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"From the fury of the Norsemen . . ."
There is a line: "From the fury of the
Northmen, good Lord deliver us."
The line seems apocryphal, as there is no direct evidence that it was used in the Viking
Age. Still, many tell us the prayer was added to the litany then, and so on. Be that as it
may!
Once on a time Vikings were seafarers and traders apart from pirates, and very good
at building ships. Their force was sudden attacks in guerilla-like style against innocents,
largely. They branded a name on a long, black period of European history too: The Viking Age
(AD 800 - 1066), give and take, starting with an attack on the Lindisfarne monastery on
England's east coast in 793.
But Vikings were also entrepreneurs, traders, people opening up new avenues of
commerce, bringing new materials into Scandinavia, spreading Scandinavian ideas into
Europe. Vikings were also fond of chess. [See Nork]
The Vikings spread in many countries, and they crossed the Atlantic
Ocean.
Greenland, Iceland, Ireland (built Dublin, Cork etc.), Man, Norhumbria, North-west
Scotland. Novgorod and Moscow (In Russa), Pommern, The Hebridees, The Orkneys, The
Shetland Islands, Vinland (of North America), Wales (called Bretland), York (in a
period).
These may be considered controversial still:
Spitzbergen, The Canary Islands.
The Icelander Snorre Sturlason writes that very many Viking settlements were due to the
rise of a tyrant, Harald Harfager (Pretty-hair). Before his time, there were many minor
kingdoms or earldoms along coastal Norway and interor parts of the country. Harald was one
of the earls that got power-hungry and managed to get the other small kingdoms by warfare
and sinister cruelty, among other things. Many found his tyrannic system too bad, and fled
to other areas where he hopefully would not get to them. This is how to large areas of
what is now western Sweden were built: Jamtland, Harjedalen. At that time and much later
Bohuslan was Norwegian too.
Farmers fled to islands in the west. That's much of how Iceland was colonised, the
Faeroe Island and more islands still, according to the Icelander Snorre Sturlason. [Source]
An example
Earl Thorfin Sigurdson . . . had under him Orkney, Shetland, and the Hebrides,
besides very great possessions in Scotland and Ireland. [More]
Rolf Ganger's father and some of his relatives
How the forefather of much British nobility, Rolf Ganger, was made an outlaw by Harald,
makes interesting reading to some. Rolf's father, Ragnvald Earl of More, had helped
Harald on his way up, and was his best companion. It hardly suggests he was a finer man
than others:
Then King Harald set Earl Ragnvald over South and North More and also Raumsdal, and he had
many people about him. ... The ... winter (AD 869) Ragnvald went over Eid, and southwards
to the Fjord district. There he ... came by night to a place called Naustdal, where King
Vemund was living in guest-quarters. Earl Ragnvald surrounded the house in which they were
quartered, and burnt the king in it, together with ninety men. - Op cit, from section
12.
There is more to tell:
One summer (Harald) sailed with his fleet right out into the West sea. First he came to
Hjaltland (Shetland), and he slew all the vikings who could not save themselves by flight.
Then King Harald sailed southwards, to the Orkney Islands, and cleared them all of
vikings. Thereafter he proceeded to the Sudreys (Hebrides), plundered there, and slew many
vikings who formerly had had men-at-arms under them. ... He then plundered far and wide in
Scotland itself, and had a battle there. When he was come westward as far as the Isle of
Man ... all the inhabitants had fled over to Scotland, and the island was left entirely
bare both of people and goods . . .
One of the sons of Ragnvald, Ivar, fell in that war, and as a compensation for the loss
Harald gave Ragnvald the Orkney and Shetland Isles.
