The Children of Ash and Elm

In poetry, the English called them wælwulfas, ‘slaughter-wolves’, and with good reason—but the Vikings even said it themselves. Here is the great tenth-century Icelandic warrior-poet Egil Skalla-Grímsson, describing his raiding experiences (in an effort to impress a woman at a feast, which also tells you something about him): Farit hefi ek blóðgum

Saga simply means ‘story’, literally ‘what is said’, both in Old Norse and in the modern Scandinavian languages. As with any storytelling tradition, there are numerous narrative styles and genres, composed at different times and places and for a wide variety of purposes. The first Old Norse sagas were written down in Iceland during the late 1100s,

Divorce was not uncommon, and a wife could initiate proceedings as well as a husband. She could cite a variety of reasons, including simple dissatisfaction, all strongly in her favour. In the Saga of Burnt Njál, a woman leaves her husband due to his impotence, which was regarded as formal cause. In the Saga of Gísli, a woman threatens divorce when

In practice, the Viking raiders were never a bolt from the blue, unknown barbarian sails on a North Sea horizon. Their victims had encountered Scandinavians many times before, but as traders rather than agents of chaos; the surprise was in the violence, not the contact.

In the modern Nordic languages, vikingar or vikinger is still used only in the exact sense of seaborne raiders,

Every level of communication between the community and the other powers was implicated in the practice of sorcery, which only women could acceptably perform. Men could and did practise magic, but at the cost of entering a state of ergi—becoming ragr and taking upon themselves its full freight of unmanly connotations. There is a broad terminology of

On other platforms, ceramic vessels have been found with a hole cut out of the base. Anything poured or placed into these vessels, which stood upright on the inundated timbers, would slowly disappear, melting away as if being consumed by the powers of the water—proof of the offerings’ acceptance.

The hall was the primary milieu of poetry and of its masters, the skalds. In a sophisticated oral society such as that of Vendel, and later Viking, Scandinavia, one of the poets’ main tasks was to find memorable language in which to distill what was necessary to know, enabling people to retain what they needed of their collective past.

As agents of fate, the Valkyries also have obvious links with the Norns, and Snorri even says that the “youngest” Norn, Skuld, rides with the Valkyries to choose the slain. In a strange battle poem called The Web of Spears, dating to either the tenth or eleventh centuries, a troupe of twelve horse-borne Valkyries are seen dismounting to enter a cot