Kings of the River, Lords of the Sea

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Valur Gunnarsson

So, it turns out that the Vikings not only traversed on the high seas but also went overland along rivers, not least in eastern Europe. These are among the conclusions in Dr Cat Jarman’s new book River Kings. Her riveting story starts with the Great Viking Army, depicted recently in popular TV shows such as The Vikings and The Last Kingdom, as they pummelled their way across eastern England. Left behind in Derbyshire during the rampage was a small orange bead. This was unearthed in 1982 and came into Dr. Jarman’s possession about ten years ago.

With the aid of the latest technology, she traces the origin of the bead through the rivers of present-day Russia and Ukraine and all the way back to Baghdad. It’s origin place seems to be across the Silk Roads in Gurajat in India. Using bioarchaeology, Jarman conclusively proves that the 9th Century world was in many ways interconnected and brought people as well as goods (many of whom were, in fact, people) from parts of Asia to Northern Europe and vice-versa, all written in an accessible and informative manner.

Dr. Jarman is currently involved with creating the eagerly anticipated new Viking museum in Oslo which is set to open in 2025. She also hosted the Real Vikings TV series on the History Channel. We can only hope than an Eastern Vikings museum will open some day. And perhaps a proper TV series is also overdue?

For more about the River Kings, see here:

River Kings by Cat Jarman review — the Vikings’ quest for the exotic east | Saturday Review | The Times

And here:

River Kings, Cat Jarman | Get History

The Return of The Vikings

Posted on December 30, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

2020 is about to leave us and no one will be sad to see it go. Of course, it’s been 10 days since the solstice and so technically a new year has already begun. The day grows longer by a few minutes each day and soon it will be time to plant the crops again. But for the Vikings (probably) the equinox was the first day of a 12 day feast and when the party’s over, a new year begins. And so it is to this day, more or less.

More importantly, today marks the premiere of the final series of The Vikings, the History Channel series that has been running since 2013. Although increasingly anachronistic, this is as close to history as the History Channel gets these days.

The series begins with the raid on Lindisfarne in 793. This is led by the probably mythological Ragnar Lothbrok, though even the myths don’t credit him with the raid, as he is said to have lived somewhat later. By the present and 6th series Ragnar is dead but his sons have come into conflict with Oleg of Novgorod, thought to have reigned from 879 to 912, although inevitably scholars dispute the chronology and some put him a few decades later. In any case, both Ragnar and his sons seem to have reached Old Testament ages, according to the show.

The first part of the 6th season ended with Oleg invading Scandinavia, which is not only historically but also geographically inaccurate. A Rus invasion of the Nordic countries would probably have been as unthinkable militarily as it was politically, although longships certainly did sail back and forth. The Slavic steampunk look with hot air balloons and all does little for authenticity.

Still, Eastern Vikings scholars can have some fun spotting other famous Rus figures, such as Igor and Askold, but the greatest fun to be had is in pointing out the inaccuracies to non-specialists. If they will have as much fun is another matter, but if not, they are advising us to spend New Year’s Eve alone anyway.

Happy New Year.

Vikings Season 6B | Official Trailer | Prime Video – YouTube

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)

Burning the Goat: A Nordic Tradition

Posted on December 11, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

In Finland, they traditionally use the Christmas goat to scare children but in Iceland we take the fight to the goat. Ever since 2009, it was been a tradition for vandals (the modern kind) to burn down the Gävle goat in front of the IKEA store in greater Reykjavik. Sometimes the culprits have been apprehended, but occasionally the weather gods have got the goat before the vandals did. Twice it has blown down by the wind, whereas once it spontaneously combusted due to the electric lights.

In fact, the tradition goes back to the town of Gävle, Sweden, where a Christmas goat made of straw has been erected ever since 1966 and been burnt down most years. 37 arson attacks have taken place in the years since. In 2001, a man from Cleveland did the damage, assuming he was taking part in an old and legal tradition. By now, there is a three month prison sentence for goat burning in Gävle.