Ragnvald in turn handed them over to to his brother Sigurd, and King Harald gave Sigurd
the earldom of them. Sigurd entered into partnership with one Thorstein the Red,; and
after plundering in Scotland, they subdued Caithness and Sutherland, as far as
Ekkjalsbakke. Earl Sigurd killed Melbridge Tooth, a Scotch earl, and hung his head to his
stirrup-leather; but the calf of his leg were scratched by the teeth, which were sticking
out from the head, and the wound caused inflammation in his leg, of which the earl died,
and he was laid in a mound at Ekkjalsbakke. His son Guthorm ruled over these countries for
about a year thereafter, and died without children. Many vikings, both Danes and
Northmen, set themselves down then in those countries. [SOURCE]
Rolf Ganger
Earl Ragnvald was King Harald's dearest friend, and the king had the greatest regard
for him. He was married to Hild, a daughter of Rolf Nefia, and their sons were Rolf and
Thorer. ... Rolf became a great viking, and was of so stout a growth that no horse could
carry him, and whereever he went he must go on foot; and therefore he was called Rolf
Ganger. He plundered much in the East sea. One summer, as he was coming from the eastward
on a viking's expedition to the coast of Viken, he landed there and made a cattle foray.
As King Harald happened, just at that time, to be in Viken, he heard of it, and was in a
great rage; for he had forbid, by the greatest punishment, the plundering within the
bounds of the country. The king assembled a Thing, and had Rolf declared an outlaw over
all Norway. When Rolf's mother, Hild heard of it she hastened to the king, and entreated
peace for Rolf; but the king was so enraged that here entreaty was of no avail. (...)
Rolf Ganger went afterwards over sea to the West to the Hebrides, or Sudreys; and at last
farther west to Valland, where he plundered and subdued for himself a great earldom, which
he peopled with Northmen, from which that land is called Normandy. Rolf Ganger's son was
William, father to Richard, and grandfather to another Richard, who was the father of
Robert Longspear, and grandfather of William the Bastard, from whom all the following
English kings are descended. From Rolf Ganger also are descended the earls in Normandy. -
Op cit, section 24.
The Norse name Hrolfr (Rolf) in time became Rollo etc. He took over Normandy - it was
given to him by the Frank king Charles the Simple in three consequtive grants in the early
part of the 900s. Many Northmen settled there and built villages and massive forts. They
built up the region from ruins and made it the foremost of France.
In return for Normandy, Rolf agreed to protect Paris and other vital parts of
France from Viking mauraders, and married well. By and by the Normans strenghtened their
bases, built bastions and excelled in many other Viking-related ways, including one of art
(cf. the Bayeux tapestry).
Rolf's descendant William captured England in 1066 AD. What is less known is
probably that Normans rode out and conquered the best (southern) half of Italy, and later
established effective vassal states around the Mediterranean Ocean: In Antich in Syria,
Palestine, in Tunisia they ruled in Oriental splendour, Brown goes on to say.
[Tnn].
Intermarriage: Offspring of the Norman dynasty in Palermo were wed into the
Habsburgers of what is now Austria, the saga of Sigurd the Crusader tells. [LINK
Vikings had quite a grip through warfare and worse.
Violence is not a knife in the hand. It grows like a poison tree inside other
people who have not learned to value other human beings. [Frances Lawrence] [Oq
401]
Travelling Westward
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Sailing.
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Snorre Sturlason writes in the 1200s that (Lucky) Leif, a son of Eirik the Red,
who first settled in Greenland, came this summer (A.D. 999) from Greenland to Norway; and
as he met King Olaf he adopted Christianity, and passed the winter (A.D. 1000) with the
king. (section 93) [Source]
King Olav (St. Olav) was probably baptised in Normandy, he too, among the
Normans.
19. OF THE EARLS OF ROUEN.
King Olaf had been two summers and one winter in the west in Valland on this cruise; and
thirteen years had now passed since the fall of King Olaf Trygvason. During this time
earls had ruled over Norway; first Hakon's sons Eirik and Svein, and afterwards Eirik's
sons Hakon and Svein. Hakon was a sister's son of King Canute, the son of Svein. During
this time there were two earls in Valland, William and Robert; their father was Richard
earl of Rouen. They ruled over Normandy. Their sister was Queen Emma, whom the English
king Ethelred had married; and their sons were Edmund, Edward the Good, Edwy, and Edgar.
Richard the earl of Rouen was a son of Richard the son of William Long Spear, who was the
son of Rolf Ganger, the earl who first conquered Normandy; and he again was a son of
Ragnvald the Mighty, earl of More, as before related. From Rolf Ganger are descended the
earls of Rouen, who have long reckoned themselves of kin to the chiefs in Norway, and hold
them in such respect that they always were the greatest friends of the Northmen; and every
Northman found a friendly country in Normandy, if he required it. To Normandy King Olaf
came in autumn (A.D. 1013), and remained all winter (A.D. 1014) in the river Seine in good
peace and quiet.
