two miles in width. Many of the largest penetrate from fifty to a hundred miles into the heart of the peninsula. Near the mouths of the fiords, like sentinels guarding the mainland, stand groups of high, rocky islands. These are in long, narrow archipelagoes, and are especially numerous towards the north. With the arms of the sea thus beckoning to every part of the land and offering safe harbors for the mariner, and with the islands just beyond, to serve as stepping stones outward, it was inevitable that the Norwegians, in particular, should become a great sea-faring people. Iceland, on the other side of the North Sea, has, like Norway, a generally uneven shoreline, deeply scored by fiords. The coast of the island is, as a whole, fertile, and some productive valleys are found in the interior, but much of the surface is occupied by sand- and lava-deserts, snow-fields, and glacier-mantled mountains. Some of the mountain peaks are active volcanoes,, from which, now and then in times past, have poured forth great rivers of lava, burying farms and homes, and permanently devastating large parts of the island. Hekla is the most famous of these, because of the violence of its eruptions, but Mount Askja is the largest. The volcanic character of Iceland explains the presence there of the numerous mud lakes, hot springs, and geysers, which have increased its attractiveness to modern tourists.

Though much of inner Scandinavia lies close beneath the Arctic Circle, and all of it is well to the north of the c . parallel marking the southern limits of Lab-

rador, the climate of the region as a whole, thanks to the warm ocean- and air-currents from the equatorial belt, is much kindlier than that of the same latitude elsewhere in the world. This important advantage made possible the comparatively high degree of culture found in these far-northern lands a thousand years ago. The Scandinavia of the past and present is just as truly the result of these benevolent natural influences as Egypt is "the gift of the Nile." But distance from the Pole and elevation above sea-level, as well as other lesser agencies, have made the climate in some parts milder than in others. Southern Sweden and Denmark are cooler in summer and warmer in winter than the northern tier of American states in the Mississippi Valley. In fact, they have a climate very similar to the state of Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Iceland, on the other hand, and the northern parts of Sweden and Norway have very severe winters, and here for many months there reigns almost continuous night, brightened only by the wan, slant rays of the low-circling sun — when it appears at all — and by the weird splendor of the iridescent aurora borealis. But there are compensations in the brief summers. Continuous daylight then reigns in the Far North for several successive weeks ; the sun dominates the earth during most of the hours in the twenty-four, scarcely interrupted by the brief, silvery nights formed by the union of twilight and dawn in an ethereal and mystical beauty — nights likely to inspire the visitor, at least for a brief space, with a feeling akin to reverence and awe. At this season the whole vegetable kingdom awakens and responds marvelously to the sun's enchantment. Plants grow with a speed scarcely exceeded in the tropics, and bloom and put forth mature fruit and seed before the deadening winter again closes down. Yet even the climate of Iceland has occasionally in modern times shown striking mildness; and the same variation was not unknown in the olden days, as is evident from the testimony of contemporary accounts, that one winter of the eleventh century was so moderate that it was possible to build houses and fences in January and February.2 On the other hand, these same ancient records state that in the middle of June of a certain year the snow was so deep and frozen so hard that the men of Iceland went a-f oot to attend the summer session of parliament.3

A thousand years ago bogs and swamps were more numerous in Scandinavia than now, and the forests were thicker and more extensive. Most of the original fenand swamp-tracts, particularly those in Denmark and

