The A to Z of the Vikings 32 pdf

A Wendish town, Reric see Hedeby, was destroyed by Godfred of Denmark at the begin-ning of the ninth century, and later Scandinavian kings Harald Blue-Tooth, Erik the Victorious, Svein

A further rare find from Gjermundbu is one of the most complete chain-mail shirts yet found, and although there are indications that mail was worn by kings and the wealthiest warriors, leather jerkins were probably worn as protection by most Viking warriors

Shields were circular, up to a meter in diameter, wooden, often edged with iron or leather, and had a raised iron boss in their cen-ter, behind which was the hand-grip Literature, some archaeologi-cal finds (normally only the shield boss survives due to problems with the preservation of wood), and stone sculpture suggest that shields were painted and decorated For example, the shields found

in the Gokstad ship burial were painted in alternating yellow and black segments; and there is a subgenre of skaldic poetry, known

as “shield poems,” that describes scenes painted on shields (see

Bragi).

Spears could be thrown or thrust at an enemy and had wooden (ash) shafts, measuring 2–3 meters in length, that were tipped with iron blades These iron spearheads are generally all that survive in pa-gan Scandinavian burials, as the wood has normally perished In

Norse mythology, Odin’s weapon was the spear, and throwing a

spear over enemy warriors was said to dedicate them to Odin or, in other words, bring about their death in battle

The ax might be a simple hand ax, which could be used as a tool

in woodworking, or a more elaborate broadax, with a crescent-shaped blade, like those said to have been used in the Battle of Hastings

(1066) by Harold Godwinsson’s housecarls According to Snorri

Sturluson’s Prose Edda, axes were often named after she-trolls.

Axes are found more often than any other weapon in Norwegian Viking-Age graves

Swords were also given names, although these were generally rather poetic and encapsulated the qualities of a good sword, such as

Magnus Bare-Foot’s sword Legbiter Most Viking swords had

double-edged blades and, during the early Viking Age, were pattern-welded; later swords were more commonly inlaid with symbols or letters Some Viking swords had elaborate hilts, which might be dec-orated in gold, silver, copper, or niello (Legbiter’s hilt is said to have been of ivory), but most had simple hilts, with unadorned blades measuring 70–80 centimeters in length and 5–6 centimeters in width

A sword was nevertheless an expensive weapon to produce, and a

288 • WEAPONS AND ARMOR

good sword was apparently prized by successive generations of war-riors Swords are certainly found less frequently in male graves than other weapons Viking-Age swords are more commonly found in Norway and Denmark than they are in Sweden, where spears appear

to have been more popular than in western Scandinavia There is some evidence from Viking burials for the deliberate and possibly rit-ual “killing” of swords, which involved the blade being bent so that

it was unusable This may have served a practical function in deter-ring any grave robbers from disturbing the burial in order to get one

of these costly weapons

WEDMORE, TREATY OF Name given to the treaty that Alfred the Great and Guthrum, leader of the Danes, are believed to have signed in 878 following Alfred’s victory at Edington Wedmore lies

in the modern English county of Wiltshire, southwest England The treaty outlined the border between Alfred’s and Guthrum’s respective spheres of influence: along the Rivers Thames, Lea, and Ouse until

reaching the old Roman road, Watling Street Although many

schol-ars regard this treaty as dividing England into two halves, Danish and English England, and formally establishing the area that was later

known as Danelaw, the treaty does not specify that the boundary

continued along Watling Street through the East Midlands to the Irish Sea The treaty was renewed in 886, following Guthrum’s breaking

of the terms; it is the text of this later treaty that has survived

WENDS Collective name for the West Slavic people living on the coast

of the south Baltic, in the area between the River Oder in the east and

the River Elbe in the west The Abodrites are among the Wendish

people with whom Scandinavians had contact A Wendish town, Reric

(see Hedeby), was destroyed by Godfred of Denmark at the

begin-ning of the ninth century, and later Scandinavian kings (Harald Blue-Tooth, Erik the Victorious, Svein Forkbeard, and Olaf Tryg-gvason) are known to have both fought against and allied themselves with rulers of the Wends, such as Boleslav of Poland Wolin,

identi-fied with the Jomsviking stronghold of Jómsborg, lay in Wendland,

and the settlement at Fribrødre River has been interpreted as a

Wendish colony under Scandinavian control During the 12th century, Danish kings launched a series of crusades against the pagan Wends