25. OLAF AND ETHELRED'S SONS.
King Ethelred's sons came to Rouen in Valland from England, to their mother's brother, the
same summer that King Olaf Haraldson came from the west from his viking cruise, and they
were all during the winter in Normandy together. They made an agreement with each other
that King Olaf should have Northumberland, if they could succeed in taking England from
the Danes. Therefore about harvest, Olaf sent his foster-father Hrane to England to
collect men-at-arms; and Ethelred's sons sent tokens to their friends and relations with
him. King Olaf, besides, gave him much money with him to attract people to them. Hrane
was all winter in England, and got promises from many powerful men of fidelity, as the
people of the country would rather have native kings over them; but the Danish power had
become so great in England, that all the people were brought under their dominion.
Link
[CONVERSION AND BAPTISM]
The same spring King Olaf also sent Leif Eirikson (A.D. 1000) to Greenland to proclaim
Christianity there, and Leif went there that summer. In the ocean he took up the crew of a
ship which had been lost, and who were clinging to the wreck. He also found Vinland the
Good; arrived about harvest in Greenland; and had with him for it a priest and other
teachers, with whom he went to Brattahild to lodge with his father Eirik. People called
him afterwards Leif the Lucky: but his father Eirik said that his luck and ill luck
balanced each other; for if Leif had saved a wreck in the ocean, he had brought a hurtful
person with him to Greenland, and that was the priest. - Op cit. Section 104
Thorgils was the son of Are Marson, who visited America (Vindland). Thorgils, who was
still alive in the year 1024, was noted for his kindness toward all persecuted persons.
(Endnote) [Source]
In Greenland
IN 982 AD, Eric the Red was outlawed from Iceland for three years at a Thing
there. He decided to explore the country to the west; it had been sighted some 50 years
earlier from a storm-driven ship. The land was rich in wild life, fish and birds, so he
and his men marked sites for future farms there. He returned to Iceland, called the
country Greenland, and sailed again to Greenland in 986 AD, accompanied by 25 ships. Only
14 of them arrived safely.
They landed in an area (the Eastern Settlement) which eventually contained several
hundred farms, 12 parish churches, a cathedral and a monastery. Sheep, cattle and goats
were raised in the area; seal and Caribou supplemented the diet. The best land lay around
Ericsfjord in the Eastern Settlement. Here at a farm they called Brattalid, Eric and his
family settled.
Within ten years the settlers had pushed north and formed the Western Settlement
around present-day Godthabsfjord. And the area to the north of the Western Settlement,
Nordseta, was good for hunting, fishing and gathering driftwood.
A small area called the Middle Settlement contained about twenty farms along the
coast near modern Ivigtut.
The Greenlanders exported furs, hides, rope, cable oil, woolens and sea ivory and
imported corn, iron, timber, garments and assorted luxuries.
The Icelandic Annals for the year 1121 record that Bishop Eric of Greenland set
out in search of Vinland. The results of his voyage are not recorded.
In the 1400s temperatures went down, and before 1500 the settlements in Greenland
were gone.
A passage from the Islendingabok
Ari Thorgilsson’s vernacular History of the Icelandic people ( Islendingabok):
Speaking of Greenland, Ari says,
They found there human habitations, both in the Eastern and Western parts of the country
and fragments of skin boats and stone implements; from which it can be concluded that the
people who had been there before were of the same kind as those who inhabit Vinland and
whom the Greenlanders call Skraelings.
Adam of Bremen's account
ADAM OF Bremen was a German historian and geographer of the 1000s. He came to Bremen in
1068 at the invitation of Archbishop Adalbert there, and in time wrote a history of the
See of Hamburg and of the Christian missions in the North from AD 788 to 1072.
When he came to Bremen, Adam was a young man. Shortly after he made a journey to
the Danish King Svend Estridson (1047-76) [Svend Ulfssen was called Estrithson in English
sources], who had knowledge of the history and geography of the Northern lands. The King
received Adam well and gave him much information for the historical work Adam intended to
write, and which he began after the death of Archbishop Adalbert. The work itself, at
least in part, was finished before the death of King Svend, in 1076.