3 Ibid.

Sweden, have long since been transformed into fertile

fields ; while some of the early lakes are now

Forests marshes. In the ancient days the woods were

and Fens

in many cases impenetrable because of the heavy undergrowth of shrubbery. Great stretches were overgrown with heather, especially upon the sand-blown peninsula of Jutland; but a larger area of Denmark, southern Sweden, and Norway was also mantled with noble forests of ash and alder, birch, oak, and beech, as well as with representatives of the coniferous evergreens. With the advance towards the north, most of the deciduous trees gradually gave way, in the Norwegian-Swedish peninsula, to the conifers — fir, pine, spruce, and hemlock — such as furnish the abundant lumber supply for Norwegian and Swedish commerce at the present time. Within the borders of the Lapland of to-day, the evergreens disappeared, and almost the only representatives of tree life were the rowan, or mountain ash, with its gay red berries, the birch, little more than a slender switch, and the willow, transformed by the rigorous Arctic climate into a mere trailing vine. In the -present Iceland there is scarcely more of forest than in Lapland, and the kinds of growth are the same in the two lands ; but at the time when the island was settled by the Norsemen the trees were larger as well as more numerous. The statement in the account of early colonization that the first comers found the land forested "from the mountains to the sea"4 may be something of an exaggeration, but it is quite clear that the forests of Iceland once covered a much larger area than now. As regards the size of the trees, we have not only the record of the early historians that the forests supplied timber large enough for the

* Schonfeld, E. Dagobert, Der Isliindische Bauernhof und sein Betreib zur Sagazeit, 3.

building of ships as well as houses ; 5 but there is also the testimony of the swamps and bogs of the land. Here have often been found trunks of trees of much greater thickness than those growing in Iceland to-day. 6

Wild animal life, too, was more abundant in the ancient North. The rivers, lakes, and seas abounded in fish, particularly trout and salmon in the fresh water, and herring and cod in the surrounding ocean. Seals, whales, and walruses, as well as other water mammals, were plentiful, particularly close to the Polar Circle. Foxes and wolves were common throughout Scandinavia ; and in the forests of the continental part ranged wild cats, brown bears, common deer, red deer, reindeer, and elks. Small quadrupeds, such as the beaver and the marten, the hare and the squirrel, were also numerous. Polar bears from Greenland occasionally visited Iceland, brought there upon the ice-floes. Hawks and falcons were especially prized among the land birds. Sea-fowl of many species and in great numbers swarmed about the coasts and islands, especially in the north; and of these the eider duck, found about Iceland and on the north and west coasts of Norway, was probably then, as now, the most highly prized.

At the close of the eighth century the population of Scandinavia was very much less than now. It is idle to attempt definiteness as to the numbers, but it p „. does not seem probable that the inhabitants inhabitants of that day were more than a small fraction of the present total of nearly ten millions.7 It was com-

B Origines Islandicae, I, 31, 47.

« Maurer, Konrad, Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung bis zum Untergange des Freistaats, 15.

i Professor Alexander Bugge believes that the population of Norway in posed of various pre-historic elements as well as of the dominant Norse type, generally referred to by scholars as the real Scandinavians. The questions of the affinities and characteristics of the pre-historic peoples, of the order of their migration into the Northern lands, and of their relations to one another, have long puzzled scholars, and upon the answers they are by no means all agreed. The first inhabitants of the land must have entered it in the hoary past, shortly after the glaciers retreated,8 and it was perhaps they who left the primitive kitchen-middens, or refuse heaps, upon the coasts of Denmark and southern Sweden. Whether these aboriginal peoples moved away, were extirpated by later comers, or merged with them, or whether their descendants are still to be found in the Scandinavian North, a fairly distinguishable type, it seems impossible to determine with certainty.

There is no doubt, however, that when the Teutonic settlers, who were the ancestors of the present-day blond Scandinavians, arrived they found already The Bru- established in the land a brunette people less nette Strain advanced than themselves. These older in- *" t e habitants were still in the Old, or Rough,

vian Popu- Stone stage of culture,9 while the invading lation Teutons used implements and weapons of

skillfully chipped and polished stone; and they brought with them various kinds of domestic animals, some of which they probably used in the cultivation of the soil ; 10 for before entering the Scandinavian lands they had progressed beyond the status of mere herdsmen. It is not impossible that several invasions

this period was only about a ninth or a tenth as large as it is at present. Xorfies Historic, vol. I, pt. II, p. 221.