WENDS • 289

WESSEX Anglo-Saxon kingdom that by the Viking Age consisted of

most of England south of the River Thames and the southwestern peninsula At the beginning of the Viking Age, following the Battle

of Ellandun in 825, Wessex surpassed the neighboring kingdom of

Mercia and emerged as the dominant kingdom within England It was the only kingdom to survive intact the Viking settlements of the

ninth century, and indeed it increased both its territory and authority

under Alfred I the Great and his successors Before the emergence

of London as the capital city of England in the 11th century,

Win-chester in the heart of West-Saxon territory appears to have been the most important town in the kingdom

The first recorded Viking attack on southern England (at Portland

in Dorset) is described by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the entry

for 789; although confusingly it is stated there that the raid took place

in the reign of Beorhtric of Wessex, a period between 786–802 How-ever, an attack on Sheppey by “the heathen” in 835 signaled the real

beginning of the Viking Age in southern England The Chronicle

sub-sequently records a series of raids on southern England, variously

at-tributed to Danes (Deniscan), “the heathen” (hæþene men), and “the army” (se here) (in 836, 838, 840, 841, 842, 843?, 845?, 851)

The Danish army first wintered in England in 851 on the Isle of Thanet More attacks on southern England followed in 853, 860, and

865, before the armies temporarily transferred their activities to East Anglia, Nottingham, and York However, in 871 the Danish army

re-turned to Wessex and fought with the English at Englefield, Reading,

Ashdown, Basing, Meretun, and Wilton, before the West Saxons

made peace with them The same year saw Alfred the Great take over the West Saxon leadership, inaugurating a period of effective resist-ance to Viking attacks

Following the Viking defeat at Edington in 878 and the subsequent

settlement between Alfred and Guthrum at Wedmore, there was a

lull in hostilities A short-lived series of raids in the 890s were effec-tively repelled following the introduction of a number of defensive measures by Alfred Unlike the rest of England, therefore, southern England was not subject to large-scale Scandinavian settlement in the Viking Age While there is consequently little place-name evidence

to testify to the presence of Scandinavians in this part of the country, written evidence about the Viking period is comparatively plentiful

290 • WESSEX

To judge from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, southern England

ap-pears to have enjoyed a comparatively peaceful 10th century, until

the resumption of Viking attacks in 980 during the reign of Æthelred

II Indeed, Alfred’s son, Edward the Elder, was strong enough to

em-bark upon the reconquest of the Danelaw, a process that was largely complete by the 920s The death of Edward the Elder’s sister, Æthelflæd in 918, saw the absorption of English Mercia into Wessex,

and certainly, by the time Alfred’s grandson, Athelstan, was king, the

king of Wessex was king of England

WESTERN SETTLEMENT See GREENLAND.

WESTNESS Westness is on the southwest coast of the Orkney island

of Rousay Archaeological excavation of the site began in 1968,

fol-lowing the discovery of a richly furnished female burial on Moa

Ness This grave is dated to the ninth century and contained the

skele-ton of a young woman and a newborn child, accompanied by a range

of household and personal items and three brooches Four seasons of excavation have revealed a Viking farm, with a boathouse and a

graveyard nearby The farm, consisting of a large dwelling house and

two byres, is a substantial one and the cemetery, with its 30 or more graves, has yielded two boat burials, a huge boat-shaped stone-setting, and a number of richly-furnished pagan graves The cemetery was in use from the seventh to the ninth century and the pagan Norse burials are preceded by unaccompanied cist burials, believed to be those of the pre-existing native population Unfortunately the exca-vations have not yet been published in detail, and it is not yet certain whether the farm, cemetery, and boathouse are contemporary Nor is

it clear whether the excavations revealed the full extent of the site: there may be more graves farther up the slopes of Moa Ness, and other farms may also have existed in the area

WIDUKIND Widukind was the author of Rerum Gestarum

Saxoni-carum “History of the Saxons,” the first version of which was

com-pleted around 968 According to Widukind, the Danes had been

Christian for some time before the reign of Harald Blue-Tooth,

al-though they still worshipped pagan idols He claims that Henry I the Fowler (919–936) of Germany had defeated the Danes in 934, and