But this is a year without many traditions, and due to Covid IKEA Iceland only reopened last Thursday. And speaking of Thor, torturing goats seems to be something of a Norse tradition. The God of Thunder, whose carriage was pulled by rams, would kill and eat them, only for them to come back the next day to be eaten again at the earliest convenience.

The goat is actually an old fertility symbol, and the Hall of the Gods has its own goat, called Heiðrún. This one conveniently milks mead rather than the more traditional goatmilk and there is always enough for everyone. Appropriately, there is a liquor store named Heiðrún in Reykjavík.

So if we see goats as giving, we have other ways to terrify children. One of these is the Christmas Cat, who is said to eat children who do not wear new clothes for Christmas. Who says it’s a consumerist holiday?

Varangians are the Icelandic Jedi Knights

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

In a hugely entertaining podcast, professor Sverrir Jakobsson discusses among other things the Varangians in culture. Grettis’ Saga is the perhaps the best example of a Varangian novel, whereas one of the most notable characters is Bolli from Laxdæla Saga. It turns out the Varangians rarely have to do anything to win respect in the Sagas, simply having been a Varangian is enough.

In a surprise turn of events, we also learn that the original Icelandic translation of Star Wars is based on the Sagas. One of the best known examples is Darth Vader’s moniker Svarthöfði (Blackhead) but the Jedi are also called Væringjar, which means … you guessed it … Varangians!

The podcast is episode 24 of Flimtan og fáryrði (Icelandic only):

Finally, finally … The Varangians Are Here

Posted on November 17, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

Sverrir Jakobsson’s eagerly awaited tome The Varangians: In God’s Holy Fire has finally arrived. Years in the making, it should bring the reader up to speed on what is now the most cutting edge field in Viking Studies, their journeys and settlements in the east.

Dr. Sverrir Jakobsson is a professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Iceland and has previously done much scholarship on Vikings, but this is his definitive study of their complete history as gleamed from the sources, including interactions with the great empires of the east, including the Abbasid Caliphate and the Eastern Roman Empire. He also supervises the Legends of the Eastern Vikings project and you can find more about him in these pages.

It is available on Palgrave Macmillan here in both eBook and Hardcover formats. You can even purchase individual chapters separately:

https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030537968?fbclid=IwAR3OO16aPI-YGE3glXGAMnK-lXlmiJDDGjc7q7Nvvo4F_XdDVRBz9bAkOK4#aboutBook

The description reads:

This book is the history of the Eastern Vikings, the Rus and the Varangians, from their earliest mentions in the narrative sources to the late medieval period, when the Eastern Vikings had become stock figures in Old Norse Romances. A comparison is made between sources emanating from different cultures, such as the Roman Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate and its successor states, the early kingdoms of the Rus and the high medieval Scandinavian kingdoms. A key element in the history of the Rus and the Varangians is the fashioning of identities and how different cultures define themselves in comparison and contrast with the other. This book offers a fresh and engaging view of these medieval sources, and a thorough reassessment of established historiographical grand narratives on Scandinavian peoples in the East.

Viking Soup, or What Did They Really Eat?

Posted on November 8, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

“The Soup Wars” are currently raging over who owns the beetroot soup, or borscht, Russia or Ukraine. In some papers it’s called The Battle of the Borscht, while one said that the knives where out, which seems like an unhandy way to eat soup.

But the question that concerns us here is: Did the Vikings in the east eat borscht? Probably not, as the first documented mention of borscht is in Domostroy, a 16th century Russian cookbook with some handy moral advice thrown in.

But people largely agree that borscht originated in what is now Ukraine, so it may have been eaten there much earlier. In fact, the soup reference in the Domostroy is an entirely different soup, here also called borscht, with wild hogweed grass and a light beer made from fermented bread.

