Eastern Vikings Conference in Iceland announced

Posted on August 5, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

The Sigfús Blöndal Memorial Conference on Varangian Studies is scheduled to be held on 21-22 October of 2021 as a part of the research project Legends of the Eastern Vikings at the University of Iceland.

It will take place at the university compound at lovely Laugarvatn (around 80 km distance from the capital Reykjavík). The participants will be able to stay at the university residences at this location during the conference. We plan to have a bus to transport participants from Reykjavík and back again.

Laugarvatn is a popular resort town, known for its geothermal steam baths, and they also use the hot earth to boil (yes, boil) bread in. It is also known for its boarding school, whose main building is a nice example of Icelandic interwar architecture.

The participants at the conference will be the research team for the project, including all MA students who have finished theses related to the project. In addition, three affiliated scholars and three invited guests will take part in the proceedings.

We would like you to send us a title of your paper and an abstract of 300 words of its contents by 15 April. This will be put on the conference website accessible from here. We plan to publish the proceedings of the conference in a monograph in 2022.

Do the Sagas Belong in Iceland or Denmark?

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

This year marks 50 years since the Danes returned many of the Saga manuscripts, including the famed Flateyjarbók, to Iceland. Surprisingly, it also marks the first time in 50 years that possession of the manuscripts has come up for debate.

On June 3rd, the Historian’s Association of Iceland held a conference about the manuscripts in Reykjavik. The tone was set at the beginning when Minister of Education Lilja Alfreðsdóttir stated that discussions were being held with the Danes for the return of further manuscripts. This is partly because the Danes are felt not to be honouring the spirit of the agreement from 1971 regarding manuscript scholarship. As an example, they no longer pay the wages of the one Icelandic chair at the University of Copenhagen, this burden now being shouldered by the Icelandic government.

It is true that much has changed since in 50 years. At the time, the study of Saga manuscripts was centred on Copenhagen but has now almost entirely moved to Iceland which, thanks to new transport and technology, is no longer the outpost it once was. Meanwhile, research in the field in Denmark has lapsed due to decreased interest. In addition, the long-awaited House of Icelandic Studies in Reykjavik is nearing completion, which means that the country will finally have the appropriate showcase for the Sagas.

Perhaps surprisingly, all the Icelandic scholars present agreed that the remaining manuscripts should remain in Copenhagen. And yet, there was considerable dispute among them. Some felt that the debate was settled long ago and therefore it was meaningless to bring it up again. Furthermore, it is in the interest of scholarship to have Saga manuscripts available in other countries. Sweden and Britain have their own Icelandic manuscript collections and others can be found further afield.

Others felt that dialogue with the Danes was all for the good. Even if the results would be the same, with the collection remaining divided between Reykjavik and Copenhagen, the debate was likely to rekindle interest in the Sagas. As Saga scholar Gísli Sigurðsson said, in 1971 people took interest in the Sagas for granted as they had been kept in the public eye partially because of the debate with the Danes. These days, more effort must be made to attract public attention.

And public attention was truly attracted, as the debate continued that evening on the much-watched daily newsmagazine Kastljós on Icelandic public television.

The Icelandic Sagas are some of the best available sources on the Eastern Vikings in existence, as well as the Viking Age in general. The Saga collection in Árnastofnun encompasses some 1.666 manuscripts and manuscript parts, whereas the Danes have retained 700 manuscripts, including the famous Heimskringla, the story of the Norwegian Kings, by Snorri Sturluson.

For the broadcast in Icelandic:

https://www.ruv.is/sjonvarp/spila/kastljos/27725/95ersb

For the manuscript collection (Icelandic, English, Danish):

https://handrit.is/en/

Icelandic Fans of the Eastern Romans

Posted on May 10, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

Among the many interesting points raised in Sverrir Jakobsson’s recent podcast on the Varangians is how they have been viewed by posterity. The Varangian Guard was know for its loyalty to the Eastern Emperor, who was not always on good terms with the West, not least after the sacking of Constantinople by Western crusaders in 1204.

In the Icelandic Sagas, however, the view on the Byzantine Empire seems overwhelmingly positive, despite the Great Schism having taken place a couple of centuries earlier, in 1054. In a previous paper entitled “The Schism That Never Was.” (see link below), Sverrir says, as the title implies, that the Schism may not have had as great an effect on contemporaries as often supposed, the real break coming in 1204.