8 Hansen, Andr. M., Oldtidens Nordmaend, 2-3.

9 Keane, A. H., Man: Past and Present, 515.

i° Hansen, Oldtidens Xordmaend, 14, and passim.

of dark peoples of inferior culture took place between the coming of the first dwellers in the land and the arrival of the immigrants of Teutonic blood. It is the question of the origin and character of these brunette people or peoples which has presented the greatest problem to students of pre-historic man in Scandinavia. Certain scientists hold that they belonged to the somewhat hypothetical Iberian wave of population which swept over Europe in the van of the Celts; u others believe that they were representatives of the "Alpine race" of Ripley's classification.12

The type which is the subject of discussion was dark of hair and eyes, generally broad-skulled, and of medium, or short, stature. These people were not wiped out by the invading Teutons, but many of them in the southern part, — especially in Denmark where there was little chance for migration, — were conquered and enslaved. Farther north, they were crowded into narrow strips of land along the coast, or were driven into the more heavily forested parts of the interior. The blond new-comers meanwhile helped themselves to the best land in the river valleys and the grass-clad open spaces on the hill slopes, choosing territory which was desirable either for cultivation or for grazing. 13 Throughout Scandinavia, the dark people came in the course of time under the dominion of the Teutonic invaders and adopted their language and their culture. The result was to modify both classes of the population to a considerable extent physically; but, since Nature is fond of reverting to old forms, we may be

11 Ripley, William Z., The Races of Europe: a Sociological Study, 207- 208 ; Olrik, Axel, Nor disk Aandsliv i Vikingetid og tidlig Middelalder, 13-14.

i2 Hansen, Oldtidens Nordmaend, 127; Ripley, Faces of Europe, 207-211.

13 Hansen, Oldtidens Nordmaend, 14; Nansen, In Northern Mists, I, 209.

sure that the appearance of the pre-historic people conquered by the Scandinavian Teutons is pretty faithfully reflected in the distinctly un-Teutonic looking element in the present population — people of medium height or less, rather stocky of build, broad-skulled, and possessed of dark hair and ejTes and regular features. This type is particularly well represented in Denmark, but here and there in the Scandinavian peninsula may also be seen patches of such a population, especially along the southwestern coast of Norway ; while on much of the remaining coast and in the river valleys are found the purest representatives of the blond Norse race.14

That the brunette strain was not contributed to the Scandinavian continental population, by the so-called Iberian race seems quite evident from the fact that the latter was characterized by long skulls. Neither were these early people Celtic in origin, as Nansen suggests, 15 — at least, not fundamentally so — for the true Celts were a tall, blonde people. It is more probable that they belonged to Eipley's short, dark, broad-skulled Alpine race.

The people of Iceland, on the other hand, do display a distinct Iberian strain,16 presumably the result of immigration from the British Isles. Settlers from these islands antedated the Northern

ture

in Iceland immigrants into Iceland, and some of the earlier population probably remained after the coming of the Scandinavians and intermarried with the latter.17 But what was doubtless a more important dilution of the Northern blood in Iceland came through the subsequent arrival of Ibero-Celtic peoples from the

14 Hansen, Oldtidens Nordmaend, 118-126; Ripley, Races of Europe, 210-211.

is In Northern Mists, I, 210.

is Annandale, Nelson, The Faroes and Iceland, 12, 219.

17 Nansen, In Northern Mists, I, 165-167.

islands to the south. Some of these entered the land individually, as free settlers ; others immigrated because of marriage into Scandinavian families, settled temporarily in northern Britain or Ireland; while a considerable portion was brought in — particularly from Ireland — as slaves.

A further ethnical question connected with the early North is the identity of the ' ' Finns ' ' of the Scandinavian peninsula, so frequently mentioned in the sagas. This question does not offer much o{ the Sagas promise of a definite and conclusive answer, but different scholars have advanced suggestive theories, among which that of Fridtjof Nansen seems the most acceptable. He believes that the Finns and the short, dark, brachycephalic people mentioned above as preceding the Teutons into the North were one and the same. To this sparse, primitive population which they found upon their arrival the blond new-comers attached the name " Finns." 18 These old residents differed from the later arrivals culturally not only in that they were semi-nomadic fishers and hunters but also in the fact that they extensively practiced magic and shamanism — accomplishments probably borrowed from the Mongoloid Ural- Altaic peoples farther to the north.