The fourth and last book of Adam’s work is a geographical appendix and describes
the Northern lands and the islands in the Northern seas. It contains the earliest mention
of America found in any geographical work. The passage is as follows (IV,
38):
Furthermore he [King Svend] mentioned still another island found by many in that
ocean. This island is called Winland, because grapevines grow there wild, yielding the
finest wine. And that crops grow there in plenty without having been sown, I know, not
from fabulous report, but through the definite information of the Danes.
Adam based his knowledge partly on written sources, partly on oral communication. His most
valuable information was had orally from persons who had actually visited the lands he
describes. As for the Danish King Svend Estridson, he "remembered all the deeds of the
barbarians as if they had been written down" (II, 41).
Adam also learned much from Archbishop Adalbert, who was informed about the lands
where the Northern missions were. In addition Adam was informed by traders and
missionaries passing through Bremen to and from the North. Adam assured that he has taken
great pains to make his account both truthful and accurate. "I have at any rate written
truthfully, using as authorities those who are best informed about the subject," he writes
in the epilogue. [More]
Archaeological evidence
Norwegian Dr. Helge Ingstad (1899-2001) and his archaeologist wife Anne Stine Ingstad
discovered the remains of a small 11th century Norse community at L'anse Aux Meadows on
the northern peninsula of Newfoundland.
"Are there any ruins here?" Ingstand asked a man who came walking down to the
water's edge. It was the fisherman George Decker, and they year was 1960.
"Follow me," said George and showed the way. Some minutes later Decker and Ingstad
were in front of a mound - it had been around for a thousand years.
"These mounds had something spooky about them, Ingstad told. "They were hardly
visible above ground, but were just like the mounds I had seen on Greenland. They lay high
on a field with a view to green pastures and the sea." [Norwegian
source]
It is also told the couple was working from an Icelandic map from the 1500s, showing part
of North America. The location fits the "Promontorium Winlandiae" of some medieval
maps.
Their work started in 1961. The long houses excavated resemble those of the
eastern settlement in Greenland. Also, a building believed to be related to ship repair
and a smithy with a hearth for a forge, a stone anvil and hundreds of slag and iron
fragments were found.
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Helge Ingstad holding up the evidence.
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Artifacts discovered at the site confirm the Norse origin. They found a
ring-headed bronze pin, commonly used as a cloths fastener by Norse men, in one of the
houses. This was definite proof. They later found a fragment of a bone needle of the type
used by Norsemen. It was found along with a piece of copper that turned out to have been
formed by a primitive smelting process unknown to Native Americans at the time.
Several lumps of iron slag were found in one of the houses that was excavated in
the first seasons. This indicated that the people there were extracting bog iron. The
process for doing it was known in Norway by 400 BC and was widely used during the Viking
age and in the later middle ages in Norway.
Radio carbon analysis of samples from the site yielded dates from about 700 AD to
1000 AD. Dates of turf samples used in building the walls of the long houses yields the
span AD 920-1120, which corresponds with saga records.
After seven excavation seasons, Helge Ingstad concluded:
An evaluation of the archaeological material can hardly lead to any other conclusion than
that the site at L'Anse aux Meadows must be Norse and pre-Columbian.
Today L'Anse aux Meadows is on UNESCO's
list of heritage sites along with Egyptian pyramids.
Noko: Simonnæs, Per: Normannerne kommer. Grøndahl Dreyer. Oslo,
1994.
Nok: Hødnebø, Finn & Magerøy, Hallvard eds: Norges kongesagaer. Vols
1-4. Gyldendal. Oslo, 1979.
CLICK on 'Literature' for the references of about 2000 works.
ANNOTATIONS: Acronym letters in square brackets in the text refer to works. Click on
'Literature' above for examples. Page references are put right after reference letters.
The abbreviation cf. means "compare". [MORE].
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2 
6 
14 
Supporting "well medleys" are presupposed
throughout:
There was a great farmer called Iron Beard, who dwelt in Uphaug. He was the foremost man
of the farmers in speaking against Christianity and the very athletic Norse King Olav
Tryggvason. Iron Beard told him on the part of the farmers, that the king should not break
their laws.