For the Saga heroes, to have served the Byzantines always engenders respect. In fact, to have done so means that the hero is not called upon to prove himself further with great deeds, this seen to already having been done. This view is in opposition to other contemporary Western literature, which tends to have a negative view of the Eastern Romans. In Nordic sources, this only becomes apparent in Sweden in the 14th century. In that sense, he says, Icelanders were more Catholic than the pope, seeing all Christians as belonging to the same group.

It was only centuries later that the Varangians Swedish roots were emphasised in Russia. The Empress Catherine the Great, herself of Germanic stock, even wrote a paly about them and found obvious allusions to herself in noble foreigners ruling Russia. The Scottish poet Walter Scott sees them as English heroes, as later on the Varangian Guard were mainly composed of Englishmen, whereas the Icelandic poet Einar Benediktsson sees them as modernisers and proto-businessmen, an image of Viking-bankers that Icelandic oligarchs would attempt to project. As Sverrir says, the view of the Varangians is usually based on present needs rather than medieval sources.

(article in English)

The Schism that never was: Old Norse views on Byzantium and Russia – Medievalists.net

(podcast in Icelandic)

New Russia/Ukraine Book at Number 1 in Iceland

Posted on April 28, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

The latest work by your humble editor, Bjarmalönd, which is about Russia, Ukraine and surrounding countries, is now out. Written over a 20 year period starting as a Russian Studies student at the University of Helsinki and concluding in Chernobyl during Covid, it is part travelogue, part bildungsroman with a lot of history thrown in for good measure. While the book primarily deals with the post-Soviet sphere in the 21st century, it does go back to the 9th to explore the common origins of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. And perhaps how different takes on the origin story still influences people today.

Bjarmalönd is currently at number 1 on the Icelandic non-fiction charts and can be bought here in ebook and hardcopy (Icelandic only).

Bjarmalönd – Forlagið bókabúð (forlagid.is)

The Volcano Erupts!

Posted on March 20, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

We interrupt our regular programming to bring you volcano news, as we have just had one in Iceland. The current eruption started on the evening of March 19^th in Geldingadalur, which roughly translates to Eunuch Valley, although it probably refers to horses rather than people. The Reykjanes peninsula is the youngest part of Iceland and it has five live volcano zones. At one end is the international airport and at the other is the capital city of Reykjavik.

The eruption may have little to do with Eastern Vikings, but it does actually connect to Viking history. The last series of eruptions here began in around 950 CE, so roughly a century after settlement of Iceland began. It lasted for around 300 years. Among the largest eruptions was one that took place at around the year 1000 and is called the “Christianisation Eruption,” as it happened at the same time that Iceland was becoming Christian. Some pagans took this as proof that the gods did not approve of the new custom, as it was called, but the Christians pointed out that many eruptions had taken place before, and so could hardly be traced to the anger of the gods.

The largest eruption took place in 1226, six years after the Saga writer Snorri Sturluson returned from Norway and so is mentioned in annals. It is said that the there was a winter of sand falling from the sky. The eruptions finally ended in around 1240, the year before Snorri died. Since that year also marked the end of the Kyivan Rus with the Mongols sacking Kyiv, as well as the last Viking raids around Scotland, one can say that the Viking Age was bookended by volcanic eruptions.

There has not been another eruption on the peninsula for 781 years, that is, until last night. Time will tell if we will get another sandfall winter or 300 years of eruptions, but as for now, it doesn’t look too bad.

If you want to see the eruption live, it is being streamed by Icelandic National Television: https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/03/20/beint-vefstreymi-fra-eldstodvunum

Icelandic Viking Conference Announced

Posted on February 4, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

It will take place at the university compound at lovely Laugarvatn (around 80 km distance from the capital Reykjavík). The participants will be able to stay at the university residences at this location during the conference. Busses will transport participants from Reykjavík and back again.

Laugarvatn is a popular resort town, known for its geothermal steam baths, and they also use the hot earth to boil (yes, boil) bread. It is also known for its boarding school, whose main building is a nice example of Icelandic interwar architecture.

Laugavatn HÍ og KHÍ_05.jpg

Saga Heroes in Byzantium

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

Professor Sverrir Jakobsson is interviewed in Morgunblaðið this week about his new book The Varangians: In God’s Holy Fire. He also talks about the Legends of the Eastern Vikings project and says that the Icelandic Sagas, including the Varangians, has been his main interest for the past 30 years, or more or less since he started university. Already in secondary school, Sverrir was known in Iceland for participating on his school team in the annual quiz show Gettu Betur alongside his twin brother Ármann, himself a now professor of Icelandic literature. The competition was broadcast on TV and needless to say, they won.