WIDUKIND • 291

forced their king, Chnuba, to convert to Christianity (see Olaf Dy-nasty) However, the Annals of Corvey, upon which Widukind’s

ac-count is based, do not refer to Chnuba’s baptism and so the truth of this episode is doubtful Widukind’s famous account of Harald Blue-Tooth’s conversion attributes the king’s change of religion to the Saxon priest, Poppo, who is said to have convinced the Danish leader through ordeal, by carrying a piece of red-hot iron

WILLIAM OF JUMIÈGES Norman monk and author of a Latin history

of the dukes of Normandy, the Gesta Normannorum ducum (“Deeds of

the Dukes of Normandy”), written between the late 1050s and c 1070.

The first four books of William’s history revised and updated the earlier

history of the dukes by Dudo of St-Quentin, which covered Rollo, William I Longsword, and Richard I the Fearless (d 996) To these,

William added three further books covering the reigns of Richard II the Good (d 1026), Robert the Magnificent (d 1035), and William the

Con-queror (d 1087) He is the first authority to mention the figure Lothbroc,

who may be the legendary Ragnar Loðbrók, and his history contains

a unique reference to Björn Ironside William’s history shows several

indications that he used (Anglo-)Scandinavian sources, including the

skaldic verses composed by Sighvatr þþórðarson in honor of Olaf

Haraldsson.

WILLIAM I LONGSWORD (d 943) William was the son of Rollo

and the second ruler of Normandy He succeeded his father c 925,

when Rollo is said to have abdicated According to Dudo of St-Quentin, William was the son of Rollo by his wife, Popa of Bayeux,

but the Plaintsong composed after William’s death suggests that his

mother was a Christian from overseas In Norse tradition too, Rollo

is said to have had a child, called Kathleen, while he was in Scot-land; as this name suggests a Christian Celtic mother, it is possible

that William too may have been the child of Rollo and an unknown

Celtic woman The Plaintsong also records that William was a

Chris-tian, and that Rollo “stuck to the pagan error.”

William expanded yet further the territory of the Normans and, ac-cording to contemporary annalist, Flodoard of Reims (893–894–

c 966), was granted “the territory of the Bretons at the edge of the

sea” by the Franks in 933 This area probably included the Cotentin

292 • WILLIAM OF JUMIÈGES

Peninsula and Avranchin, although the extent of the 933 grant has been much debated Dudo of St-Quentin even suggests that William

put down a revolt in Brittany in 931, a claim that was probably

de-signed to retrospectively make good Norman claims to Brittany at the time Dudo was writing The grant of Cotentin and Avranchin made

“Normandy” approximately three times the size of the original grant made to Rollo and about the same size of the duchy at the time of William the Conqueror’s conquest of England in 1066

William was murdered by Count Arnulf I of Flanders (918–965) His sister, Gerloc (also known as Adela) appears to have

commis-sioned the Plaintsong, mourning the death of William (described as

count of Rouen) Flodoard records that Louis IV (d 954) of France granted “the land of the Normans” to Richard (“the Fearless”), William’s 10-year old son by Sprota, his Breton concubine Never-theless, William’s death unleashed civil war in Normandy Louis IV, Richard, and a Danish exile called Aigrold, who William had allowed

to settle the Cotentin shortly before his death, together confronted the French duke, Hugh the Great (d 956) Hugh’s campaign was backed

by Scandinavian pagans, Sigtrygg and Tormod, who were, however, killed at Rouen by Louis in 943 By 947, Richard, son of William Longsword, was undisputed ruler of Normandy, and he married Emma, daughter of Hugh the Great, in 960

WILLIBRORD, ST (658–739) Northumbrian missionary, brought

up in the monastery of Ripon, who was known as “the Apostle of the Frisians” after his missionary work there in 690 Willibrord was made archbishop of Utrecht in 695, and, in 698, he founded a monastery at Echternach, in present-day Luxembourg, where he was later buried

Willibrord led the earliest recorded mission to Scandinavia, visit-ing Denmark in the early eighth century This is briefly described in

