Who were the Rus? Host Valur Gunnarsson speaks with Dr. Sverrir Jakobsson, one of the worlds’ leading authorities, about all things Rus. Where did they come from, and how did they impact the Middle Ages as well as the world we know today? (In English)
Part 2 of the Legends of the Eastern Vikings Podcast.
(see also the Podcast Page for Part 1)
One of the more preposterous plot points in “The Vikings” TV show is when the Rus invade Norway. This would have been geographically impossible without cutting through present-day Finland and Sweden first, quite apart from the fact that the Rus and the Scandinavians were generally on good terms.
It is fairly well established that the Scandinavians played a part in the founding of the Rus state, which leads back to modern day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. But what about vice-versa? In his book The Varangians: In God’s Holy Fire, Dr. Sverrir Jakobsson points out that both St. Olaf and Harald Hardrada, two of the kings most fundamental to the creation of the Norwegian state, had been in exile in the Rus for long periods of time. Harald even went further and served in the Varangian Guard of the Roman Emperor.
The Rus at the time had so many towns that the Scandinavians called it “Garðaríki,” sometimes translated as “the kingdom of cities” or “the realm of towns.” And the court of the East Roman Emperor in Constantinople was the greatest in all of Christendom. Were the Norwegian kings inspired by the Rus and the Byzantines when they set about creating a state in Norway? These and many other Rus-related questions will be answered in an upcoming podcast with Sverrir Jakobsson on this very page.
Still ongoing in Oslo is the “Vikingr” exhibition at the Museum of Cultural History. On display is the most extensive collection of Viking swank assembled in Norway, including the world’s only intact Viking helmet (sans horns, if there was still any doubt).
Of particular interest to us is silver hoard from the 10th Century, found on the Teisen farm in Oslo in 1844. Among the items here are several Arabian and Persian coins from present day Iran and Iraq. There are also armrings, probably made from melted-down silver coins, which could both be worn and used as currency, sort of like a portable mini-bank. Finally, there are cut-down pieces of silver which must also have been used to buy stuff with and weighed according to price.
As if this wasn’t enough proof that 10th Century Norway was interconnected with large parts of the world, the next display case shows a treasure unearthed at a farm in Buskerud in 1834. While the Vikings mainly used silver, usually originating in the Caliphate, as currency, this hoard contains gold rings including one from England, multi-coloured pearls, Roman jewellery repurposed in the Viking Age, Frankish ornaments, as well as the omnipresent Arabian coins.
At the exhibit there are also finds from a female grave, which includes weapons. This could indicate that the roughly 19-year-old girl was a warrior, but little is known for sure. The still-intact skull will soon be DNA analysed, which may yield further information.
The museum is connected to the Viking Ship House on Bygdö Island, a short ferry trip away. A ticket for one is a ticket for both and can be used on different days. However, the Viking Ship Museum will soon be closed for renovation and will only reopen, vastly expanded, in 2025. Vikingr will run for a few more years. Even if you are not passing through Oslo Norway, you can take a virtual tour here:
https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=KLqd8Ur9Uuf
There is also an introductory video with English subtitles here:
https://www.khm.uio.no/english/visit-us/historical-museum/exhibitions/vikingr/index.html
The dig at Gjellestad, the most significant Viking find in Norway for over a century, is proceeding apace. The buried Viking ship was discovered two years ago and the excavation is expected to be completed this summer.
As I arrive, there is already a French documentary crew in place. Most Viking ship remains are found at the bottom of the sea, but this is a rare case of burial remains which makes it that much more interesting. Head archaeologist Camilla Wenn tells me that bones have been found belonging to animals, and possibly to humans, but this will have to be verified with DNA.
It’s hard to draw any conclusions at this point, but it seems that the Gjellestad ship did not have a mast. This may indicate that the ship is from before the the time when the old Norse started using sails. It could also just be a different design, or development, a coastal ship perhaps. No one knows.
But it does seem that Östfold, on the eastern side of the Oslo fjord, may have been more equal in power and wealth to Vestfold on the western side. The famous Gokstad ship and the Oseberg ship are both from Vestfold. However, the sandy terrain there does not lend itself well to preservation, so further finds are unlikely. The clay ground in Ostfold has preserved artefacts far better. Among the objects found at Gjellestad are a part of the stem and a large amber bulb. The latter may indicate contact with the eastern Baltic, but amber is quite often found in Viking graves so trade was conducted between the areas in any case.
Here you can see the finds in 3D at the University of Oslo.
Kulturhistorisk museum: 3D-modeller (uiocloud.no)
Some people have criticised the Assassins Creed: Valhalla computer game which came out last year for being excessively violent. Long and bloody execution scenes are common, with no option to skip. Even by the standards of the Assassins Creed series, this is taking things a step further.
Jane Skjoldli, a self-professed gamer, is part of the Back to Blood Research Project at the University of Stavanger in Norway which aims to look at Viking representations in popular culture. She says that the game is based on a specific view of the Vikings, which sees them simultaneously as brutal warriors and traditionally masculine but also with progressive views on gender. The series has sometimes been praised for historical accuracy but this time we get a mythologized Viking World which combines the old religion and stave churches and various epochs of the Viking era. The game seems more inspired by The Vikings TV series than history.