The western extremity of the Ural-Altaic population bordering Eurasia close under the Arctic Circle is made up of people known to the English-speaking The "gkridworld of to-day as " Lapps." These under- finns," sized nomads probably came into the Scandi- or LaPPs navian peninsula from a northeastern direction after the opening of the viking period. And when the blond Scandinavians in their northward advance met these second dark, nomadic people, they called them " Finns" also, but to distinguish the far-northern tribes from the other Finns they sometimes referred to the former as "Skridfinns," from their habit of rapid travel upon snowshoes. With the passage of time, the southern Finns, who were doubtless of Aryan stock, amalgamated with the Teutonic Scandinavian population and disappeared as a separate people ; but the name Finn continued to be applied to the Ural-Altaic population to the north, and is still so used in Norway, though in Sweden in the early modern time the term "Lapp" began to be employed instead.19

The term "Finn" was applied even more extensively and inconsistently by the Northmen, for the inhabitants of the present Finland were also known by of Finland *ne name at an early date. This application may be partially accounted for by the fact that these people spoke a language related to that of the Lapps, and shared various cultural characteristics with them. The similarity of culture even misled modern scientists into thinking that the inhabitants of Finland were, like the Lapps, fundamentally Mongolian; but it now appears established beyond question that they are instead basically a blonde, medium- or long-skulled people, probably akin to the Teutons themselves; and that their language and the other characteristics which led to their being classed with the Mongolian groups of Northern Europe were acquired by borrowing, largely as the result of marriage with their Ural-Altaic neighbors.20

The arrival of the Teutons in Scandinavia marks the

It was the Lapps, or Skridfinns, to whom Othere referred in mentioning the tribute paid by the Finns of Halogaland in the form of furs and other animal products. See Alfred's Orosius, in Pauli, Life of Alfred the Great, 251.

20 Abercromby, John. The Pre- and Proto-Historic Finns, I, passim; Ripley, Races of Europe, 365.

first important geographic separation of the Germanic family and the last racial migration into the Scandinavian North. These last invaders, Scaendi.°n e in all probability, came in more than one navians installment, and as people to some extent separated by group interests. The Goths of Sweden, for instance, seem to have arrived at a different time from the Swedes, or Suiones, of Tacitus, for whom the country was later named;21 and for, a long period they remained apart, but finally the former were conquered by the latter. The advance guard of the Teutonic invaders seems to have entered first the Danish peninsula and the adjoining islands and settled them, after which they, or subsequent arrivals, occupied southern Sweden; later still, the blonde conquerors moved farther north in Sweden, making their advance against the earlier inhabitants. Norway, the last of the Scandinavian lands to be settled in prehistoric times, was perhaps largely peopled from Sweden; but it is likely that some contribution was also made by sea, from Jutland and the Danish islands. Though the first entrance into the North by the Scandinavian conquerors was seemingly made by land, by way of Holstein, very likely later invasions by water took place, across the Baltic.22

There is great divergence of opinion as to when the Teutons entered Scandinavia ; some scholars believe that they came thousands of years before the Christian era,23 and others, that the invasion took place only a few centuries before Christ. Bremer, an adherent of the latter view, thinks that the separation from the mother Ger-

21 Hildebrand, Hans, Svenska Folket under Eedna Tiden, 98, and passim.

23 Keane, A. H., "The Lapps: their Origin, Ethnical Affinities, etc.," in Jr. Anthrop. Inst., XV, 221; Hansen, Oldtidens Nordmaend, 19; Montelius, Oscar, Om vara Forfdders Invandring till Norden, 15.