In the interview, Sverrir talks about the connections between the Icelandic Sagas and the Varangians. Among famous Saga personalities that served at the court of the Eastern Emperor are Kolskeggur (which translates as Blackbeard), who was the brother of the main hero Gunnar in Njáls’ Saga, and Bolli, one of the main protagonists of Laxdæla Saga, was a renowned Varangian too.

Interestingly, while the Byzantine Emperor’s Nordic troops are called “Varjagi” in Slavic chronicles, the term is not used in the oldest Icelandic sources from the 12th century, although veterans from Constantinople are mentioned. The moniker “Væringjar” first seems to come into use in the 13th century in Iceland, at a time when the Varangians, or at least their Nordic element, was in decline in Constantinople and the cohort was increasingly being constituted of Englishmen. The term “Varjagi” can be found in later Arabic sources, but comes later into the old Norse being used in Iceland at the time.

Morgunblaðið newspaper is of a rather later vintage but is Iceland’s oldest functioning newspaper and was founded in 1913. The full interview can be found (in modern Icelandic) on mbl.is.

“Áhugamál mitt í næstum þrjátíu ár.” Þriðjudagur, 19. janúar 2021.

What Happened to the Heruls?

Posted on December 13, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

The Heruls were a tribe from southern Scandinavia, known to be capable seamen and raided in Spain and France. A group migrated to present-day Ukraine in the 3rd century and from there raided around the Black Sea and Eastern Med. The ones that remained in Scandinavia were conquered by the Danes in the 6th century and disappeared from history. (John Haywood, Northmen, p. 28. Head of Zeus, London, 2016)

Until, that is, they were resurrected by head of the Icelandic National Library Barði Guðmundsson in his 1959 book Uppruni Íslendinga (the Origin of the Icelanders). Here, he claims that the Heruls, after having moved to Norway where they stayed for four centuries, ultimately colonised Iceland. His evidence was largely that the Icelanders wrote the Sagas instead of the Norwegians, and hence must have been of different stock.

The theory has been noted from time to time, most amusingly in 1999 when an Icelandic supreme court lawyer wrote an article where he tried to show that since the Icelanders were not descendants of the Norwegians, the Norwegians could make no claim to having discovered America at the 1000 year anniversary of that event (links can be found here: Herúlar. (svavarsson.is).

While it has never been firmly established why the Icelanders proved to be more adept writers than the Norwegians, the disappearance of the Heruls is not much of a mystery. As UCLA professor Patrick J. Geary has shown in The Myth of Nations, tribes disappearing into one another during the migration era, being conquered or willingly merging, was rather the norm.

New DNA research which has shown that Icelanders were rather regular Norwegians (if with a large infusion of Celtic blood) should finally put the Herul theory to bed. And yet they seem to have resurfaced again, now in Lithuania, where some claim them as distant ancestors. Where are the Herul? Here are the Herul! herulii | Huns | Ancient Germanic Peoples (scribd.com)

Eastern Vikings in New Jersey

Posted on November 16, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

To the serious medievalist, it might be a cause for some disappointment that when one googles Eastern Vikings, the first thing that comes up is the sports team of the Eastern Regional High School in New Jersey. As is to be expected, the logo is of a bearded man with (backwards facing) horns on his helmet. This is also how Leifur Eíriksson is portrayed on statues all over Minnesota, as opposed to our own clean-shaven, hornless Leifur in downtown Reykjavik, itself a gift from the Americans.

Minnesota has its own sports Vikings, of course, and Nordic immigrants in the state have a habit of fabricating evidence that the Vikings reached that far west. As far as we know, they only made it to Newfoundland and there is no evidence of them making it to New Jersey. However, these were western Vikings, emanating from Iceland via Greenland. Eastern Vikings, of course, went east, to present day Russia and Ukraine and even all the way to Iran and Iraq.

So it would be slightly less inaccurate to name the team Western Vikings but in the America-centric view, New Jersey is at the easternmost part of the known world. Of course, it would be more proper to place Scandinavia at the centre of the universe, from where Russia lies east and America (all of it) is west.