At least they didn’t have horns in the show. That particular trope was invented by Carl Emil Doepler who was tasked with producing Wagner’s Niebelungenlied in 1876. A century of misconceptions in popular culture followed. Perhaps the History Channel take is the Doepler effect of our day?
Meanwhile, the game has been changed and you can now skip the gore. If you like.
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):
Today is World Book Day (almost) everywhere except in Britain, which feels it must go its own way and celebrate books on March 4th. Ironic, considering that the day was chosen since it was the day that Shakespeare died, as well as the Spanish Miguel Cervantes.
More interesting for Norse scholars is the fact that yesterday marked the first day of summer in Iceland, this then being the second. The first day of summer is the first Thursday after April 18th, this year landing on the 22nd. True, it does not always feel very summery on this day, and has been known to snow. In fact, if there was frost the night before as did sometimes happen, it was said that summer and winter froze together, and this would auger a good summer for farming.
Choosing this day as the official start of summer (and it is in fact a public holiday in Iceland since 1971) makes sense if one keeps in mind that the year was divided in two equal halves. At this time, Harpa would begin, the first of the summer months. The tradition of the first day of summer has been documented as early as the 12th Century in Iceland. In Norway and Sweden, summer was said to begin on April 14th and lasting until October 14th.
We do not know if the old Rus celebrated the first day of summer or when. Present day Russians, like many nations, divide the year into four seasons. This then puts the beginning of spring on March 1st, a day when it is distinctly un-summery in most of Russia. And yet people congratulate each other on the onset of a new spring and, perhaps, on having survived another winter.
Why the first day of Russian spring doesn’t feel like spring at all – Russia Beyond (rbth.com)
Easter is, of course, a Christian holiday celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The timing was borrowed from Judaism, as Jesus was said to be crucified during Passover, originally meant to celebrate the first lambs of spring and later the first crops. The Christians borrowed much of the spring motif for their own celebration, which was transported to the north with the advent of Christianity after the year 1000.
But some scholars maintain that Germanic tribes previously had their own Easter traditions. Eostre was the goddess of spring, of morning, of rebirth and of children. This spring goddess once changed her pet bird into a rabbit who would then give children multi-coloured eggs as a symbol of life. Both Easter in English and Ostern in German take their name from Eostre. Both are related to east or ost, which is where the sun rises, symbolising the dawn and a new beginning. Spring is also connected to other goddesses, such as the Slavic Lada and the Nordic Freyja.
The rabbit symbolises fertility but otherwise seems unconnected to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Eostre was first mentioned by the English monk Bede around the year 700 and some scholars claim her to be his invention. However, Germanic-Romano inscriptions were discovered in 1958 near Morken-Harff, Germany which seem to substantiate the venerable Bede.
In Nordic languages, the festival derives from the Romano-Greek Pascha and it is now known as påske or páskar. Eggs were not supposed to be eaten during Lent, and in Eastern Europe pancake week is celebrated at the end of February when the last eggs before Easter are consumed.
Easter happily coincides with the laying of eggs and taxes were even collected in eggs at this time of year. This led to a surplus of eggs which were sometimes redistributed to the poor. In Norway, girls of marriage age would put an egg next to their breast and hand it to their chosen suitor. In some cases, the suitor would even be allowed to retrieve it himself.
Chocolate eggs first became known in Iceland in the early 20th Century, a custom imported from Denmark. The custom is still upheld, the eggs being filled with sweets as well as a proverb, the latter a custom going back to the 17th Century.
The Icelandic Asatru association does not commemorate Easter but will be celebrating the beginning of summer on April 22nd, which is a school holiday. This is the first day of Harpa, the first month of summer, harking back to the time when there were six summer months and six winter months. Neither is very descriptive of Icelandic seasons.
Sources: Vísindavefurinn: Hvaðan koma páskasiðirnir um kanínur, hænur, egg og annað slíkt? (visindavefur.is)
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 19th 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
Why did the Viking Age begin? Surely, it must be the most enticing mystery of many regarding the Vikings. They seem to appear, fully formed, in the historical record with the raid on Lindisfarne in 793. And yet much must have taken place earlier for these remote people to suddenly emerge out of Scandinavia and ransack the known world, as well as parts unknown.
This is one of the subjects renowned archaeologist Neil Price addresses in Children of Ash and Elm, recently reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement. He traces the story back to the fifth and sixth centuries and the power vacuum and general instability after the end of the Western Roman Empire. This might seem intuitive, but Price goes farther and says that two volcanic eruptions in the sixth century led to winters lasting for years, dust blotting out the sun and the population of Scandinavia perhaps being halved. Due to all this, violence became common and those who wielded it most successfully created competing kingdoms. These were then exported to the outside world, with trade in iron and animal skins but also with raids and conquest.
According to this, it might seem that Ragnarök had already taken place by the time of the Vikings, the old Gods were dead and the new ones emerging in Iðavellir turned out to be just as fierce, if not more so. Dr. Price might not agree with the latter analogy but his thesis is interesting, not least for the times we find ourselves in as we in Iceland await a volcanic eruption and the world in general is starting to feel the effects of climate change. Hopefully that doesn’t mean we have to start going all Viking again.
The review by Jane Kershaw is available to read here: A reassessment of the Vikings and their world | The TLS (the-tls.co.uk)
The book is available here: The Children of Ash and Elm (penguin.co.uk)