So what did the Vikings actually eat? This will be discussed in some detail on a webinar next week hosted by culinary archaeologist Daniel Serra.

Click here if you wish to attend: https://www.facebook.com/events/988015935051696

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about the Soup Wars, you can follow this link to the New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/world/europe/russia-ukraine-borscht.html

Did the Vikings Have Standardized Godhouses?

Posted on October 19, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

IKEA is a popular, if not always beloved, Scandinavian indoor furnishing company know for the standardisation of its furniture. A recent archaeological discovery in Norway suggests that Vikings may also have had standardised temples of sorts.

In the village of Ose in southwestern Norway, the remains of a 8th century “godhouse” have recently been unearthed. While being the first such find in Norway, it closely resembles similar structures excavated in Tissö, Denmark and Uppåkra, Sweden. This is seen as the best example of such a place yet.

The godhouse is thought to have been used for midsummer and midwinter solstice ceremonies in honour of the gods. Remnants of meat cooked for Odin, Thor and Freyr, thought to have been represented by figurines while the feast was eaten by the human participants, have been unearthed. The figurines are still missing, but in 1928 a phallus stone was found in the same spot.

If the standard godhouse design reached to the lands of the Rus awaits further discoveries. Meanwhile, the first functioning hof, or pagan temple, to be constructed since the Viking Age awaits completion in Reykjavik. Land has been donated to the Asatru society by the city of Reykjavik on the Öskjuhlíð Hill and a design by architect Magnús Jensson was selected, looking a little like an upturned longship. The sun’s path and the number 9, representing the 9 worlds of the old religion, are will be reflected in the structure. However, the project has had various delays, including the banking collapse of 2008 and the refusal of a bank loan in 2019. Construction began in 2015 and was planned to take a year but little progress has been made. Perhaps it will take 9 years, all in all, for the new hof to the old gods to rise.

For more on the Ose find, see here:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/norse-godhouse-site-found-norway-180976075/

For more on the Hof, here is an article from 2015:

https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2015/01/27/asatru_temple_rises_in_2016_2/

The Next Frontier in Viking Studies

Posted on October 7, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

In his very interesting online talk, Dr. Neil Price of the University of Uppsala suggested that the Eastern Vikings are the next frontier in Viking studies. Whereas 20 years ago it was unproven that they had gone east of the Urals, it now seems that they went as far as Central Asia and even to western China. Dr. Price even mentioned that the Chinese character in season 4 of the Irish/Canadian TV show Vikings was not at all unpalatable.

He further said that one of the reasons why the eastern Vikings have been under researched so far was due to the Cold War. It was very hard for western scholars to be granted access to the Soviet Union and even to communicate with people there, which has led to an overemphasis on the raids, trade and settlements in the west, rather than on a Viking worldview that stretched from North America to China.

Among his other points was that the first documented Viking raid took place not in Lindisfarne in England in 793 but on the Estonian island of Saaremaa in 750. What we now call the Viking Age probably had its roots in around 500 CE, with the major shifts that occurred with the end of the Western Roman Empire.

For more information, his book Children of Ash and Elm is widely available and the Facebook page for the talk can be found here

Viking Lecture with Neil Price Online

Posted on October 6, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

The inimitable Neil Price will be giving an online lecture on Wednesday, October 7th, at 13.30 Co-ordinated Universal Time, which is happily also Iceland time (although for some reason the atom clock is set by Greenwich and not Reykjavik). The lecture is hosted by the Institute of Northern Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland.

Dr. Price will base his lecture on Children of Ash and Elm: A New Look at the Vikings, which is his latest work. Price is also associated with the Legends of the Eastern Vikings program, for further information see his profile on “The Project and Its Participants” page. For residents in Iceland, the book is available in the University book store (Bóksala stúdenta), which remains open although the University library and most of the premises are closed due to Covid.

The lecture will take an hour and a half and is free of charge. If you want to join, please sign up here.