Willibrord’s Life (Vita Willibrordi), written by another

Northum-brian, Alcuin, who described the Danes as a “very savage people.” Willibrord attempted to convert Denmark’s king, Angantyr, but

failed He did, however, bring back from Denmark 30 boys, proba-bly in order to bring them up as Christian missionaries, although they may simply have been captives he found and ransomed in Den-mark

WILLIBRORD, ST (658–739) • 293

WOLIN Located on an island between the estuaries of the Rivers Oder

and Dziwna in present-day Poland, Wolin was called Jumne in the

histories of Adam of Bremen and Saxo Grammaticus In Norse

tra-dition, it is identified with Jómsborg, the headquarters of the

semi-legendary Jomsvikings during the 10th century Jumne is said to

have been ceded by the Jomsvikings to the Slavic Wends in the 980s,

and Adam of Bremen describes it as a Slavic town, with a population

of merchants from as far away as Greece

Although a fishing settlement from the seventh century has been identified at Wolin, the town grew in importance during the second half of the 9th and the 10th centuries A long wooden waterfront was

built c 860, a regular grid of house plots laid out, and the

town was surrounded with a semicircular defensive rampart Artifacts

recovered from Wolin are similar to those from Hedeby and Birka,

with evidence of, for example, bone- and antler working, smithing, shipbuilding, and amber working taking place The pottery is, how-ever, almost exclusively Slavonic in character, and a Slavic temple, dated to 966, has also been excavated on the site At its peak, Wolin was one of the largest settlements on the Baltic coast, covering an area of about 20 hectares, and it may have had as many as 10,000 in-habitants Extensive cemeteries lie to the north and south of the town, and the northern one contains approximately 2,000 cremation and in-humation graves dating from the 10th to the 12th centuries

WOMEN Primary evidence for the status of women in Viking-Age

Scandinavia can be found in runic inscriptions (see rune) and

ar-chaeological evidence The former suggests that women were able to inherit wealth, to commission costly stone monuments, and that they were also commemorated by runic memorials Some runic memori-als contain further snippets of anecdotal information about the lives

of Viking-Age women For example, one rune-stone (U 605 from Uppland in Sweden) suggests that some women at least could con-template traveling to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage; and others record that skill with handicrafts (N 68 from Dynna in Norway) and good house management (Vs 24 from Västmanland in Sweden) were qual-ities for which women were praised However, the vast majority of runic inscriptions were raised by men in memory of men, a fact that probably reflects the superior social and economic status of men,

per-294 • WOLIN

haps particularly in connection with rights of inheritance to land and property

Evidence from graves also suggests that Viking-Age women could

enjoy very high status The Oseberg ship burial contains the bodies

of two women, placed inside a burial chamber on the ship and

sur-rounded with a wealth of grave goods These reflect both the status

of the women being buried (although one of the bodies is

tradition-ally interpreted as that of a slave) and the wealth of her family, who

could afford to dispose of these possessions The grave goods found

in the Oseberg ship, like other less splendid burials, also provide some indication of social expectations about what women would do

in the afterlife In clear contrast to male graves—which traditionally

contain weapons, implements associated with farming or trading,

and gaming sets—women’s graves usually contain objects associated with the home, such as keys, and with domestic activities, such as weaving, cooking, sewing

The depiction of women in later written sources, particularly

Sagas of the Icelanders, has been very influential in forming

mod-ern views of women in the Viking Age However, the strong female characters found in these sagas, who are shown inciting their men to take revenge and perpetuate bloody feuds, primarily appear to fulfill

a literary function and are often rather stock characters Moreover, the world of these sagas is primarily male—there are far fewer fe-male than fe-male characters, there is no saga with a woman as the main character, and the viewpoint of the saga writer is male and

me-dieval However, Laxdæla Saga is perhaps an exception to this

gen-eral rule, containing so many female characters of different types and centering on the unfulfilled love of the beautiful and intelligent Gudrun, that it has been suggested that it may either have been

writ-ten by a woman or for a female audience The more historical Kings’ Sagas mention the names of wives and daughters of the main

char-acters but little more on the whole Some notable exceptions are

Gunnhild, the wife of Erik Blood-Ax, Sigrid the Proud, and Ingibjorg, the daughter of Olaf Haraldsson and the wife of Jaroslav the Wise Although there are many female characters in

his History of the Danes, Saxo Grammaticus shows strong

disap-proval for women who act outside the bounds of what medieval churchmen thought as appropriate behavior and social roles (those

WOMEN • 295

of wife, mother, and daughter): the free and proud women warriors

he describes in his account of pre-Christian Denmark are heathen pi-rates who are ultimately defeated Moreover, active and independent women are almost totally absent from his account of Denmark after

its conversion to Christianity.