manic group could hardly have occurred earlier than 300 b. c, but he admits that it might have come centuries before this time.24 The opinions of even the most profound scholars are, however, little more than intelligent guesses ; and all that we can at present be sure of is that the Teutonic conquerors entered the land far back in the prehistoric age of Scandinavia, centuries — perhaps thousands of years — before the birth of Christ. Indeed, it seems proper to say that the Scandinavians are, in a sense, indigenous to the soil on which they now live ; for when their ancestors arrived in the North, they were not possessed of the physical and mental characteristics which distinguish them from other Teutons. These they acquired in their new home, as a result of difference in climate and environment, and of mixture of blood with the earlier inhabitants. Consequently, Scandinavia may properly be called the cradle-land of the blonde Scandinavian type, which greatly outnumbered the more primitive earlier comers and dominated the population as a whole, culturally as well as politically.

It may be well to remember that the Caucasian population of Scandinavia still discloses two distinguishable race types, and without doubt they were Mental much more marked one thousand years ago.

Character- -^Q^ onjy ^Q phySicai differences persist, but,

of the Al- according to Axel Olrik,25 mental and tempine Type peramental distinctions are also quite noticeable. In Olrik 's opinion, the dark element of the population is more impulsive, envious, brooding, melancholy and religious than the Scandinavian type, and displays more talent for poetry and music; it also showTs greater endurance in drudgery; but, —

24 " Ethnosrraphie," in Pauli, Grundriss, III, 789.

26 Xordisk Aandsliv i Yikingetid og tidlig Middelalder, 14.

more conservative and less adaptable than the blonde population, — it is more difficult to organize for the execution of extensive new projects.

The blonde, or Scandinavian, type was looked upon by the Northmen of the viking time — who were representatives of it — as the physical ideal ; therefore, its physical characteristics demand Physical particular attention. Though now among the pharactertallest people of the world, the Northmen oi the were probably still taller a thousand years Scandinaago, for then they had mixed to a lesser de- vians gree with their short neighbors. The heroes of most of the sagas are described as very tall men ; and Ibn-Fadlan, the Arabian, described the Scandinavian merchants whom he saw in Russia in the ninth century as "tall as palm trees," and stated that he had never seen larger-bodied people.26 Large-boned and muscular were they also, and long-limbed and deep-chested. The head was long and the face oval, with strongly chiselled features; the skin was very fair, and generally ruddy, sometimes marked with freckles; invariably, the eyes were light, generally blue, but occasionally gray; and the hair, which was usually soft and sometimes curly, was also fair — flaxen, yellow, red, or light brown.

The isolation of the Scandinavian lands, combined with the influence of climate and environment, gave a distinct individualism to the Northmen; the fight against the dark and the cold, and the TemPerastruggle for existence were deeply wrought character into their mental and moral fiber. They were, in consequence, strong-willed and capable of great patience when necessity demanded it; self-reliant, decisive, and inclined to express themselves in actions rather than in words; reserved, especially as regarded their deepest feelings, and little given to wearing their hearts upon their sleeves; serious — almost severe — in their mental outlook, but not melancholy ; proud and sensitive, to an unusual degree.

Another and more striking characteristic — also probably the result of environment — was the belief in a severe, relentless Fate. They were fatalists in a very real and practical sense. "There is no good striving against it, for what must be is sure to happen," was the attitude taken towards that which seemed inevitable. But that fatalistic viewpoint by no means dominated the Northmen or made them ambitionless pessimists or cowardly weaklings. On the contrary, it seemed a distinct asset, and offered an incentive to make the most of life, in defiance of all of the supernatural forces leagued against them. In fact, their belief in fatalism caused them to look upon life as a sort of game, into which they plunged with zest. On the field of battle they fought fearlessly; and at sea they faced uncowed the fiercest storms. But in their pursuit of adventure no risk of life, in the usual sense of the term, was recognized by them as involved; however reckless a man might be, he would not be killed unless his death had been decreed by the inscrutable Fates; on the other hand, if he was destined to go, no amount of caution could save him.