Viking and Medieval Scandinavia

While lauding the men who kill dragons (some more superlatively than others), Icelandic sources also describe a variety of ways by which dragons kill men. The ur-Germanic dragon seems to be an overgrown snake. Ormar pose a threat by virtue of their intimidating size and undulating coils. Others spew venom or scatter it about, so their range of mortal destruction is broader than that of ordinary vipers. Met face to face, they are capable of swallowing a man or woman whole. Winged ormar or drekar can pick humans up and carry them off. When Old Norse dragons acquire the ability to breathe fire, they only rarely wreak devastation, and never on the scale of the Beowulf dragon.

This paper uses evidence from a variety of disciplines in order to re-evaluate an apparently enigmatic event reported in several early sources - the landing of a Viking force at Fulham in 878. It examines the vocabulary of written accounts of their activities, sets archaeological evidence for a military camp at the site within a wider context, and gives further consideration to the strategic background of that location within a military landscape. These combined approaches, it is argued, allow a more detailed picture of this Viking war-band and its military significance to emerge.

This article examines a so-called ‘pirate attack’ on the Danish city of Copenhagen in 1249 by the German Hanse town of Lübeck. The attack was part of a larger conflict between Denmark and Lübeck, partially resulting from the political and economic turmoil surrounding the Baltic Crusades. It was also partially the result of political turmoil occurring within Denmark, specifically the dynastic struggles of the sons of Valdemar II (Erik IV, Abel, and Christopher I), with Lübeck taking the part of Abel during this struggle. The attack also became tangled up in a conflict between king and Church in Denmark, which the citizens of Lübeck used to their advantage. Not only did the Danish king fail to support the Bishop of Roskilde, Jakob Erlandsen (later Archbishop of Lund), in his demand for restitution for this attack on his city, he also granted expanded trading privileges to the citizens of Lübeck.

This article focuses on works attributed to Oddr Snorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson who were monks at Þingeyrar around the turn of the twelfth century. More specifically, the study examines their learned and creative use of biblical typology and symbolism in relation to King Ólafr Tryggvason and the Swedish Viking Yngvarr viðforli. These figures become especially prominent when the theme of salvation is touched on; this, it is argued, was of considerable importance to the Icelandic aristocratic and intellectual elite in the second half of the twelfth century. This, in turn, may shed light on the active participation of the chieftains Gizurr Hallsson and Jón Loptsson in this early phase of saga writing in Iceland.

The Latin words for piracy and pirates have traditionally been viewed as exclusively negative, denoting an especially criminal person and a significant threat to the commonality of humans as expressed by Cicero in the first century BCE. In the Early Middle Ages, the terms retained their negative meaning as described by Cicero, and they were used to describe Viking pagan raiders. However, the threat was now to Christendom rather than to Roman civilization. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the negative use of the term was applied to Slavic maritime plunderers in the same vein as it was used to describe the Vikings. However, in the same period, Danish historians, especially Saxo Grammaticus, also used the term in a terminus technicus sense to characterize their Danish heroes, irrespective of whether they were pagan or Christian. Thus the meaning of the pirate terminology in the twelfth century changed from denoting a criminal enemy of Christendom to describe a specific type of seaborne warfare and a warrior specialized in maritime raiding.

This essay examines the role played by Icelandic scribes and redactors in the transmission and evolution of narrative in the wake of the translations of foreign literature in the North. Four sagas exemplify how new narratives were created. The substantial revisions by an Icelandic redactor of the Old Norse Bisclaretz ljóð resulted in the creation of an exemplum in Tíódéls saga, while the conjoining of the foreign fairy-mistress motif and the indigenous maiden-king motif in Partalopa saga brought about a significant modification of the plot of its French source. The author of Gibbons saga created an original frame narrative with a plot that combined the fairy-mistress tale of Partalopa saga with the indigenous maiden-king paradigm. On the basis of Arthurian narrative structures and motifs the author of Ectors saga composed a serial narrative relating the adventures undertaken by seven knights.

On his journey to Palestine, Sigurðr jórsalafari Magnússon sailed along the Portuguese coast. Among his other deeds, he raided Lisbon c. 1109. This much is related in the Norse compendia of kings’ sagas and the skaldic poem Útfarardrápa, but the sources vary in details and even appear contradictory. A careful examination of Halldórr skvaldri's poetic account, combined with a knowledge of Lisbon’s medieval history, proves useful in understanding the actual extent of Sigurðr’s actions and how much truth there is in the assumption that he had an agreement with Henry, Count of Portugal.

A number of kennings in the extant corpus of skaldic poetry collocate a term for wind with a term for a giantess, the resultant referent identified by Snorri Sturluson in Skáldskaparmál as hugr, though that term is itself exemplified by Snorri in three wide-ranging lists of terms denoting desire, passion, and hostility. In his taxonomy of kenning types, Rudolf Meissner gathered together ‘wind of the giantess’ kennings and identified their referent as Sinn. A number of the examples in Meissner’s list, however, are based on Finnur Jónsson’s emended texts, necessitating a close examination of the manuscript evidence in each case. The analysis presented in this article places the ‘wind of the giantess’ kennings in the context of the well-attested kenning type ‘wind of the valkyrie’ in order to explore how the collocation of affect with a supernatural female figure appears to have operated in the skaldic imagination. While some of the examples in Meissner’s group suggest the referent ‘desire’, others seem to refer instead to ‘battle spirit’ and some simply to ‘battle’. There is very little evidence to suggest that the referent can be equated with ‘thought’ in an abstract sense, an identification that has nonetheless become a commonplace in skaldic scholarship.

This article critically examines the words currently in use by scholars to describe Viking-Age Norse religion: ‘pagan’, ‘heathen’, and ‘pre-Christian’. It explores their etymologies -particularly focusing on when they were used to describe Norse religion - from the Latin, Old English, Old French, Middle English, and Old Norse sources, in tandem with the problematic historical contexts in which they were first employed. It then addresses the problems with their use in contemporary scholarship, particularly in implying an outdated, overly simplistic narrative of conversion to Christianity. A new term will then be proposed for use and discussion.

Saga literature abounds with detailed physical descriptions of individuals which help define the personalities of the characters described. While many descriptions derive from the Latin physiognomic tradition, others do not fit well into this tradition. This study applies recent scientific research to show a relationship between physical portraits and behaviour in the sagas which may have an ultimately biological origin. There is a large body of research which shows that the hormone testosterone affects behaviour as well as physical development. Some studies have shown a statistical relationship between behaviour and certain physical features related to testosterone. For this study, I identify terminology which corresponds to various types of testosterone-related physiology and the characters who are described with these terms. I then assess the behaviour of individuals showing these characteristics by identifying descriptions which correspond to aggression and dominance, or peacefulness and deference. Individuals who are portrayed as having physiology consistent with high testosterone (such as broad facial features, thick facial hair, and broad shoulders) are also portrayed with testosterone-related behaviours, particularly dominant and aggressive behaviour. This study posits a native physiognomy based on observations of physical features and aggressive behaviour which forms the basis of the descriptions in the sagas.