Gudrun, the heroine of Laxdæla Saga, dies a nun, a social role that

first became possible for women in the late Viking Age Indeed, the evidence of rune-stones from eastern Sweden suggests that women were enthusiastic supporters of the new religion For example, women were responsible for a large proportion of the so-called bridge rune-stones, connected with the building of “bridges” or roads, an activity that was encouraged by the missionary church in order to improve internal communications It has been argued that one of the main reasons for women’s support of early Christianity was the opportunities that the new religion gave them, particularly the option of avoiding marriage if they wished, a decision that would give them the protection of the Church if opposed by their families

WULFSTAN Wulfstan is known from his account of Scandinavian

geography that was incorporated into the Old English translation of

Paulus Orosius’s Seven Books of History against the Pagans This

revised translation of Orosius was commissioned by Alfred the Great at the end of the ninth century, who also supplemented it with

a geography of northern Europe, derived from, among others,

Ohthere and Wulfstan Wulfstan describes his journey from Hedeby to Truso, a port in the Vistula Delta that can probably be

identified with Elblag in present-day Poland A cemetery on the out-skirts of Elblag provides evidence of a permanent Scandinavian presence in the settlement Wulfstan’s account includes a list of is-lands and regions in the Baltic and he also provides important evi-dence on which countries claimed these lands For example, he

writes that the island of Bornholm (part of present-day Denmark)

had its own kings

– Y –

YAROSLAV See JAROSLAV THE WISE.

296 • WULFSTAN

YGGDRASIL (ON Yggdrasill) Also known as the world tree or the

world ash, Yggdrasil was the giant evergreen ash tree that held

the various worlds of Nordic mythology together by its roots The

name Yggdrasil literally means “Ygg’s horse” and Ygg is one of

the many other names by which Odin is known This may be a

pos-sible reference to the occasion when Odin hung on a tree as a

sacri-fice for gaining wisdom and the knowledge of runes: the “horse” of

the hanged was the gallows

The tree is said to support a selection of mythical creatures: an

ea-gle sits in its branches; a dragon (Nidhogg) and numerous snakes gnaw at its roots; a squirrel (Ratatosk) runs up and down the trunk

of the tree acting as a messenger between the eagle and the dragon; and four deer graze in the branches of the tree At the foot of Yg-gdrasil there are three springs: Urd’s well, Mimir’s well, and

Hvergelmir In Snorri’s Gylfaginning, Hvergelmir is said to be

un-der the root of the tree that reaches down to Niflheim; Mimir’s well

is under the root that leads to the land of the frost giants; and Urd’s well is found underneath the third root of the tree, which extends

up-wards to the sky A similar description is found in the Eddic poem,

Grímnismál, where the three roots of the tree are said to reach into

the worlds of men, giants, and Hel; but Völuspá only refers to one

spring underneath the tree, Urd’s well

YNGLINGA SAGA (“The Saga of the Ynglingar”) The first saga in Snorri’s Heimskringla, which gives an account of the Swedish

Yn-gling dynasty from its mythical beginnings to the mid-ninth century

Snorri traces the descent of the dynasty from the pagan gods or Æsir,

who are said to have moved to Scandinavia from Asia According to

this saga, the name of the dynasty was derived from the god Frey,

who was also known as Yngvi-Frey

Although the dynasty is particularly associated with the Svear (see

Svealand) cultic and burial place at Gamla Uppsala, King Harald Fine-Hair of Norway also claimed descent from the Ynglingar

(hence the inclusion of Ynglinga Saga in a history of the kings of

Norway) Indeed, one of Snorri’s key sources for this saga was

Ynglingatal, composed by a Norwegian poet to glorify the kings of Vestfold in southeastern Norway Historia Norwegiae and the Book

of the Icelanders also contain lists of the Ynglingar kings, but the

YNGLINGA SAGA • 297